Rebuild Franklin Street Now

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Rebuild Franklin Street Now Graphic: C. MilNeil In summary, the Rebuilding of Franklin Street will reverse outdated planning assumptions, and reintegrate the Portland Peninsula.

The Franklin Street Plan will create a vibrant urban corridor, balancing transportation needs for all people, in a context of housing, parks and open-space, and mixed-use development. • Reclaiming up to 6 acres of under-utilized public land.
• Creating opportunities for a 1000+ housing units.
• Expanding historic Lincoln Park, pocket parks, and open space.
• Reconnecting the urban fabric and historic neighborhoods.
• Generating economic development and increased tax revenue.
• Improving safety and mobility for current and future traffic, including motor vehicles, transit, bicycles, and pedestrians.
• Strengthening connections between the waterfront and Old Port, Back Cove and 295, and East End neighborhoods with Downtown and Bayside.
• Enhancing redevelopment opportunities for underutilized public land adjacent to the corridor.

Friends of Franklin Street,I am traveling abroad and am not able to post with the regularity I have maintained over the ...
10/20/2026

Friends of Franklin Street,
I am traveling abroad and am not able to post with the regularity I have maintained over the last 3 years. However, I will finish my critiques of Portland's draft design for Franklin Street, as it is being shared with the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
Continued from yesterday:
4. Sometime after the 2026 public workshops some new "Guiding Principles" emerged from the study team work. Enhancing or Expanding the Boyd Street Gardens has been the most surprising of these. This has not been an expressed goal or principle in the previous 20 years of community work around Franklin St. At the 2026 public workshops, the vast majority of public input prioritized housing along the corridor, including on the reclaimed land between Lancaster and Cumberland.
Neither the city nor the consultant has explained this design choice publicly, nor offered a rebuttal to the clearly expressed preferences of people who have trustingly engaged in the public engagement process.
Even Cultivating Community, who is invested in the land adjacent to these potentially reclaimed lots, has expressed a preference for housing between the gardens and a new Franklin St, as opposed to the tremendous burdens of being relocated.
There are a number of design choices I disagree with in the proposed redesign. However, most of them I can understand- the tradeoffs have been expressed, the limitations or concerns of key partners are clear, and long standing.
However, this design choice has no precedent in the Franklin work. It has been advanced against strong public input, and has not been satisfactorily explained to the community. Furthermore, as discussed yesterday, this land use choice falls squarely in the charge of the City Council, not staff.
5. Other issues: too many lanes in some places, too many left hand turn lanes widening pedestrian crossings, and little attempt to create a more dynamic streetscape between Middle St and Commercial.
I'll be sharing my thoughts to the S&T in writing in advance of the 5pm Wed meeting.

Share your thoughts with the committee as well.

ReBuild Franklin Street Now!

Friends of Franklin Street,I am traveling abroad and have had limited internet access, so have not been able to, and won...
10/20/2026

Friends of Franklin Street,
I am traveling abroad and have had limited internet access, so have not been able to, and won't be able to, be posting with the regularity I have maintained over the last 3 years. However, I do want to offer some critiques of Portland's draft design for Franklin Street, as it is being shared with the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.
1. On-street parking. Public feedback against this has been strong and consistent. City staff has made a case for on-street parking in a meeting with FRA, but has not done so to the public. Staff should explain this decision to councilors and the public at the S&T meeting, or reconsider this design choice.
2. Identifying development opportunities and recommending reuses of reclaimed land. The former has been a foundational issue in this study; it is called out as a specific task in the RFP. Expanding Lincoln Park has also been a long term goal of the redesign effort. However, decisions regarding any specific land uses beyond this (some might argue, all specific land uses) fall to the council, not to the study team or staff. The current study team design may be usurping this role from the council in regards to the land reclaimed between Lancaster and Cumberland.
3. Strengthening the urban fabric and the street wall along Franklin St has been another long standing goal of this work, as well as a 'guiding principle/framework' for the current study. There are 4-6 blocks where this is feasible and impactful along Franklin St, including the 2 blocks between Lancaster and Cumberland. The current proposal leaves a 2 block gap in the Franklin street wall- right where it would have the most impact on traffic calming and enlivening a busy street. I strongly disagree with this choice. Staff should reconsider, convincingly defend this choice, or councilors should exercise their own discretion.
I will continue tomorrow.
Markos

Share your thoughts with the S&T committee, Wed 10/21 5pm

ReBuild Franklin Street Now!

