My transect walk took me on a sort of figure-eight route through Portland, using Congress street as the central “scaffolding” route and branching out in broad loops in opposing directions at its intersection with State Street. The focus of my walk was on the streets themselves. I then divided my focus in to a few groups: overall condition of the roads, width of street, existence of sidewalks plus quality and condition, and free street parking. **NOTE** I did not distinguish between no parking and paid parking (i.e. spots with parking meters), so as to draw attention to the distinct lack of free parking.

My walk started with a straight shot from one end of Congress street to the other, starting in Munjoy Hill past the cemetery and ending in the West End before Maine Medical Center. What I noticed along this stretch was an interesting dichotomy. At the center of my walk was Portland’s City hall. At this point, the street was at its widest—four lanes, two in each direction—with sidewalks paved in brick and/or large concrete slabs. There were no free parking spots, despite the numerous empty lots advertising parking (for a fee), but other than that the quality of the streets were in superb condition.

Outward from here, in either direction, these street roles began to reverse. Street conditions alone began to deteriorate, especially at the furthest points from the center along my walk. At my turn-off onto Park Street, there was even a pot hole large and deep enough to expose the original cobblestone pavement that was otherwise covered in asphalt. The width of the street became constricted, allowing only one lane for each lane of traffic. The sidewalks also constricted in overall width, and as the red-brick inlay was replaced by solid-black asphalt a few blocks in either direction from City Hall, the condition of the sidewalks worsened as well.

At the same point of transition (Franklin Street to the north, State Street to the south) came an influx of free parking spots along the street. On Munjoy Hill, free parking was available on either side of the street, with little to no time restriction. However, despite a marked improvement over no parking whatsoever, the spaces were still limited considering the number of potential users, i.e. people living in street side apartments, restauranteurs, etc.

Upon turning onto Weymouth Street, the street conditions along Congress Street have reached the furthest negative extent of the aforementioned street condition dichotomy. At either end of Weymouth Street are Maine Medical Center and the Exposition Center (aka Seadog Stadium). As a result of these landmarks, the streets beyond these points see an improvement in width and condition(with little improvement in free parking or sidewalks). Moving north once again along Park Avenue, these conditions are maintained through the turn-off onto State Street. At this point, the conditions once again change—this time unexpectedly. The street sidewalks improve in width and condition, showing the return of brick-inlay pavement, and free parking shows up on one or both sides of the street. Turning onto Spring Street introduced the return of wide, multi-lane streets (although traversing it is made difficult by a high median running along the area with the highest pedestrian and vehicular traffic) and the disappearance of free parking. As Spring Street enters the Old Port, the streets narrow once again (just after the Union Street intersection) at which point Spring Street becomes Middle Street. The trend of narrowed streets, minimal free parking, and brick sidewalks continues until India Street. At this point, I turned upwards and returned to my starting point on Congress Street.

As a side note, I also took note of the existence of bike racks along the street—which was easily done, because the only one I saw was at the Cumberland County Civic Center on Spring Street. There were many bikes locked along the side of the street, but these were often locked to trees or nearby stoop fences (especially along State Street).