At their City Council meeting tomorrow, Mayor Ted Wheeler and his colleagues will authorize an agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation to put $2 million into city coffers for the design and construction of the Seventies Neighborhood Greenway.
The money comes from a federal grant distributed by ODOT through their Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP. The total project cost is estimated to be $5 million. Once completed the route will traverse over five miles of east Portland on a circuitous path parallel to 82nd Avenue, a major arterial (owned and managed by ODOT) that’s full of destinations. The final route is yet to be determined, but initial plans call for using a variety of low-traffic side-streets between 75th and 80th. The greenway boundary would be NE Sacramento and SE Flavel streets.
Here’s the current route map (green line):
Because this project is still in its initial stages, PBOT doesn’t have much information to offer at this point. What we do know is that the project will come with the typical array of greenway tools including: traffic calming infrastructure like speed bumps and medians, new crossing treatments, paving, and new signage and pavement markings. PBOT also plans to build a new multi-use path through the Rose City Golf Course in the project’s northern end to fill an existing gap in the bikeway.
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Here’s more from the City Council ordinance:
2. There are significant gaps in the City’s bikeway network that discourage riding bikes to work, school, shopping, etc. The Seventies Greenway project will address deficiencies in this corridor.
3. The project will address these deficiencies by filling in major gaps between safe and comfortable north-south pedestrian and bicycle routes in the City.
4. Specifically, the route will provide 11 enhanced crossing treatments such as curb extensions, island, RRFBs, cycle tracks, multiuse paths, etc. for pedestrian and bicyclists at busy streets and nearby schools.
While the ordinance says the design process for this project will start immediately upon passage, PBOT Communications Director John Brady told us this morning that it will likely start early next year.
If it’s done right, the Seventies Greenway could be a crucial link in the north-south network. It’s also just one of several east Portland projects in the works at the moment. PBOT has also started design on two east-west greenways, HOP (Gateway Transit Center to 128th) and 4M (Market, Mill, and Millmain); and two more north-south greenway on the 100s and 150s. Those projects are part of the $20 million East Portland Access to Employment & Education project.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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More greenways are always good news. This one may need diverters since drivers will use it as an alternative to 82nd. We also won’t want the 70s Greenway to be used as a rationale for not improving the bikability of 82nd itself.
Technically this project is not in East Portland, but I have no doubt that East Portland residents will use the bikeway. I also have no doubt that ODOT, Metro, and Trimet will use this project to justify a complete lack of bike improvements on 82nd, and PBOT will simply roll over and play dead next time the issue comes up. All in all, it’s an effective bribe from ODOT to PBOT, money well spent, to keep PBOT and its constituents quiet about BRT on Inner Powell and Outer Division sans bike lanes on 82nd.
The map above perfectly illustrates the problem with Portland’s policy of almost never building bike facilities on main streets.
When they redid 39th/ Se Belmont, they took out the right turn lane and made room for a bike facility that still haven’t arrived. Not sure what is holding that up considering the growth of Belmont between 20th-50th.
Not sure what you’re talking about…they built a curb extension on the SW corner where the right turn lane was. There’s no room for a bike lane. Building bike lanes on Belmont would require removing curb extensions and all parking.
What Johnny said. Which is what I was told from the project manager when I called to complain about the right turn lane being removed. Yes, the city should do something to get car users from attempting to continue their attempts to turn right. We’ll see.
That facility that still hasn’t arrived makes the lane so wide that people are passing illegally on the right because they’re still used to having that lane there.
I generally agree with that statement, but having grown up off 82nd, I’d say that the huge number of driveways on every block face make this unlike many other “main streets” in Portland (e.g. Hawthorne, inner Division, Belmont) where most of your turning vehicles are at intersections. I’m not saying that 82nd doesn’t deserve facilities, just that the sheer number of driveways would make it uncomfortable to ride for any length of time even with bike lanes.
