As road deaths climb and opportunistic politicians cling to populist, divisive rhetoric to win support, Portland’s approach to building safer streets is in the hot seat. And it’s not just a local thing. Just this morning I read an opinion piece from the Washington Post where one of their editors framed road diets and bike lanes in D.C. as nothing more than a ploy by White people who want to promote cycling (“them”) to make life terrible for drivers (“us”). Sigh.
Beyond the punditry, do fewer lanes for drivers and more room for bicycle riders actually make streets safer? A recent analysis of an infrastructure project on the NE 102nd Avenue corridor gives us a chance to talk about design changes in a way that focuses on facts and data, instead of hot takes.
With all the changes the Portland Bureau of Transportation has made to streets east of I-205 in recent years in the name of safety and active transportation, they’ll face continued political pressure if they aren’t able to point to results. If you care about living in a place with more humane and welcoming streets, the good news is the results speak for themselves.
PBOT Vision Zero Coordinator Clay Veka spoke on the steps of City Hall at Sunday’s World Day of Remembrance event. She mentioned new crash data for their NE 102nd Avenue Corridor Safety Project: NE Weidler to NE Sandy project and said results offer “encouraging news that we’re seeing success.” This $2 million project was built in three phases between 2019 and 2024 (locally funded through gas tax revenue, system development charges, and the cannabis tax) focused on a two-mile corridor of NE 102nd between NE Sandy and NE Weidler that’s included on the City’s High Crash Network, a list of 30 streets that have a higher than average rate of crashes, fatalities, and serious injuries.
To improve safety and encourage more active uses of the street, PBOT reduced the amount of lanes for drivers from five to three. They also added buffered bike lanes and on-street parking. In addition to the lane reconfiguration, they enhanced several crossings with curb extensions and concrete median islands, and lowered the speed limit to 30 mph.
In a 27-page report initially published in 2020 and updated last week, the agency says key findings of a public survey and internal analysis show an “overall improvement of safety measures.” Crashes and speeds are down and the street works better for people walking and using bicycles.
PBOT’s analysis of all crash types (see graphic below) based on annual averages taken before and after the project was built reveals the interventions on NE 102nd led to a 14% reduction in crashes.
When it comes to speeding, there was a “drastic” decrease in what PBOT calls “top-end speeding” (over 10 mph over the posted limit). PBOT also looked at changes in median speed (where half drive faster and half drive slower) and prevailing speed (the speed 85% of drivers travel at or below, a standard engineering measure). Measurements taken at NE Shaver and Sacramento found that there were significant decreases across all speeding types. At Shaver, median speed went down 9.5%, prevailing speed went down 11%, and there were 85% fewer top-end speeders.
And according to PBOT’s Veka, the reduction in top-end speeding is consistent citywide. Of eight road diets evaluated so far, there’s been a 52% reduction in top-end speeding overall.
With drivers and bus operators having less room to operate and no passing lane, folks might think congestion would be a problem. However, PBOT’s analysis found there was little to no change in transit time and reliability for the Line 87 and 22 TriMet buses. Results of their analysis also showed no significant changes in travel times for car and truck drivers.
PBOT also analyzed how traffic on nearby residential streets changed after changes were made to 102nd — this is the dreaded “diversion” effect many neighbors worry about when larger streets get road diets. Despite the significant reconfiguration of lanes, there were no notable speed changes on residential streets and while some streets saw an increase in car traffic volumes (and others saw decreases), none of them rose to the level PBOT has for mitigations (1,000 cars per day or 50 cars per peak hour).
The report also analyzed how the new street design comports with active transportation goals. In addition to a focus on safety, PBOT used the project as an opportunity to make the street more appealing for walkers, bike riders and transit users.
With addition of six new crossing treatments, all segments of project now meets PBOT’s PedPDX plan guidelines for crossing spacing of at least every 800 feet. That compares to just one segment meeting this goal before the changes were implemented. That plan also established guidelines that call for crossings to be within 100 feet of a transit stop. Before the project, just six of 15 stops in the corridor met this guideline. Now 9 of 15 do and PBOT says all 15 transit stops are within 200 feet.
