Survival guide for the 39th Avenue renaming

So it’s finally done. The Portland City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to rename 39th Avenue to Cesar Chávez Boulevard. This closes the door on the 2 year Chávez saga that will no doubt go down in the history books of Portland as contentious and difficult. I don’t live on or near 39th, so it doesn’t really affect me. In fact, I supported the rename. I supported it despite the fact that I opposed the previous proposals to rename N. Interstate and N.E. Broadway. My reasoning is simple: both N. Interstate and N.E. Broadway are names that have history and meaning in Portland. Based on the street renaming rules in the city code, I don’t think that they’re valid choices. 39th is a different story — it’s a numbered street, which despite the somewhat logical organization of Portland streets (North-South routes are numbered — with the exception of North Portland — and labelled Avenues; East-West routes are named and labelled Streets; with exceptions across the board), is a perfectly valid choice based on the city’s criteria. This isn’t to say that there wasn’t widespread opposition — there was. But ultimately matters of this type are up to the city council, not the citizens unfortunately.

Be that as it may, it’s time for you folks to suck it up. I have little pity, because the city council ruled to rename my street — N.E. Portland Blvd to N.E. Rosa Parks Way (or RPW for short) — without so much as a phone call. I didn’t have the time or courtesy you enjoyed to build a website or protest; a letter arrived one day in the mail notifying us that the street’s name was changing and I just had to suck it up and deal with it. In our case, it appears that Commissioner Saltzman circumvented city code — whether or not that’s the case, I’m not certain. In the end, despite some annoyances, we survived. You can too. It’s really not as bad as you think, so I encourage you to stop whining and move on. I’m not going to nitpick the arguments made by people opposed to the 39th renaming, I’m just going to offer my perspective based on our experience. I do want to give my condolences to the small businesses along 39th: I can’t calculate the costs for you, since as an individual it’s really more time lost than money, but I hope that the transition is smooth and doesn’t hurt your business. Hey, if you’re clever with marketing I’m sure you can spin this in a positive way.

One both good and bad part to the renaming process is the crossover period, which by city code is 5 years. There will be both 39th Ave and Cesar Chávez Blvd signs up during this period. This is good because you can refer to your address with either street name, but it’s bad because it creates a lot of confusion for people who aren’t familiar with the rename (especially companies, out of town friends and family, and so on). I’d prefer it were shortened to one or two years.

As for your driver’s license, motor vehicle registration, insurance and etc, you should be fine given the transition period. Motor vehicle registration lasts 2 years, and when you renew just include your new street name and the DMV will mail you a sticker for your license. Insurance usually just requires a phone call to your agent or insurer.

Mail, parcels and packages are a separate deal. The USPS are good at handling both street names since your mail person is intimate with your street and neighborhood. UPS, FedEx and the like are another story. The rename to RPW happened around the time of our wedding, and we have family on the east coast who wanted to send gifts. UPS immediately updated their address database, while FedEx lagged. This created confusion for sending packages as they appear to not have room in their address system for two street names (correct me if I’m wrong). A couple times there was an extended delay in receiving a package. Just be aware of this.

Directions for friends and visitors isn’t that bad since you’ll have both street signs in place for 5 years. That should give you and anyone else enough time to get used to the new name, and give Google Maps time to update as well. My advice is to start using the new name as soon as the new signs go up, as you’ll get used to it much quicker. Using both names when giving someone your address only leads to confusion in my experience. At first it bugged me, because I liked the name Portland Blvd, but now I’m used to Rosa Parks Way and it doesn’t matter.

In the end, everything will be fine. Trust me. Now let’s move on to tackling less glamourous and more important issues in this city.