Speed limits, speeding, and Naito Parkway

Naito Parkway near SW Taylor St on July 23rd, 2024. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

We watch Naito Parkway very closely here on BikePortland because it’s home to one of the most high-profile bikeways in the entire city: Better Naito. So when I recently heard grumblings in activist circles about its speed limit and the rate at which people break it, I decided to take a closer look.

Turns out the posted speed limit on this important, 1.2 mile stretch of Naito between SW Harrison (near Tom McCall Waterfront Park) and NW Everett (where the protected bike lane ends prior to the Steel Bridge) has gone through quite a few changes in the past eight years. And if all goes according to plans hatched just this week by the Portland Bureau of Transportation, we’ll see yet another change before the end of the year.

Come with me on a bit of a wonky ride into the history of Naito Parkway speeds…

Think back to 2016 when Naito (also known as Pacific Highway West/99W) had narrow, paint-only bike lanes and five general travel lanes (image on left). It was really inhospitable to cycling! In that era it had a posted speed limit of 30 mph. When the adjacent Waterfront Park had large festivals, crowds would spill into the lanes and create a very unsafe situation. It was that context that the idea for more cycling and walking space was born and named “Better Naito.”

In 2020, after three years as a pilot project, PBOT was finally ready to make the protected bike lanes permanent and launched the Better Naito Forever project. During this period, PBOT was able to reduce the speed limit to 20 mph since Naito was a construction zone (image on right).

In 2021 PBOT began the process to reduce the posted speed limit from 30 to 25 mph by making a formal request with the Oregon Department of Transportation (who oversees all speed limits). ODOT approved that change in 2023 and the signs changed from 20 to 25 mph earlier this year.

That five mph increase raised eyebrows. Why would we allow people to go faster on a multi-modal street in a crowded part of downtown Portland? That’s the question I asked PBOT this week as I began to look closer into this story.

PBOT spokesperson Dylan Rivera explained the history and said, “The bureau has been working on submitting a new speed zone reduction to 20 mph through our authority to set speeds in business districts.”

The “authority to set speeds in business districts” Rivera refers to is something PBOT has only had since a change to Oregon law went into effect in 2022. This change (outlined in Oregon Administrative Rule 734-020-0013) gives cities more power to investigate and determine speeds on roads in their jurisdiction (instead of ODOT having total control). In Oregon, the statutory speed limit for business districts is 20 mph.

Then Rivera added, “As of this morning (July 24th), we’ve submitted a request to rescind the 25 mph speed from Harrison to Everett in favor of a 20 mph speed as a business district. Assuming ODOT approves that request (which they typically do within days), we could change the speed back to 20 mph in the next 2-3 months.”

While Rivera seems confident ODOT will grant the 20 mph request, the ultimate decision is still in state engineers’ hands. (Who exactly has authority over the various aspects of speed limit setting is still a bit murky to me. The ODOT flow chart that explains it helps a little).

(Source: ODOT speed zone investigation #13168, May 2023.)

The current rate of rampant illegal speeding on Naito might figure into that decision. When ODOT did a speed study of Naito in May 2023 (and approved PBOT’s request to go from 30 mph to 25 mph), they found that 94% of all drivers exceeded the 20 mph limit. The 85th percentile speed — the speed at or below which 85 percent of all vehicles are observed to travel under free-flowing conditions — was 32 mph. (A PBOT speed study in December 2022 found similar numbers.)

One of the reasons ODOT agreed to lower the speed limit to 25 mph was because, “The crash rate for the segment exceeds 150% of the average crash rate,” for similar types of roadways. The question remains whether ODOT thinks lowering it even further to 20 mph will encourage folks to slow down and crash into each other less frequently, or whether it will be too low to process average daily traffic volumes.

Given how fast the majority of people drive on this stretch of Naito, making Better Naito Forever 20 mph forever could be considered too much of a stretch for ODOT to make.