Before the project, there was no dedicated bicycle infrastructure along the corridor. Now there’s a buffered bike lane with some segments having concrete curb separators and/or plastic delineator wands. PBOT says prior to the changes NE 102nd scored a 4 on the “Level of Traffic Stress” or LTS scale (with 4 being highest stress and 1 being lowest). With the addition of bike lanes and a lower speed limit, PBOT now says the street has been upgraded to LTS 2 for bicycle riders.
Public survey
PBOT also gauged opinions of 1,000 people who either shared comments or responded to a survey about the project. PBOT admits the results of their surveys are not a representative sample and that there is “high potential for bias.” Even so, they say it offers “useful ideas and suggestions for improvements” and gives the agency a “sense for how respondents feel about the project.”
Of 563 people who responded to a survey about how people feel about speeding, crossing, and biking on 102nd, the results were very positive. Before the changes, 64% of respondents were concerned with drivers going too fast, versus just 35% after. Crossing concerns were noted by 62% of people before and just 33% after. And biking was a concern for 42% of people before and just 25% after.
Notably, 64% of respondents opposed the project after it went in. Just 27% expressed support and 9% were undecided. PBOT says comments shared reveal many people are concerned about congestion and side-street traffic, that bike lanes didn’t have enough protection, and that there still are not enough crossings or street lights to improve visibility at night.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this report are summaries of what people shared in response to open-ended questions. PBOT asked what part of the project works best, what could be improved, and if folks had any specific concerns or suggestions.
The most common topic in these responses was bicycling and bike lanes. Not surprisingly, there were a variety of opinions and observations — many of which contradicted each other. Notably, PBOT went out of their way in this section of the report to express that adding bike lanes was something of an afterthought. “Adding bike lanes was a fortunate opportunity that became a part of the project [because of space available after the lane reconfigurations] and brings NE 102nd Avenue in line with the Transportation System Plan and the 2030 Bike Plan. However it was not the motivation or priority for this project,” the report states. It’s interesting PBOT feels the need to point this out. Are they afraid to admit they want to install bike lanes? A statement like this reflects PBOT’s unfortunate sensitivities around being seen as aggressively pushing bike lanes — especially in east Portland where fewer people tend to ride in them.
I recommend reading through these project evaluations every once in a while. Not only will you learn about how and why PBOT approaches safe streets work, you’ll get a better sense of the results of those changes. And while I appreciate having a 27-page analysis of one project, I couldn’t help but think of the time and energy it took for PBOT staff to complete the evaluation and share it with the public. It’s yet another layer of process and planning in addition to all the pre-construction outreach, open houses, and surveys. I can’t wait for the day when PBOT can just look at adopted plans, find some funding, design a project, implement the changes, and then move onto the next one — without having to spend so much time justifying their actions and assuaging haters who will criticize them no matter what they do.
Thanks for reading.
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‘Just this morning I read an opinion piece from the Washington Post where one of their editors framed road diets and bike lanes in D.C. as nothing more than a ploy by White people who want to promote cycling (“them”) to make life terrible for drivers (“us”). Sigh.’
The idea that only elites ride bikes is so disgustingly out of touch. But these people don’t actually care about poor people or people who don’t want to contribute to a worse society by driving a car anyway…
When I am out and about in far east Portland, the majority of the people I see riding nikes are kids, or people who do not look like they are out to get some Strava time during lunch. I don’t think a lot of them chose to be car-free so much as had it thrust upon them. Whatever the case, i am happy they have a safer place to ride. Can’t understand people who only see how it inconveniences them in some tiny way…
Time to give PBOT some congrats where due!
I love that!
Problem is, not a lot of “poor” and black folks ride bikes in Portland. Especially the further east you get. And ripping out car lanes sure as heck isn’t going to encourage them to do so. I ride frequently and it is not easy really have to plan for it and driving much easier. Especially 9 months of the year when the weather isn’t good.
