City’s latest experiment to protect NE Couch bike lane has failed

jersey barriers. nuf said.

I was on a bus last night going through this area and the bus driver veered well into the bike lane even though there was plenty of room on the left.

Reminds me of the same problem on the Broadway -> Lovejoy turn, where the barriers were gone within a week.

It’s frustrating that these obvious indicators that drivers are reckless and unconcerned with safety are so casually dismissed instead of making everyone see the actual conditions in which bike riders risk their lives daily.

While some of these corners might not be designed well, it’s really not that hard to drive correctly and not into the bike lane. This is an issue in many more places and it’d be nice to see something done about these as well. The ones that come to mind for me are on NE 20th/21st at Tillamook and just north of Irving, on Sandy at the I-84 west on ramp and NE 57th/Cully north of Fremont.

Both Lovejoy and the Couch curves need spike strips. After a few hundred ruined tire, some of the motorists might get the message.

I think we’re all overlooking the obvious solution here, which is to remove the bike lane.

[/sarc]

I recently visited friends and family in the Chicago area. Some combination of city and state government has started installing red-light cameras that send you robo-tickets if you go through on orange, or fail to stop before the stop line. I know this because people I know hate it, and complain about it all the time. Y’know what else they do? They obey they law. They don’t creep forward into the crosswalk at red lights anymore (I did a lot of running in the ‘burbs while I was there, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a low rate of crosswalk encroachment anywhere — this in places where you hardly ever see anyone out walking, so it’s not out of widespread pedestrian sympathies). I’ve heard from people, inveterate speeders, that now slow down to the speed limit near stoplights to make sure they’ll be able to stop in time.

A little enforcement goes a long way. It doesn’t have to be a big ticket, AFAICT research seems to indicate regular enforcement is a better deterrent than giant fines. Totally automated enforcement might be out, but half-automated enforcement, where a guy with a tripod takes photos and loads of tickets are mailed at the end of the day, could be done at trouble spots a few times per year. Maybe first-time offenders could even get warnings. People will hate it, they’ll complain about how the curve is designed wrong (which is silly — any time the lane lines are painted tighter than the pavement drivers will tend to cut inside), they might even get covered in the news. They’ll also slow down and take the curve properly, which is the only thing that matters.

By the time PBOT is done with iteration after iteration of failed half measures here, they probably could have put in jersey barriers within the same ballpark of cost.

every one commenting here should call 823 SAFE and report this.

As built, that curve simply isn’t sharp enough to consistently slow traffic and/or not wide enough to accommodate buses.

Call it perverse, but I think that this traffic calming creates a safety hazard, and more pavement is the only way to fix it.

Why wasn’t this built as a raised / protected bike lane in the first place? The standard reason given for the fact that we don’t have protected bike lanes is that it’s expensive to retrofit existing infrastructure. However this is a stretch of road that was built from scratch only 6 years ago. Raising the bike lane would have only had a marginal cost, if anything.

How they do it in NYC:
https://goo.gl/maps/Yomq7juv3gJ2

Voila, a crazy scary turn becomes one of the most popular bike routes in the city.

just wow

Didn’t the city go through the EXACT same process with the bollards on Lovejoy coming of the Broadway bridge?

First they installed bollards and they were hit and removed quickly. Then the said they needed stronger epoxy. Once again, they got hit and removed. Then they “solved” the problem by doing nothing… (http://bikeportland.org/2012/01/25/once-again-bike-lane-bollards-torn-out-by-auto-traffic-on-nw-lovejoy-65907)

These half measures are a waste of money and a bullshit way to say the city is trying to improve the situation. These measures don’t work, you’ve previously proved they don’t work, yet they try the same thing again.

I’d like to see Gladstone used as a secondary test. I dodge a lot of sides of cars riding that in the morning.

Perhaps the engineers or striping crew members that read this blog can chime in on this issue: these raised pavement markers most likely failed due to their application during the winter (cold temp and perhaps partially wet pavement crevices) AND this is a very challenging location due to the vehicle wheel movement striking and pulling each RPM at an angle through the curve.

[I am assuming that the contractor followed all the manufacturer’s instructions per surface preparation, material handling (kept warm and dry before installing?) and installation. Or else this might be addressed as a warranty issue…unless PBoT waived it due to the other issues mentioned above.]

John Lascurettes
Why is the alignment not like this: http://cl.ly/2a3D3W2I0i32 ?Recommended 0

Because then the Fair-haired Dumbbell wouldn’t have room for a skybridge.

http://www.pdxmonthly.com/articles/2014/4/2/burnside-bridgehead-designers-disneyland-april-2014

I would request that the Portland PBAC to investigate this issue: is it appropriate for bike project striping and stencilling to be done in the winter/ wet months given that these locations are typically located in adverse sites (intersections or corners) with a lot of vehicle wear and wheel strikes? [Installing signage is the only appropriate winter task in my mind other than making emergency spot repairs.]

I ask the question above as:
1) I have been seeing a lot of other bikeway striping work done this winter as it was making me think that these locations would likely prematurely fail due to the challenges of surface prep, installation and protection before the materials can set up (as discussed before); and
2) if there is any institutional bias in how project resources are programmed and thus pushing bike work into less than ideal weather or time periods (this has come up in internal discussions at another local jurisdiction that striping crews have in the past predominately scheduled bike striping projects to be done at night or summer weekends so that they get higher overtime payment…the end result programmatically is that the small pot of bike money is spread to fewer projects.

