Kaiser Permanente completes new bike path through North Portland campus

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

9 years ago

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Workers put finishing touches on the new bike path just south of N Failing Street. It opened yesterday.
(Photos: Kaiser Permanente)

Kaiser Permanente has just opened a new bike path through their campus on North Interstate Avenue. It helps close a troublesome gap and makes biking east-west through the Mississippi area and Overlook neighborhood much easier.

Back in November we highlighted concerns that Kaiser’s parking lot and a “no bicycles on sidewalks” policy was making it difficult to bike between the Failing Street Bridge (a key biking and walking-only connection across Interstate 5) and southbound Interstate Ave. Those concerns were heard by Kaiser staff and now they’ve made good on their promise to fix the situation.

Molly Haynes, Kaiser’s director of community health (who also happens to enjoy bicycling and is engaged in the local advocacy scene) hosted a meeting with Kaiser staff and a bike safety expert from the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

We discussed the issue and many possible solutions. The one we settled on was to build a new bike path that would take people from the bridge, through the parking lot and onto Overlook Drive (which meets Interstate with a signal).

Yesterday we heard from Haynes that the new path is completed and ready for use!

She sent over a few photos…

Looking south from Failing St just as you come off the bridge.

Looking northeast toward the Failing bridge from the Kaiser parking lot. They removed one auto parking space to create room for the bike path.

Here’s another look at same angle with completed striping.

Looking north at Failing Street.

There are still some additional sharrow markings through the parking lot and onto N Overlook that are being considered.

This is a great example of people making their voices heard about a concern, a private company (working with PBOT) taking those concerns seriously, and then — and most importantly — doing something about it.

If you have ridden this new path let us know how it works.