In any case, if you were coming from points north of Rose City Golf course (I live in your hood JM), which nearby greenway would you use to link up to this?
72nd or 67th?
67 th, 72nd and 77 th north. Sacramento-Alameda East-West. NE, unlike SE has a grid.
They use Copenhagenize’s “Traffic Planning for Livable Cities” template but then flipped cars with bikes …
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/02/copenhagenize-traffic-planning-guide.html
Kind of amazing that these are nearly identical mirror images!
Very true. I’d love to see something happen to 72nd. While it does have some twists and turns, overall it is pretty straight. People could use SE Lincoln to beat the hill on Tabor and ride on 76th as a nice alternative.
It’s a bit further up the hill, but the greenway is on Harrison on the east side of Tabor. Lincoln’s road surface between 72nd and 76th is… perfectly fine by east Portland standards, but not great. I see a fair number of riders jog over to 76th using Division’s bike lanes or sidewalks rather than attempt the hill or cross Division to get onto 72nd since there isn’t a signal there.
I support a 72nd alignment.
I want a greenway on 82nd. Surely it will no longer become auto row, right?
i meant, _stay_ auto row
It’d be ideal if they could get rid of that worst offender bump by building it through the PCC campus and crossing at division & 80th.
I just rode there yesterday, and cut through the campus just as you suggest. It would be a good way to go.
Does the public Rose City Golf Course still making enough to stay afloat? Many golf courses have closed.
It’s a public course, and I believe there is a city golf fund (paid for with greens fees) that covers all of the expenses, so it is hard to parse out the profitability of a particular course. This fund received a bailout of nearly $1 million because the fees are failing to cover expenses:
http://www.wweek.com/news/city/2017/06/21/portlands-golf-fund-is-broke/
This, of course, is ignoring the fact that golf consumes huge amounts of public space that could be used by significantly more citizens if converted to trails, playgrounds, sports fields, etc. Rose City and Eastmoreland should be converted to public parks. Converting Rose City would allow for the construction and re-purposing of asphalt pathways to help reconnect the grid in that neighborhood. We could have bucolic, stress-free pathways running in all directions through the park, running trails, etc.
I’m waiting to see what happens with Portland Parks & Recs aquisition of Colwood. Down from 18 to 9 holes, with the rest as a natural area, with park potential.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/parks/65530
“The two bureaus will cooperate to permanently protect the natural lands and waterways that flow through the property while addressing issues of access and equity in the park-deficient Cully neighborhood. In the short term, PP&R will continue to operate 48 acres of the Colwood Golf Course as a golf facility with an emphasis on engaging local youth in golf. This locally-focused program will ensure Colwood’s neighbors have access to a lifetime recreational activity with numerous health benefits.”
Besides golf, I can’t really think of any other lifetime recreational activities with numerous health benefits… Maybe these bike greenways need to be Pitch n putt greens?
Also, every time I bike west on Tillamook along the golf course I think of how much better my ride could be on a separate bike path. Not to mention the runners in the bike lane yelling at me to get out of their way…
the whole course works pretty well as a choose-your-own-adventure bike path after dark…
Turn to page 34 if you buy the meth.
turn to page 17 if you try to ride past the shirtless man in the shopping cart.
Turn to page 99 if you turn and flee.
Compare the red and the green lines in the map above. One is nice, straight, and direct, with first class access to the businesses along the 82nd corridor. The other is… well… different.
I’d like to switch them around. Bus and bike only on 82nd. Cars can have a bunch of random streets along the fringes.
I think the 72nd option reduces those interactions. Especially compared to the map posted in the article.
I ride this route, or some semblance of it, a few times per month, and I’m sure the Greenway treatment will improve it significantly. So this is good news for me. I’m also in complete agreement that with or without a 70s Greenway, 82nd should get a road diet, bike lanes and more frequent transit service. We live just north of Madison High one block west of 82nd. The street has some decent restaurants, as well as the Lumberyard bike park, but the car traffic makes it so uninviting that we hardly ever venture onto 82nd unless we’re going somewhere else by car.
