Let’s play a game: Look at the City of Portland’s concept for the future of 82nd Avenue in the image above and try to find a bicycle. I’ll wait.
Every mode besides the bicycle is clearly represented in the drawing, but you need to look very closely and use x-ray vision to see a few bikes hidden behind a tree in the center left. Meanwhile, the Portland Bureau of Transportation is so eager to show that car users will still have access to all five lanes they placed three drivers in “Bus Only” lanes. Sigh.
This drawing is from PBOT’s Building a Better 82nd Avenue Plan that was unanimously adopted by Portland City Council on December 4th. We knew PBOT wasn’t going to include dedicated bike facilities on 82nd Avenue. We first reported that fact almost two years ago and followed-up back in August with a story that made it official. The council hearing two weeks ago was another opportunity for PBOT to explain their rationale, and for Portlanders and city council members to weigh in.
In a presentation on the plan, PBOT Planner Julia Reed told Mayor Ted Wheeler and the rest of council that bicycle use on 82nd is a lower priority than other uses due to its lower classification compared to other modes in our Transportation System Plan. Even so, PBOT considered it. They ran the traffic numbers on converting the outermost lane to a protected bike lane and found it wasn’t workable, due to transit delays and automobile diversion. So the PBOT plan will focus instead on cycling improvements on nearby neighborhood greenways, then make sure there are safe crossings and access points across and onto 82nd.
PBOT calls their cycling approach a “bicycle ladder” strategy. Imagine the sides of the ladder being bike-friendly streets on either side of 82nd, with the rungs of the ladder being the crossings.
“We explored the possibility of incorporating dedicated protected bike lanes,” Reed explained at council. “But modeling showed that would result in the Line 72 bus [the busiest line in Oregon] facing major congestion — a more than 50% travel time delay.” In the plan itself, PBOT says their modeling showed the installation of a protected bike lane would also “lead to significant automobile diversion.”
Hearing PBOT so clearly pit transit against bicycling (an unforced error in my opinion) was music to the ears of Commissioner (and council member-elect) Dan Ryan. “I’m enjoying this!” he exclaimed at one point while clarifying with Reed that there would be no dedicated bike access on 82nd Ave. Ryan has long advocated for getting bike users off major roads. He sees streets less as community-builders and more as corridors for commerce and believes it was a mistake for PBOT to install protected bike lanes on SE Division and often cites business owners who agree with him.
“I think sometimes in Portland we try to put too many modes of transportation in a small space,” he said before voting “aye” on the plan. “And we’re not connected to the reality of the importance of arterials to move goods and services around which everyone wants. So I think you’re striking a really great balance.”
Thomas Ngo, board chair of The Street Trust, also expressed support for the plan during his invited testimony. He spoke about how he lives nearby and how dangerous it is to cross 82nd or access its transit stops. He made no mention of the bicycling issue.
Two leaders from Bike Loud testified at the council meeting and expressed strong disappointment in the plan. Bike Loud Vice Chair Kiel Johnson said, “We are concerned that this plan fails to meet our most basic transportation priorities,” he said. “What you’re being asked to approve today does not include a plans to have a continuous ADA compliant sidewalk, or any bicycle facilities, or a street layout that will create the safe, vibrant Main Street the east Portland community has been asking for.” Johnson said if PBOT really wants to save lives and reach its transportation goals, they should “repurpose car lanes”. He likened this opportunity to the choice former Oregon Governor Tom McCall faced in the 1960s when he decided to remove Harbor Drive and create Waterfront Park. “All the transportation planners told him removing the freeway would lead to ‘carmageddon’… but they decided to buck their own transportation planners and remove the freeway, because it was the right thing to do.”
Kiel and Bike Loud Chair Aaron Kuehn both testified that the lane cross-section outlined in the 82nd Avenue Plan does not comply with Oregon’s Bike Bill, which requires transportation agencies to provide adequate cycling facilities whenever a major road reconstruction or repaving project takes place (and which they know something about as representatives of plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit against the city for not following it).
