A five-day closure of NW Naito Parkway begins tomorrow morning at 7:00 am. The closure is due to a City of Portland Bureau of Transportation project to repair the Union Pacific Railroad tracks that cross the road as it passes under the Steel Bridge.
The closure will last from tomorrow morning through 6:00 pm on Monday, August 8th.
PBOT will have a signed detour for north and southbound bike traffic (see map below the jump)…
Northbound bike traffic will head onto the path in Waterfront Park at NW Couch and use the path to cross tracks. Southbound bike traffic will be routed onto the sidewalk just north of the tracks, then it will be routed across Naito via the crosswalk north of the tracks onto the east sidewalk where it will join the Waterfront Path to continue south. Bike traffic can rejoin Naito at NW Couch or continue southbound in Waterfront Park.
I’ve asked PBOT for more details on what exactly “railroad track repair” entails. It would be great to smooth out the pavement near these tracks. (Many of you might recall these tracks because this portion of Naito Parkway was on the most recent Sunday Parkways route.)
More importantly, I’ve also asked if there’s a chance they will take this opportunity to finally stripe the bike lane and close the “Naito Gap” that has existed since June 2007. Currently there is a bike lane on Naito that ends just before the Steel Bridge overpass and then starts up again on the other side.
PBOT is already aware of the Naito Gap and has even shared plans on how they intend to fix it; but the gap remains.
I’ll update this story and/or post a separate one once I hear back.
Thanks for reading.
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Please close the gap and provide a crosswalk across Naito at Glisan. Everyday i watch visitors, tourists, and locals enjoy the Esplanade and Tom McCall Waterfront Park, only to deadend into the Bike lane on Naito. Please create a safe crossing into downtown from the park onto Glisan, next to ODOT HQ and South of the Railroad tracks.
It would have been great if they had fixed this BEFORE the Downtown/NW Sunday Parkways ride, but at least it’s getting done. (Or am I thinking of a different crossing?) Fortunately, when we came up on this, there was a Segway user stopped, holding up traffic, trying to figure out how to get past the huge gaps, so we slowed way down.
Scofflaw Segway community.
Also creating a bike connection from Waterfront Park across Naito to Flanders would help.
+100% I do the waterfront park > Naito > left turn to sidewalk south of the tracks > connector to flanders to get to my work (across the street from ODOT).
Too right, Dwaine. And it would have been nice if Sunday Parkways had warned users of the obstacle at that particular spot. Impossible to do a perpendicular cross of the rails that that spot and stay on the route. I know, I tried.
At the time we rode through there, there were at least three Sunday Parkways volunteers warning cyclists about the tracks. But some people were blowing through the area at a high speed (which one shouldn’t do on Sunday Parkways rides) and not paying attention to the volunteers.
Same for us, about 2:30pm. The superheros were in the road, warning every single rider, directly person-to-person (I went over, back, and over again in the course of about 15 minutes, and they warned me each time). There were also orange cones approaching the crossing and all the way across, from both sides. There was lots of room to swerve a LWB recumbent trike perpendicular to the tracks. Even with all that, I heard a bike go down on the crossing, a little ways behind me (no injury, fortunately). I’m glad to hear that crossing is getting fixed.
Yes, a designated crossing (w/ HAWK?) and bike lanes through there would be even better, although that probably means more work than they’re doing at this time. As the picture shows, it’s a bit tight for 4 car lanes plus 2 bike lanes.
I really miss the path along the river between the McCormick Pier apartments and the river from the railway tracks to Albers Mill, which has been effectively closed(as a travel corridor) for over a year due to the settling of a small (about 10 ft) section.
Any word as to whether the condominium association or whoever is responsible intends to repair this section and reopen this presumably private path to the public?
I think that part might be getting repaired. The recent times I’ve been through there, it’s looked like something (more) is happening. The downside is that the connection to the path from Naito Pkwy and the bridge over the south side of Union Station is now also closed. You used to be get back on it there.
On Friday UPRR closed the waterfront bike trail to bicyclists (and pedestrians). There were no signs posted anywhere until I got to the ‘orange cones’ on the south side and a construction worker told me I could not cross.
This was really a surprise and seems unreasonable. Couldn’t a warning/detour for cyclists and pedestrians been noted at the closest pedestrian crossing (NW Davis St, which I had to cycle back to). Normally I wouldn’t have cared as much, but I forgot a helmet that day so I was trying to avoid streets/auto traffic as much as possible.