ODOT says they are currently reviewing PBOT’s request and they will have a decision next week. Stay tuned. The speed limit signs on Naito might be changing once again!

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, contact me via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a paying subscriber.

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SD
SD
3 months ago

In reality, we have set speed limits based on the speed that people need to “feel.” Driving 20 mph in a car on a wide open road feels awkwardly slow for a lot of people. Driving 20 mph in a car on cramped residential side street feels awkwardly fast for a lot of people. Driving 20 mph in a monster truck that completely eliminates any auditory or physical feedback from outside feels even more awkwardly slow than 20 mph in a classic Porsche, while cruising at 90 mph in a monster truck feels smooth as butter.

Despite the pseudoscience that ODOT uses to determine policy, it is all vibes.

One of the best qualities of travel modes that do not block out physical feedback from the environment, is that they encourage most people to travel at speeds that are less dangerous, and if people are traveling at dangerous speeds, they can feel it.

eawriste
eawriste
3 months ago
Reply to  SD

In other words, if you design a street like a highway, e.g., with multiple wide lanes, the 85% will feel comfortable driving at higher speeds. That’s why changing the speed limit, compared to redesigning the width, and number of lanes, is so much less effective.

SD fantastic point with oversized cars.

Surly Ogre
joe bicycles
3 months ago
Reply to  SD

Percentile-based speed limit setting methods fail at keeping people safe because they set a permanently moving target based on current human behavior, not safety.
Two issues are at play.
First, percentile-based models are designed to respond to extremes. When enough people drive faster than the set percentile, the model rewards them by instructing traffic engineers to increase the posted speed.
Second, people decide how fast to drive based on both the street’s design and cues such as the posted speed and other drivers’ speeds. Researchers originally recommended using the 85th percentile approach to determine posted speeds, assuming that drivers always travel at reasonable speeds. But a growing body of research shows that drivers base their decisions at least partially on the posted speed limit. When they see higher posted limits, and see the resulting increased speed of their peers, they drive faster too, which results in an increased speed of the street overall.
https://nacto.org/publication/city-limits/the-need/designed-to-fail/

from Chuck Marohn I think: The engineer is not powerless. The 85th percentile calculation, level of service and forgiving design are all engineering concepts that have been developed for highway design. They work brilliantly in that environment. They have no application, however, to local streets. Zero. None. Applying them to local streets is dangerous, expensive and just plain dumb.

The answer for streets is fairly simple: Instead of throwing out the 85th percentile speed, we need to recognize the insight it is providing. It is telling us the speed that drivers perceive to be safe. If that is higher than the speed we know to be safe — if more than 15% of drivers travel within a neighborhood at speeds over 15 to 20 mph — then the design is giving drivers a false sense of security. If we want drivers to slow down, we don’t ignore human behavior and the 85th percentile speed. We change the street design to make it feel less safe for drivers. In other words: we change the street design to reflect reality.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/24/understanding-the-85th-percentile-speed

“So the MUTCD — the Manual Uniform Traffic Control Devices — is probably the most like a “standard.” We have the AASHTO Green Book, and we have all these other books, but those are really more guidelines. I talk [in the book] about how engineers sometimes like to refer to them as “standards” when they really are more guidelines. But even [when it comes to] the MUTCD — which is much more like a standard, because obviously we can’t have green stop signs in one city and purple and another — even in that book, I think I counted 167 times when they use the phrase “engineering judgment.”
So when an engineer tells you that, for instance, you need a “warrant,” or so many pedestrians crossing in front of the school in order to put in a crosswalk — well, we can always use engineering judgment to trump that warrant and do what we think is necessary, regardless of what the guidelines are telling us. But very few engineers are willing to do this. And part of it is they’re scared of liability.
So [in the book] I go through sort of the rational process; how they can almost treat it like a tactical urbanism experiment, and protect themselves from the liability boogeyman. But bigger picture, [engineers] have a lot more power than we let people know. [Sticking to the guidelines] helps us stay above the fray a little bit; we can kind of put our decisions off in the manuals as opposed to on to ourselves. And it’s easier that way.
But I think what we’re learning now is that [our road design guidelines] haven’t led to the safety that we should have by now. So we need to do better. And part of it is engineers taking the power we’ve been given to do what is not in the manuals, that will make it safer.”