I’m glad PBOT pointed out that the purpose of this project wasn’t to add bike lanes. The amount of people hating on cyclists in my neighborhood social media groups spiked after these changes went in. I get that they don’t necessarily represent the majority of the neighborhood but their loud voices do get a lot of attention.
I’m also glad PBOT put out this report overall. It’s a useful source to point people to that claim these projects don’t do anything but make drivers more aggressive and dangerous on the road. The one I’d been using previously was for the Division changes from 60th to 80th but that reconfiguration is over 10 years old now. They did update the report recently though which is nice.
They’ve got one for the Outer Division project you could point to.
The TL;DR is that speeding is down where they did the most work from 82nd-130th, speeding has increased a lot where it’s still a more typical stroad, buses are running better and emergency vehicle travel times are a bit lower.
When traveling North on 102nd, and want to go left on NE Maywood PL/Fremont..I still find this intersection confusing. It need more signage and bike direction icons on the ground for getting on to NE Maywood Pl..more green crosswalk marks on the North side of the intersection going across 102nd..
I’m going to start small and then move outward.
I wonder if there’s a perception that bike lanes were installed to get people to bike all the way downtown from East Portland, and a lot of people who drive currently are feeling shamed and inconvenienced about it. I’m sure there’s a group who do want to commute downtown, and with the rise of ebikes, I hope more are able to make that work. However, I wonder if the emphasis with bike lanes, especially on the North-South streets, should be in connecting neighborhoods, or even just on getting people to make trips of under 2 miles on a bike, perhaps to patronize their favorite local business. I seem to remember several folks commenting on here recently that the biking conditions feel so dangerous in East Portland that they make every trip by car, even very short ones. This bike lane seems to have effectively reduced stress on biking, at least on this segment of this street.
Roger Geller’s marketing campaign makes more sense in the context of this report. Only, I hope he doesn’t just focus on inner neighborhoods but goes HUGE and covers the whole city in glorious bike propaganda. Of course that depends on PBOT being willing to take a Babe Ruth-level swing at this issue. So often we bunt the ball to get to first base when we should be swinging hard for left field to score a grand slam.
I had a long think about the equity aspect of bike lanes the other day. I do think it can slow the connecting of the network. But it’s so worth it to get these projects built. Climate change is here and it’s about 50 years past time to try to course correct. We must mitigate the effects now. How do we mitigate? We get people out of their cars. I don’t care if you’re a lawyer or a custodian. We need to get out of the cars. This populist bike backlash is such a major threat to our ability to mitigate our circumstances. So I hope the marketing campaign is up to the task of taking on these voices, and actually shifting the culture. It will be the work of decades, not months, and I hope PBOT has the foresight to commit. All our lives are at stake.
More specifically, we get them to stop burning fossil fuels. Getting people out of their cars is one strategy, but there are others such as electrification, which I suspect, given larger societal forces, will play a much larger role in whatever success we see.
Except that electrification – as you know well, Watts – will work only if the electricity comes from non-FF sources. And currently (pun intended), our electricity comes mainly from FF – PGE even imports coal-generated electricity from Idaho.
So that EV you are running is partly a coal-powered vehicle – even worse than if you burned regular gasoline in a car with an ICE.
I just saw the head of ODOT crowing about how great we are doing in Oregon with over 100k EVs and he talked about how these “zero emissions” vehicles are going to drive (again pun intended) us to net-zero nirvana. Not so fast, Kris! – you have to stop burning FF to make electricity! Until that happens, all of your EVs are simply upstreamed FF-powered vehicles. It’s a con, basically.
Actually, the (much) higher efficiency of electric motors means that even with a fairly dirty energy source, EVs are still a gain, with the added benefit that the fleet will automatically “upgrade” as we transition to cleaner energy (not to mention their reduced local air and noise pollution, benefits available immediately). So not a con, but rather a necessary move now — winning in the short-term (especially in Oregon), winning bigger in the long-term as we approach a FF free grid.
