OpenHistoricalMap/Projects/Portland

This project aims to map the Portland, Oregon area.

Stages

Stage 1: Main Roads

The first focus point is to add major roads to the Portland Metro area. These major roads will be helpful in showing a low-level map of the roads that move Portland. The project is currently at this stage.

Stage Progress:

Interstate Highways:

• Completed: I-205, I-405, I-84
• Partially Complete: I-5

US Routes:

• Completed: Sunset Highway (US-26)
• Partially Complete: US-30 (Missing some I-5 sections)
• Not Started: Mount Hood Freeway (US-26)

State Routes:

• Completed: OR-10, OR-8, OR-141/OR-217 (historic), OR-210, OR-217 (to Wash. co. line), OR-127, OR-213 (?), OR-47 (Missing Forest Grove Bypass)
• Partially Complete: OR-43, OR-99W, OR-224
• Not Started: OR-99W, OR-212, OR-120

Historic roads:

• Complete: Canyon Road, Harbor Drive

Stage 2: Other roads in Portland

Next, the focus will be to map other roads (e.g. residential areas) within the city of Portland proper.

Stage Progress:

Partial westside coverage, little eastside coverage

Stage 3: Other roads in Inner Metro

Afterwards, the focus will shift to mapping other roads in the "inner metro". This is limited to Gresham, Fairview, Clackamas, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Beaverton, Hillsboro, and all of the unincorporated communities around Bethany (e.g. Oak Hills, etc.).

Stage Progress:

The Westside has most non-neighborhood roads mapped

The Eastside has little mapping complete.

Stage 4: Other roads in Metro

Later, we will map all of the roads in the Portland Metro boundary.

Stage Progress:

The Westside has most non-neighborhood roads mapped

Stage 5: Adding other details

Once roads are mapped, you are free to add details such as houses, schools, etc.

Road tagging

Hierarchy

Please use the following hierarchy for roads.

• Motorway = interstate highway and other roads to freeway standards (e.g. Sunset Freeway, OR 217 freeway).
• Trunk = a major highway not to freeway standards (e.g. Sunset Highway pre-freeway)
• Primary = major arterials
• Secondary = smaller main roads
• Tertiary = much smaller capacity linking roads
• Residential = only for roads that are solely in neighborhoods
• Minor/Unclassified = only for small roads in farm country that does not meet one of the criteria above. If a main road continues into farm country and is primary/secondary/etc, do not split the section and retag as minor.
• Service Road = roads to link to buildings that aren't residential, e.g. a parking road

Relations

Please do not use name:[year]-[year] tags (like name:1951-1973). These do not show up on the renderer. Instead, tag the road with multilinestring relations (example). You should also create separate relations if the road changed alignments in a certain year, and/or if the road is old enough to be before the addition of NW/NE/SW/SE/N/S at the beginning of the street name. Dates marked as "around", use EDTF tags with circa (e.g. ~1951).

Portland/Metro area road tagging standards

Proper Portland

Westside Northern Grid

• EW Roads
  • Before 1891, Use Lettered Streets Unless exception found
    • Letters Generally Correspond to modern Name's First Letter
    • Example: B Street is a correct road name
  • Between 1891 and 1931, use the name without the directional prefix
    • eg. Burnside Street is fine, SW Burnside Street is not
  • After 1931, Roads always have their modern directional prefix.
• NS Roads
  • Before 1931, Avenues are always Streets, And These Have A N. Prefix
    • Most road names are still around in the same way
  • After 1931, Streets become Avenues, and the modern directional prefix system is used

Westside Southern Grid

• EW Roads
  • Before 1931, Roads have no directional prefix. Names are mostly the same as they are now, unless they are a specific exception
  • After 1931, Roads have a directional prefix
• NS Roads
  • Before 1931, Avenues are Streets, and have no Directional Prefix
  • After 1931, Always use Avenues, use directional Prefixes

East Portland

• EW Roads
  • Before 1891, Roads Are Lettered A-T, Starting at the road now known as Glisan Street and going South
  • Between 1891 and 1931, Roads Receive Their Modern Names
  • After 1931, Roads Receive their Cardinal Directions
• NS Roads
  • Before 1931, Avenues are Streets, and have no cardinal Directions
  • After 1931, Rename Streets to Avenues, and add Cardinal Directions

Northern East Portland (North of A Street)

• [[1]] EW Roads were completely renamed after the 1891 Great Renaming. The NS roads have only changed in the same ways the East Portland roads have changed

Albina

• Notes
  • Diagonal Roads are always Streets Pre-1931.
  • NS Roads Are always Avenues, even Pre-1931

Outside of Portland

Washington County

• Start using Cardinal Directions circa 1945
• Start using Numbered NS streets circa 1953
• UNRELATED: at some point pre-1953, most NS roads in the county were renamed to avenues. Further research is needed to determine when this happened, though.
• Note: Hillsboro's system often interferes with the portland system, and with Hillsboro's growth, roads often are converted to use Hillsboro's grid. The date of conversion to the Hillsboro road system should be able to be determined by looking at the cities ordinance archive [[2]]

Multnomah County

• Begins using the portland road system after 1932, before 1950