“As your maintenance operator… it does need to be done,” so argued Karla Keller, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) Region 1 Maintenance/Operations Manager, referring to banning bicyclists from parts of I-5, I-84, I-205, US 26, and OR 217. When asked, she said that there were no plans to invest in improvements to provide alternate facilties to these routes.
This discussion came from a quarterly meeting of the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee in Portland. This eight-member committee, appointed by the governor, acts as a liaison between the public and ODOT.
Apparently driven by the installation of some new multiuse paths parallel to sections of Highway 26, ODOT wanted to prohibit bicyclists on those sections and decided to extend those prohibitions include dozens of highway miles in the region as long as they were amending the Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) governing which highways prohibit bicycles.
More background from bikeportland.org.
OPBAC member AJ Zelada asked if safety increased when bicyclists and pedestrians were prohibited. Karla said, “I don’t have any data on any of that” and then offered anecdotal stories and argued that if there were more cyclists on those routes there would be more crashes (while not explaining why maintaining the status quo would increase bicycle traffic).
OPBAC member Allison Wildman asked why ODOT was proposing a ban without any data on how many cyclists rode these routes, or how many crashes there were. Karla’s response was that she thought there were few users of those routes. OBPAC member David Lewis argued for more study on the problem. There seemed to be general skepticism among committee members and desire for more data.
A room full of cyclists, including the BTA’s Scott Bricker, testified to the committee in opposition to the ban. One cyclist testified in favor of the ban.