Kuehn says the plan replaces 82nd Avenue with essentially the same cross-section it has today. At the least, he believes 82nd should have a shared bike/bus lane. Kuehn wants a dedicated bus lane on the entire seven-mile corridor and an explicit acknowledgement that bicycle riders are permitted to ride in it if they choose (much like riders do on current Rose Lanes on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and elsewhere)
Kuehn points to current Biketown data that shows a significant amount of people using bikes and electric scooters on 82nd (and its sidewalks). He wants to see the street re-classified as a Major City Bikeway in the TSP to bring it up to par with other modes. Kuehn has sketched out two cross-sections showing how bike riders can be accommodated on 82nd: One shows the shared bus lane, the other shows a bike lane that’s protected from car drivers by a bus lane buffer.
The future of the bus lane is still up in the air. There’s a separate process currently underway to determine exactly what type of transit facility 82nd gets.
Oregon Walks Executive Director Zachary Lauritzen is closely tied to this project, having received sizable city grants to organize support for new sidewalks. He didn’t take a position on whether or not 82nd should have bike access, but he made it clear he’s disappointed PBOT isn’t opening up the conversation about the lane configuration. “The community really wants to have that conversation [about lane dedication],” Lauritzen said. “They want to know what the future of 82nd Avenue looks like. They want it to be slower. They want there to be fewer cars, and they want it to be safer.”
Reed emphasized that there’s nothing in the adopted plan that dictates the type of bus lane that’s ultimately built on 82nd Avenue, or whether or not we allow bike riders on it. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with TriMet Planner Michael Kiser about this subject back in June 2023: “I’d like to say, ‘We did Division, now let’s go bigger’ But we don’t control the right-of-way and want to work with our partners.” Those partners on Portland City Council will be much different starting January 1st. Whether or not they’ll be willing to have this conversation remains to be seen.
Thanks for reading.
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What I don’t understand is why PBOT is choosing to pit transit against biking while they make no mention of the true culprit: driving. It is all the drivers and their cars having access to five lanes that is the true cause of transit delay. But by framing this as transit vs bikes they hurt cycling in the long run. Similar to what they did on SE Hawthorne.
It’s like they are so afraid to speak ill of driving they are willing to make bicycling their scapegoat. It’s really disappointing. Or maybe I’m just seeing this all wrong?
From the illustration at the top of this story, it looks like there is only one through auto lane in each direction. Drivers can use the bus lanes to execute a right turn, which makes a lot more sense than requiring them to turn across the bus lane, creating the same sort of conflict us cyclists know from where PBOT requires cars to turn right across bike lanes.
It looks like it’s two travel lanes, two bus lanes (with the possibility they will be shared with bikes), and a center left turn lane.
I think you’re seeing it wrong; it does not appear to me to be an overly car-centric design.
The center turn lane is the culprit; its only purpose is to move cars as fast as possible.
That space could, and should, be repurposed for protected bike lanes.
Do you propose banning left turns completely for the length or do the cars pile up, take unsafe chances, and pass turners in the bus lane?
Banning left turns? Great idea; I’d sign that petition.
Maybe ban left turns at some intersections and let cars “pile up” at others? We’re not talking Manhattan gridlock here lol
In the middle of the highway? Are you effin kidding me? Parents biking their kids to elementary school in a bike cart. In the middle of the highway? You don’t see complete disaster there? Come on! Wake up!
Hey Belynda, I’m not assuming anything from your or Zach’s comments. But median protected bike lanes do exist. One such case is Pennsylvania avenue in DC, which has been there for more than a decade if I’m not mistaken.
Some of the protected bike lanes have proven successful in DC, although I don’t have access to robust research specifically on median bike lanes, which are somewhat rare. NYC also has median separated bike lanes on Delancey Street approaching the Williamsburg Bridge.
In the US we often see a hodgepodge of experimental infrastructure for various reasons (e.g., political, financial, lack of research-based standards, lack of capacity building AKA skills etc.), which make for inconsistent, bemusing, and sometimes even dangerous variations of protected bike lanes.
Personally, and anecdotally I’ve found the Pennsylvania and Delancey bike lanes are somewhat impractical since one must often use the crosswalk to access most destinations.
Was a misundestanding, center-running bike lanes are absolutely not best practice. I meant that the 12+ feet of width that the center turn lane takes up could instead be used for normal protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.