https://nacto.org/2023/12/20/mutcd-11-reaction/
In December last year, NACTO said this about the 2023 MUTCD
1.The document is framed more inclusively around safety, accessibility, and access for all modes of travel, even as it continues to fall short in key areas to meet these goals.
2.Speed limits will be set based on local safety needs, not by speeding drivers, a step that by itself will save hundreds of lives on U.S. roadways. The new MUTCD replaces the discredited “85th percentile” method with a context-sensitive method that accounts for adjacent land use, pedestrian and bicyclist needs, and crash history. It encourages using good street design to prevent speeding and explicitly discourages using the 85th-percentile method to set speed limits in all urban and suburban contexts and in small-town main streets.
3.Proven safe street designs like best-practice intersections and separated bike lanes are now included in the manual, a significant improvement from the previous MUTCD, even as some treatments–like green-backed shared lane markings and proven bike signal treatments–are unreasonably not permitted.
4.Pedestrian safety needs to be more adequately addressed, despite some improvements. The new draft includes explicit permissions to install new crosswalks, asphalt art, and sidewalk extensions, including guidance on how to address the needs of people with disabilities. However, stronger reforms are needed; engineers are still encouraged to wait until several people are hurt or killed before installing a traffic signal.
5.The manual places unreasonable restrictions on cities and agencies building red transit lanes, an effective and necessary tool as cities work to recover transit ridership and use transit to rebuild local economies and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
6.The alarming draft section on autonomous vehicles has been improved, even as questions remain about the viability of the approach this document takes, where streets are designed for AVs instead of AVs being required to work on the already-existing streets cities have.

Paul H
Paul H
3 months ago
Reply to  joe bicycles

First, percentile-based models are designed to respond to extremes. 

I do agree that it sets a bit of a moving target (i.e., if speed limits get set to high, people will drive their requisite 5 – 10 mph over, and then would-be slower traffic will speed up to match that)

But if I may pick a nit, I don’t think the stat responds to extremes. To move the needle on the 85th percentile statistic, you need to the fastest 15% to go faster. In other words, you could have the fastest 14% of your roadway traffic participating in illegal street racing at any /extremely/ fast speed with the rest of the population driving normally, and the and the stat wouldn’t change. In that sense, it’s fairly robust.

Surly Ogre
joe bicycles
3 months ago
Reply to  Paul H

You’re example makes perfect sense to me…
extreme might not be the best word, but that’s the word NACTO picked.
I think the stat does respond when either input crosses above or below 85%. If 16% of people are street racing then that could cause the stat to change, right?
OR if 84% of people driving GM, Ford, Buick, Dodge, Toyota, and Subaru, with “more horsepower than last year” and only 2% drive 5 mph faster, then the stat will change as well.. or maybe all 86% drive 5mph faster…
In the 1940s the national speed limit was 45 mph, which would climb to 55 mph after World War 2. The first automobiles in the late 1800s and early 1900s had top speeds of around 20-30 mph. However, by the 1920s, many production vehicles were capable of reaching speeds of 50-60.
The Ford Model T, introduced in 1908, had a top speed of around 45 mph.
The stat changes based on the capability of the car, the foot of the driver and the design of the road.
We need streets that make people decide to drive the speed limit or slower.
And if they won’t decide to respect the speed limit, then we can try other methods

SD
SD
3 months ago
Reply to  Paul H

The 85th percentile is probably one of the best examples of “asking the wrong question.” The use of this metric is an indictment of the last centuries “engineers,” and should be exhibit A in the humiliating failures of this profession that have resulted in tremendous suffering.

