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(Editor’s note: PBOT uses the terms “advisory bike lane” and “advisory shoulder,” but there’s almost no difference in the design. They choose the term based on whether or not street has a curb. If there’s a curb and/or a sidewalk, they call it an “advisory bike lane.” No curb, and it’s a shoulder lane. BikePortland will stick with “advisory bike lane” because I find it provides the most clarity.)
Back in April we shared news that the Portland Bureau of Transportation would install three advisory bike lane projects this year. Now we’ve learned that two of those are postponed and one will move forward.
The project on SW 40th between Huber and Wilbard has been planned and designed and will be installed late this year or in early 2024 according to PBOT’s updated website.
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As I shared in April, the SW 40th project is just one block, but will create dedicated cycling space between Jackson Middle School and a pedestrian walkway over I-5 that feeds directly into the Barbur Transit Center. This is a low-volume, low-speed street that currently has no lane striping of any kind. The idea behind these advisory bike lane projects is that they provide stronger cues for how the road can be used.
As you might have seen in our previous coverage, advisory bike lanes use a dashed striping pattern instead of a solid white line. They are implemented on streets that have two directions of car traffic, but PBOT doesn’t feel there’s adequate width to stripe standard bike lanes on both sides. So the idea is that, if no bike riders or walkers (in the event there’s no sidewalk) are present, people can drive onto the bike lane and use the street as they always would have. However, if a bike rider or walker is present, the street becomes a shared environment where drivers must yield to advisory lane users and wait before making a safe pass.
This design has a lot of potential in southwest Portland because of the high number of low-volume streets where PBOT is unlikely to ever stripe conventional bike lanes.
The SW 40th project plans (below) show that PBOT will stripe the entry to each end of the block with a sharrow and a short double-yellow line. Then it will transition into the shared, advisory environment for most of the block.
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Along with revealing plans for 40th, PBOT has also announced that the two other advisory bike lane projects planned to be installed this year — on SW Talbot from SW Fairmount to SW Gaston and SE Ellis from SE 84th to SE 92nd — are delayed “while additional pavement condition assessment and neighborhood outreach takes place.”