I meant that the space/width used/ceded for the center turn lane should instead be used for protected bike lanes on both sides of the street, not with a center-running bike lane. Apologies for the misunderstanding!
Number of years ago I was visiting relatives in Santa Ana, CA and driving around. I was quite surprise how many multi-lane streets would have the center lane filled with plants with concrete curbs (going for blocks) blocking the majority of left turns. So, if you needed to turn left, you had to go several blocks to a light, wait for the light to make a U-turn, then go back to the street you were wanting.
I wouldn’t propose the center lanes in Portland to become bike lanes, but doing something similar to Santa Ana might bring a smidgen of sanity to the center lane and if they planted appropriate trees then having additional tree cover can only help with the heat islands around.
Yeah Solar that’s a common design theme particularly before the advent of the auto on some streets. Here’s the history of Park ave in NYC. Take a look at Park ave now, vs what it was prior the advent of auto-centric modifications. Most cities went through this process of removing ped/bike space as a means of “progress” assuming the car (mostly flying) was the future.
Me either. But why exactly does trimet need its own lane? Come on now!! That’s garbage.
Because the 72nd bus line is the busiest in Oregon? It moves tens of thousands of people, and could probably move more with lane priority and more frequent headways.
It looks like the bus will have lane priority.
I don’t think that’s a given. There’s not a lot of red paint in that rendering.
Cars can’t go straight from the outer lane at intersections, which makes it a rather inconvenient for driving. Buses can, so even without any red paint, it is essentially their travel lane.
The line 72 transit planning is ongoing. Most of it is not decided yet. There’s a strong push for a dedicated bus lane. And pushback as well.
There are current openings on the advisory committee:
https://trimet.org/82nd/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
In NYC bus lanes were a tentative process at the very best. Most bus lanes were ignored during their introduction (e.g., by delivery vehicles, ubers, taxis, police etc.) which essentially negated their use the majority of the time. With the advent of automatic bus camera fines for vehicles parked in the bus lane, that behavior has plummeted.
Still, a separated median bus lane would essentially preclude any frequent abuse of an otherwise likely dysfunctional curb lane.
Because one of the big reasons people don’t ride Trimet is because it can’t be counted on to get you somewhere on time. I can’t count the number of times people have mentioned to me how they missed a doctor’s appointment or job interview because they relied on Trimet. Of course I tell people, if you have to be somewhere by a specific time take a Taxi or rideshare.
So, getting dedicated bus lines on as many of the main streets in town will allow Trimet to get better at being on time and not stuck in traffic.
Then the side affect of that might be people deciding they Trimet might get them somewhere and be close to being on time.
Then there’d be less car drivers taking up space on those streets too.
So all in all, dedicating a lane to bus/bike would go a long way to making the streets of Portland (or any city) better.
The fatal paradox for all bus service is that it can never be faster and more convenient than a personal automobile so long as it gets stuck in the same traffic as those personal automobiles. If you give them their own right of way to improve speed and reliability, that paradox goes away and you can have a transportation network that truly allows for choice of mode.
The other fatal paradoxes of bus service are that it is neither point-to-point nor is it on-demand. I believe both of those are at least as problematic as traffic delays. It also stops frequently to let people on and off, which makes it inherently slow regardless of traffic conditions.
Bus service is inconvenient even in the off-hours when there is an insignificant amount of other traffic on the street, and on low-traffic routes.
Yes, those features are inherently inconvenient but can be mitigated in a number of ways (they’re also shared by other modes of mass transit). If buses are frequent enough, them not being “on demand” becomes less of a concern, because you may only be waiting a few minutes. If you combine good frequency with a robust network in which almost all people live within a few blocks of a stop, buses not being “point-to-point” also becomes less of an issue. Stop density versus average vehicle speed is always a tradeoff, but express services, whether bus or otherwise, can also help strike that balance. And if bus service is given access to direct routes while private automobiles are restricted to more indirect routes, buses can more easily compete on speed and convenience.
And while automobiles may be convenient in some respects, there’s a tradeoff in inconvenience elsewhere. It’s inconvenience to sink thousands of dollars into ownership, insurance, fuel, and maintenance every year. It’s inconvenient to have to find parking everywhere you take it. It’s inconvenient to have to devote your attention and effort to operation rather than socializing, reading a book, watching a video, etc. that you can do as a rider on a bus. If you tell me that I have to commit to taking a ten-minute walk twice a day and be in a moving vehicle five minutes longer than I would be driving a car in order to save $5k a year, I’d tell you that’s a trade-off worth pursuing.
