Downtown Portland Clean & Safe monitors and publishes monthly foot traffic data on the Downtown Vibrancy Tracker and we offer a deeper look twice a year into these trends. Our more detailed reports highlight key intersections and uncover emerging patterns shaping the future of downtown.
Through August, the current trend reflects steady progress, with a year-over-year foot traffic increase of 2% in 2024 compared to 2023. While modest, this growth is an encouraging sign of downtown’s ongoing recovery and resilience as more people visit the heart of our city. A similar trend holds true in regard to the 2% increase of visitors compared to 2023 data.
In partnership with Placer.ai, we closely track pedestrian activity within our 213-block district. Our data provides insights into foot traffic trends, comparing year-over-year numbers. We monitor the overall number of people downtown, peak times of day, the busiest days of the week, and the spaces people are visiting most frequently. These figures represent cumulative totals rather than unique visitors, giving a comprehensive view of downtown vibrancy.
February brought a festive surge to the downtown core with foot traffic increasing 10% compared to 2023 levels, mainly due to the Portland Winter Light Festival and mild weather. June also saw a boost in foot traffic increasing 4% compared to 2023 levels in large part to Portland Rose Festival related activities and unseasonably warm and dry weather.
The Downtown Portland Clean & Safe district continues to see overall traffic busiest on Saturday and Friday, with Thursday and then Wednesday close behind. When measuring employees in the downtown area we once again saw Wednesdays to be the most popular day to be downtown, this trend has held true since 2021.
Over the first part of 2024, when we look at the busiest locations in our district, we see that the West End Neighborhood continues to be a hotspot of foot traffic along with intersections in the core of downtown. The intersection at SW 10th & Burnside, across the street from Powell’s Books, is the busiest intersection in our district. This bustling hub is closely followed by the vibrant crossroads at SW Park & Burnside, the location of food cart pod “The Cart Blocks” and appears to be acting as a gateway into the rest of the downtown. Pioneer Place also stands out as a particularly active zone at the intersection of SW 4th & Alder in the center of the downtown core.
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Methodology
In the past, Downtown Portland Clean & Safe has engaged with partners to conduct pedestrian counts in downtown Portland over a three-day period, two times a year. In years past, these counts have been limited by manual counts in 15 key intersections from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m., in December and in June and within the Clean & Safe District – a 213-block enhanced services district in the heart of our city.
Now using Placer.ai data to monitor traffic and visit trends 24-hours a day, Clean & Safe has expanded its pedestrian count research to look at the entire 213-block district. Downtown Portland Clean & Safe can now compare results from past years and even compare data to other cities, as well as look at times of day people are in downtown, which days are busier, and the spaces/venues people are frequenting.