Riding your bike through trash, puddles of human waste and avoiding the occasional napper can make the route to downtown through the Franklin Avenue underpass a little less than pleasant. But if groups including the Bend Central District, Central Oregon LandWatch and local businesses have their way, the tunnel could end up a gem for Bend, modeled at least in part after the Highline trail in New York City.
The BCD sent out an initial proposal in July. Its objective: “to transform the Franklin Avenue underpass into a site specific art installation, in order to promote awareness of pedestrian and bike access in the artery, and create an aesthetically interesting and thought provoking experience around public spaces.”
Landwatch’s Moey Newbold, along with local artist Kaycee Anseth, are spearheading the project, with an initial cleanup scheduled Aug. 20. Anseth said volunteers can meet up at Oregon Spirit Distillers at 4:30 pm and then walk to the project site. Anseth said she’s waiting to get the go-ahead from the City of Bend for the art portion of the project. The project also needs permission from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which operates the railway, because they have overlapping jurisdiction in the area.
The goals of the proposal are to generate interest in the BCD, to foster long-term art installations in unexpected parts of Bend, to make east-to-west human-powered transportation safer and more enjoyable, to catalyze improvement of public spaces and to highlight the needs of Bend’s homeless people.
The first step: finding a team of volunteers to clean the tunnel underpass and walkways leading to it, as well as power-washing the sidewalk, walls and roof of the railroad tunnel. If the City allows, a team of artists will apply a design to the underpass walls, creating an outdoor gallery and using colored fabric to weave a pattern along the chain-link fence inside the tunnel—essentially creating a mural with fabric, as a large scale embroidered piece. The sidewalks on the west side of the tunnel would become a landscaped promenade, with the potential for sidewalk carnival vendors, art installations, farmers market stalls and other projects.
Interested volunteers can connect via the Project Underpass’ Facebook page or through Central Oregon LandWatch.
This article appears in Aug 1-8, 2018.
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More “awareness”
So is this going to be like the storm drain educational murals painted on the sidewalks all over town to raise “awareness” of pollution that goes into the storm drains and river that are now chipped, deteriorated and most of the paint is now in the storm drain/river.
Hey Anon- The artist mentioned in the article is me. One of our/my visions is to use non-paint materials, landscaping, etc, so don’t worry about paint chips. Do you ever walk this part of town? If you do, you would know that it DOES need some awareness about how many people actually use it, and give some care to an area that needs a little love. Well, a lot of love. Please note the second part of that sentence you highlighted. Why don’t you read the full Initial Proposal- it’s on the Project Underpass facebook page, and also on my Patreon page. Would you like to volunteer to help clean up? Cause we need all the help we can get. It could be beautiful. Thanks. Kaycee Anseth PS- For the Record, while I graciously appreciate the support I have gotten so far from BCD and LandWatch, the proposal is entirely my words and vision SO FAR, though I look forward to making it a collaboration.
Hopefully the train horns from the Wilson or Reed Market crossing north can be silenced. This would definitely help generate interest in the BCD. Silencing the train horns through central east side Bend seems like the only way the hoped for residential components of BCD will succeed. It’s been done successfully elsewhere – the crossings just need to be upgraded. Applaud these efforts to clean up the underpass – thank you!