SW 3rd and Pine.
Slideshow below
(Photos © J. Maus)
As promised last week, PDOT is moving ahead quickly with their on-street bike parking program.
The first of four bike corrals slated for downtown Portland has already been installed. The location is SW 3rd and Pine street in front of Stumptown Coffee (a very busy bike destination, especially for Portland bike messengers) and Bijou Cafe.
(Stumptown Coffee would be
at the upper right).
The new corral stretches over two previous motor vehicle parking spaces and has 12 standard blue staple racks — enough for 24 bicycles. This afternoon, just an hour or so after PDOT crews packed up, the corral was already at about 50% capacity.
The new design is much different from existing corrals in Southeast and North Portland. There is only one rubber curb (at the northern entry to the corral) and one flexible “candlestick” bollard (also at the northern entry). Instead of a rubber border around the corral, PDOT has painted a thick, white stripe (like a crosswalk stop bar). At each end of the corral is a gap in the stripe and a bike symbol with an arrow trying to direct traffic flow into and exiting the corral (PDOT’s concern is people stopping/leaving into the roadway).
For more images, see the slideshow below:
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
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beautiful.
Very nice! I love the entrance and exit lanes!
What an improvement this will be for that block – better visibility for crossing the street, a nice landmark for the corner, and more space on the sidewalk.
One observation – it looks like people are parking as close to the curb as possible (since there\’s no barrier between their bike and moving traffic this is understandable) which looks like it\’s eating up the \”through\” lane. If that was meant to be a \”through\” lane. Perhaps it wasn\’t.
I can\’t wait to see the next three.
Massive improvement. Less is more.
HA!! The Pay to Park sign is still there . . . . where are we supposed to adhere our sticker stubs?!?!?! (snicker, snicker)
Don\’t give them any ideas davidio! Seriously though, looks great, as Ethan said, less is more, I love the simplicity of it.
If it is indeed a \”through lane\” it would be great to see Stumptown Coffee opening a bike-through espresso stand next to it.
Love it!
I was amused by the \”Pay to Park\” sign as well. One would hope that will be removed soon. 🙂
Looks great, simple and functional.
Nice to see some new installations, after they were on hold for a while. We are hoping for one at NE Fremont and 14th (or 13th), which I realize is a whole other topic…
Very cool. Yes, less is more!
As pix #s 7 & 8 show, tho, that \”thru lane\” clearly ain\’t, in light of the wide range of parking skills and bike styles. What would folks do if they had chained up to a pipe or post? Just ride out to the corner on the sidewalk or enter the roadway from the curb during a break in traffic, so it\’s a non-issue, really. But PDOT\’s concern for safety is great!
PDOT\’s increasing the number of these things (with iterative improvements!) while most of the country hasn\’t even grasped the idea. I love Portland.
Couldn\’t the designers of this corral have reduced the distance bikes project into the street if, instead of mounting the racks perpendicular to the curb, they\’d instead have mounted them at an angle?
It would have been a small savings in space, but possibly worth it. Otherwise, the parking area looks fine and should make quite an impression on the people in the area, there being a hotel right across the street.
…these keep getting better and better!
\”(PDOT’s concern is people stopping/leaving into the roadway)\”
How is that different than the maneuver performed by every other vehicle parked on the street downtown?
Wonderful!
I will definitely be writing to the adjacent property owners & businesses to say thankyou for finally providing me with a place to park (my bike) to access their business!
Very nice!
While its fantastic that we\’ve started building these, I have to ask, how cool would it be if these were covered, with some sort of artistic twist to them? I\’m not sure I agree with the \”less is more\” philosophy. While I would like to see these sorts of bike parking amenities all over the city, at prime locations around the city I think it\’d be cool to have unique structures that not only kept bikes dry but made for a funky, new icon for the streetscape.
Still, go PDOT!
RE: #12
\”How is that different than the maneuver performed by every other vehicle parked on the street downtown?\”
because the people in \”other vehicles\” are wrapped in a few hundred pounds of steel.
