The new buffer will be completed this week
(brown area is parking lane).
(Photo: PBOT)

The Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is taking advantage of a paving project to improve bicycle access on a major street in northeast Portland. On Friday, PBOT announced a new buffered bike lane is coming to NE Cully Blvd between Prescott and Failing streets.

This 1/3 mile stretch of road is being repaved and PBOT is taking the opportunity to re-stripe the road in order to make the bicycle lane wider and more comfortable. PBOT will add a three-foot wide buffer to the existing five-foot wide bike lanes. The start of this project is just south of the existing physically separated cycle-tracks on Cully Blvd which were completed nearly two years ago. According to PBOT, when coupled with the cycle-track, "the buffered bike lane will provide people riding bicycles with nearly one mile of separated bikeway."

This new buffered lane will also help smooth out the jarring emotional transition from the cycle-track to a standard, door-zone bike lane. It's important to note that there are two schools nearby: Harvey Scott and Rigler.

To get the space for the wider bike lane, PBOT reduced the center turn lane from 15 to 10 feet and narrowed the two standard vehicle lanes (total road width is 66-feet). (more...)

Before (left) and after images of SW Stark.
(Photos: PBOT)

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The buffered bike lanes on SW Stark — which are supposed
to be bike-only — don't work at all.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

It's been about three months since I shared my photos and thoughts about the buffered bike lanes on SW Stark street, so I figured it was time for an update. Back then I was shocked at how poorly the design of the lanes was functioning. Driver after driver after driver rolled down them as if it was just another regular lane. I'd like to think everyone knows the lanes have the same legal standing as a bike lane (which means no cars allowed); but they don't. And who can blame them? There's little/no signage, the striping has all but worn off completely, and there's no physical separation or medians to deter people from driving cars in the lane.

And in case you were wondering, from my vantage point as a daily user of this street, the problem has gotten even worse in the past three months.
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PBOT will look to prevent this type
of illegal driving.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has announced that they will analyze traffic behavior on the buffered bike lanes on SW Stark and could make changes to the street to improve bike access by the end of the summer.

On April 20th, I shared photos documenting that the buffered bike lane between 3rd and 4th was not working. Stark and Oak (its couplet one block north) were re-striped back in May 2009 in order to improve bicycling access through downtown.
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The entry to SW Stark east of 4th Ave as
seen from my office window.
(Photos © J. Maus)

When the Portland Mayor Sam Adams announced new buffered bike lanes coming to two downtown streets back in May of 2009 there was talk of "innovation" and making bikeways appealing to the "interested but concerned" demographic. Adams said at the time that, "The City wants Portlanders to be comfortable coming to downtown on a bicycle – whatever their skill level."

In the nearly three years since, it's very clear that more needs to be done for these buffered lanes live up to that promise.

In particular, one busy block of SW Stark between 3rd and 4th (which I can see from my desk as I type this) has become a joke. Many people driving cars illegally drive in the bike lane. In fact, the lane has become a de facto standard vehicle lane with many more people driving cars in it than bicycling in it. (more...)

The buffered bike lane, westbound on SW Oak.
(Photos © Elly Blue)

It was a perfect Portland morning, alternating between gray and sunny. We've been getting tips all weekend about the new buffered bike lanes being installed downtown, and I decided to ride the full length of the new lanes and see how they work.

The buffered bike lanes dedicate one out of four lanes on SW Stark and SW Oak to bikes alone. One additional lane on these one-way streets is dedicated to through traffic, and a the outer lanes are for parking cars or (sometimes) making right turns. (more...)

This drawing shows design of new buffered bike lanes. Notice how a lane of motor-vehicle traffic has been re-purposed and will now be used for bike traffic.

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