I have no problem with “getting people out of cars”, but I see no path forward to doing this on a broad level. I see a very practical path forward for EVs, and we can (and must) pursue both strategies (and others) simultaneously.
In my own life, I’ve chosen the “get out of cars” strategy for myself (unlike many other “get out of cars” advocates around here), so take that how you will.
Well, we live adjacent to a source of hydroelectric power that instead of it being provided to us, is run down powerlines to LA to power 3million homes. I know the current desire here is to always let perfect be the enemy of good, but it can’t possibly be a con and this is as someone who loves the reliability and convenience of having a 5.7L V8 at my disposal.
Thanks, PS, for adding your own pun (“the current desire”). I’m going to agree with you and Watts that EVs are a net positive. It’s just the marketing around EVs that is so deceptive – like a person driving a Tesla in Oregon today is some kind of climate warrior, when the battery is powered by a combination of natural gas and coal, with just a tiny % coming from renewables.
And you mentioned hydro: there’s no new hydro being built, anywhere, and hydro is decreasing since dams are viewed as bad for fish, tribes, and the environment.
Yes – we should be investing in renewables but we are nowhere close to having a electrical network powered by renewables. We are mostly converting fossil fuel to electricity and patting ourselves on the back.
Admittedly, it’s a hard question — Oregon generates a huge amount of hydro that we sell to CA, and then we backfill that with coal from Montana. Does that mean OR runs on coal or hydro? It’s all distributed on a big network and it’s impossible to say where any particular joule comes from. Maybe CA runs on coal. It’s really a question of accounting, not physics.
That said, the state reported that Oregon was about 45% fossil fuel in 2021. There are two main providers in OR, PGE and PacificCorp. PGE is much better than PacificCorp, so if you’re a PGE customer, you were already way better than 55% in 2021, and there’s been some big moves since then.
So even if nailing down a precise, defendable number is hard, there is no way you can substantiate characterizations like “a tiny %”. It’s closer to “a solid majority.” And it improves every year.
https://www.oregon.gov/energy/energy-oregon/pages/electricity-mix-in-oregon.aspx
The added benefit of electric cars is that better battery technology makes for lighter, higher-capacity ebikes, and better electric buses. I’d prefer to see trolley buses but the current battery buses that Trimet is running are a pretty smooth ride and very quiet driving through my neighborhood.
These are really good results on a shoestring budget. Kudos to PBOT for separating modes and taking data where they could. A 48% reduction in crashes (including all modes) is at the high end of what is normally expected for a 4 to 3 conversion, but the sample is pretty small. Great work.
I moved to the area after the road diet had been completed, but I can say that the biking along it is… fine. The nice wide and buffered bike lanes are great, and the automobile speeds certainly don’t seem too terribly fast. However, the bikeway has a bit of an awkward configuration, where southbound traffic is suddenly directed across the road to the east side at Morris, and then all cyclists are directed up onto the sidewalk for the I-84 overpass. And then northbound cyclists are direct to the right of southbound cyclists and into the right turn only lane for the Fremont/Maywood intersection, which can be a bit nerve-wracking. And that intersection is just pretty awkward in general.
With that said, driving on that road has been pretty good, and I have no complaints about congestion or anything. Granted, I have no before reference point, but I can compare 102nd north of Halsey versus 102nd south of Halsey, and the difference is night and day. And I’m certainly a lot more wary of cycling south of Halsey. I’d give PBOT a B on this work; it works pretty well, despite its awkwardness, but I really wish they’d continued the work further south in order to calm the whole Gateway area.
PBOT’s main design principle for bikeways is:
Inconvenience the bikes so the cars and trucks don’t need to be inconvenienced.
That’s where your “awkwardness” comes from.
Eh, I can see why PBOT did what they did, and I don’t think it was to inconvenience cyclists. That overpass has an on-ramp to I-84 East for southbound traffic that would create a dangerous conflict with cyclists riding (slowly uphill) on the right. Of course, that could have been mitigated in a less awkward way, but doing so would require a significant reconfiguration of that on-ramp, meaning significantly higher project costs and buy in from ODOT. In a perfect world, the bikeway wouldn’t be so awkward, but I understand prioritizing and picking your battles.
