In the weeks since the Portland Bureau of Transportation installed new buffered bike lanes on SW Stark and Oak Streets downtown, I have heard a number of my friends and acquaintances recount with glee the first time they came across them. They followed a wave of green stoplights and found that they led right from work to Waterfront Park, or the MAX trains, or Reading Frenzy, Martinotti’s Cafe & Deli, Powell’s Books, Living Room Theaters, the Portland Outdoor Store, Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen, and all of the other Stark and Oak businesses that are now an easy bike ride away.
A little extra width...
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Sometimes it’s hard to know what you’re missing until it appears before you.
Safe, comfortable and direct bike routes have been missing from downtown Portland for a long time. In our 2005 Blueprint for Better Bicycling, which was based on surveys of experienced and beginner cyclists, the BTA identified the lack of bikeways in the central city as one of the top ten barriers to bicycling in the region.
Downtown Portland is a regional destination, yet regional travel models from 2005 reveal that nearly one-half of all trips to Downtown come from within only three miles. This is an eminently bikeable distance, but the central city is not an eminently bikeable place – at least, not for the 60% of people who want to bike but don’t like riding in the thick of car traffic.
Last week, the German Marshall Fund and Metro imported delegates from Europe to critique our region’s transportation strategies and share lessons from their own countries. One of the delegates was Geert-Pieter Wagenmakers, senior traffic and transport advisor at the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce.
Amsterdam, he told the attendees of workshops in Beaverton and Lake Oswego last week, is the hub of the country and is positively strangled by traffic jams. Frustrated by the costs this congestion levies on businesses, employees, and communities, the Chamber of Commerce took matters into its own hands. The Chamber is implementing a plan to reduce car traffic between work and home for all members’ employees by 10%. One of many strategies is shifting employees out of cars and onto bikes – with financial incentives, reallocated parking space, and bike routes that let people enjoy (rather than fear) bicycling. (Another is directly subsidizing bicycle purchases, an idea that made one local reporter “cry softly into her sweater.”)
Those legions of Amsterdammers and Copenhagenites biking with groceries, kids, high heels and briefcases are not a different kind of human being from Americans.
People are people, and those coiffed, conservative, briefcase-toting bike commuters live here in Portland, too. The difference between them and their northern European counterparts is not in their nature, but in their environment. In northern Europe they feel safe biking around their towns and cities; in Portland, they do not. So they drive, or they crowd onto buses and trains easy biking distance from their destination, as their braver neighbors ride a bicycle and beat them there.
How do we provide these people with the bike routes they need to feel comfortable? How do we get them out of the way of the regional visitors, furniture-purchasers, and delivery trucks that are today stuck behind them in traffic jams?
Bike routes like SW Stark and Oak, and the demonstration cycletrack on SW Broadway, are a big part of the answer.
Opportunities to add more like them abound: many of Portland’s streets are operating “below capacity,” meaning that they could move more cars per hour than they do today without increasing drivers’ wait time. The City could therefore choose whether to fill up that extra space with more cars, or with more bikes. (Even a few city streets that are not below capacity could move more people on bikes than in cars.)
In the case of SW Stark, Oak and Broadway, the City has made a choice that maximizes health, safety and efficiency. The BTA wants to see more of these smart choices from the Bureau of Transportation.
If you also want more safe, comfortable bike routes that let you and your friends and family visit downtown by bike, contact Bureau Director Sue Keil and thank her for her leadership in providing Portlanders with safe, comfortable downtown bikeways.
To be honest, downtown Portland is one of my favorite places to ride, especially during rush hour. The speed limit is a manageable 20 mph, with the lights being timed for far less. I’ve never considered it difficult to bike, but this might help for some of the more timid types.
I rather liked something about the look of that sweet padded bike lane, and make no mistake: Timid on a bike in traffic I am not
I’d rather see more attention paid to properly maintaining the bicycle infrastructure we have, particularly on the west side. Trim back the blackberries and other vegetation. Get the storm sewer grates in Hillsdale even with the pavement rather than 2 inches lower. Fill in the gaps in the bicycle lane on Barbur between Capitol and Multnomah Blvd. And most importantly, fix crash corner, also known as Beaverton-Hillsdale/Oleson/Scholls. Yes, that’s outside the Portland city limits but by less than a mile. I said so much in an email which I sent to the link in the above article, with a cc to Michelle.
“Safe, comfortable and direct bike routes have been missing from downtown Portland for a long time”? False.
I frequently ride in downtown Portland. It’s always been perfectly safe for me, partly because I stay out of bike lanes to the right of motor vehicles at intersections – the kind that have killed cyclists.
Sorry, I don’t see that multiple paint stripes help much. In the photo, riding at the right side of that bike lane could still get a person killed by that white pickup’s door. And I don’t see that “splash of green” making any difference at all. Is it magic paint?
You have to learn to ride your bike as a legitimate vehicle, just as you have to learn to drive a car. Paint stripes don’t add room, they just add confusion and lure novices into right-hook deaths.
