Nancy Strong didn’t know she was ahead of the curve when she led an effort to transform a deteriorating piece of abandoned Santa Fe Railway right-of-way in the Shooks Run neighborhood.
The property, at the southeast corner of El Paso Street and Willamette Avenue, was a bend in the railroad abandoned after the last train passed in 1971.
Over the years, it had grown weedy and nasty.
It bothered Nancy, especially because it was across from the Middle Shooks Run Park and adjacent to a Mountain Metro Transit bus stop.
So after the bus stop was rebuilt last fall to make it handicapped accessible, Nancy was inspired to transform the right-of-way as well.
She led and public-private effort to rehab an old bend in the railroad and make it an attractive corner that would look good for years with minimal water or weeding.
The corner of El Paso Street and Willamette Avenue has been transformed by the Middle Shooks Run Neighborhood Association from weeds and dirt into a landscape of trees and shrubs sustainable in our dry climate.
First, she enlisted her friends in the Middle Shooks Run Neighborhood Association for ideas and help.
Then she started contacted Metro Transit where she found Bill Bottini, who helped her get approval to redirect $500 the agency planned to use reseeding the area and use the cash for landscaping.
Nancy turned to area businesses for donations and got donations and discounts on boulders, dirt, landscaping materials, trees, shrubs, flowers and mulch.
Finally, it was up to neighborhood volunteers to sculpt everything into the streetscape that exists today.
Long-term, the plants will need little water. Hopefully, they will get by on natural rainfall and snowmelt.
And the mulch will suppress weed growth to keep the properpty attractive with minimal labor.
Turns out, Nancy and her neighbors doing the exact kind of public/private project envisioned by Mayor Steve Bach when he announced formation Wednesday of a Streetscapes Solution Team.
The team will be led by longtime neighborhood activist Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, an umbrella group for the city’s neighborhood associations.
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