Driving a car is inherently frustrating and antagonizing for the human psyche. The entire car industry and car-transportation architects have worked tirelessly for the past century to make personal motor vehicle transportation less frustrating. They have failed. But in the process, they have destroyed cities and built unsustainable megaburbs.
Drivers will always stare out of their windshields, begging for the world around them to be demolished so that they can be free from the unbearable noise of the monkey vs. lizard cage match in their brains.
The megaburbs are only unsustainable if you are reliant on the central city for work, shopping, entertainment, etc. If you don’t need the central city and can supply all of those things without the central city, then your life is pretty sustainable. There are thousands of people who were daily commuters to downtown who now work from home and their life is far more sustainable than it was previously, their quality of life has also probably gone up dramatically as well.
The view that we all need to be crowded in around downtown, which seems core to the YIMBY worldview, seems a bit dated and doesn’t really reflect how an increasing number of us live (or want to live).
Well you can kiss any benefits that WFH applied to the environment as the incoming Mayor has already said he wants all City employees back to the office 4, then 5 days a week. Carbon footprint anyone? Gee could have saved taxpayers a bunch of money by dumping leases for unneeded space.
And that’s just not public employees, I’ve been seeing that large private employers are also forcing their workforce back.
Going to be more cars on the roads, stuck in even worse traffic since TriMet is incapable of stepping up and providing good service. Lots of rising blood pressures out there . . .
WFH has been a failure for both the City of Portland and Multnomah County. It’s time to get back to the office.
please elaborate.
WFH has been a huge success for both the City of Portland and Multnomah County!!! It’s time to get rid of downtown office real estate and build more residential space and services. It’s green, it’s lean, it’s serene.
WFH has been a huge win for me personally, and for my organization.
The personal: I am happier and healthier than I have ever been. I ride my bike more, I eat healthier food, I get more and better sleep. No longer am I fighting the stupid clock every morning to drag my ass to a cube farm and then watching the clock all day til I can go home. My stress level from not being at the office is about one-tenth of what it used to be.
The organization: I am so much more productive than I used to be. No longer do I suffer the distractions of the cube farm – having to listen to co-workers talking about their weekends or arguing with people on the phone. I get much more done, more efficiently, and I do higher quality work overall. I have time to work on things I never had time to work on before.
CoP and MultCo are a failure b/c they are led by failed leaders, within a failed paradigm of governance (esp CoP) – and that was true well before WFH became a thing. If you give city and county workers a good organization with good leaders, they’ll be successful in a WFH context. As a taxpayer, I want gov’t to save costs of office space by using WFH for workers who want it.
I believe you but my organization has had the opposite experience nationwide. People are less productive and more distracted when WFH. At the same time they work longer hours (or at least work over a longer period of their day) and then feel more burnt out – according to surveys, and of course these are generalities. At a more intangible level, we are a professional service organization and less learning happens, less “corporate culture” is transmitted, less mentoring happens, when people WFH. We are strongly encouraged (not required … yet) to be in the office at least 60% of the time and though it can be inconvenient I’m on board because I see the difference in business results.
The city should have city workers in the city owned building downtown that they spent $200M+ to remodel a few short years ago. Private enterprise is different and ironically, those private businesses aren’t sending their workers back downtown, that we know for a fact.
City bureaus are spread out all over downtown, not just the Portland building. There’s plenty of leased office space that could be cut to save the tax payers a lot of money.
PacificCorp is one, there are others, I’m not going to list them all for you.
That’s not how leases work. The tenant doesn’t get to quit paying because it became inconvenient.
The office vacancy rate is 30+% and going up, not down.
Poor timing, but I as a taxpayer don’t expect workers to suffer for the poor decision of city leaders. I don’t need to see bodies in cubicals to know workers are productive.
Fair, maybe it would feel better if that productivity was more apparent.
Or not productive, in many cases.
The more that the urbs urbanize and make space for people instead of cars, the happier everyone will be.