SD
SD
3 months ago
Reply to  SD

*century’s

Dylan
Dylan
3 months ago
Reply to  SD

One of the best qualities of travel modes that do not block out physical feedback from the environment, is that they encourage most people to travel at speeds that are less dangerous, and if people are traveling at dangerous speeds, they can feel it.

Great point and I feel is a huge part of why cars are so dangerous today. Most drivers are inside incredibly insulated vehicles that communicate very little outside- or engine-noise to the driver. Couple that with more powerful engines that take a pinky-toe of pressure to accelerate and you have a recipe for indiscriminate speeding. I’m not apologizing for speeding, reckless, inebriated driving or otherwise; rather, I believe many people don’t realize how quiet cars have gotten and can’t help but be lulled into a false sense of control.

Dean
Dean
3 months ago

There was a semi-truck parked and blocking the entire cycle path on Naito between Samon and Taylor during this morning’s commute. I don’t know why stuff like that surprises me anymore. All the bike ways and lanes have become auxiliary parking places in this city.

maxD
maxD
3 months ago
Reply to  Dean

It drives me crazy that the City allows free access for trucks and delivery in the bike lane for events. They also have been fencing off the sidewalk in places, forcing pedestrians in to the bike lane. When I asked tehm to keep the pedestrian routes open, they claimed that the Naito lanes are actually an MUP and that peds can and should be directed there.; here’s the quote

The multi-use path in the left hand part of your pictures is meant not only for bicycles, but also for pedestrian uses when events such as these are happening.

So the bike lanes are for peds and also for staging- it is a really frustrating and unreliable piece of bikes infrastructure, since bikes are still forced to fight for space there. PBOT really blew it when they built this- terrible construction quality with puddles and jarring bumps at every crosswalk, but the way manage it is embarrassing. This has been my commute for the last 3 years and our office is moving locations soon and I am honestly excited to get away from Naito- it is nice and safe when it is free of cars and pedestrians, but that is only about 80% of the time.

SolarEclipse
SolarEclipse
3 months ago
Reply to  Dean

I wonder how they would have parked had there been concrete barriers between the car lane and the bike lane. Maybe they would have had to find a legal place to park.

David Kafrissen
David Kafrissen
3 months ago

I would like to add the running of red lights just wait at Columbia and Naito in front of the Marriott, as drivers run that light just to sit in line behind the rest of traffic. Also perhaps take to the cops who I see speed and run lights in their own cars all the time. At first I thought this was about the electric bikes with throttles who drive like the own the bike lane, if you need to wear a motorcycle crash helmet and you didn’t even pedal, you shouldn’t be in the lane. Honestly if you are in an electric bike and going the speed limit out more, you should be with the cars (see N Williams).

Lois Leveen
Lois Leveen
3 months ago

It is unfair to ask drivers of motor vehicles to somehow figure out all the different speed limits for the different streets in Portland. If I leave my home and go around the block, I move through THREE different speed limit zones, just in that one square block. Let’s make it easier on these harried and confused drivers, by implementing a single speed limit on every street and road within the city. 20 is plenty, and it’s all we need to keep more people alive and uninjured.

Mark Remy
Mark Remy
3 months ago
Reply to  Lois Leveen

I came here to say this very thing.

Our current patchwork of speed limits (within a few mph of each other!) is ridiculous.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
3 months ago
Reply to  Lois Leveen

19 mph would be easier to remember…

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

Nineteen is fine, Jean. Kind of catchy.

Surly Ogre
joe bicycles
3 months ago
Reply to  Watts

Drive nineteen for Lois Leveen !!

Lois Leveen
Lois Leveen
3 months ago
Reply to  joe bicycles

Are you suggesting drivers limit to 19 MPH when aiming at me? I mean, that might be better than what they are averaging now but still …

Surly Ogre
Joe Bicycles
3 months ago
Reply to  Lois Leveen

Not suggesting aiming at you @ Lois !
perhaps “Drive nineteen rhymes and ride bikes with Lois Leveen !!
<3 <3 <3

imadriver2
imadriver2
3 months ago
Reply to  Lois Leveen

I wouldn’t say it is unfair, but it certainly is not effective. People will drive the speed they can most comfortably get away with driving, which in America tends to be the fastest regardless of what city you’re in.

