Mucked up Merge on Milikan Way

[K'Tesh]

Originally Posted by wsbob

And maybe the sign issue is no big deal to anyone except me. If that's the case, then why bother? I've already spent a fair amount of time taking pics, uploading them, captioning them...

It's a legit concern... I've done what I can to help, don't give up on it. However, I can't go to the BAC meetings due to a schedule conflict.

[Psyfalcon]

It was a 4 way stop until some of the construction in the area finished. Seems like a good way to give a parking lot priority.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by K'Tesh

The reason that Rose Biggi isn't a 4 way stop is the MAX Tracks.

I've called on this in the past, and I was told that if there was a stop there, that there is a potential for a car being stopped on the tracks, and getting broadsided by a train.

Kinda weird, considering the Watson/Broadway/Farmington/P&W RR stoplight, but that's what I was told.

I rode over to the Milikan Way-Rose Biggi intersection...today...after reading your post. I'm not sure I understand the explanation you received, because: the light rail tracks are 80'-100' north of the intersection, and the crossing is equipped with crossing gates, lights, and I suppose the bells, though I didn't hang around to listen to them. The tracks are just to the other side of a slight hummock, but aside from this, there doesn't seem to be any more reason a car would get stopped on the tracks here than there would be at any other so equipped crossing.

[K'Tesh]

Originally Posted by wsbob

I rode over to the Milikan Way-Rose Biggi intersection...today...after reading your post. I'm not sure I understand the explanation you received, because: the light rail tracks are 80'-100' north of the intersection, and the crossing is equipped with crossing gates, lights, and I suppose the bells, though I didn't hang around to listen to them. The tracks are just to the other side of a slight hummock, but aside from this, there doesn't seem to be any more reason a car would get stopped on the tracks here than there would be at any other so equipped crossing.

I was just repeating what I was told when I called Beaverton's Public Works.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by K'Tesh

I was just repeating what I was told when I called Beaverton's Public Works.

I understand that you were just repeating what you were told. I'm saying I don't understand the answer you were given. Looking at the site, it's hard to understand the basis for the answer you were given.

[lynnef]

Originally Posted by wsbob

Yes, that's a very interesting answer to the question of why there isn't a stop sign for north-south bound traffic on Rose Biggi at its intersection with Milikan Way, because I'm guessing the light rail tracks are at least a 100' from the intersection; plenty room for a car or a truck or a semi-truck to get clear of the tracks. But maybe I'm guessing wrong. I'll check it out.

If there was actual TRAFFIC there, I might buy it. While I always stop, there is at most one car coming from the south. Not the north.

The connecting street is Westgate, not Dawson. It is Dawson W of Cedar Hills. My bad.

Go north, go around the fence a bit to the right, follow the fence north, go left through the open gate, CAREFULLY avoiding the large potholes. Continue north through the parking lot to Westgate.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by lynnef

If there was actual TRAFFIC there, I might buy it. While I always stop, there is at most one car coming from the south. Not the north.

The connecting street is Westgate, not Dawson. It is Dawson W of Cedar Hills. My bad.

Go north, go around the fence a bit to the right, follow the fence north, go left through the open gate, CAREFULLY avoiding the large potholes. Continue north through the parking lot to Westgate.

I also notice Rose Biggi traffic mostly coming from the south, and there isn't currently a lot of it...but... . This land in the general area of The Round, was/is Beaverton leaders and planners 'big idea', dating not too far in the past. If I remember correctly, the Milikan/Rose Biggi intersection and its traffic calmer/curb extension, occurred out out of the enthusiasm that centered around economic growth that The Round was hoped to generate.

I'm all kind of speculating here rather than basing on fact...that kind of energy is how Beaverton generates the momentum to go for the kind of improvements, such as the 5' wide bike lanes on Milikan.. a very nice facility. Beaverton leaders want to be a hip, with it city, with all the latest furnishings, etc. etc. That's how it gets the idea to have such things as the curb extension there at Milikan/Biggi.

The relatively new infrastructure in this area was designed and built with the idea that lots of activity...much more than is happening there currently...would be taking place. In other words, far more pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicles passing through the intersection and traveling the streets. To handle that kind of load, things have to be able to flow smoothly.

It's with this awareness in mind that I'm bemused by the fact that the city would approve a design for Milikan Way that obstructs the sign that bike lane users need to be able to see, to understand the bike lane is ending. And why, informing of the end of this bike lane, would city traffic engineers approve use of the difficult to readily comprehend symbol sign, when, as Simple Nature reminds us in an earlier comment, simple word signs with a bike symbol are used elsewhere?

If it's an hour of the day when traffic is on the street, a cyclist not merging in the bike lane before the end of the bike lane will typically find themselves having to pause at the stop sign, blocked by the curb extension from proceeding further, waiting for two to three cars in the main lane to proceed through the intersection, even though the cyclist may have arrived at the intersection first. That's not an example of infrastructure working as I imagine its designers envisioned it working.

This is why I get a little frustrated with traffic engineers that seem not to have a solid appreciation of the in practice usage of infrastructure designs like this one, that they approve.