Are you sure? There’s a lot of people who don’t want to live cheek-to-jowl with others, and would be a lot happier with a little space.
And then there are a lot of people that are willing to sacrifice some space for a more urban living.
Although Portland and US as a whole has been pretty awful about building anything in between 5-over-1s and SFHs.
There are some people like that, especially the young and transient and the old and downsizing. I have noticed, however, that many of the most ardent advocates of that style of living are themselves living in single family houses.
I’ve gotta agree with you here, Watts. SFH with some green space is the ideal living condition for me, and it’s not incompatible with cycling infrastructure or transit, as so many people here claim.
Less than 10% of people in Portland live in anything approaching a “dense” neighborhood. Most people don’t want to live in density or urbanity, if they did, the price of condos wouldn’t be going down.
If we right-size car/ truck infrastructure, there is room for multi-family, single family and condos with zoning for all of the things people want close by but can’t have because of car sewers and cess-parking lots.
Can you be a bit more specific? What does “right sizing” look like for inner Powell, and how would that make room for more of all those types of housing you mentioned?
Good for them, but WFH is still a small percentage of the total workforce. The vast majority of suburban workers are driving every day anyway. Everyone is driving for every errand, and heating and cooling their large houses.
It is not sustainable.
Well, the people aren’t driving downtown that is for sure, and that is certainly an improvement over the past.
It is sustainable because the new homes built today are more efficient than the ancient Portland house with a 30 year old furnace, 4 window AC units and 2″ of insulation in the attic and none in the walls. I have 2x the square feet I had in Sellwood and it costs the same to heat/cool and the water bill is half.
Keep moving the goalposts.
All of the issues with your Sellwood house could have been solved if you tried. I sold my last 100+ year old Portland home after making many DIY energy improvements. It got a HES score of 8. New furnace, new windows, wall insulation, attic insulation.
But the primary difference in urban vs. suburban is the housing density. But you already knew that.
I want to touch on this as well. Let’s take a look at the 2023 ACS estimates commute tables by race (here) to see how things shake out (unfortunately no specific bike only detail for this table, but still illustrative since biking is the majority in that section):
I don’t see compelling evidence that biking is disproportionately White here – quite the opposite really, at least at the national level. In Portland, the margins of error are too high for non-White racial groups to be super confident (almost equal to the estimate values), but White people do seemingly commute via Taxi/Bike/Other at higher rates than Black or Latino. I don’t find either dynamic to be surprising based on broad national trends and specific aspects of Portland’s history. In DC, where the oped was presumably written about, Black residents commute via Taxi/Bike/Other at lower rates (3.4%) than White residents (6.9%), but Latino residents commute via Taxi/Bike/Other at the highest rates (7.2%).
What about by income? Well let’s consult table B08121. Wow, those who walk or do taxi/bike/other earn far less than their counterparts who drive alone or work from home. If you take a taxi/bike/other to work, you earn $10,000/year less than your counterparts who drive alone. If you are interested in how this shakes out in Portland, those who commute via Bike/Taxi/Other earn a median income of $44k/year while those who drove alone earned $59k. Interestingly, if you look at the “bike commuting heyday years” (I’m referencing the 2016 ACS 5 Year estimate, which is 2012-2016 but this is broadly true of all years after 2011 and proceeding 2023) you’ll see a far narrower income gap in Portland – which does suggest that much of the success of the Portland bike commuting world revolved around downtown office jobs (something I’m sure we all sort of agree on). Though given that this data includes those who commute by taxi (likely very high income earners), perhaps it’s slightly skewed.
In any case, there are huge local variations to all of this – but I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize bikers, bike lanes, or any other aspect of the cycling world (outside of advocacy perhaps) as somehow “for rich White people”.
What’s been jarring for me in light of recent claims like the one from D1 candidate Noah Ernst that PBOT is simply pushing the agenda of “rich white men in spandex” on the folks of East Portland, and others who are using the “cyclists are all rich white men” narrative to push their own agendas… is that we had two people killed by drivers on the same morning recently. Both were black. One was on his way to work. Neither of them fit the stereotype so many people want to make of “cyclists.” It’s just so gross and desperate how people will twist their minds in order to not change and maintain the status quo.