Micah
Micah
3 months ago

In 2020, after three years as a pilot project, PBOT was finally ready to make the protected bike lanes permanent and launched the Better Naito Forever project

Did the project plan for Better Naito Forever address the speed limit (and propose 25 mph), or was the speed limit not addressed in the plan? Seems like typical ineffective government to have 20 mph signed, resign for 25 mph, and then go back to 20 mph after people squawk. A competent government would not exhibit this behavior, and I think it would be helpful to find out how this happened. If 20 mph was in the plan, ODOT would have already had a say. If the change from 25 to 20 is an ex post facto revision, why didn’t PBOT check with “activist circles” originally? It doesn’t take a genius to know something like this will show up on BP….

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  Micah

Personally, I perceive no threat whatsoever by cars traveling 25 on that street, so I don’t really understand what the issue is. I’ll bet the speed limit change has resulted in a near zero change in the speeds people actually drive.

maxD
maxD
3 months ago
Reply to  Watts

If the speed limit is 25, then many/most cars are going 35. This may not impact you or most people in the bike lane, but it is dangerous for people crossing naito, or using the southbound bike lane, or for cyclist forced to leave the bike lanes because it is full of cars/trucks unloading stuff. Speed kills

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  maxD

There are high quality signalized crossings all along Naito. If you are claiming that those are too dangerous to use with the speed limit at 25, that would strike me as a tad hyperbolic.

maxD
maxD
3 months ago
Reply to  Watts

There are also plenty of unsignalized crossings.

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  maxD

Not between Hawthorne and the Steele Bridge. I don’t know about further south, but I don’t think there is a single one along “Better Naito”.

Micah Prange
Micah Prange
3 months ago
Reply to  Watts

I don’t think the 25 mph speed limit is a big deal and certainly wouldn’t prioritize lowering it. I’m not sure when I last drove Naito (before Better Naito I’m guessing), and I’m sure I didn’t know/care what the speed limit was. I would, however, contest your implication that the speed limit is irrelevant. Whether it’s obeyed or not, I think it is an important social and legal cue. I think lowering the speed there is more important for drunk/wayward peds and overall vibe than for cycling. My question above was more about efficacious government. It’s pretty hard to advocate for more government programs when everything the government does seems to be done so incompetently.

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  Micah Prange

I didn’t say the speed limit was irrelevant, but I did say that freaking out over a minor bureaucratic change with no real world implications is a huge overreaction. Actually I didn’t say that either, but I am now.

I don’t think 25 on Naito is an example of government incompetence, but Oregon has so many others to choose from that It’s hard to disagree with your generalization.

Edward
Edward
3 months ago

Light Timing. That’s the best (and easiest) way to functionally limit speeds in this area. And post signs “Lights timed to 20 mph” so everybody knows there’s no point in speeding. Cars would just be racing to the next stop light.

aquaticko
aquaticko
3 months ago
Reply to  Edward

Seriously; the number of light cycles that are twice as long as is even efficient for car traffic is stunning to me.

Chris I
Chris I
3 months ago
Reply to  Edward

Light timing is hard on Naito because it is bi-directional. You can time the lights for one direction, I suppose.

imadriver2
imadriver2
3 months ago
Reply to  Edward

Nobody will know or care what those signs mean. Longer stop lights just divert traffic to side streets.

