City puts cycling on sidewalk for safety at tricky northeast intersection

I first saw this design at the Bicycle Advisory Committee and had a strong reaction. I sent Roger several alternative designs (one of which in preserved in a Bikeportland article! https://bikeportland.org/2018/12/07/adventures-in-activism-tools-of-the-trade-292832). I know that PBOT spent time evaluating them, and tried to find other alternatives.
At one point it seemed likely the design would change, but then reverted back to the original.

The issue Roger mentioned was that Prescott is classified as a Major Emergency Response route which and fire trucks would not be able to navigate the turn with significant changes were made to the footprint of the street. This was also supposed to be a small $ change, which also eliminates possible reconstruction of the sidewalk.

Eh, it is about what you expect for $10k. Let us spit the difference between the greenways. 37th, 32nd and 9th. PBOT said no to major diversion on 32nd when the community asked for it.

Then on 7th and maybe 9th it looks like they may bail on diversion as well. Here since a robust intersection redesign with diversion was never on the table, who know what a real retrofit will happen..

Thus, I suggest we retrofit 32nd with as much diversion as possible and call it the mainline bikeway. Once the community is used to it, come back and built out another one around 15th. This endless debate will never get consensus and just serves to delay needed projects

Why not a simple Stop Sign on Prescott St on both sides of 37th.

This is an embarrassment for a city that has been designated Bronze, much less, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

The “City that Works” can’t even keep car parts debris out of the designated (inadequate) bike space and can’t be bothered to trim branches that smack a cyclist in the face or get the property owner to do it.

I can’t say enough bad about this project.

I live across the park from this intersection, and I’ll continue to take the lane like I’ve done every time since I moved to the neighborhood ten or 12 years ago.

The only saving grace is that 37th doesn’t have all that much car traffic in either direction, and drivers have to slow anyway for the dogleg that is Prescott and there’s pretty good sightlines, so usually I feel pretty safe. But this is definitely a PBOT disaster. Try again.

Agree, total crap, and encourages me to ignore the infrastructure and take the lane, just like I do on 7th now that it’s been deemed “not for bikes” by the City.

I ride a cargo bike with a large box (3 kids wide). This intersection is on the bike route to my daughter’s preschool. I avoided it before because it never felt safe riding with kids, and I will avoid it now because it doesn’t feel safe riding there with kids (and there is no way I could fit on that ramp). I prefer using NE 35th Ave to cross Prescott. The sight lines are better and I can see the signal at 33rd and Prescott (as well as the traffic that inevitably gets backed up and stopped there) to easily cross.

Why cross here at all? Just cross a couple blocks west of this mess and your troubles are over.

What would be interesting would be to see what would happen if concrete jersey barriers were placed on the centerline of Prescott just east of the crosswalk on the upper “leg”, and just west of the crosswalk on the lower “leg”, along with a single concrete jersey barrier on the centerline of the N-S section of Prescott. Then paint our beloved green “crossbike” stripes right down the middle of both lanes of Prescott on the N-S segment. This would leave openings for turning between Prescott and 37th, ostensibly not impeding traffic in the slightest; just “suggesting” where motor vehicle operators ought to guide their vehicles. It wouldn’t even divert anyone from any current roadway—no detours, no STOP signs, no changes to the “flow” whatsoever. All it would do is make it uncomfortable to speed through this chicane, and impossible to cut across the center line. Might larger vehicles have trouble? Yep. Let the drivers of those larger vehicles “just go a block over” to Going or Skidmore, where they can avoid this difficulty. Might even drivers of smaller vehicles feel cramped through this intersection? Yep. Let them exercise the due care they should be using already. If they don’t care about the safety of others, at least they might care about the paint on their cars.

My guess is that the outcry would be loud and swift if such a plan were implemented, and it would likely be reversed in short order upon the realization that it was “unsafe” (due to driver incompetence or unwillingness to use appropriate caution). Nevertheless, I would say that if we can foist this low-rent, second-rate, kids’-card-table treatment on bicyclists, we can certainly expect motorists to deal with a taste of it themselves.

Just wait, this improvement can still get better. City needs to finish their work:

– missing a couple of metal sign posts bolted to the concrete right in the middle of this that reads, “bikes use sidewalk”.

– still need to apply some slippery-when-wet yellow bumpy mats right in the exact spot where the rider must execute a slow moving turn and jackknife the front wheel across some wet, smooth plastic.

I ride this route all the time with my kids on our way to New Seasons and this “improvement” is so stupid I’ve been using alternate routes to avoid it. I’m happy that the city is seemingly trying to improve bike routes but this was a misstep for sure.

That photo of the arrow pointing toward the pile of broken car parts is poetic. It belongs in the same gallery as all the images of “Bike Lane Ends” signs, a meme that will never grow stale.

Cobbles into off-camber flanked by meter-thick basalt pillers. Graphic tippy-car signs, some variant of the bike-in-track sign.