What a non-intuitive route. They’d be better off converting 72nd to a greeway as it’s quite direct and already a narrow residential street. Looking at Google’s map of existing bicycle lanes I see 52nd and 92nd/I-205 MUP and it looks like 72nd is right in the middle of that. They can put in diverters and drivers can use 52nd or 82nd to go North-South.
72nd street doesn’t go all the way through so there would probably be just as many turns and it would take you over the edge of Mt. Tabor.
Is the crossing of Powell going to have a signal of some sort? I know there are planned improvements to Powell in that area, but I’ve lost track of what they are.
And they will continue to do so even once the bike lane is striped.
I live on NE 80th and would like to see this route go down my street! Too bad it jogs over north of Glisan to start getting towards 74th, but I get that due to the zoning/future development potential of the 82nd & Halsey area. The Halsey road diet from 70th-80th should really help that cross-84 connection, too. Maybe they changed the plan since this was written about ped/bike crossings at 76/80th?
“NE 70th-80th: change the lane configuration from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction, plus a center turn lane and bike lanes. This lane reconfiguration will support the 70s Neighborhood Greenway project and include pedestrian and bike crossings at 76th and 80th.”
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/71928
The map above is out of date. The project was rescoped later to run on 80th Ave south of Halsey.
That map above is out of date. The project was later rescoped to run on 80th south of Halsey.
Thanks Momo. Unfortunately there isn’t anything else available. I asked PBOT for an update and didn’t hear anything about a new map.
The 205 path is not too far, too bad nowadays it is unsafe with a few people claiming it as their own…
LOL, you are either afraid of absolutely everyone, or you don’t ride the 205 path with any frequency. Not sure why the city doesn’t say 205 MUP is the solution here, it is 10 blocks from the proposed route and there aren’t any cars, precisely what the content of this site promotes.
It is 1/2 a mile away at its closest (and in some places nearly a mile away), and is on the other side of 82nd.
You make an interesting point though…..why don’t drivers just use 205 instead of 82nd? 205 is even closer for them.
Perfect, thanks for the measurement. So, it is between 1 and 2 miles extra distance should you want to ride a route for the north south part of your journey without cars or turns and then return to the west side of 82nd.
Granted, it’s not as bad as on the west side, where you really have to go out of your way to find decent routes. My commute is 4 miles longer in each direction because I ride over to the Hw6 26 MUP instead of taking Cornell. If I’m picking between regular near-death experiences and a longer, more pleasant ride, I know which one I’m choosing.
We should refer to it as a “grayway”. The place where cars should drive so they can stay off the rest of the streets.
At one point, perhaps during the Eastside MAX station communities planning project (late naughts), there was ambition to have a new ped/bike crossing of I-84 along 80th or 81st Ave. It would more than double the cost, but it would become a much more direct and viable alignment. All those turns are crazy.
Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn.
PBOT: “We spent millions of dollars on this “infrastructure” for you. Why don’t you ride it?”
Me: Rides away muttering.
Seriously. A dozen left turns. This is what you build when you don’t really have respect for bikes as a legitimate form of transportation. “Oh they’re riding a bike, they must not really care that much about a straightforward and efficient route.”
We’ve seen it on the ghost town 20s Bikeway and we’ll see it again here. A criminal waste of money.
As a point person for this project from the very first email five years ago I very excited that it is coming. The 2010 bike plan had ZERO Greenways between 82 ND and 72 nd. Developing one is an equity issue as this is a lower income area and contains the most ethnicity diverse neighborhoods of Madison High District, plus three middle and elementary schools, one library, several Parks, improved access to 82nd and our new $50 million community college.
The route south of Division is what I came up with after riding every roadway. Then we had multiple meetings on bikes with planners and neighborhood leaders.