Tired Portlander
Tired Portlander
3 months ago

We give the cyclists in this city the world, yet they continue to switch from sidewalk to street to whatever is the path of least resistance. The problem is that cyclists are just as bad if not worse at safety. They CONSTANTLY put themselves and motorists in danger. Then they complain about speed limits on a street I drive down daily and see LITTLE to NO bike use. Why are we catering to a very small percentage of the population who just seem to complain when they cant have their way? Give the Streets back to motorists unless you can find a way to tax cyclists and pay for all this green paint they want down. You want the roads? PAY FOR THEM! Complaining about something that costs $5,000-$50,000 per mile for the infrastructure while they pay $0 for is comical. I might die laughing.

Rose
Rose
3 months ago

Those poor, poor “harried” drivers are the ones killing people left and right, so the responsibility is on y’all to drive better.

qqq
qqq
3 months ago

If there’s little to no bike use on the street that you’re driving down daily, why are you complaining that they “CONSTANTLY put themselves and motorists in danger”? Wouldn’t they need to be there to do that?

If you don’t want them riding in the street, why are you complaining that they’re riding on sidewalks? If you don’t like that they’re on the road, wouldn’t you be happy that they’re trying to stay off it?

Chris I
Chris I
3 months ago

You should try getting more sleep.

Cyclist of Portland
Cyclist of Portland
3 months ago

That’s daft. I bike and also have a car. It’s hardly mutually exclusive. Most cyclists are like me, so don’t say we aren’t paying for it.

imadriver2
imadriver2
3 months ago

We actually do have a bike excise tax in Portland. But I would happily pay for a bike license if it meant accessible bike safety education to the general public. Cyclists certainly aren’t “worse” at safety, evidenced by the lack of cyclist-pedestrian fatalities… Annoyed as you may be with cyclists, we all know drivers of cars (other than you of course) are worse in every conceivable way and pose a far greater threat to everyone’s safety.

John V
John V
3 months ago

I would gladly have the taxes I already pay that go towards dead end auto infrastructure go towards cycling infrastructure instead.

Angus Peters
Angus Peters
3 months ago

Who cares about speed limits in Portland? They’re signs without meaning. Virtually no one seems to follow them.

SD
SD
3 months ago
Reply to  Angus Peters

I follow them when I am driving. And that means everybody behind me follows them too. : )

Mary S
Mary S
3 months ago
Reply to  SD

Good for you! But you’re a rare individual. I find it sad and discouraging that Portland has now resorted to an occasional driver following the speed limit for enforcement of laws meant to protect other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

SolarEclipse
SolarEclipse
3 months ago
Reply to  Angus Peters

My neighborhood is 20 and has speed bumps. I’m routinely passed by impatient drivers that just can stand doing 20.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
3 months ago

What is missing from this essay is that Naito was, once upon a time long long ago in a far distant galaxy, the old I-5, and even further in the past an industrial sewer, and what the city envisions for its future scenic Willamette riviera. Gradually the city has repossessed its waterfront, first by removing polluting industries (pulp mills for example) after Naito caught fire, but it’s been a long slog, over 100 years. The way I see it, better Naito is simply the latest iteration, the next step towards a traffic-free waterfront with open plazas, parks, public campgrounds, hotels overlooking it all, and an equally scenic east side of the river.

eawriste
eawriste
3 months ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

Let’s hope you’re right David. The East side of the Willamette could use a little fast forward in history.

Micah
Micah
3 months ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

COTW

Surly Ogre
joe bicycles
3 months ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

The Forgotten Story of Harbor Drive: Portland’s Demolished Freeway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_yNrP0hCY

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
3 months ago
Reply to  joe bicycles

Thank you for the link. Now what the city needs to do next is reduce Naito/Front to local traffic only (no through-traffic), where motor vehicles are the “guest” and where bicyclists and walkers predominate, as well as change I-5 on the east side into an urban tree-lined 20 mph boulevard with shops and parks rather than a bland 65 mph freeway.

azad Gazurian
azad Gazurian
3 months ago

Naito has been absolutely ruined for cars with the 101 disjointed lights, the same way Burnside from the bridge to sandy has been. People on bikes can laugh at everybody in cars trying to get up to speed before the next light while they cruise 🙂 Just watch out for all those now raging npcs – they do crazy shite after waiting through 3 lights and a bunch of jaywalking peds trying to get to the light that allows them to the light so they can cross the Hawthorne bridge.

