A new pair of buffered bike lanes across Lombard Street in Northeast Portland will improve both work and fun trips to the Columbia River area this summer.
The crossing will uses the bridge at 33rd Avenue to link the river and slough, as well as nearby port, airport and retail land, to the rest of the city. It also bears traffic on 33rd across a series of railroad tracks just north of Lombard.
Motivated by a resident’s call to 503-823-SAFE one year ago, the Portland Bureau of Transportation measured traffic on the bridge and concluded that the four-lane crossing was carrying only 400 motor vehicles at its peak hour, far below the street’s 1900-vehicle capacity.
“We could easily convert a traffic lane into a buffered bike lane without increasing traffic congestion,” PBOT spokeswoman Diane Dulken explained Wednesday.
The new bike lanes across the bridge are seven feet wide with two-foot buffers. The general travel lanes are 11 feet and 14 feet, respectively.
The lane work started in late April, and we’ve already seen several happy comments from users. Ryan Hashagen, who also operates the cargo trike and pedicab business Portland Pedals, wrote that he hopes it “will make getting to the slough and river much safer.”
Dulken said the change is a testament to the importance of using the city’s street safety hotline, 823-SAFE, to report issues of all sorts.
“We evaluate every single call we get,” she said.