This alignment connects the schools in the most direct way, as close to 82 ND as possible. To get any more direct…..as in to stay on 80 th from Halsey to Duke, would require private ROW through a shopping mall and the historic cemetery (I tried on that).
The SE 72 ND to 76 th alignment was tried by PBOT in 2007 and was told no to funding because of emergency response route (76th and 72 nd south of Foster) and less educational access.
PCCSE is a question we need to pay attention to.
The Halsey reconfiguration 65th to Gateway (I also worked on that, regional flexible funds RFF), includes a new (Wider) path under the viaduct and a new signal phase to get to the 82 ND Max station and the coming cycle track to Gateway, plus a new traffic light at 74th.
There are some planning efforts that are now calling for a new overpass around 85 th to connect to the Halsey cycle track and gateway ( unfunded, not yet in tsp.)
the 72nd Greenway north to Columbia is also funded by RFF.
Local gas tax money with connect this to the Springwater south from Flavel, which we are already discussing a bike lane modernization similar to Rosa Parks as part of the project. Not very direct, but and other route would require buying private homes.
The local neighborhoods are extremely excited that this is coming as some, like Brentwood-Darlington, have hardly seen any investment. I’m not saying it is the most direct route, and certainly we need better way finding than on the terrible 20s, but without condemning private homes and businesses it is the best route viable.
We have also endorsed the local effort to ODOT pushed by all our political leaders to get a major investment project for 82 ND, designed to Local Standards….not ODOTs……but that is a several 100 million dollar project city wide. This Bikeway, Columbia to the Springwater is about $12.
Terry Dublinski-Milton
SE Uplift Co-Chair
“The 2010 bike plan had ZERO Greenways between 82 ND and 72 nd.”
Huh?
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/44597?a=379068
You are right, 76th, I forgot about that one since it was rejected due to distance away from 82 nd very early on….while bike lanes on 72 nd have been kept long term.
I have been so embedded in the comprehensive plan I had forgotten.
Also, there are 3 reasons that 82nd is not going to have improved facilities for vulnerable traffic.
1. ODOT
2. ODOT
3. ODOT
more seriously, improved sidewalks and bike lanes (some of the stretches of sidewalk are ~5 feet wide with huge freaking poles in the middle) would require using eminent domain to purchase property. i personally support taxing the living #@$% out of wealthy folk and the home-equity rich to develop jade district community land trusts and improved transportation infrastructure but we are not quite there yet politically (give it a few years).
The home equity rich? You do realize that people cannot access the appreciation in value of their homes unless they sell them.
Personally, I would prefer to tax colleges graduates, as it is primarily those with degrees who are perpetuating inequality in our society. The more education you have, the higher your tax. That seems eminently fair.
I hope this is satire.
College grad, eh?
Yeah, begrudgingly, twice. Had to figure out a way to move here to swing income tax at 9.9% and crazy property taxes.
Not to mention the new college degree tax. Uh-oh… looks like someone’s going to be paying double.
my heart bleeds for the equity-rich owning class.
“A home equity line of credit is a second mortgage that turns home value into cash you can access as needed.”
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/home-equity-line-of-credit/
Uh… I think you meant “turns home value into debt”. It’s not like the bank just gives you money.
You’ve said some ignorant things on this site before, but this one is a doozy. I get that you are down with the oppressed and all that, but do really want people to pay another tax on unrealized income. You get that just because the value of a home goes up, people’s income does not. And in case you weren’t aware, when the a value of a home appreciates, it’s already taxed by something called the property tax. The increased value is also taxed again if and when they sell the home, which is the only time they realize any income from being “equity rich.” Given the volatility of the housing market, that’s income they may never realize. Taxing the 54 percent of Portlanders who own their own home is really going to stick it to the 1 percent. Let’s double down and increase the rate on homeowners living on fixed income!
* measure 5/50 caps property tax increases to among the lowest levels in the nation (and esp so for wealthier folk who live in older neighborhoods).
