Hawthorne eastbound offramp to 99E

[IanO]

I've been pretty lucky, but I also don't ride much and my commute is mostly on low traffic residential streets.

The closest call since I started commuting by bike was on the Hawthorne Bridge over the train tracks. I was headed east in the daylight after work and had to cross the exit onto 99E south. There’s a blue bike lane there and a sign that says “yield to bikes” with a flashing yellow light. As I started onto the blue lane, a lady screeched to a halt just in front of me, so that I had to swerve around in front of her to pass, brushing the side of her car. She shouted whether I was all right and I said yeah and continued on my merry way.

I've been very careful crossing there ever since, always turning my head back over my left shoulder hoping the motion will catch the eye of any oncoming motorist. From other responses, I gather that this is a trouble spot for bikes. Maybe they need a bike-specific motion sensor so the blinking light is only turned on when needed. (In my experience, even a blinking light fades into the background if it blinks all the time.)

[Matt P.]

FYI, Ian - every intersection in Portland with a blue bike lane is trouble spot for bikes -that's why the city painted them blue in the first place. It was a pilot program to study whether the accident rate decreased after the high-visibility blue stripe was painted.

http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=34826

Has more details. One of the links on this page shows the location of each of the blue bike lanes with photos. I had a near miss once at the one on the east side of the Broadway bridge a while back.

If you already knew about this, my apologies - just trying to keep people informed.

[jami]

i had/saw a close call there a month or two ago. a van driver (the company was called "mckinstry") either didn't see the blinking flashing sign and the blinking flashing lights on me and the biker in front of me or he didn't care. the biker in front of me didn't look back or slow down, so the van ended up screeching to a halt about two feet from her while i was yelling "lookoutlookoutlookout!!!" she glared at him and kept going. luckily i didn't do the same, because he jammed on the gas pedal the second she was out of the way.

between drivers who don't look and bikers who don't, someone is going to get killed there if they don't figure out how to make cars look before they turn. i think it should change to a flashing red light with a mandatory stop if more cars can't get their act together and see the current sign. it'd be nice for some hefty failure to yield tickets to get handed out just down the ramp, too.

of course, the majority of drivers are great at this spot, but it only takes one car, zooming through at 30-40 mph without looking, to kill someone.