My View: Repurpose, don’t move, Duckworth Dock

Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 24, 2016

This summer, downtown Portland will face a serious safety issue for people swimming on the Willamette River.

Our $1.44 billion Big Pipe investment was the game changer for the river, making it safe for swimming. The problem is, where do you do it?

Many people have been swimming at the extremely popular Holman Dock, next to the Hawthorne Bridge on the east side. But the Holman Dock soon will be removed for the entire summer of 2016. With downtown Portland’s safest swimming area gone for the season, where will people hang out and swim? New areas will be found that may not be safe.

There is a simple solution: the Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock.

Named in honor of the much-loved Portland Trail Blazer, the dock is located on the floating section of the Eastbank Esplanade near the Moda Center, and currently is valued at more than $1 million. This dock was installed 18 years ago, with the aspiration of creating a public place where larger boats could tie up for the day or overnight, and as a water taxi stop. No one contests that this dock has been a complete failure for these intended uses.

But now the city is thinking of moving this publicly owned dock. Moving it where? To trucking giant Daimler’s North American headquarters on Swan Island, for the use of a private business. It seems senseless, particularly when people are looking for a new place to swim in the river.

On the other hand, a re-imagined Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock, in its current location, would be ideal for swimming, fishing and a kayak/canoe rest station. The dock’s “U” shape provides protection from motorized boat traffic, and its central location is easy to reach by foot, bike and public transit. With relatively little cost, it can become a safe, enjoyable recreation spot and serve thousands of people. Further, the Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock is one of only two ADA-accessible river’s edge access points on Portland’s east side.

If the dock were hauled downriver to the Daimler location, would it ever be replaced? Full replacement cost, including staff time, permitting, consultants, and hard costs, would be $1 million to $1.5 million. Permitting alone would take over four years.

The Willamette River is Portland’s largest public open space and is owned by the citizens of Oregon. But sadly, the vast majority of Rose City residents have no easy access to their own river.

It’s a public equity issue. With our urban density, we should have more than just a few options to reach the river, like comparable West Coast cities.

Portland Parks & Recreation does a terrific job of creating safe, enriching experiences for residents and guests. However, they have been silent on this issue and have not demonstrated public policy leadership to promote safe access to the Willamette River.

The Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock can absolutely be engineered within the safety guidelines of similarly situated activities in the Parks Bureau portfolio. This would create a safe swimming area in the downtown core where none exists and demand is greatest.

It’s just a matter of time before a water-related accident occurs. This can be avoided with proper planning. The city knows that swimming is occurring in the Willamette, and also knows that most of these current areas are unsafe. Yet nothing is being done in the short term to implement change. As a citizen, I find this troubling. It’s still possible to solve this problem, but the time to act is now.

The solution? Adapt the Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock to become a safe public usage area, providing easy river access for diverse groups. I’m sure “Duck” would have supported that.

The Human Access Project is all for Daimler adding a dock for use by its employees and others who work on Swan Island. However, we question why Daimler can’t just buy its own dock with its own money. We wonder why they must take this Portland public asset that is a memorial to Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth.

Willie Levenson is the ringleader and Tom Vandel is board chair of Human Access Project, a not-for-profit grassroots group whose mission is to transform Portland’s relationship with the Willamette River.