To WSBOB #10 – We very much agree with your suggestion about angling the racks. We may not be able to get as many racks in the available space but we agree that there may be many benefits. The only reason we did not attempt this with the latest four was because the racks had already been welded together on the right angle. I\’ll be talking with folks here to see how we can experiment with future installations.
Thank you for the suggestion!
Sarah Figliozzi
angling the racks is a great idea. but like Sarah said, they\’ve already got a ton of racks welded with the standard right angle.
but it\’s not an unprecedented thing for PDOT. Here is a photo of some angled racks already in place on the 300 block of SW 4th street.
![\"diagonally](\"http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/445092820_4a808fae94.jpg\")
i reported about this back in april 2007.
A much more clean, elegant design than the corrals on Mississippi. Well done. Can those ones now be retrofitted to eliminate the rubber curbs with the giant orange straws?
I watched part of the layout, and part of the install.
I too question why the Staples are closer to the road than they are to the sidewalk.
It seems to really encourage locking your bike as far from the road as possible, since wheels stick out. I know when locking there, the last thing I am going to do is lock near the west end of the staple.
This really seems to render the \”through lane\” as not very usable at all.
While a through lane is a good idea, seeing now how really impractical it is in application is an eye opener.
I hope that a redesign can be quickly done on this note before the next few are put in.
Wow, that looks great! And already well-used! Awesome!
I think I would also park closer to the sidewalk than the street, out of fear that someone would hit my bike with their car or truck or something.
So is a barrier between the street and the parking stall not an option? It would make it much safer (hopefully) if there was one. I guess PDOT doesn\’t want anything solid in the ROW in case a car hits it.
I have almost been hit by a car when backing my bike out of one on Mississippi and have seen a few other close calls. Hope no one gets hurt this way.
Looks fantastic! Thanks, Sarah, for all the hard work to make this happen. I\’m looking forward to seeing more of these in the downtown area in the (hopefully) near future.
I like the angled rack idea. It would be more usable for those with longer bikes. A long-wheelbase recumbent would stick out into the through lane with the usual right-angled design.
I don\’t understand PODT\’s concern with bike leaving the parking area and entering the roadway. Isn\’t that what cars and motorbikes do?
I rode through downtown and think I saw 3 pop up. Awesome. They seem to be within a block radius of any Stumptown location.
ha you know the cliche with bikes and stumptowns at least the city was paying attention to this one.
i see jeremy stumptown in the background
and allender riding the bike lane part haha….goofball.
glad to see this finally came about i remember just a few days ago talking with someone about needing more staples there.
I saw the one at Clyde Common – 10th and Stark – this morning. Almost full! Of course there\’s a Stumptown there too. 🙂 Great idea, thank you!
Ms Figliozzi and editor Maus, thanks for the info on angling the racks(should of done a search, because I didn\’t remember the April story).
It just occurred to me this afternoon that angling the racks for the same number of bikes in the corrals for right-angled racks might require an additional 2-3 extra feet. Hope that\’s what happens rather than reducing the number of bikes provide for in the bike parking area (corral).
I saw the one on SW 9th and Park today…right next to SouthPark restaurant(8 bikes at 7pm). Quite a benefit to the diners, that\’s for sure; no more stinky exhaust from cars backing into parking spaces while they\’re trying to enjoy a nice meal.
Angling the rack has nothing to do with how it is welded. It has to do with where you put the anchor bolts in the concrete.
Nevermind, I now see that the entire group of staples is welded to two steel strips.
I do think there needs to be some sort of barrier to protect the bikes from a wayward car. It would only take a second for a weaving car to cause thousands in damage and most importanatly, bum a dozen or so people out.
It would probably be even worse when there is only one bike in there since it would be that much harder to see. Especially in the dark rainy days sure to come.
There should be something.
RE: #16
RE: #12
I become more comfortable each day riding vehicular-style and so should be reminded of this daily.
Great to see the next generation of bike corrals.
What\’s the spacing between the racks? We have 34\” [on center] on Belmont.
Awesome! Very cool.