Three hubcap day

Any SOLV/SWNI cleanup offers a morning of discovery and insight about who we are, or at least who our litterbugs are.

It’s not so much an archaeological dig as an archaeological scavenger hunt.

Orange-vested teams of us, fortified with poppy-seed muffins and full-alert coffee, set out for litter-strewn arterials around Southwest Portland.

My team, consisting of Mike Roach (sporting two “Vote Yes on 49” yard signs), Don Baack (wearing his trademark Australian Outback hat) and me, headed for our traditional hunting ground, the shoulders of Capitol Highway, east of Burlingame, and Barbur Boulevard, north of Capitol.

At clean-up time twice a year, our trio considers the much-traveled commuter route “ours.” We have come to know where to look to find its detritus.

Because it is early November, much of the trash is hidden beneath ochre, moldering leaves, but we raked around and filled a dozen or so white SOLV trash bags with precious artifacts.

Most of the trash is evidence of some kind of addiction: nicotine, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, pornography, automobiles and consumer consumption.

Let me be specific, but not gross.

The pornography took the form of a girly magazine. Some of the SOLV teams this clean-up day consisted of young teenagers. Fortunately they weren’t in our group, but then I’m told there’s no need to protect them from pornography in this “Death of Childhood” age. The Internet has inured children and young people to smut.

Alcohol was represented by scores of cans and bottles. I picked up a nearly full can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It still sudsed up as I emptied it onto the ground. Why the rejected can was so full I can only guess. (“Hey, Fred, you ever heard of this stuff, Pabst? I think I’ll give it a try….Yeeech!”)

Candy wrappers, Starbuck’s cups and car parts point to other addictions.

You’d expect car parts along a road but how to explain a piece of plastic grill liner unless it was somehow extruded during hard cornering.

I score my day by hubcaps. Today was a three-hubcap day (Chrysler, Toyota and a generic Shucks). Don, who rises to every challenge, wrestled a fender off a guardrail. Later he was rewarded for his efforts by finding a usable hammer, which he figured fell off a truck. More hard cornering.

We also picked up our usual assortment of Styrofoam chips and bubble wrap. If the planet is ever destroyed, these two substances may be all that survive, testimony that “higher” life forms once inhabiting the planet.

Each SOLV scavenging offers something to set it apart: a cocktail glass, a mysterious bone, a doily.

This year was no different.

I started finding strewn pages from a book featuring World War II German war planes just where cars whisk off Barbur and climb the hill on Capitol Highway. Every 10 yards or so I’d find a couple more pages. They and I worked our way up the hill, back through the war to 1939.

The pages ran out half way up the grade, at the outer fringe of our scavenging area. I had just gathered the white trash bags and stacked the orange safety cones to retrace my steps back down the hill when I spotted a page devoted to Dornier Do 17Z-2 bombers and MesserschmittBf 109e-1 fighters from Nazi Germany’s World War II’s air campaign in Poland.

I stuffed the Poland page in my pocket with the other pages, made my way back to my car, drove to our staging area at a mega-church parking lot.

There the teams reassembled, shared scavenging stories and ate 20 pizzas.

Sex, SOLV and civic pride

Combing Barbur Boulevard’s shoulders for litter this morning as a SOLV volunteer (Quick, what does SOLV stand for?) was a not an unpleasant experience.

Note the inescapable nuancing.

Sure, I find it annoying that motorists still use the Great Outdoors as a trash receptacle. I mean, who are these people?

Well, smokers for one. At times my litter picking was a kind of cigarette butt-a-thon.

A certain litter-collecting detachment is called for at times like this. Trying to think well of these smoking litter-bugs, the best I could come up with was, “Good luck with the chemo.”

The other major littering group are fast food and soft drink patrons. Smashed cans and wrappings from McDonald’s and Subway are their tossed leavings.

Reaching for the scraps with my arm extending litter “grabber,” stuffing the waste into my SOLV bag, I also reached for more detachment, warding off junk-food thoughts of diabetes and clogged arteries,

(Still working on SOLV? Frankly I can’t think of it myself. Something to do with Volunteers, Oregon, Litter and … what?….Super? Solution? Staunchly? Stamp-out? AHHH. Stamp-out Oregon Litter, Volunteers? Oh, never mind….Back to the trash….)

Sometimes the clean-up uncovers trash of distinction, but nothing interesting surfaced this time.

Instead I retrieved:

The inevitable walnut-sized chunks of Styrofoam. Trust me, the last human creation on the planet, eons from now, will be such a moldering chunk.

Shredded plastic bags, a few mossy bottles, creased and discolored candy wrappers, most notably from Reese’s Pieces (ET go home!) and Snickers.

Some worn and discolored sheet metal and strands of banding. Ugly but probably valuable.

Cast-off hub caps, but plastic, cheap and shattered. Ah, for one of those shiny '50s VW disks.

Nothing to seize the imagination.

