(Image by reader Paikiala)
One of the great joys of BikePortland comments is that they make very clear how rich and deep our city’s transportation expertise has become over the last decade.
After we wrote on Thursday about a small tweak the city made recently to the strange six-way intersection of SE Ankeny, 11th and Sandy, not one but two readers created full-color overhead mockups of alternative ways to design this awkward interchange.
The first, by reader sean, is a sort of linear park that would remove auto access for one block (immediately south of what is today a billboard) in order to reimagine “Ankeny as a destination”:
This intersection should be a pedestrian Mecca. Here’s what I would want there:
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Then, reader paikiala followed up with the double-roundabout design above:
Nice.
I envisioned a couple of low-speed mini-roundabouts that maintained access for all but the largest of trucks. It is a truck district after all.
Sean, some readers may remember, is also the person who created this terrific rethinking of Northwest Johnson Street using successive blocks of one-way traffic and this potentially prescient look at what it would take to create a full north-south bikeway through the Park Blocks from the Broadway Bridge to Portland State University.
Regular comment readers will know that paikiala is no slouch either.
Portland won’t be building either of these until it can somehow find tens of thousands of dollars to spend on improving the spot. But the reason we believe so deeply in this city is that when it can find both money and political will to improve our streets, a huge reservoir of creativity and talent is going to be unleashed.
Yes, we pay for good comments. We’ll be mailing $5 each to Sean and paikiala in thanks for these great ones. Watch your email!