Yes, they are, which is why no one has been able to figure out how to make a mass transit system good enough to be the default mode for most Portlanders.
High frequency buses can help with the on-demand part, but increase cost and energy use dramatically. Providing direct routes for everyone is obviously impossible, and even building a “robust network” connecting everyone within a few blocks is not a real possibility in Portland.
Even where transit service is relatively good (like inner SE), most people choose alternatives where they can.
It is true that cars have high fixed costs, but once you’ve paid those (if you want a car for skiing or hiking or visiting grandma or whatever), the marginal costs for most trips are cheaper than transit in dollars and hugely cheaper in terms of time and flexibility.
It sounds like transit works well for you, and that’s great. Judging by their actions, most people prefer other modes. There are lots of things we could theoretically do to improve the transit experience, but most are expensive, and there is an upper limit to what we can do.
Yeah, the biggest issue is that if you want to go between two places in Portland, you can get there pretty directly by your own personal automobile, so of course that’s always going to be the easiest, most convenient option (assuming the sunk cost that you already own and insure a car and that the cost of fuel, parking, depreciation, etc. is negligible). That’s why I included that final point in my first paragraph, because it’s not a requirement that I be able to make a beeline from my house in Madison South to City Hall. The Netherlands, as an example, does a pretty good job of building a bunch of direct routes for cyclists and mass transit while requiring automobiles to take indirect routes to move within their cities. Example that I just looked up, picking a couple more or less random spots in Amsterdam: CityHub in Amsterdam-West to Oude Kerk in Amsterdam’s old walled city is a 26-minute car ride (traffic should be light, as it’s almost 11pm as I write this), 24 minutes by tram, and 10 minutes (!) by bicycle. This is achievable because there are many bicycle and pedestrian paths into De Wallen and relatively few automobile roads, and the ones that do exist are generally low speed roads that prioritize safety and more efficient modes of travel over automobiles. The drive is 6.6 km, compared to the 3.0 km bicycle ride.
Under the Portland model, I can get in my car and travel right alongside the cycling and transit routes straight to my destination. Hell, I often have multiple main arterials and highways to choose from. Trying to get downtown? I’ll just hope on Halsey for a mile, then get right onto I-84 and be in the Rose Quarter in just a few minutes. Or maybe I’ll stay on Halsey. Or maybe I’ll take Glisan or Burnside, instead. Or if I’m feeling really frisky, I’ll take Fremont to Sandy. And big, long, relatively high-speed drags to make sure that I, the intrepid motorist, get to wherever I’m going as quickly and conveniently as possible, while the poor cyclist is relegated to zig-zagging
back roads“neighborhood greenways” with almost no destinations, aside from private residences, a few parks, and some schools, along their route. In Portland the car is king, and our modal share reflects that, regardless of what our city leaders may say to the contrary. It doesn’t have to be that way, though, as evidenced by many other cities who have successfully shifted their mode share away from cars by deprioritizing the car.Yes — cars, like bikes and walking, provide point-to-point transportation, which is one of the reasons people find them more useful than transit. With Google in my pocket, I don’t find wayfinding by bike to be much harder than going someplace by car with the same minimal level of planning I’d apply to either trip (or to a transit trip for that matter, which requires more planning but is hardly problematic with modern tools).
All that said, I highly doubt this is why people no longer bike much in Portland. Route finding is significantly easier now than it was when far more people were riding and managing to find their way.
You misunderstand me. It’s not that the wayfinding is easy or hard; it’s that I can go from A to B in a relatively straight line. Go look at the Amsterdam example I gave on Google Maps. The route for driving is more than twice the route by bicycle, which is part of why taking cycling takes less than half the time as driving.
I find that my bike trips feel about the same distance as my car trips to the same destination, even if the routes are different. I’m positive I could find examples where biking is shorter than driving, and others where it is longer.
For me, this just isn’t an issue, and I’m skeptical its much of a deterrent to bike riding. I do accept that the problem may be worse in E or SW Portland where the street grids are less grid-like.