Once on one of these litter-gathering outings I found a pristine pair of stiletto high-heels along the much littered Multnomah Boulevard I-5 off ramp.

“Whoa!” I thought as I gripped my grabber more tightly and launched into a sex-filled fantasy laced with booze, flirtatious taunts and even noir-ish homocide.

Could such imaginings be the reason I volunteer for SOLV (Still working on it?). Or is it the nose-to-the-ground concentration, the vague reflections on chance and trash. The finicky sordidness of it all as the traffic whooshes past.

It could be simpler than that. After a couple hours’ work with two or three friends, Barbur Boulevard or Capitol Highway or the Multnomah I-5 off-ramp does look measurably better to us and to thousands of motorists.

The reward is civic satisfaction.

Anything beyond that is just so much Styrofoam frosting — or stilettos shoes.

Oh, and looking up what SOLV stands for on the SOLV web site, I find….absolutely NOTHING! They don’t know what it means either! Or, if they know, they aren’t telling, like some kind of secret handshake.

For the rest of us, SOLV is a contrivance or a state of mind (see above).

If you want to pursue the SOLV name business, fine. Let me know what your find out. I’m going to take a well-deserved nap.

MAX "Springboard" to Barbur as a linear Pearl?

All that shifting of bus routes to make way for north/south MAX line construction through downtown can be seen as a potential opening for a MAX line down Barbur Boulevard.

In answer to a letter from Wilson High School Senior Daniel Ronan, Phil Selinger, TriMet's project planning director, wrote that the new line between Union Station and PSU will "provide a good 'springboard'" for a Barbur Corridor/South line.

The letter is also evidence that the public needs to have more say in TriMet's planning for such a line.

While the Regional Transportation Plan calls for "High Capacity Transit" near or on Barbur, no formal study has been made for it as part of an anticipated south line, writes Selinger.

He agrees with Daniel that the Barbur corridor is "a good candidate for MAX." The planner even makes passing reference to the old Red Electric rail right-of-way. But he also lists problems such as accommodating two tracks "without taking away existing roadway."

But isn't the idea behind MAX to get people out of their cars so that there is less demand for "existing roadway?"

Selinger also writes that steep embankments are another problem. Strange, they sure weren't an insurmountable problem for the hearty souls who built the Red Electric, or I-5 for that matter.

Selinger says a south line could "reach as far as the Tualatin River, south of King City." That's fine, except it wouldn't provide service to PCC's flagship Sylvania campus. A real oversight.

The south line also would connect to the Washington County Commuter Rail line presently under construction, he says. That would make the Barbur corridor a major feeder for commuters from places like Wilsonville. Sounds like commercial boon for the boulevard.

Another issue cited by Selinger is "sufficient housing and employment density." In other words, more projects like the new "Headwaters" development.

Put all this together and it's not hard to envision Barbur as a kind of Linear Pearl.

Now there's a sobering thought.

The photo shows the next iteration of MAX, the Siemens S70, set to go into service in 2009 on the new Southeast line along the I-205 corridor.

Unity? Vision? We got it, now show us the money!

In yesterday's "In Portland" section, Fred Leeson has written a hand-wringer about the plight, and potential, of West Portland Town Center. That's where Barbur and Capitol Highway converge in a messy intersection near the I-5 on-ramp headed south.

The center has no center. It defies affection. The WPTC, along with "the Barbur corridor," were never included in the Southwest Community Plan because folks couldn't agree on what to do about them—nor did they much care.

The business association along Barbur was a disgruntled handful of guys who gathered at the Golden Touch largely to carp about City Hall. Their vision extended as far as their omelettes and hash browns.

But now the Barbur/WPTC area is getting some outside attention because TriMet is making vague mutterings about running light rail out Barbur (Don't forget a spur to PCC Sylvania!).

Moreover, high-rise development along Barbur is looking more and more attractive and lucrative (vis. the South Waterfront and the Pearl). The tacky thoroughfare holds promise for lofty, tony habitation and commerce.

Ever check out the knockout view of Mt. Hood from the top of the I-5 rise?

Despite the promise, businesses and residents remain tepid about doing anything.

So here's what gets me...

WPTC's doldrums are in marked contrast to the craving for change in the Hillsdale Town Center. Here we carry around a list of action items: a civic plaza, a solar-heated cover for the farmers market, a master plan for the Hillsdale Triangle, expansion of DeWitt Park, undergrounding Capitol Highway utilities, and sidewalks on Sunset.

But in Leeson's story, Metro Counselor Robert Liberty, who represents this area and knows Hillsdale's desires well, says that unless WPTC and Barbur show some enthusiasm, "unity of vision and purpose," don't count on Metro to put any money into the area.

Don't believe it, West Portland. Here in the Metro-designated Hillsdale Town Center we are bursting with vision, purpose and enthusiasm...and we are still begging for funds to move us forward.