Join me for I-295: Portland's Greatest Nemesis this Saturday!

[Myles G. Smith]

Hello friends and neighbors!

This Saturday, I'll be hosting a walking exploration of the I-295 corridor through Portland - what it is, and what it could be.

• What if I told you that 1/3 of the traffic on I-295 downtown isn't supposed to be there, and could disappear overnight?
• What if I told you that the data does justify a four-lane highway through downtown?
• What if I told you that the highway actually stifles growth, rather than enabling it?
• What if I told you that we could re-envision I-295 as an urban boulevard, making space for a huge new waterfront park, wider and safer off-street trails, a quieter and cleaner downtown, flooding mitigations in Bayside, safer intersections with far fewer fatal accidents, more space for affordable housing, and higher property tax revenues?

Join me and bring your friends and neighbors to Loring Memorial Park, at the corner of North Street and Eastern Promenade, at 11:30am this Saturday, May 2nd. We'll consider what has happened since the highway bulldozed neighborhoods and plowed over wetlands in 1970, and take a closer look at the many problems it creates (and the very few that it solves) as we walk through Bayside to Deering Oaks Park. 

This will be a walking back-and-forth conversation, not a lecture or a sermon (well, maybe a little :). This event is one of many on Saturday as part of the Jane's Walk Maine Festival. After, please join Zack Barowitz for a walk through Libbytown, looking at some similar issues of how I-295 destroyed that neighborhood and continues to divide and endanger Portlanders' quality of life today. More on the topic and some photos on my Substack, here.

Hope to see you then!

Myles Smith

Build Maine

Mainers for Smarter Transportation

Portland Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee

Read my diatribes on Substack