First Look: ODOT’s big changes to North Denver Avenue

People on bikes are just as vulnerable to auto traffic as people on foot:

The new signal at Schmeer is helpful. It will tame speeds and it comes with marked crosswalks. The new buffered bike lane continues north of Schmeer as you head toward Victory Blvd:

Now watch what happens as you approach Victory Blvd (Denver ends into an I-5 on-ramp here). First, the buffer ends:

Then the quality of the bike lane deteriorates as it becomes narrower and grates pop up:

That’s Victory Blvd in the distance and you can see that ODOT has all but given up on the bike lane:

And here’s where the new buffered bike lane ends up. That right-turn arrow on the left directs people up onto the I-5 freeway:

The end of the new bike lane on Denver at Victory Blvd (as shown above) is just 0.11 mile to the entrance of Delta Park, a major destination with 12 soccer fields, many baseball diamonds, and the main path people take to get to Vancouver. It would have been amazing to connect the new bikeways on Denver to Delta Park instead of making people take the lane in this very intimidating section of road:

This is the view from the entrace to Delta Park looking back toward Denver. This 0.11 mile stretch is a bummer of a gap:

Now, let’s ride south back to Kenton from Victory Blvd.

The gap between Delta Park and the new multi-use path adjacent to PIR is 0.2 mile. Here’s the view approaching N. Expo Road and the new path:

Looking back east at Expo Road and Victory Blvd at the end of ODOT’s new path:

A bit closer up. Wouldn’t it have been great to create a bikeway on Victory to make this crucial connection?! (I’m also a bit disappointed that ODOT didn’t take the new path all the way to the actual entrace of PIR. Now folks have to either ride in the grass, or enter the roadway, cross the street, then cross again a few hundred feet north):

Looking north where the path ends at Victory Blvd:

OK, back to the good news. The new path from Victory Blvd north toward Schmeer is fantastic!

ODOT built a new road for auto traffic (on the left), so that means the new path is super-wide in this section because it’s actually using the old roadway:

Here’s where the path begins to dip down to connect to the Columbia Slough path west of Denver:

New signage:

Looking back (north) with the Columbia Slough path on the left, an unused entrance to PIR in the middle, and the new path on the right:

And then one of the best parts of this project — Schmeer Road is now carfree:

Going under Denver toward Columbia Slough path eastbound:

Right takes you to Columbia Slough path:

Looking back (west) at Denver from Columbia Slough path:

And the carfree Schmeer section looking west:

As you can see above, the new striping of the carfree section of Schmeer looks like a typical road. That’s problematic because I think many people won’t understand that the lanes separated by dotted yellow are for cycling and the white shoulder lane is for walking. I think ODOT should strongly consider adding large pavement markings to make it clear where to ride and walk. (UPDATE: ODOT says they had to maintain standard striping like this because of the lease that Portland Parks & Rec has on the road. PP&R runs PIR (the racetrack) and this road is still going to be used by the racetrack operators during some permitted events).

In the video below I show you how fantastic this new connection is (and you can see how lane-use needs to be a bit more clearly defined):

Back up on Denver Ave, the new buffered bike lane starts right at Schmeer:

Here’s a close-up of the buffer and those raised bumps I mentioned earlier:

Unlike the east side, there’s no sidewalk on the west (southbound) side of Denver. Here’s how the cross-section looks from above:

The buffer ends as you approach Argyle and make your way into Kenton’s commercial district:

Now that I’ve shown you all the new bikeways, I want to share a few more thoughts about the protected sidewalk. Because it makes such a great — and physically protected — connection to the Columbia Slough path and the newly carfree Schmeer Road, I have no doubt a lot of people will ride bikes on this sidewalk. That’s not entirely a bad thing. However, the sidewalk is only a smidge over six-feet wide which means there’s not a lot of room to pass people on foot much less other people biking.

Another issue is that when people use this sidewalk to get back into Kenton, they’ll come to this awkward intersection with Argyle that will put them back onto the roadway in an unexpected place:

The other issue with the sidewalk design are the bolts ODOT has left sticking out of the guardrail. They’re several inches long and unfinished. I actually saw two men pass by each other on the sidewalk. One was biking, the other was walking. The man walking moved over and his jacket snagged on one of these bolts:

If your arm grazes one of these while biking by it will result in a nasty cut. With all the traffic this relatively narrow sidewalk will get, ODOT might want to consider filing these screws down.

And one final thought. Now that this section of Denver has been designed to encourage bicycling and walking, its 45 MPH speed limit is way too high (especially next to 12-foot wide lanes):

Despite my quibbles, there’s a lot to celebrate with this project. I just hope in the near future we can get more protected bike lanes and have those lanes connect to important nearby destinations like Delta Park and the shopping center at Portland Meadows (N Whitaker Ave. is in dire need of better bike access).

For more information, check out ODOT’s official project page.

UPDATE, 3:05pm: ODOT says the bolts extending into the sidewalk are already on their radar and issue will be resolved.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org