Mary S
Mary S
3 months ago

When ODOT did a speed study of Naito in May 2023 (and approved PBOT’s request to go from 30 mph to 25 mph), they found that 94% of all drivers exceeded the 20 mph limit. 

94%! This is “new Portland” in a nutshell. Laws are routinely ignored. We elected people that allow this behavior and then we complain about the results.

Eric Liefsdad
Eric Liefsdad
3 months ago

What would be the 85th percentile speed if we hadn’t spent all that money and just put two-way car traffic with stop signs on the west side of the existing median? But the parking. But the freeway traffic onto Hawthorne. Can’t interfere with cars or the number of people killed with traffic might go down.

Kyle Banerjee
3 months ago

This article made me realize I had no idea what the speed limit on Naito is — but that I also didn’t care. Excessive speed wasn’t and isn’t a problem there. It doesn’t get backed up as bad as it used to thanks to fewer people working downtown, but you still gotta be nuts to want to drive there.

In all honesty, I liked the narrow bike lane. People who didn’t like traffic just rode on the waterfront (the way many still choose to). That section didn’t have the normal threats like right hooks that you experience everywhere else.

Now, anything goes. The signs, paint, and signals are ignored, there so despite being separated from cars, you actually have to be more vigilant. The only reason the path is even usable is because relatively few people are on it at a given time, even during rush.

I’d never noticed the speed limit signs. There are enough hazards from different sides that you need to keep your eyes peeled for those, and I’d expect the same is true for motorists.

Portland doesn’t enforce anything anyway, there’d be no practical way to enforce there (where would cops wait, and how exactly they pull someone over?), and it’s normally physically impossible to drive fast there, so I’m not seeing any potential win in trying to further regulate a very overregulated area where hardly anyone does what they’re theoretically supposed to.

There just has to be something better to focus on.

Micah
Micah
3 months ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

Lucky for you, there is still a narrow bike lane for your use southbound.

Dirk
Dirk
3 months ago

Best Naito

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  Dirk

Now that PBOT reapplied their satanic green coating that literally makes me want to vomit when I get a good whiff, it has become Completely Unrideable Naito.

Doug Hecker
Doug Hecker
3 months ago

Never really understood the excitement of BN myself. What does it do? Solidifies my desire to ride closer to the river? Yep. No playing with traffic or excessive red running on the path. To me, totally getting it away from vehicle traffic’s seemed to be the smartest idea but you know the virtuous city had to make a point and remove a lane of traffic for it. Honestly, the best protected lane is the one that doesn’t have to fight with vehicles. Could Naito have a lane reduction at the same time with a better BN? Absolutely. BN has always felt like a pet project that money could be tossed at like the way Lake Oswego types throw money at their boats. Meanwhile other parts of town still suffer. In order for my current street (moving out of town completely soon) to get the 2030 pipedream plan, I was told that the street would have to become a one way due to the city’s now excessive bike lane minimum standards… and it would have to go through another community feedback group to do so. What a mess.

Micah
Micah
3 months ago
Reply to  Doug Hecker

Visible bike infrastructure hewn from the 20th century autocentric built environment changes the way Portland is perceived. I find BN to be useful. I also find all the kvetching about it (and the Greeley path) in the bike community strange and unfortunate.

Will the last bike commuter turn off their lights
Will the last bike commuter turn off their lights
3 months ago
Reply to  Micah

I find the willingness to cede incredibly safe bike infrastructure along a scenic river to a dirty not-so-protected bike-lane next to deadly cages screaming along at 40+ mph to be strange and unfortunate.

Micah Prange
Micah Prange
3 months ago

What ‘incredibly safe bike infrastructure along a scenic river’ has been ceded?

dan
dan
3 months ago

If you characterize BN as a “dirty not-so-protected bike-lane next to deadly cages screaming along at 40+ mph”, then what language is left for infrastructure that actually fits that description?

