Happy Friday everyone. It sure was nice to have Eva back in The Shed after a few week holiday hiatus. This episode was meaty! Here are a few of the things we talked about:
- “How’d She Get There?” segment was Sellwood to Lake Oswego (including some very scary options).
- Why Eva is creeped out by lobster-style bike gloves (something about the devil).
- Michael Reiss and his amazing leaf sweeping work.
- Why I think it’s time for PBOT to privatize bike lane maintenance
- I went on a huge rant about all the Vision Zero drama going on with PBOT, the PPB, and so on.
- The 82nd Ave Plan that was just adopted at City Council and why some transportation advocates don’t like it.
- Why pitting bikes against transit (like PBOT is doing on 82nd) is a no good, very bad idea.
- The new Bike Happy Hour location on N Williams Ave.
- Closure of Cynergy E-Bike Store.
- And more.
Thanks for listening!
Thanks for reading.
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Maybe I’m in a minority that doesn’t have drive time to fill with podcasts and just wants to jam out to tunes with while working with their headphones on, but can we get an index to these topic?
Personally, I want to hear more about how the streetscaping for Highway 213 (82nd) is fundamentally different than Highway 99E (MLK) running through my neighborhood. They don’t seem superficially different and it’s not a standard anyone should be proud of. If anything these roads spur shadow development on parallels like N Williams for MLK or SE Division for Powell.
I’ve scrubbed through before, but I’m just not feeling it this time.
Idea for your podcast:
Since people now have phones, how about calling someone who lives and cycles in that part of the city or metro area to help out with the “How’d she get there” segment?
Your description of the route to L.O. from Sellwood was pretty off. At one point Eva mentioned Maplewood, which is nowhere near the route. The turn at the top of the cemetery should have been left to reach the rotary by the law school, not right and downhill to Terwilliger and that crap intersection.
Then Jonathan said Tryon Creek Park is a city park, when in fact it’s a state park! The description of the MUP was also odd, with the two of you speculating whether it’s okay to ride on. It is – it’s a MUP for bikes and peds and signed that way.
Anyway, it could be fun to call a listener and ask her/him to describe the route in their part of the city or Beaverton or wherever. Then the two of you could react in real time and it would be interesting.
That’s some free advice, right there. You’re welcome!
Thanks for the podcast.
Shedenizens,
Thank you so much for highlighting 82nd Ave in your conversation!
If it comes up again, PBOT’s bikes slowing down transit comments on 82nd aren’t about buses sharing a lane with bikes, they refer to a strawman analysis PBOT did with overbuilt protected bike lanes taking up the entire outside lanes on 82nd, and forcing the bus to share a single lane with cars. That was the only configuration PBOT considered for bike access, as a sham analysis that no one was asking for, and yes to create a bikes vs transit tradeoff that doesn’t exist.
PBOT will not acknowledge the possibility of a Bus/Bike lane (I use the friendly Rose Lane term), instead referring only to sections of BAT lanes (Business And Transit), for buses to share with drivers turning off and onto 82nd from anywhere, which probably wouldn’t be that different from what is there now. There are so many driveways and curb cuts that a BAT lane that allows turning vehicles would be a hectic place to ride a bike. Most of those curb cuts and improvised sidewalk parking lots need to go away to create a safe, livable, walkable 82nd. I was told that negotiations over those “business access points” during this critical fixes phase were not easy, and PBOT rolled over and is maintaining almost all of them.
Creating turning lanes and queues for cars is all the rage in bikeway design, because unfettered flow of cars is still the primary goal of all transportation planning. If you ever wondered why people walking and biking need to bump over to the right at ‘protected’ intersection designs, adding out of direction travel cost to active transportation users, it’s to create a little space for a turning car to wait. Apparently drivers are so stressed and fragile that if they don’t have a dedicated place to wait when turning, they will run people over instead of inconveniencing drivers behind them.
I feel optimistic that the new City government will encourage PBOT to make better choices on 82nd that align with our city and regional transportation goals and priorities, but they will need help understanding the details and access to accurate information.
Thanks for all the great dialogue that happens in the shed!
Another frustrating thing about PBOT’s traffic analysis for removing car lanes on 82nd is that they say some traffic will move to the freeway (good!) but that also too much traffic would move to other nearby streets. This continues to be a problem for PBOT taking the street by street approach. With the way they are planning 82nd they don’t have the resources or directive to fix the nearby streets at the same time. They should put bus/bike lanes on 82nd and then put traffic calming on any streets where traffic might divert to until as much of the cross town traffic goes to the freeway (that is why we built it in the first place!) Instead, PBOT says there hands are tied and all our streets remain car streets.