* capital gains tax exemption allows a couple to bank $500,000 in profit over amortized purchase price tax free. this is disgusting.
No it’s not disgusting, it’s one of the few ways at a middle class and lower middle class people can provide for a retirement without having to eat dog food so they can afford their prescriptions.
Someone with hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity is not middle class.
https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state-metropolitan-4135839
Moreover, upper two quintile homeowners have, IMO, been a major barrier to addressing the inequity and displacement that is a major concern of people living in Montavilla and the Jade District.
Simply assigning your own definitions to common terms does not transform a weak argument into a good one.
Why don’t we just use this definition? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class
According to this site, Oregon property tax ranks 30 out of 50, where 50 is highest. I other words, our rates are well above the middle.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585/
I was really excited to find BikePortland. I still really enjoy parts of it but find the forums pretty toxic places at times. There seems to be a handful of select users who dominate the discussions and are pretty polarizing folks. I can see why many sites just abandon user comments all together. It’s better to just get out there and ride! : )
Hi Toby. Glad you found BikePortland. I’m glad you are here. I agree with you that a handful of people leave too many comments — and in so doing they dominate the conversation, drown out other voices, and generally make this a place to settle personal scores instead of an agora that welcomes debate from everyone in the community. I am constantly trying to make the comments better. Please feel free to email/text me to let me know if you see an inappropriate/insensitive or otherwise unwelcoming comment and I will read it and consider deleting or moderating it.
I believe this comment section is a very valuable part of BikePortland and our city in general. Please stay involved if you can. Thanks!
Discussion of classism and racism may be “polarizing” but they are relevant given the redlining, displacement, and neglect that has created such vast inequity in the Portland metro area.
Hi Terry, congratulations on this. I know that you have worked very hard for this. Just wonder your thoughts about it connecting to The Springwater Corridor?
Hi Carol,
I just emailed the planner the other day. A new path through Flavel Park, a few blocks of residential Roadway improvements and a new connection to the Springwater at 77 th IS FUNDED as part of the Gas Tax voters approved. Since the tax is taking in more than expected, a connection to the 87th Bikeway is funded as well. Outreach should start next year, timed with the rest of the route north of Flavel.
That was the best we could do without buying up homes to build new connections. Probably with a million of so we could make a more direct path, but even then it would require condemning unwilling property owners.
Thanks Terry for the update and again sincere appreciation for all of the great work. Looking at the diagram it seemed as though it was not not coming to Springwater and stopped at Flavel. but this great for the Springwater Corridor users and will provide many more connections off of and around dangerous 82nd. I know you have worked so hard for so long! We are glad to help in some way if we can
No, you turn left at Y and go to z then turn right again, I think.
Sorry but this is just slop from the pig’s trough. Typical placating from government.
I live near 80th and cycle part of this route on my commute. In Montavilla, 79th/80th is a very pleasant walking/cycling route (if the cut-through traffic from 82nd could be addressed), and it connects neighborhood schools and commercial destinations. I’ve done ped/bike counts on 80th in Montavilla, and the numbers rivals some much closer-in neighborhoods . The inclusion of the picture of 80th/Mill (vs. 82nd) is a little misleading in my view, as that stretch of 80th is part of an upcoming LID (on Mill but extended to 80th down to PCC); in 2019, it will be repaved (and paved where previously unpaved), and there will be sidewalks added. Unlike some on this page, I really don’t understand the push to get bikes on 82nd. 82nd is an exhausting environment to spend a lot of time on as a cyclist or pedestrian. Instead, what I would like to see as part of this project 1) is improving the connections from the planned 70’s greenway to destinations on 82nd (there’s an unpaved stretch at Woodward and 79th that would connect straight to Fubonn, for instance), and 2) safer crossings of 82nd (the distances between signalized intersections in this stretches of 82nd are huge.) And, as mentioned previously, straightening the route to go through PCC is a no-brainer. To clarify, this is not an East Portland route (we’re the forgotten middle!)