We rich white men are just such an easy target. We’re the new enemies of The People.
Rich white men have always been the enemies of the people.
Them and the news media.
As a comfortable (“rich” is in the eye of the beholder) white man I try to understand people’s resentment and then model difference. And challenge assumptions, when/if I can without being confrontational.
Exactly. There is a huge discrepancy between the perception of who gets on a bike, and who actually does it. BIPOC folks are also more prone to be killed/injured by crashes. And I think it’s a really difficult space for DOTs to navigate.
DC is a really complicated place where “white flight” happened in a much more dramatic fashion than in Portland. Anecdotally, I lived in a neighborhood where a church had diagonal parking that DDOT wanted to turn into a separated bike lane. Most of the people in the church had moved outside the city and were black, whereas most of the people who had somewhat recently moved into the neighborhood were white. I don’t know the answer, and it’s likely case by case, but it’s often a very difficult situation (difficult but good we are finally confronting this problem).
It’s almost like as soon as someone tosses out some race related wording you are supposed to take it at face value and not have any critical thinking wrapped around it.
The last few years its been a tactic to silence others. Afterall if you speak out you suddenly become racist because you have to agree with what the person said, right?
Just leave it to the Washington Post to continue doing their articles wrapped around race in the hopes of not having informed adult discussions and continuing to divide us when we should be coming together. Shame on them.
I truly appreciate PBOTs attempts to turn these four and five lane roads into something calmer and safer that makes our neighborhoods nicer places to be.
A lot of times I think PBOT uses bike lanes as filler to take up the space removed from drivers so that they can say “hey, see, we put something new here so that’s why we took your lane away.” But, to begin with, some of these roads should have never been built as big and wide as they are, and now we are in the process of right-sizing things. However, that comes with a perception of loss from the viewpoint of drivers. If only we’d been building out the bike network at the same time as the road network… Eventually, someday, maybe, lots of these new road diet bike lanes will be better linked into a more cohesive bike network. Until then, you’ll have to listen to that annoying neighbor/coworker/uncle, complain about how they never see anyone in the bike lanes and all this lane reduction is just causing traffic to get too slow and make it too hard to “get across town.” When you explain to them that slower traffic is safer and makes neighborhoods better for pedestrians and businesses, they’ll just tell you that “well there’s too much traffic on the highway so I drive the streets like I always have.“
From your uncle’s perspective: “When I explain to my annoying nephew that these projects are making it harder for me and my neighbors to get anywhere, he just tells me ‘well, it’s safer now'”.
Different people have different priorities, and PBOT works for all of us, even the people who don’t see things the way we do.
The sidewalks in US cities in front of businesses are very narrow compared to other places. I think a lot of angst could be resolved if sidewalks at a higher grade than the roads were put in and bicycles had a lane on those sidewalks. Bikes wouldn’t be taking from cars, they would be sharing with others on the sidewalk.
Nothing creates more angst (for me at least) than walking on a European sidewalk with bicycles coming from who knows which direction and having to be very careful where I stand. Riding a bike in a pedestrian environment such as a busy MUP is also stressful because pedestrians often block the way or wander into my path.
Combining bikes and sidewalks is a bad idea. Bikes operate much more like cars than they do like pedestrians.
If it’s done well, with clear separation, it’s fine.
Outside of Europe, the section of SW Moody by OHSU is a great example of where it works well.
Yes, that section doesn’t have much crossing of travel paths, and has fairly low volumes of walkers, who, in my experience at least, rarely try to walk side-by-side such that they don’t fit into their narrow designated area.
Like NE 102.
There is plenty of room for people to walk side by side.
I’ve never walked there or biked there, so I’ll take your word for it. But from the photos above, it looks like there are on-street bike lanes and an ordinary sidewalk, so not entirely relevant to the European designs I was discussing.