Comparisons with Amsterdam don’t seem particularly informative in this case; the cities have a much different layout tied to a vastly different geography, history, politics, and policies.
Which means they have access to the lane for functionally the entire length of 82nd given how many curb cuts there are. 82nd should really have a center running busway alignment imo.
Exactly blum. Without any means to mitigate this inherent design problem the potential effect of the “bus lane” will be negligible at best.
You know why PBOT didn’t propose a center-running bus lane — they wanted to maintain left turns because, as Jonathan reported in an earlier story, they heard from the community that they did not want the Division treatment on 82nd.
Like I said before, these are all inherently political decisions, and arguing about the technical merits of your preferred solution will only get you so far.
You need to either deal with the political reality or have a plan for changing it. Ignoring it isn’t going to get you very far.
They wanted to maintain left turn lanes for drivers. We are spending $100 million+ to rebuild 82nd, and the primary design concern is still drivers. I know that this is a result of a political process, but it still sucks and should be identified.
I agree that we need to be clear about the political reality and deal with that one way or another. Most of the conversation here is contingent on a different political reality, with very little thought given to how to make that alternate reality real.
100%. Ryan’s comment was particularly annoying. We try to put too many modes on one road? Sure! I agree. So lets remove one of those modes (cars) *somewhere*. Anywhere! The default is it’s assumed cars can drive anywhere and everyone else is a maybe.
I also find it extremely ironic in the picture at the top that has only the hidden bikes and no bike infrastructure, yet shows a prominently displayed rack of e-scooters. Which are not allowed on the sidewalk! So where are they supposed to ride? Usually the bike lane but there isn’t one!
No! Not move the cars! Bikes do not and never will rule the road. Why are you guys so dead set on dying on a bike? Any of you think your families, friends? Children? We are not going to move cars off of a major roadway for bikes. Come on ! Thera nothing wrong with bikes using a side street that’s already safer. 3/4 of all bad shit just disappeared by riding 1 block away. And bikes don’t need a lane. Bikes can keep and use the whole frickin road. There ya go. Problem solved.
Bikes can use the whole road, you’re correct. But people in cars use their vehicles as weapons and tools of intimidation. They intentional try to force people on bicycles off the road, yell at people on bicycles, harass people on bicycles, throw objects at people on bicycles. It happens all the time. That is why dedicated space on roadways for bicycles is useful and desirable. It reduces the number of conflicts and makes biking more desirable for a larger segment of the population.
A bike lane on 82nd would have deadly conflicts at every driveway and intersection. It would be a terrible place to ride.
I assume it would be similar to outer division, which is a pretty decent place to bike (would be much better if pbot trimmed overhanging vegetation and cleared debris, but that’s really a minor gripe).
The main problems with the design on Division are:
The proximity to auto/bus trafficThe unprotected intersectionsThis is a function of squeezing in a “Protected” bike lane by essentially maintaining a level of car (traffic 3 lanes each way at points). PBOT was certainly hogtied during this process since car “flow” and “throughput” are the buddha figurine they must invariably bow to on the vast majority of projects.
Incidentally, the use of “Bus lanes” on Division may give us an idea of what they look like on 82nd, i.e., suggestive at best.
That’s some broad stroke right there. I find the vast majority of Portland drivers to be deferential to me when I’m on a bike. Sometimes to a fault. Yes, the number of dangerous and speeding drivers I see has increased with the lack of enforcement since the pandemic but there’s still a lot of nice folks driving cars in Portland (including most commenters on this blog).
Sure. The vast majority of Portland drivers are great. But one person can wreck a ride, and it happens to me quite often when I leave the confines of the inner core of Portland (and occasionally quite close to home).
“…vast majority of Portland drivers to be deferential to… a bike.”
It’s not a majority, and sometimes that deferential minority just botch right of way precedence in the reverse of people who overlook bikes completely. We get induced confusion on one hand and deadly danger from the aggressive sector.
I often see the last car in a series slow and stop, muddling the timing of the gap I was going to use to cross an arterial street. It’s a complete misunderstanding of what’s needed to navigate on a bike, especially when there are two lanes in each direction.
