If you are full of doom and gloom, you should really take a closer look at what’s happening on 82nd Avenue. After years of advocacy and tragedy, the City of Portland finally took it over from the State of Oregon last year. Now our local transportation bureau is busy turning it into more of a welcoming, civic main street instead of the stressful “orphan highway” it’s always been.
There’s $185 million to spend on a seven-mile stretch of 82nd between SE Clatsop and NE Killingsworth. The first phase of that is what PBOT is calling “Critical Fixes,” an $80 million package of projects focused on signals and streetlighting. Earlier today I shared their plans for new medians that will tame traffic on 82nd between NE Glisan and Davis.
Today PBOT announced they are ready to break ground on a separate project that will build six new signalized pedestrian crossings. The locations are NE Beech, NE Klickitat, NE Schuyler, SE Clinton, SE Ash, and SE Schiller streets. But wait, there’s more! They’ll also upgrade curb ramps to ADA standards, install high-visibility crosswalk markings, and add concrete median islands at each location. These are part of 21 total new or upgraded crossings that will be built in the next few years (three are done already, four more will get done in 2024, and PBOT has eight planned for 2025 and 2026).
These crossings are a huge deal. They’re coming (mostly) to intersections (see above) where there’s currently nothing for people on foot or bikes to get across five lanes of scary traffic. The cumulative impact on drivers when you add crossing treatments like this (not to mention the myriad other things PBOT is doing to 82nd) is huge. Speeds will come down. Compliance for Oregon’s crosswalk law will skyrocket. Dangerous driving will decrease.
Seriously…. Take a few minutes to check out PBOT’s 82nd Avenue Critical Fixes website to learn more about what they’re up to.
Thanks for reading.
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We used to live in an apartment complex just west of 82nd, and would jaywalk (aka run for our lives) to access the strip mall south of Harrison on the east side of 82nd. The fact that there will be a signal there now is so amazing. I count myself lucky to have survived living adjacent to 82nd and using it daily, and am really happy that we are starting to turn into something other than a dangerous car sewer.
That strip mall has some of my favorite food spots in all of Portland by the way. If you are into Asian food, it’s a real destination in the area. Zero Degrees, Jake’s Crawfish (southern/asian boil fusion), Bun bo hue, and Noodle Point (awesome bbq squid). I live in Tigard now, but we’ll brave 82nd for family trips for good Asian restaurants and Mt Tabor visit.
That strip mall is (hopefully) the kind of future development we’ll see on 82nd. There’s no curb cut into 82nd, just a wide sidewalk with trees. Vehicles have to drive “in” on the north side of the development, in a covered tunnel between two buildings. SO much nicer than the average strip mall with multiple entrances across the sidewalk.
Also, the pho is great at Teo Bun Bo Hue!
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Xz8tp7Z6bTm1pmSD7?g_st=ic
It would be interesting to see if strip malls could be retrofit to be more like this one. It really does calm the traffic going in and out, and makes the businesses so much more accessible by foot.
sure hope there isn’t a single person opposed to this…
Happy to see NE Schuyler will be an even better place to cross than NE Tillamook. Despite the marked and largely buffered bike lanes, the stretch of Tillamook between 62nd and 82nd can be a bit hairy due to the relatively high speed of traffic, the rampant vegetation overgrowth into the bike lanes from both public and private lands, and how leaves and debris accumulate in the gutter. I think I’d prefer Schuyler/Jonesmore for my east-west trips if it weren’t for the complete lack of any safety measures at 82nd. 3 blocks of gravel road, at the very least, will slow down vehicle traffic and keep through traffic to a minimum.
I assume the RRFBs they are putting in are like the yellow-flashing Sandy/NE91st variety rather than the full-stop NE26th/Broadway variety. Why not a full-stop?
Two of them are yellow-flashing RRFBs. The other four are full-stop traffic signals. I’m sure there are reasons for doing different things in different places.
Sweet!