Bike Boxes
Special Coverage of Bike Boxes
Bike boxes are a new roadway engineering treatment being used by the City of Portland Office of Transportation to improve bike safety at intersections. They are intended to improve awareness and visibility of cyclists and to help prevent dangerous “right-hook” collisions.
For more information, read the stories below and check out these links for more information:
- –Listen to BikePortland.org editor Jonathan Maus discuss bike boxes during an interview on the KINK-FM Morning Show.
Download the MP3 (10MB)
–Listen to City of Portland Traffic Engineer Rob Burchfield talk about bike boxes.
Download MP3 (2.5MB: 2 min, 50 sec)
–View BikePortland’s bike box photo gallery
–Visit PDOT’s Bike Box Information page.
Click headlines below for full stories.
Woman injured in right hook at NE Couch and Grand
Scene of a right hook at NE Couch and Grand this morning.(Photos © J. Maus) The morning after PBOT called it their #1 priority location to receive a bike box, a woman on a bike was hit at NE Couch and Grand. Based on interviews with the victim’s friend and the driver of the truck, … Read more
City unveils list of 11 new bike box locations
PBOT’s plans for new bike box planned for SE 7th at Hawthorne(Photos © J. Maus)
PSU evaluation finds that bike boxes work
A year-long evaluation by researchers at Portland State University’s Institute for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation has found that Portland’s bike boxes improve the safety of roads users on a number of levels. The research — funded through the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium — complements another study from the University of Texas published last … Read more
PBOT confirms last year’s record low traffic crash, fatality numbers
Mayor Adams credits bike boxesas one reason for record numbers(Photo © J. Maus) Back in January, we reported that Portland had potentially had a record low number of traffic fatalities in 2008. PBOT has now made it official — we have never had fewer traffic fatalities in any year since they began keeping track in … Read more
With bike boxes, the color is key
Portland has been at the cutting edge of traffic design for many years. In America, with our stringent, car-centric traffic design guidelines, that means having engineers who are not afraid to push the boundaries of the status quo. The most recent example of this are Portland’s colored bike boxes. We weren’t the first city to … Read more
First look: New green bike lanes in Rose Quarter Transit Center
In 1993 an upstart bike advocacy group called the Bicycle Transportation Alliance — headed by Rex Burkholder (now a Metro councilor) — filed a lawsuit against the City of Portland because of a lack of bicycle facilities around the Rose Garden Arena. This morning, 15 years after that legal battle (which ended after the BTA … Read more
FHWA wants Portland to test un-colored bike boxes
The old-school bike box at SE 39th and Clinton. The colored version at SE Hawthorne and 7th.
A bittersweet bike box
The new bike box at W. Burnside and 14th.Video below(Photos © J. Maus) On Monday, the city of Portland installed a bike box in the SE corner of W. Burnside and 14th streets in downtown Portland — the same intersection where Tracey Sparling was killed nine months ago. This is the eighth bike box the … Read more
Video: Another reason to “Get behind the bike box”
The short video below premiered at Bike Porn 2. It contains some dirty language but it’s definitely worth watching for what I think is one of the best lines ever spoken in the growing bike box film genre…
“Bike box!”; Streetfilms points lens on Portland’s green space
Bike box. Get it?(Photo: Movie still)(Watch video below.) Clarence Eckerson Jr., that intrepid auteur with New York City-based Streetfilms, just posted another one of the films he made during his recent visit to Portland. Eckerson is the man behind the Sunday Parkways video I posted Tuesday (that film has already been viewed nearly 4,000 times).
State officials endorse Portland’s bike boxes
Download the letter (490k, PDF) On Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) pledged their full support for PDOT’s efforts to improve bike safety by installing bike boxes at intersections. Their support came in the form of a letter written to Scott Wainwright, a top highway engineer for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), who also … Read more