Hi there Belynda, we ARE thinking of our families, friends and children, including your children and grandchildren and the future of our planet, which is not being served by car pollution or the sedentary culture and poor community health that a car-dominated society brings. I invite you, nay, dare you, to get on yourself on a bicycle (you can rent an ebike share for cheap!) and experience moving your body without a giant metal box coughing up fumes and threatening fatalities wherever it goes.
As your comment illustrates, people who drive often have the attitude that it’s normal for people driving to kill people cycling.
I live on 84th. I’ve been there for 24 years. I bike commute daily. There is NOT a convenient parallel bike route “1 block away.” There are sections of parallel greenways on 86th and 80th, with multiple turns and detours, and problematic (or worse) crossings of east/west thoroughfares. The closest crossing of the Banfield involves a half-mile detour (each way) off 82nd, and the Powell crossing is deadly dangerous. Throw in the lack of a close parallel route caused by Montavilla Park/Multnomah University, McDaniel HS, the newly purchased Bird Alliance of Oregon property, and others. A quick
Look at Google maps before making a “1-block” comment would show that cyclists are getting screwed on this so drivers can keep doing their thing.
Confirming Micheal Mann’s assertion
A pedestrian has died hours after a crash in Southeast Portland.
… crash near Southeast Powell Boulevard and Southeast 82nd Avenue. When they arrived, officers located a pedestrian who had been struck by a vehicle.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=533807
:^(
In this case, the pedestrian was struck as a vehicle exited a driveway. This is exactly the kind of exposure bike riders would continually face if there were a bike lane on 82nd, even if there were a stout wall separating bikes and cars.
It’s sad, despite all the information out there to the contrary, a flat earth does not exist. and neither does a world where bikes can’t go. Could you take a moment to peruse bicycle Dutch?
“lets remove one of those modes (cars) *somewhere*.”
That’s what we did — we’ve been working to get cars off local streets and the *somewhere* we directed them to was arterials like 82nd.
Pbot has barely done anything to divert traffic from local streets and Greenways. I’ve seen a number of European cities that make Portland’s model filters look like a joke.
I’m not surprised that “diverter” shows up only once in the whole BAB82NDAP, on page 38 in the “Traffic Safety” section. “Traffic calming” is used 20 times. I don’t want traffic getting calmed, I want it blocked from side streets! There will be way more aggro cut-through drivers if they perceive 82nd as “too slow” and start ripping through neighborhood side streets and up/down the greenways.
Which local streets have been closed to cars?
There’s a major north/south parallel freeway – with exits for all the major cross streets – one mile east of 82nd. So yes, get the cars off 82nd.
Here is proof PBOT parking enforcement considers parking in bike lane “priority 2” which was the description assigned by radio dispatch based on caller’s report.
https://sndup.net/m28rf/ (Radio dispatch audio)
While the meter maid ended up citing the vehicle for “no parking at any time” (which is a priority 1), the point is that when a caller reported a car parked in bike lane, the radio dispatch assigned it a low priority, which is a lower priority than parking in construction company’s “reserved space” or “hotel zone”. which shows the true color of PBOT.
The meaning of priorities are explained in a document in this OregonLive story: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/08/portland-parking-enforcement-open-to-favoritism-and-illegal-conduct-review-finds.html
Thanks for this. I’m looking into it. Feel free to email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com
Divert to where the 205? If so Great! The problem with their ladder plan is there are no parallel roads that cover the length of 82nd which is why the greenways are difficult and confusing to use. If it sucks for a cyclist to use you can bet not many drivers are going to use them. Yes some drivers use portions of the nearby greenways but it’s not for very long because they zig zag every half mile or so.
This is the same reason why bike lanes have to be on Division because it’s even worse in East Portland. You are basically required to use arterials if you want to go any appreciable distance in East Portland regardless of your mode of transportation. I’d love for Dan Ryan to come out and go on a ride with me sometime. I’m sure he can show me a great route from the 205 path to 162nd that doesn’t use Division. As far as commerce is concerned, hear hear, lets get more drivers that are using our arterials to cut through the city back on the freeways where they belong. Division was a start, although it left much to be desired, now lets do 82nd.
If you try to take a walk east of Lents or Montavilla, you get about 5-10 minutes of peaceful walk in the little subdivision that has one or two exit/entry points before you are forced onto an arterial.
