(Photos © J Maus)
I’ve been hearing from a lot of you about sharrows popping up on streets throughout the city of late. Up on the Alameda, all over North Portland, down on SE Clay Street — it seems like PBOT is putting them in all over the place. And the truth is, they are!
than the old bike boulevard “dots”.
As I reported back in April, PBOT got a federal stimulus grant to pay for the markings along bicycle boulevard routes. I followed up yesterday with PBOT project manager Kyle Chisek for an update on the installations.
Chisek says that by next week, PBOT will have 656 sharrows on the ground and they’ve got 1,500 more to go. In total they’ll lay down 2,100 sharrows. Chisek says rain has hampered installation a bit, but as dryer weather comes, crews will make up for all the rainy days.
Streets they’ve completed installation on include:
- SE Spokane, Umatilla, and 19th in Sellwood;
- N Central, Wabash, Bryant, Concord, and Williams (north end) in North Portland;
- and NE Holman and Klickitat in Northeast Portland.
far as they eyes can see.
Still to come and in progress are:
- NE Klickitat (remaining), Alameda, Going, and Tillamook/Hancock in Northeast;
- SE Ankeny, Salmon/Taylor, Lincoln/Harrison, Clinton, Ladd, Center/Gladstone, and Mill in Southeast;
- NW 24th, Raleigh, Overton, Johnson and Flanders in Northwest.
- SW Westwood, Cheltenham in Southwest. (*These streets added after post was originally published)
“Summer should be pretty busy,” says Chisek.
Have you come across some of these new sharrows? What do you think about them? I think they’re great. They send a clear signal to other road users that they should expect bikes and they help reinforce the idea that bikes belong and have a legal right to take the lane.