Remember a few years ago when the Portland Bureau of Transportation decided there were just “too many cars” on NE Tillamook near Grant High School to keep the neighborhood greenway route on that street? That realization led them to shift the route one block south the NE Hancock east of 33rd Avenue and they’ve since made significant changes to turn it into a bike-friendly street.
The big challenge with this route is how to get greenway users from Hancock and 42nd across Sandy Boulevard at 43rd. Sandy is a stressful street to cross (illustrated by a recent serious injury collision involving a very experienced bicycle rider) because it’s on a diagonal and has four lanes of drivers with no shoulder and a 30 mph speed limit. Adding to the equation is Kelly Plaza, a one-block section on the north side of Sandy between 42nd and 43rd that meets Sandy at an oblique angle.
BikePortland hinted at the Kelly Plaza issue back in early 2021 and now PBOT has released detailed plans for how they’ll make the crossing work.
According to newly released drawings (above), PBOT will build a new cycling path on top of what is now an on-street parking lane. That path will then orient riders to cross Sandy with a bike-only signal that will help make the east-west connection onto Hancock. PBOT will add green striping to help guide bike riders across and warn other road users of the presence of a cycling route.
When it comes to getting bicycle riders through Kelly Plaza. A now outdated PBOT graphic showed striped bike lanes along the southern edge of the plaza that would connect to the new path along Sandy; but I didn’t see those stripes in the latest plan drawings. When I asked PBOT to clarify what they plan to do in the Plaza, spokesperson Hannah Schafer said, “Initial concepts considered striping bicycle facilities through the plaza, but after considering existing uses and community feedback, the design shifted to focus on improving accessibility to Kelly Plaza and how best to help people bicycling cross NE Sandy Boulevard.”
What PBOT means is that bicycle users will be encouraged and welcome to ride through the plaza, but it will be a shared-space environment with no striping or dedicated space so folks need to ride with caution and courtesy for others. That makes sense given that the plaza is more like a park than a transportation facility.
Construction on this project will start early next year and is expected to be complete before spring. More info on the project website.