The finishing of the Everette Greenway east to Vestal is included in this project. I fought hard for that. There is also the connection to 80s Bikeway at Holiday that I think I also funded through a different souce
The connection easy from Woodward past 82 nd I believe is funded as part of “connected Jade” but again, I can not remember if was a “High priority for next funding round” or included in the connected Jade list of funded.
Further south we are working as well, but crossing 82 nd…..well, you understand.
This will be amazing! My 6yo son hates biking over the unpaved rocky mess on the way to Vestal. I can’t wait to tell him!
It’ll be interesting to see how they tackle that weird hill/driveway to the two houses/apartments there.
I agree with all you say. As a resident of 80th near PCC, I like how much this will help kids biking to Vestal and Bridger Elementary, students headed to PCC, and all of us trying to get to nearby neighborhood commercial areas.
i suspect that many of the people complaining above the lack of bike lanes (and BRT) on 82nd voted for kate brown.
voting for the corrupt republican-in-all-but-name enabler of the oregon highway department and then complaining about the lack of active and mass-transit options on OHWD roads is a form of hypocrisy.
You can’t seriously think 82nd would have been better off with Bud Pierce, do you? And even if everyone complaining about 82nd had changed their vote, it would have made no difference in the outcome. I declare this argument a straw man.
minor correction: there are bike lanes on 82nd in clackamas (lovely irony).
Greenway projects should have built in triggers for immediate car traffic diversion that are stated at the beginning. We could go with something like the current standards.
1. 3 deaths of vulnerable road user units* within a year that are blamed on the vulnerable road user.
2. 2 deaths of a VRU units within a year undeniably caused by the driver with witnesses, in broad day light, when the driver was sober and speeding based on filmed footage and 100% of residents and 5 bordering NAs agree that a diverter will not inconvenience them or theoretically lead to increased traffic on any street within .5 miles of the diverter.
3. 500 injuries/year to VRU units with each VRU notifying PBOT, ODOT and Metro in writing and by phone to the safety complaint line and on the website of each agency. Must have two witness statements and no history of advocating for bikes. If the incident is tweeted, it will not count toward the total. Must seek care in an emergency room resulting in charges greater than $2,000.
4. 1,000,000 complaints/ year from 1,000,000 VRU units reported as above.
*1 VRU unit = A person who is of optimal socioeconomic status, age, race and ethnicity to attract social empathy; is experienced riding a bike, but not too experienced as to be considered a cyclist; is wearing bright reflective yellow clothing; is biking at the appropriate time of day; is riding in the door zone but not in the door zone if car doors are involved; wearing a helmet with a mirror; bike is equipped with a bell, reflectors and lights that are on and produce > 1000 lumens; has 5 unrelated witnesses that will swear under oath that the person always say “on your left”; has an extensive network of family and friends who will now dedicate their lives to advocating for road safety or have influence with state or local officials; lives west of 50th. Otherwise, the VRU unit is modified to a range of .1 to .9 VRU units based on the absence of the above criteria.
Of course ODOT is willing to spend $2M on this. This project, they’ll assert, allows them to avoid the requirements of the Oregon Bicycle Bill (ORS 366.514), which would require them to include bike facilities in any reconstruction of 82nd Ave.
The authors of that law could never have imagined that they were writing a loophole that would one day be used to declare a bike route that is at times almost a half-mile from their highway to substitute for real bicycle investments on that highway.
The shortest most direct routes should go to people putting the most effort to get there and to vehicles with occupancy higher than 8. While I appreciate any improvement, I’m tired of doglegging everywhere. When I’m riding I want to enjoy the same freedom of movement, direct routes, and relative safety I get when I’m in the mom van.
Thanks Jon, and sorry if I sounded like I was trying to tell you how to moderate your site. But this is exactly what I’m talking about.