New bikeway signage to ‘encourage people to get out of their automobiles’ coming to South Waterfront

It’s really frustrating that we ended up with these horrible door-zone bike lanes in the South Waterfront. Between the vehicles parked over the line, random doors flinging open, and double-parked trucks/Ubers, the lane is quite hazardous. I hardly ever feel safe using it. Eliminating street parking and creating protected lanes here would be a big improvement.

This solution by PBOT/Metro is somewhat hilarious to me. The people mostly using parking here during the week are OHSU workers. It’s a poor use of parking if people are running out every 4 hours to top up the machine for a 10 hour stay. Then there’s the OHSU commuters who park on the street across from Schnitzer Lot and under the Marquam Bridge because there’s no parking meters and low enforcement. Same with Sw Harbor Way near the end of the MUP.

This is fine, to add signage, but the real improvement is for PBOT to stop building new East West roads in the S Waterfront with street parking on both sides and only sharrows. When OHSU redevelops more, there will be a few new roads and the plans only call for sharrows. The roads will connect future Bond Ave extension (adjacent to the river and pending Zidell development). Sure it’s only two blocks but every building here also has underground parking. Why do we need the street to have two sides of parking?

Other issue is that the current Moody bike lane after the OHSU portion is entirely in the door zone and next to streetcar tracks. There’s nowhere to swerve if someone does swing open their door.

The Bond Ave bike lane is also door zone. At Gaines St and Bond, the parked cars create low visibility and E-W drivers either just cross like idiots without looking or encroach significantly into the intersection before gassing it.

What I’m saying is… parking is the problem here… not wayfinding signs. Make the two lane street 1 lane and make the other lane dedicated for the streetcar. The solution is pretty simple but like with most transportation issues, requires leadership.

Not discounting the door zone issues that others have pointed out, I find the wayfinding signs around town so very helpful, especially when I’m in a ‘new part of town’. Just last night I was riding in NE and some of the streets had been newly paved (yeah!) but the sharrows were painted over (boo!) and I missed two turns because I didn’t know that’s where I wanted to go :). And there weren’t any wayfinding signs. I don’t like to always need to have Google tell me how to navigate and weirdly the sharrows and signs give me more freedom to ‘roam’ but still get home than others.

Of course in the part of Portland that I ride all the time I rarely pay attention to and often go my own route instead of the designated one, but if you’re not used to a place they are a great help!

“What did you do, Grandfather, to avert the climate catastrophe?”

Why, I created signs to encourage drivers to ride bikes instead! And it *really* *worked*!! 😉

The project’s description is a bit weird: “…with the southernmost signs encouraging riders to venture to Willamette Park along the rail trail…”

There is no “rail trail”. There’s the Willamette Greenway Trail, along the river, which sometimes is near the rail line, but often not. Walking or riding along the rail line is illegal trespassing.

I had to venture through the south waterfront area recently. Even after checking the route on maps, I still ended up in the middle lane of a busy road, unable to get to the curb because of the tram tracks. Then there was the elevator? That I had to take to get to where I thought I was supposed to go, but ended up going the wrong way as there were no signs visible when I got off. Return trip was a little easier, but I still had to improvise a route after turning off the trail at the wrong spot.
Will signs help? Hope so but as it stands, south water front is a place I will ride only if I have no other choice.