What street would you consider Portland's most important? (Gresham, Sandy: middle-class, best city)

[spicymeatball]

I've always felt like Burnside was "the" main street of Portland, even though there is also a Main Street. Burnside is to Portland what Yonge St is to Toronto in my opinion - sort of the major axis of the city.

[freemkt]

I think 82nd has more traffic and more business activity than Burnside, which is really important only between 23rd on the west side and 28th on the east side.

[Leisesturm]

I've only been living in the city for two months, what do I know, but... ... is there really an answer to a question like this? Sandy Blvd., Hawthorne, Morrison, 21st, Glisan... ... all of them have oodles of the usual suspects, but also unique and niche boutiques and shops and somewhere along the length of all of them will be zoning for automotive repair establishments etc. 21st even has a large gas station at Lombard right in the heart of town. Is Broadway in NYC a better street than Madison Ave. or 5th Ave? Broadway is longer than any other street in Manhattan... if size is the criteria that is uppermost then... I guess Broadway will take home the trophy, but I think a reasonable assumption is that it is the gestalt, the collective contributions of all the various streets, avenues and boulevards that give a city character, and incidentally makes Portland the best city in the west.

H

[Deezus]

Compared to some other cities, Portland isn't really a city of grand streets or avenues or boulevards, it's more a city of small neighborhoods(like a collection of villages)... Like Burnside is supposedly a major street, but once you get east of 28th, it turns into a curving 2-lane residential drive and further out most traffic goes to Stark/Washington. The commercial activity is centered on neighborhood hubs rather than along The major streets that go across the city(and out into the greater metro) include everything from Lombard, Powell, 82nd, MLK/McLoughlin/99(though a highway in parts), Division, Barbur, and Macadam--though I don't think you can pick just one as being the main street of Portland. Everything is too segmented. It's different than a place like Albuquerque where Central Avenue crosses the entire city east-west and goes through past a number of the central areas of the city or Denver with Colfax Avenue.

Burnside might be the closest thing though that Portland has to a street that manages to cross such a wide range of the neighborhoods of the city--hitting everything from the woods of the West Hills and gentrified 23rd and Goose Hollow to the homeless filled streets of Old Town to the trendy inner-east side to posh Laurelhurst and middle-class North Tabor/ Montavilla to the immigrant and working class filled Eastside. It's one of the only streets you can keep driving east-west across the river and just keep going either way--one way you'll end up in suburban Washington County and Barnes Road and the other will take you all the way to 26 heading out to Mount Hood past Gresham. Though on the other hand it's not even the most major street on the Eastside once you get further out.

I don't know it there's one street I'd call the most important though in Portland--the important street in one area can be basically ignored by someone living on another side of town or the metro. I used to be stuck taking Barbur everywhere when I lived in SW; now it's basically a place I drive to a few times a year when I'm hitting up the Barbur World Foods market. Powell is a east-west major street for the Eastside, but once you get over the Ross Island it turns into a maze of Kafkaesque proportions and simply ends--and I live in SE Portland and I rarely take Powell for any reason as I can get most places without going close to it.

[sorupaa]

Probably a road people bike down. Bikes are important in portland i think

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Powell.

[dperry9]

Whatever street you get stuck in traffic least on.

[roneb]

If the criteria was a very long street that bisects much of the metro area and a diversity of neighborhoods, I'd suggest the following (actually based on Trimet bus lines):

E Burnside through the downtown bus mall and out SW Barbur Blvd.
NE MLK through to SE McGloughlin
NE to SE 82nd Ave