The Ask BikePortland question we shared on Wednesday has sparked exciting ideas and a spirited discussion about NE Ainsworth Street.
“I live directly on Ainsworth and the day I started cycling was the day I started parking my car on a side street… As a resident I would love to have the speed limit on Ainsworth reduced to 20 MPH!”
— Kerry
A wide range of opinions about riding on Ainsworth have been expressed — from people who think it’s crazy to bike there at all, to those who think it’s fine as is, to those who lament the fact that it’s so dangerous. A few of the commenters not only shared their opinions, they’ve also drawn up illustrations showing how to do it.
Steve Bozzone, who volunteers with local livable streets activism group Active Right of Way (AROW) and also maintains the Intersection 911 blog and Twitter feed, wrote in to say that he was intrigued by the “juxtaposition of a great community asset (the park in the center median) surrounded by a horrific street that people don’t want to walk on, let alone bike.”
Bozzone proposed an idea to extend the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum to one side and make the street one-way, while leaving the other side as park space and a multi-use path. (You can see Steve’s illustration of that idea at the top of this post.)
Reader David Brokaw wrote in with a different idea that he feels would make room for a bike lane…
“Instead of ripping out any of the center median, you could install recessed parking bays at varying intervals along the street. There aren’t a huge number of homes that front onto Ainsworth, so you probably would only need 2-3 stalls per block. You would only need to recess the stalls a few feet to have enough room for a bike lane.”
He also shared an illustration of it…
Another thing that came up in many of the comments is a feeling that Ainsworth’s 30 mph speed limit is too high.
The idea that NE Holman (which is just one block North) is a bike boulevard also came up. While Holman is a nice street to bike on (if you don’t mind the bumps), it seems to me that people who choose to ride a bike instead of driving a car shouldn’t have to avoid any local, residential streets.
Read more great insights and ideas about how to make Ainsworth a more livable street in the comments to our post on Wednesday. Who knows, maybe one of them will spark some action.