[biciclero]

It almost seems like all bike lanes should disappear when entering a 20mph zone such as this one. There would be no need for late merging or signage if there were no bike lane here.

I ride this every day, and it is true that you can see the actual end of the bike lane before you can see/comprehend any signs warning of it. You go through there about once before you realize that early merging is your best bet.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by K'Tesh

It's a legit concern... I've done what I can to help, don't give up on it. However, I can't go to the BAC meetings due to a schedule conflict.

Haven't really given up, but thinking the situation over, and reflecting on my last effort with the bike lane ends sign and catch basin over on Hall Blvd, I can't help feeling that city officials aren't going to do anything.

On Hall Blvd, the effort got the sign moved and the branches trimmed so the sign can be seen. That helped, but the catch basin remains, unfixed, going on a couple years after I first mentioned it to the city.

This situation on Milikan is more complicated. The tree limbs could be trimmed to afford a view of the sign from a bit farther back...maybe 50' further... . That would give bike lane users more advance notice that a merge is in order, bringing some of them to decide to transition left into the bike lane before the bike lane actually ends at Rose Biggi.

The bigger problem with the east-bound bike lane ending at Milikan, is that the bike lane itself is not designed to transition bike traffic into the main travel lane.

Despite the difficult to read symbol sign advising bike lane users that bike lane traffic must merge with main lane traffic, the bike lane itself continues to draw bike lane users to where the traffic calming curb extension blocks it from proceeding further, rather than having bike lane traffic smoothly merge with the main lane in advance of the Rose Biggi intersection.

I could run this situation past Beaverton City Traffic Engineer Jabra Kasho, but I've got a strong feeling he'll say he can't do anything much about it. That was who I was advised by the bike advisory committee to inquire of the last time around. It's also another reason I kind of felt taking this to the bike advisory committee was probably not going to be productive. There would probably just have said 'Go see Jabra'.

A lot of this bike lane infrastructure seems to be new territory, for which well thought out designs don't yet exist in the spec books. That means extra work...proposals, applications, time periods to wait for, which I suppose city employees aren't very enthusiastic to take on for situations like this one.

I haven't checked through the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, recently released by the The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), which Maus wrote about this week in a main page story. Maybe there's a design in that manual that could address a situation like this better.

There are, I think, a number of reasons why this particular infrastructural situation is important, but one that probably should strike a chord with bikeportland readers, is that a good length of Milikan Way, and it's intersection with Rose Biggi, are an example of the 'Neighborhood Greenways' concept that Portland and its bike advocates have been very excited about. Yes, we have that fancy stuff out here in Beaverton too.

So when what on paper looks like a beautiful scheme, doesn't work too well in actual use, that's a problem that threatens the success of future use of the concept.

[wsbob]

Just a couple minor update notes for today:

I added some relevant bits of information to some of the captions of the picture series (see the series here: Millikan Way eastbound btwn CHB and Rose Biggi Av/ 'bike lane ends' treatment). Noticed also, that to this date...for whatever reason, picture #8 has received a significantly disproportionate number of views than the other pics have.

....and noted in one of the picture captions, but I should also probably mention here, that for some reason, the bike lane ends symbol sign is not among the signs included in the MUTCD ('manual of uniform traffic control devices'...the feds official manual on that sort of thing). I'm not suggesting the use of the sign is illegal in this situation, because I don't actually know for sure. I give the City of Beaverton benefit of the doubt that to use the symbol sign, it followed whatever procedures were required for permission to use a sign that's not in the manual.

Examples of MUTCD approved signs, or combinations thereof, that those of us reading here might consider in lieu of the symbol sign on Milikan Way eastbound at Rose Biggi, can be found on page 125 (W4-2, a merge symbol), and pg 793 ( R3-17 and R3-17bP, 'Bike Lane', and 'Ends'.). I'd just post the images here, but I don't seem to be able to figure out how to do that from the copy saved to my computer.). There's something to be said for the intended purpose of the symbol sign in place now, but it's almost as if the effort is defeated by too much info crammed onto the little available space using lines and symbols that are too small and fine.

Originally Posted by biciclero, comment #18

It almost seems like all bike lanes should disappear when entering a 20mph zone such as this one. There would be no need for late merging or signage if there were no bike lane here.

I ride this every day, and it is true that you can see the actual end of the bike lane before you can see/comprehend any signs warning of it. You go through there about once before you realize that early merging is your best bet.

The bike lanes seem worthwhile having on this street, because looking into a future where a wider representative range of cyclists are on the street, many of them may choose not to ride 20mph, or even 15mph. Motorists of course, are inclined to travel at least 5mph over the posted limit. 5mph over, to me, easily seems reasonable, barring the presence of other slower traffic, pedestrians, etc. before them.

I'd agree that regular cyclist users of this street are likely to catch on to the idea that an early merge from the bike lane into the main lanes is a good practice for the sake of safe traveling and for the having traffic on the street flow better. Information intended to be conveyed by the sign though, is not merely for cyclists road users; it's also for motor vehicle operators traveling the east bound lane. All road users will benefit by the sign being visible to east bound traffic approaching the end of the bike lane.