Especially in a dense downtown, the safe place is the middle of the lane, not the bike lane.
I just got back from a short trip to Manhattan where they are doing this same buffered and slightly wider bike lane with the diagonal stripes. The diagonal striping is really effective there and here because it is one more signal to the automobile driver to stay further left and give the bike that much more room. I observed the cars (and yes, even the taxis) in Manhattan respecting the bike lane that much more and keeping their distance. It was a good surprise.
Basically anything that takes more of the road for biking and makes bike commuting more obvious and more common is a good thing. It is incremental facilities and improvements like these that can get us to where we need to be so that streets are not car-priority areas. Moving step by step will get us there, and this is one more of those incremental steps…it’s a good thing!
The changes downtown are absolutely outrageous.
1. On all three streets, Broadway by PSU, Oak and Stark, 14th next to burnside have had their lanes trimmed down from two to one. So in order to accomodate the bikers of Portland, which are far less than drivers, a full lane of traffic has been removed. How is that acceptable? Are bikers going to be floating the bill on the pavement costs? What about the longer number of cars waiting due to having only one lane, does that not cause more pollution since the transit time has increased?
2. Bikers still to this date take advantage of city and state funded resources (by the taxpayers) and yet have to pay any bicycle costs. Why should I be paying for your roads?
3. Could you please explain how 14th and Burnside is any better? Once again, a full right hand turn lane has been taken away. People still turn there anyhow, because they are soooo confused. I have watched almost 30 incidents with Bikers and cars since the lane was introduced. I used to see 1 once in a blue moon. You need to watch behind you, from up a hill, turn from a much further angle, watch both sides of the cross walk and also make sure some other car doesn’t mis-judge the non lane.
4. Where was the vote on this? To take away full lanes of traffic from downtown… Isn’t that a choice of the people? I am pretty sure that the opinion should have a vote in giving up something they have already paid for and maintain costs for. This came out of nowhere and done overnight????
5. Please explain how the bike lane by PSU is safe. A car door opening? Confusing traffic? People rear-ending parked cars? People waiting behind park cars thinking they are traffic? Much longer traffic on this street now?
6. Going back to Oak street, you have a hotel there that does Valet. You had two lanes before, but now only one. So when Valet is happening, it blocks all lanes of traffic. There is not enough parking for the Valet thanks to all the “reserved’ parking spots for the city. How is that not a problem or thought out? Hotel management wasn’t even aware that there was going to be a change.
Bottom line, Robert T. hit it spot on. There are too many bikers that think they own the road. Look at posts and bias of biker blogs, they focus on them.. Not US as a people sharing the road. I love the attacks that consistently come out of bikers… “You must be fat, you want to hurt the environment, etc.” Please. Bike riders need to SHARE the road with everyone else, not own it. Learn the rules. This all goes back to the problem of not taxing riders of bikes and enforcing some sort of bicycle exam. If they learned the rules, it would be wayyy better out there.
Is it cool for bikers to hold up lanes of traffic going 5 miles an hour to hold up 35 mile an hour traffic? Is it cool for Bikers to frequently run red lights? Is it cool for Bikers to consistently cut in and out of traffic in between cars? Is it cool for Bikers to go from Bike lane to Street back to Bike lane? They are running rampant. If they followed the rules, these accidents would not be happening.
All of this defeats the purpose of being ECO friendly. Sure, maybe 400 people cycles downtown Portland today. Due to these even minor changes I bet they caused more than 400 “short car rides” worth of pollution. If that is the case, driving was more ECO friendly. So the benefit of biking to the rest of the pblic is…….? Right now, we are just paying for the excerise and enjoyment of a few who can enjoy or want to enjoy it.
Great first step. Bikes and pedestrian and cars s/b separated. Now, the City of Portland should start enforcing getting bikes, skateboards, sequeways, rollerblades etc. off public sidewalks INCLUDING and FIRSTLY bicyle police. It is as dangerous as anything in the city today.
IMO most of Ryan’s arguments can be applied to autos. Cars have had a free ride for a century w/o a vote, despite the falsehood many believe that gas taxes pay for all roads.
However, I agree w/him on, in effect, enforcing road safety by bicyclists As there are more cyclists there are more stupid ones, too. Unfortunately they are joined by stupid drivers. EDUCATION for both groups is needed.
Just a reminder to the Ryans – bicycles are vehicles, too and belong in the street are legally required to be in the street.
I completely agree with the negative comments relating to the bike lanes. I drove home tonight during a rainy rush hour and after finding Burnside completely blocked in traffic problems, moved over to Stark Street. Once there, I learned that one entire lane was closed for me to use as a tax payer! It was reserved for bikers – something that I cannot remember ever voting on! In the 6 blocks that I crept along, I encountered only one bicycle rider in the bike lane. I managed to turn in front of him to make my way to Alder which allowed me to actually move along at a decent speed. Shame on those responsible for turning our city into a traffic nightmare.