The small arterials often lack sidewalks so cars spray water and gravel onto you.
Other places, like North Carolina are putting in little bike/walk connectors between subdivisions.
Portland is having trouble creating usable pathways with stress free and intuitive designs. For any mode, including cars. It is just generally mucking everything up.
Confusing, inconsistent signage and jigsaw routes that reflect the headless amoeba that is the political process here.
Awesome donel. I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. Historically (for the past two decades or so), PBOT has leaned heavily on its lynchpin idea that bikes belong primarily on residential roads, which they have marketed as “Greenways.” This is primarily due to political reasons (e.g., maintaining parking). Roger Geller even stated that he was confused why, since we have built so much infrastructure, that it has not had much of a positive effect on crashes and mode share. “It can’t be the infrastructure,” is the habitual conclusion from Geller and a lot of people in Portland.
This is one of the inherent flaws in PBOT’s design work both in design process and how they focus on residential streets. Greenways require indirect, lengthy, and often unintuitive route finding to destinations that are often on commercial streets (which is why direct connections via separated bike lanes work so much better).
It is not a coincidence that many people who will post on this site about 82nd, believe that people on bikes belong only on residential streets. That ideology can reflect various basic assumptions common in the US that bikes are inherently recreational, and have no effect on congestion, business profit etc.
82nd is congested because it has no viable alternatives to driving, not because of bikes, pedestrians, or buses etc. The current proposed design by PBOT will essentially maintain that status quo.
This idlebytes. Traffic models are models, many of which contain variables that restrict a prediction to unrealistic outcomes (e.g., ODOT’s use of IBR congestion numbers). Some are better than others, but they can often be misused. This leads me to one of my biggest disagreements with PBOT’s design methodology: the first step in any design is to measure how many CARS (not people) are moving on any given space. If we “take space away from cars” the logical conclusion (for all the common sense thinkers) is car congestion, mayhem! Except, cars are the only mode measured, because they are the only functional mode based on the existing design.
The only consistent means of solving congestion is viable alternatives to cars.
I think the more salient question that is rarely asked is: Do we want 82nd to be a road where cars travel from A to B for the sole purpose of foregoing any intermittent stops (e.g., Inner Powell in some places), or do we want this to be a street (i.e., location for people to live and work)?
The answer to that question determines what we want to include in the design. And the question isn’t honestly asked or answered during the design process. What the US including PBOT mostly builds are stroads, which are inherently really bad roads (for moving cars) and really bad streets (places to live, hang out, buy stuff, etc.).
Until we come to terms with that simple question, we will end up with crap like what is proposed above, basically the status quo.
I didn’t hear Pbot use “bike ladder” when they did Hawthorne. They legit come up with the wildest words instead of just saying, “we are continually missing the mark.”
Yeah Ryan, I can’t remember exactly what euphemism PBOT used for the Hawthorne Pave and Paint, but it’s the first thing I though of as well. Maybe it was “parallel routes?” “Bike ladder” sounds like something I need to bring with me on bikepacking trips where the trail disappears and I need a safe tool to repel. “Greenways”, “Bike ladder”, are marketing euphemisms that avoid the hard questions during the design process and make a project sound nice.
Comment Of The Week
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve tried biking on the 70s greenway a number of times but every time I lose the route. It doesn’t make sense and makes so many turns. I’m going to try again tonight to get to Montavilla but I really hate crossing Powell on it.
Of course he didn’t.
I had been led to believe The Street Trust was “one of us” (like the great Jonathan Maus) but if the Board Chair in the room isn’t the loudest advocate for a bike lane on every road and especially on 82nd, I will direct my support and donations elsewhere. What a shame.
The ST is kind of the undead BTA. You’re sad, you’re sorry, you roust out your garden tools.
Alice B. Toeclips, my ass.
My impression is that PBOT has gone out of its way to create a plan for 82nd that is so repugnant that it fully expects the new city council to reject it out of hand and order PBOT to present an 82nd project that we can all be happy with (except for drivers who want to move at 85 mph, which they can’t anyway because the congestion is so bad). They have to have a plan in place before the new POTUS takes office on Jan 20th and that satisfies the federal officials at USDOT (and at ODOT) to get some of the funding, but they have the option of changing plans later on – they simply “amend” the plans – agencies do this sort of crap all the time.