Kyle Banerjee
3 months ago
Reply to  Micah

It’s basically optics — for people who don’t ride and aren’t going to. If you actually ride to get around, performative infrastructure that’s mostly about messaging isn’t useful or even wanted.

What helps is stuff like Interstate, and more recently parts of Lombard and some of what’s been going on in the outer areas so it’s good for more than trivial distances at low speed. We need that everywhere — I’d personally love to see it on MLK, Grand, and Macadam. Speed matters if you’re going more than a couple miles each way (i.e. most commutes and trips).

I sometimes wonder if fancy bike infrastructure doesn’t discourage cycling. There are thousands of miles of roads in Portland — that’s what links where people are and where they need to be.

A couple miles of showcase doesn’t help with that. Combined with the mantra that bikes don’t belong on roads, hardly anyone (including bike advocates) seems to think riding is a viable option.

BN is practically empty most days — including at peak hours. And ironically, I encounter vehicles much more often in the bike lane (crossing it, driving in it, or just parked in it) than I did when we just had that narrow strip that you could move along quickly

Micah Prange
Micah Prange
3 months ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

Hi Kyle. Thanks for engaging in an important discussion.

It’s basically optics — for people who don’t ride and aren’t going to. If you actually ride to get around, performative infrastructure that’s mostly about messaging isn’t useful or even wanted.

My comment was that optics are important. The only way to grow the population of bike riders is by drawing from people that don’t ride. But even more important that that is the communal self-conception. BN took real estate from cars and gave it to bikes. Taking the waterfront from freeway expansionists changed the nature of the downtown waterfront for the better. Moving towards more bikes and fewer cars is also changing it for the better.

Speed matters if you’re going more than a couple miles each way (i.e. most commutes and trips).


Admittedly, I did not ride Natio (or previously Front) much if ever before BN. The reason I ride if often now is that the Steel Bridge has the path connecting to the esplanade. BN is on obvious continuation of that. Folks complained bitterly about the Esplanade, too. I ride it all the time and am thankful it exists. Is BN really slowing you down? As I mentioned before, the narrow strip is still available (and useful) southbound. All the complaints about BN northbound seem, to my eyes, to be at least as problematic for a simple paint bike lane. And BN seems to have much better connections to the south waterfront and Barbur (and PSU!) than existed before — connections that are surely useful to folks using Naito to travel nontrivial distances. From a broader perspective, I think PDX is OK for utility biking — I can find reasonably fast and direct routes that are workable for me as an experienced cyclists for most of my trips. And those trips are frequently better because of infrastructure that is often shit on here in the BP comments as being performative, but before would require either going out of your way or riding pretty unfriendly sections. YMMV.

Cheers,
Micah

Watts
Watts
3 months ago
Reply to  Micah Prange

But even more important that that is the communal self-conception.

Many cyclists seem to define themselves in opposition to cars (and by extension their drivers). If that’s our predominant self-identity, it should hardly be surprising that it’s hard to get new people to join us.

I used to feel I was part of a real community; a small group of people for whom bike riding was liberation. Now the bike community seems mostly focused on danger, outrage, and a sense of being persecuted. We seek validation from government agencies.

No thank you. Biking in Portland is better than it’s ever been, and I still find it liberating. But I no longer identify myself as a “cyclist”. The communal self-conception has changed, and it is alienating.

Micah Prange
Micah Prange
3 months ago
Reply to  Watts

When I said ‘communal’, the community I intended to reference was ‘Portland’ generally, not specifically the bike community. Especially nonbikers, for whom the waterfront is a familiar landmark that defines the city. I do still identify as a cyclist (and I still love the bike community specifically), but I do see how you could feel alienated. The motivation for my comment above was to push back against what I see as misplaced outrage that BN is not exactly what some would like to see.

Happy riding!
Micah