Opinion ID: 108614
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Rivergate Area and Peninsula's Relation to It

Text: The developing Rivergate Industrial District occupies nearly 3,000 acres at the tip of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Rivergate's six miles of waterfront will provide docksites for direct deepwater access to the Pacific Ocean. The Port of Portland has expended more than five million dollars of public funds for planning, construction, and development, and it is estimated that ultimate public and private investment in industrial and port facilities at Rivergate will exceed 500 million dollars. As conceived by its public developers, the Rivergate complex will be served by a domestic transportation network capable of providing efficient and economical service to and from points throughout the Nation. To achieve this goal, the Port's consultants recommended construction by the Port of an internal rail loop that would connect with existing carriers at the southwestern and eastern corners of Rivergate, thus providing Rivergate industries with direct access to all line-haul carriers serving Portland. At full developmentestimated to be 15 years in the futurerail traffic generated by these industries is expected to reach between 500 and 600 cars per day, with a projected annual volume of five million tons of freight. At present, eight industries [2] occupy about one-tenth of the Rivergate area. Seven of these are located on the west, or Willamette River, side of Rivergate, and are served by tracks owned by the Port of Portland. Outside rail access to this part of Rivergate is provided by tracks extending from UP's Barnes Yard (point 9 on the schematic map appended to this opinion) and connecting with the Port of Portland tracks. Over these external tracks, jointly owned by UP and Burlington Northern, UP provides switching service to the line-haul carriers serving Portland. It is expected that this Barnes Yard route will remain the southwest entrance to Rivergate. The one other Rivergate industrythe poleyard of the Crown Zellerbach Corporation (Point E on the map)is located at the easternmost edge of Rivergate, on the Columbia River. Outside rail access is presently provided by Peninsula, which serves, in addition, 13 industries located just southeast of the Rivergate boundary. Peninsula, organized in 1918 to serve a packinghouse facility long since closed, has a main track extending for only 8,000 feet along the Columbia River. At its easternmost end is the North Portland interchange (point 7 on the map), where Peninsula connects with lines owned by Burlington Northern and UP. Since the lines of these two line-haul carriers do not connect directly with Rivergate in this area, access to the eastern end of the Rivergate District is, at present, solely over Peninsula tracks. Whether Peninsula tracks will remain the sole access to the eastern end of Rivergate is by no means certain. Peninsula suffers from certain physical limitationsits tracks are laid upon sand, its clearances are limited, and the main line is impeded by heavy curvature. Furthermore, the North Portland interchange tracks may have insufficient capacity for the expected Rivergate traffic. Accordingly, an alternate access route to the eastern end of Rivergate is under consideration, that is, a new spur leading directly to Rivergate from the Burlington Northern main north-south tracks. [3]