I’m glad it’s working!
Was interesting reading through the report and seeing stuff like:
“There was feedback that travel times were slower but both transit and car travel times when measured saw no change”
I sort of wonder if the issue there is drivers are driving slower but spending less time waiting at stoplights (which are timed to the actual speed limit) so it feels to them like they are going slower when in fact it takes the same amount of time?
I will also say it was interesting riding my bike out on outer division and that seeing quite a few north-south arterials like this had obviously been repaved recently with new sidewalks and bike lanes installed at the same time. I remember it being quite a wasteland east of I-205 when I was riding out there ca. Dec 2019, but now it feels like someone could somewhat safely bicycle for transportation to a lot of places.
Note that the signals here cannot be timed for the speed limit, as the street is bi-directional. That is only possible with one way streets.
The reason travel times are not increasing measurably even as average speeds go down is because the difference between 30mph and 40mph over such a sort stretch is minuscule. Most of the travel time is spent sitting at red lights, so minor changes in speed between those red lights isn’t going to measurably affect total travel time.
The protected lanes on 136 south of Division are pretty nice. The only part that sucks is the Powell intersection and they haven’t cleaned them in a while.
I drive on that section of 102nd a lot and though it is nicer, more than once I’ve had drivers pass me on the right (through the buffer and bike lane) because I dared to delay them by going the speed limit.
And when I used to walk on 102nd numerous drivers would ignore my attempt at crossing the street at the dedicated crossings.
It’s a great start, but to make a truly safe street more work needs to be done.
Traffic looks congested.
It does get backed up some at rush hour, but most of the rest of the day it flows fine. It gets really worse if theirs an issue on I-205 and people use 102nd to “go around”.
Jonathan,
Great point: “And while I appreciate having a 27-page analysis of one project, I couldn’t help but think of the time and energy it took for PBOT staff to complete the evaluation and share it with the public. It’s yet another layer of process and planning in addition to all the pre-construction outreach, open houses, and surveys. I can’t wait for the day when PBOT can just look at adopted plans, find some funding, design a project, implement the changes, and then move onto the next one — without having to spend so much time justifying their actions and assuaging haters who will criticize them no matter what they do.”
Though regarding the “haters” comment, perhaps its more nuanced, that the haters are quiet for changes that help drivers, as generally [in the recent past] there has been much less process for adding roadway car capacity (and access – turn lanes, etc.] and that was fine with ‘them’.
I have the privilage of riding to and from work(9-5, m-f) on 102nd from Halsey to Sandy. I’m thrilled to see it slowed down. I also use motorcycles and cars on that stretch of road but try to during non peak hours. Normalize cycling! Normalize slow driving!
Well you had me right up until, “ I can’t wait for the day when PBOT can just look at adopted plans, find some funding, design a project, implement the changes, and then move onto the next one — without having to spend so much time justifying their actions and assuaging haters who will criticize them no matter what they do.”
From the abandoned freeway projects to the Williams project (which BikePortland provided extensive and ongoing coverage of), to any other of the countless examples, haven’t we learned the importance of community engagement?
Isn’t the kind of society we want to live in one where the voices of constituents are heard and valued? I applaud PBOT for their rigor in providing this sort of analysis and doing a better job–still not perfect–of taking seriously the demands of the community in shaping infrastructure projects around our city. Maybe I am misinterpreting the sentiment behind the closing remarks here, but I thought BikePortland has championed this very sort of thorough community engagement in the past.
There needs to be a better balance. Right now I think PBOT spends too much time on process sometimes. I’m not opposed to process.
“haven’t we learned the importance of community engagement?”
Seriously, this. Meaningful engagement makes projects better.
We should hear and value them, then continue doing what’s right and not what they desire. We certainly don’t want road design to be a democracy. (Or anything for that matter!)
ODOT has decided what right thing is for the IBR and the Rose Quarter. Should we just shut up and let them get on with it?
I look at the new design and see a long straight road where anybody can drive 100 mph and easily kill people. Even with all that traffic!