(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced that they’ll fully close North Greeley Avenue for five days next week in order to complete a project that will repave the street and add a new protected bike path.
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This $1.8 million project was first planned over three years ago but has been beset by delays. Greeley is a major north-south artery that provides access between downtown, Swan Island, and St. Johns. It has a history of crashes involving bicycle riders due to the high speed of drivers, lack of bikeway protection, and a horribly designed southbound bike lane that requires riders to merge across an Interstate 5 on-ramp.
In December 2019 a Multnomah County Judge found PBOT negligent for the design and awarded $350,000 to a crash victim to settle a lawsuit.
PBOT’s solution is to build a two-way path on the east side of Greeley between N Going and the start of the existing path just west of Interstate Avenue. A concrete barrier will be erected adjacent to the path to separate bicycle users from others. The two-way path will be 11 to 12-feet wide (with shy distance from the wall, the two bike lanes will only be about 5-feet wide). By comparison, PBOT has increased the width of the adjacent lane to 12-feet to accommodate a high volume of large trucks that access Swan Island.
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To access the path, southbound bicycle riders will have to cross Greeley with a diagonal signal at Going. The signal will give bicycle users a separate phase to increase safety.
In a statement today, PBOT said the project will be completed by mid-summer following a full closure from June 15th to 19th.
Hopefully this time it will actually happen.
We were first promised this project in spring 2017; but a city contracting glitch pushed it back a year. Then it was supposed to be built last summer, only to be delayed again. A PBOT sign posted near the project a month or so said construction would be done by February 2020.
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Suffice it to say we’ll believe this project is done when we see it. And we remain skeptical that two-way bike traffic (one direction going fast downhill) sharing 5 to 6-foot wide lanes will provide an adequate level of service for bicycle users. Here’s to hoping!
If you use Greeley, alternate routes are Interstate or Mississippi Hill/N Michigan Ave Greenway. Learn more about this project in our archives or at PBOT’s website.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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