Friends of Franklin Street,We've known that the draft Franklin Street concept designs would be shared with the Sustaina...
10/18/2026

Friends of Franklin Street,
We've known that the draft Franklin Street concept designs would be shared with the Sustainability and Transportation Committee on Oct. 21st. FRA normally receives city notifications about the Sustainability and Transportation Committee agendas. However, we did not this week.
We did find the agenda materials posted on the city's website. You can access these using the link below.
There does not appear to be anything significantly different than what has been shared since the Sept 10 public meeting. At a quick glance, it appears the bike/ped crossings at Marginal Way have been clarified, but we have not noticed anything else significant, particularly in response to expressed public concerns about parking, and the expansion of the Boyd St. gardens. We encourage you to review the materials. You will also find a list of public comments.
Note that these materials are primarily for the S&T committee councilors, who may be asked to advance this work to the City Council. While some of these councilors have been engaged in the study process, they may not have been as focused on the details of many of our readers. Context and understanding of the long term planning process are important.
We will take a closer look at these materials in the days ahead, and share our insights with you, and committee members.

https://portlandme.portal.civicclerk.com/event/8476/files/agenda/20548

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10/17/2026

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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One third of Portland's Lincoln Park as destroyed as part of the urban renewal era expansion of Franklin Street. Restori...
10/16/2026

One third of Portland's Lincoln Park as destroyed as part of the urban renewal era expansion of Franklin Street. Restoring land to the park has been long time goal of the effort to redesign the corridor as an urban street.
Today we are reviewing the online public comments regarding the proposal to expand the park. These follow the recent unveiling of the city's draft proposal for the long sought redesign of Franklin Street.
We want to thank FRA allie, and data engineer, Emma Morse, who developed a tool to review and categorize all of the online responses. The contributions of local residents are what has always added value and meaning to the Franklin Street plnning process.
This is what people said.
Does anything suprise you?
Does this raise any questions for you?
Share what you think!

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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1h

Now that the online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed, we are reviewing an...
10/14/2026

Now that the online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed, we are reviewing and categorizing the responses recorded.
Tocay we are focusing on the proposed addition of bike lanes or a cycle track. This is a very popular idea.
We want to thank FRA allie, and data engineer, Emma Morse, who developed a tool to review and categorize all of the online responses. The contributions of local residents are what has always added value and meaning to the Franklin Street plnning process.
This is what people said.
Does anything suprise you?
Does this raise any questions for you?
Share what you think!

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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The online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed. There was a lot to take in, ...
10/14/2026

The online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed. There was a lot to take in, and we wish the study team the best in processing all that public feedback, as well as that collected at the Sept. 10 workshop, and making refinements to their draft design.
FRA allie, and data engineer, Emma Morse, developed an AI tool to review and categorize all of the online responses. Those categories include topics such as on-street parking, housing and development, etc. We are developing graphic to share what Emma's work revealed.
Today we will focus on participants responses to the number of lanes proposed and the proposed width of the street. This topic was the most commented on, with 156 unique responses. This is what people said.
Does anything suprise you?
Does this raise any questions for you?
Share what you think!

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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The online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed. There was a lot to take in, ...
10/09/2026

The online comment period for Portland's Franklin Street redesign proposal recently closed. There was a lot to take in, and we wish the study team the best in processing all that public feedback, as well as that collected at the Sept. 10 workshop, and making refinements to their draft design.
FRA allie, and data engineer, Emma Morse, developed an AI tool to review and categorize all of the online responses. Those categories include topics such as on-street parking, housing and development, etc. We are developing graphic to share what Emma's work revealed.
Today we will focus on parking, specifically the addition of on-street parking along a new Franklin Street. This is what people said.
Does anything suprise you?
Does this raise any questions for you?
Share what you think!

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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We were thrilled to have urbanist Jeff Speck speak in Portland last week. If you were unable to attend, or want to revis...
10/07/2026

We were thrilled to have urbanist Jeff Speck speak in Portland last week. If you were unable to attend, or want to revisit something he shared, or other comments by Mayor Dion, Planning Director Kevin Kraft, the Stantec consultant representative, or the panelist, the event has been posted online. We encourage folks to visit and enjoy.
Most of what Jeff shared is not new for FRA or for many who were in the audience that night. These events are kibnd of like going to church- our community comes together, we get fortified in our vision, hopefully we widen our perpective a bit, and we widen the circle. Not that we're all following a prescribed dogma, but we come together to strengthen our vision for our city (and our planet).
It's great that the consultant, staff, and elected officials all supported this effort.

Enjoy the talk.

https://youtu.be/QnsrUHqVpYg

ReBuild Franklin Street Right, Now!
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