on NW Everett.
(Image from a slide in PBOT presentation)
The Portland Bureau of Transportation plans to move forward with what their NW Everett Street Reorganization Project. The project, which we first highlighted back in January, aims to improve traffic conditions on Everett from NW 23rd to NW 15th. Impetus for the changes come from a planned re-paving project and a desire by PBOT to address safety concerns at the intersection of NW 16th and Everett.
The right-turn conflicts where Everett meets the I-405 freeway on-ramp at 16th have been a thorn in PBOT’s side for years. Collision statistics show a high rate of right-hooks and PBOT project manager Andrew Sullivan referred to the intersection as chaotic during a meeting of the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee in January. At that meeting, the committee supported a solution that would move the bike lane from the right to the left side of the street. In the following months, PBOT has refined their plans and they presented them to the Northwest District Association (NWDA) at a meeting on May 7th.
According to PBOT’s presentation shared at that meeting, the current plan is to reconfigure the lanes on NW Everett between 23rd and 19th (an area that has just been repaved, which makes new lane striping much cheaper). In that section, they’ll turn one of the two existing standard lanes into a 10-foot wide bicycle-only lane (seven-foot riding lane with a three-foot buffer) adjacent to an on-street auto parking lane…
From 19th to 15th, PBOT will put keep the two standard lanes and put the existing right-side bike lane on the left side of the street. The new bike lane will be seven-feet wide (it won’t have a buffer) and it will be adjacent to an on-street auto parking lane. (PBOT will remove the existing bike box at 16th.)
Between 16th and 15th (over I-405), PBOT has designed a mixed zone where people on bikes and cars will share the left-turn lane onto 15th. To facilitate the transition from bike-only lane to shared-lane, PBOT will install green markings followed by sharrows…
An alternate view via the official PBOT plan drawing…
An added bonus of having bicycle traffic on the left side of the street is that it makes for an easier connection to NW Flanders, a street PBOT still hopes to make into a bicycle boulevard (despite the failed attempt to install a bicycling/walking-only bridge on Flanders over I-405 back in May 2008).
East of 15th, there is no more dedicated cycling space on Everett. This is by design, as another aspect of this proposal for Everett is to do a similar treatment on Glisan, and making both streets funnel into Flanders. Check out the “Everett/Glisan + Flanders Concept” PBOT shared with the neighborhood…
Jonathan Winslow is co-chair of the NWDA’s Transportation Committee. He said they supported the new design. “I wanted to see a cycle track arrangement,” he shared with us via email after the meeting, “but there was pushback over loss of parking and more legitimately over poor visibility of bikes at many driveway crossings.”
PBOT expects these changes to Everett to have several key impacts: better bicycling connectivity from NW 23rd over I-405; safer crossings of Everett; a reduction in speeds and collisions; and longer wait times coupled with slightly increased auto congestion at signalized intersections. The new configuration also comes with the loss of up to four auto parking spaces on Everett west of 18th.
Work on the project is set to start any day now. Questions and feedback about these changes can be directed to PBOT Project Manager Andrew Sullivan at (503) 823-5234 or andrew.sullivan@portlandoregon.gov.
— For more background, read our story about the safety concerns that prompted this project.