My memory of other mountable delineators (hedgehogs etc.) used in the UK, NL, DE are often screwed AND glued down to avoid this problem that seems to besetting PBoT’s bike projects.

But since our mountable delination tools are here are more limited (adoption and supply)…should we fall back on a older more effective lane delineator: the 6 inch or 8 inch raised ceramic marker?

[These would be placed on the left side of the striped buffer lane so should not trigger a conflict with bikes. And a more modern version has an inset reflector.]

http://www.apexmarker.com/non_reflective_ceramic.html

Of the top of my head..the closest local use of this type of delineator are the concrete blocks with domes along the older MAX tracks in the City Center. It would be performing the same task.

The bike lane should be raised to the level of the sidewalk with a healthy buffer area by the curb.

I laughed so hard to read about this. It really is as if the engineering for these experiments is done by distracted middle school students, not dedicated, paid and trained professionals.

These kinds of episodes do little to encourage confidence in the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Is this what competence looks like? This constant “experimentation” is both damaging to esteem and completely unnecessary.

You have got to start with a solid design and work from there. All this crap about plastic stickers and signs and flashing lights is a joke and completely unacceptable on brand-new infrastructure.

How about the PPB conducts an “enforcement action” complete with advance warning signs?

A couple cops on the corner spotting people driving in the bike lane and a fleet of cops writing tickets at mid-span. We can certainly afford to lose one lane for a few hours.

Maybe the enforcement action would “educate” motorists to obey the law. Has any motorist ever been cited for driving in the bike lane in Portland?

I wish all major bike routes into downtown would receive the same amount of attention as this one. The effectiveness of the actions is open to debate, but at least the city has tried something. That can’t be said for many other routes in/out of downtown.

Does anyone continue to believe that PBOT any design ability whatever?

I like being able to ride in the traffic lane for the first curve, then slide over into the bike lane during or after the second curve. This is the fastest way through the S curve for a cyclist. Since Couch is downhill, and the lights are well timed, you can enter the S going as fast as cars, and also go through the S as fast as cars. The momentum then helps with the slight grade on the bridge.

Thus, I don’t want the bike lane elevated, or rumble strips in the buffer. A short section of barrier, right at the apex of the second curve, would be better, if we have to have anything.

I do see trucks and buses cutting that corner quite often. But I’ve not heard of any car/bike accidents as a result, and I’m not convinced a jersey barrier wouldn’t cause more bike accidents than no jersey barrier.

This is why I laugh a little (and cry inside) when I hear all the hoopla about Portland being such a bike town. Whatever.

It’s not about certain intersections, or this mistake, or that failed effort or any one particular flop. It’s about the people who design(ed) the streets, who pour the concrete and who, deep in their hearts, have no interest whatsoever in any topic other than the promotion of private automobile use over all other modes of transportation. It’s deeply entrenched in even the local folksy liberal politicians and the agencies they run, and right on up to the state highway deathtraps… to say nothing of the interstate highways that lay claim to what amounts to hundreds of millions or more of dollars’ worth of land in the central city, that I don’t see any public face to evicting from the riverbank.

I applaud Bike Portland and all the other local advocacy organizations for raising [word that would probably get this post flagged], but the problem with issue advocacy is how easy it is to throw a bone. Until we have a bicycle superhighway connecting Tigard to Gresham, every single politician that parades around and feigns interest in your cause is part of the problem.

Why they didn’t put an elevated cycle track on this one block severely curved, high-speed stretch of road is beyond me. It would have hardly broken the bank.

I suppose they’ll do what they always do, and wait til someone is killed on it before deciding to raise the design bar above mediocre.

The fact that these were ripped out so quickly – when rumble strips exist on highways – and the flex posts were ripped out too means the city is being ripped off on their epoxy supplier.

nothing a little concrete barrier wont fix. Let them try and drive into that 🙂

If these “RPM” bars are still out laying on the street…perhaps it would be opportune for bike commuters to collectively pick them up and mail them as postcards to Portland City Councillors, PBoT Director, Project Manager and City Engineer?

BikeLOUD are you out there? – help us! [The USPS will mail almost anything stamped: coconuts, etc.]

JL,
The law as written is unclear and it should be reworded – if a lawyer is required to decipher the meaning then it is of little value to most drivers – and may even be a hazard. Nowhere does Oregon law require the motorist to “move over next to but not on top of the bicycle lane”. That may be the intent, but that is not the text of the law, thus it is NOT the law. In court, you do not get “justice” you get “the law” as written to the letter and the law states:

(2)
A person may operate a motor vehicle upon a bicycle lane when:

(a)
Making a turn;

CASE DISMISSED! Gavel slams on the bench!

Clarifying this poorly written statute should be given a high priority and it should appear in all new driver handbooks. The California Rule would make right hooks less likely for cyclists, but might expose them to the dangers of other traffic if they passed a car in the bike lane on the left.

Wait, am I correctly understanding that little plastic bumps did NOT stop motorists from just driving right over the top of them? I’m so confused. How did this happen? I really thought little plastic bumps were sufficient to stop 2000lb motor vehicles.