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 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.
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Posted on April 2nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm.
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 1925.
In [...]
Posted on November 13th, 2008 at 4:39 pm.
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 [...]
Posted on October 15th, 2008 at 10:36 am.
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 [...]
Posted on July 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm.
The old-school bike box at SE 39th and Clinton.
The colored version at SE Hawthorne and 7th.
Posted on July 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 am.
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 City has [...]
Posted on July 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm.
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…
Posted on June 27th, 2008 at 8:28 am.
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).
Posted on May 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am.
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 sits on [...]
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm.
A bike box in downtown Portland.(Photos © J. Maus)
The Portland Tribune has published an article about concerns raised by citizens and the Oregon Department of Transportation over the usage, safety and efficacy of the newly installed bike boxes.
The story’s sub-headline reads, “Some cycling advocates are trying to stick a wrench in the spokes of [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm.
New bike box on SW Madison at 3rd.(Photos © J. Maus)
The City of Portland has installed two more green bike boxes and painted bike lanes; including the first one on the west side of the river.
Today, crews finished a bike box and new painted bike lane at SE 11th and Hawthorne, just a few blocks [...]
