PORTLAND – Numerous businesses remain shuttered in downtown Portland more than a year into the coronavirus pandemic.
Dozens of buildings and storefronts still have boards on their windows as well, a product of the property damage that occurred during nightly protests last summer and periodically since then.
Several major downtown hotels remain closed and those that are open are lucky to average above 40 percent capacity in a given week. Some workers have returned to downtown, but most continue to telecommute and may not work in offices again for months.
Available data indicates that foot traffic might be slowly returning to downtown.
Parking meter transactions in downtown Portland were up 53 percent in March as compared to February, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Those transactions were still down 45 percent from February 2020, the last full month before the coronavirus pandemic. And trips downtown via TriMet were still down more than 73 percent in the fall and winter as compared to a year prior, an indication that those going into downtown aren’t coming on public transit.
Traffic into downtown across the Morrison Bridge has been slowly increasing after plummeting in the first two months of the pandemic. Overall traffic heading downtown across the Morrison Bridge was down 33 percent in mid-March as compared to pre-pandemic levels.
“We have TriMet data showing an ongoing massive decline, but car counts, traffic counts and parking meter amounts showing smaller declines,” said Josh Lehner of the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. “I think that pattern fits with what I’ve seen elsewhere where people are venturing downtown more and when they do so, they are going in their own vehicle and not on transit.”
Video lottery sales have hit all-time highs across Oregon over the last five weeks, according to the Oregon Lottery.
