Just across some railroad tracks from the Portland Canal sits Lannan Park, a 17-acre public green space. On any given day someone is using its playground, shooting some hoops, or walking along the riverfront.
Joey Hightower has spent a lot of time in the park. He helps with the Portland Youth Baseball League, which practices there. He also worries about their safety getting there.
Between the park and residential streets is Interstate 64, and one of the only ways to get between is to use a bridge over roaring traffic.
“It was put up, I guess, as a, ‘Hey, sorry we're taking your park away from you, but we're going to put this cool walking bridge over it,’” Hightower said.
He’s frustrated that the chain-link fencing at the bottom of the bridge is damaged: there’s enough room for someone to get through and enter onto the highway. He also pointed out that nearby interstate lights have repeatedly been damaged, so much so that the cabinet has now installed solar-powered lights.
Hightower said those issues represent a broader feeling among residents in Portland, a working-class neighborhood where he lived for 26 years: “Nobody cares about us.”
But now, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is leading a study that aims to help improve connectivity in Portland between areas on either side of Interstate 64 – the riverfront to the north and the rest of the neighborhood.
The study area spans a large section of Portland and part of neighboring Shawnee: from the Bank Street/Northwestern Parkway intersection in the west to 13th Street in the east, from Bank Street in the south to the Ohio River in the north.
A study area analysis names several obstacles community members face when accessing the Ohio River:
- Interstate 64
- The floodwall and levee system
- Railroad tracks
- Restricted areas, including the McAlpine Locks and Dam and the Shawnee Golf Course
An online survey for the Northwest Louisville Community Connectivity Study is open until Oct. 20. The agency expects to finish the study by the summer, which it says will “result in a phased implementation plan.”
Any changes will require funding. The cabinet is hoping for a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s competitive Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program.
Naitore Djigbenou, a KYTC spokesperson, said the agency has already submitted an RCP grant application for $14.8 million. It would be part of a larger $29.7 million effort to make improvements on area projects already identified in past studies or current feedback, including improvements to the Lannan Park bridge and repairing highway fencing and lighting.
Larry Chaney, the study’s project manager, said this work has been around two years in the making, from initial feedback provided by a youth baseball league volunteer, to two open houses in Portland last month.
“People seem to be excited about the prospect of making some of these connections,” Chaney said, “and making some of the existing connections more attractive and safer.”
Sherry Stewart remembers what Portland used to look like before one of the neighborhood barriers — Interstate 64 — was completed in 1976. She said her father worked on building the highway.
“The majority of people in Portland, when they shop, they go to Indiana,” said Stewart, the editor-in-chief of the Portland Anchor. “So it made it easier to get there, instead of having to go all the way downtown to go across the Second Street Bridge.”
Stewart said she hadn’t given much thought to Ohio River access in Portland — noting that she and her husband have crossed over to Shippingport Island to fish on the river using a bridge that’s open during daytime hours.
But she also recalls childhood visits to part of the riverfront near the current bridge that later became developed.
“We loved going to the river with [my dad] because that was all wooded along the river,” Stewart said. “Before they cleared it all out. You couldn't even see the island.”
A storied history
Earlier this month, visitors to the Portland Wharf Park were greeted by the sight of bison.
Louisville artist Ken McCormick created the animals, illustrations attached to columns, as part of what he called a “landscape literacy project.” The exhibit took viewers on a journey through the park while promoting the return of bison, which used to cross the Ohio River near the Falls of the Ohio, as part of a conservation effort called rewilding.
He said he wants native plants to be reintroduced to the park, which is one of Portland’s closest remaining connections to the river.
“I would like to see this as being a real star in the city's compendium of really nice parks,” McCormick said.
Portland has long been synonymous with the waterway to its north. It was founded in 1811 and became a hub of shipping activity thanks to its unique spot on the Ohio River, even serving as a rival town to Louisville, which later annexed it.
But the community took hard hits from devastating floods in 1937 and 1945. Portland Wharf Park today stands where part of the neighborhood was abandoned from the flooding, and a levee blocks most of the park from residential streets on the other side.
While that levee stands to protect Portland from the worst of the Ohio River, Mike Neagle also describes it as an obstacle for residents to enjoy the park.
“I brought my mother up here. She has a real hard time with it,” Neagle said of the levee, which has to be scaled by walking up an incline.
The park’s most accessible entrance is a walkway spanning around two blocks and slanted southeast, a nonintuitive path for residents living close to the levee.
Neagle, a past president of Portland’s neighborhood association, said while climbing the levee isn’t friendly to older and disabled residents, the park itself is a “little secret” for the neighborhood to enjoy.
“Waterfront Park is really nice, but it's all curated. And this, every time I come here, it's different. Like, the river moves, the puddles are different…just all of it,” he said.
Over the years, multiple studies and reports have been made exploring challenges and possibilities for Portland Wharf Park and the wider neighborhood. KYTC’s study references several of them, which go as far back as 1983.
One of those is a master plan for the wharf park prepared for the city’s Parks Department in 2002. It recommends creating a flood wall in the levee that residents could enter the park through, and reconstructing historic streets and sidewalks lost to the flooding using granite and stone.
“As you can see from those other studies, it's hard to keep some of those promises,” said Chaney, the project manager for the cabinet’s study.
While he said the current planning study has a “sky’s the limit” approach, making changes will require deciding what options are viable and getting buy-in from groups like the Louisville Metro Government.
“Our intent is to come up with something, and seek funding, to make some of these things happen that we've been talking about for 40 years,” Chaney said.
(Note: The caption for this story's lead image originally said it was taken in Lannan Park; the image is from Portland Wharf Park and the caption has been updated.)