My guess is that the Street Trust sees this, but can’t articulate it to the public, particularly to the current lame-duck city council, so they say “blah blah”.
Dang it… I’m thinking about checkers, and the Street Trust is playing 4-D chess.
Whoa, this is an interesting take. I hope you’re right, given that the project is shared in 3 out of 4 districts, there could potentially be a lot of people involved.
Well, City Council did adopt the plan already, before you even made this comment.
The current city council did, but the new one starts on January 1st and has a wide latitude to undo or modify anything they want.
I’m not that bothered by the lack of bikeways on 82nd Avenue. I don’t want to ride there anyway, so the “ladder” proposal appeals to me.
I am bothered by the apparent disinterest in using 82nd Avenue planning and funding to complete the “ladder” by acquiring enough right-of-way to complete a 79th/80th greenway from Alberta to Cooper, and an 84th/85th greenway from Going to Flavel, including a pair of pedestrian/bike bridges over the Banfield.
Biking on 82nd would suck. It’s autotopia, and even re-engineering the street can do so much to change that. Making a fast, reliable transit system is absolutely the right priority.
That said, I would love to see improvements in nearby bike infrastructure as a part of this project. Think Biketown stations at every bus stop, with truly good bike routes connecting.
There are a lot of trips on biketown bikes and scooters that are made on 82nd. It’s a popular destination with lots of stuff to do. https://public.ridereport.com/pdx?vehicle=all&time=all&x=-122.5779600&y=45.5442439&z=14.87 Saying bikes don’t belong there feels wrong to me based on the data alone.
Especially if you’re on the east side of 82nd the ladder thing is just obviously a middle finger to anyone not in a car.
I hear you, and that’s a valid line of advocacy. If the goal is improving service for people already bike, building bike lanes where people want to go makes a lot of sense.
What I’m skeptical of is that building more decent(ish) bikeways on auto centric roads is a good way to get more people biking. I just can’t imagine a world where biking down 82nd is something I’d want to do with my kids, which is my informal bechmark for whether I think others would do it.
There are just too many cars, car-centric businesses, car-centric behavior. Maybe I’m failing to think creatively, but I don’t believe PBOT has the will (or the money, or the political capital) to change all of that.
Hey quicklywilliam, I get it. The status quo on 82nd is horriffic. Based on a somewhat antiquated report:
Most people in Portland “Can’t imagine riding on x road,” for very good reason. Those reasons are primarily based on a very real safety concern, particularly when children are participating. Would I ride on 82nd? Helll no. Does that frequetnly restrict me from going to 82nd. Yes.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest building separated bikeways on commercial streets where people often need to go typically results in improved safety, economic viability of businesses, and increased modal share. The problem with this statement is that most people in Portland haven’t really experienced any safe designs, or if they have sometimes they assume “It can’t happen here,” for whatever reason.
So I certainly understand your concern and skepticism, and I wish PBOT were forthright in their design methodology prior to offering up design options. Because what they are proposing is going to result in nearly the same number of deaths and injuries as the quotidien.
PBOT is clearly reconstructing many parts of 82nd which triggers the bike bill. PBOT also fails to mention that while 82nd is not designated as a major bike street, it is still designated as a city bikeway. I would ride with my kid down the kind of design Aaron has proposed. You would have a 10 foot buffer between you and the cars. Plus, having continuous bus lanes would also speed transit up. With the current proposal, transit is still going to be stuck behind cars turning right. East Portland deserves a little more creativity, well spent money, and political will. This current plan is lacking in all three.
COTW
Ideally, a BRT on 82nd would have 5 minute headways during higher volume hours. This would not be conducive to riding any significant distance in the BRT lane.
I live on the east side of 82nd (NE 90th, so access it often), am a cyclist, and I do not feel like the ladder concept is a middle finger to me at all. That’s how I’d like to access the 82nd corridor. Love the idea of bulking up the stations and truly improving those parallel and connecting routes/crossings. The only segment I see really missing is the I84 crossing for the 80s bikeway. I do think there is some way to incorporate bike access to/from the 82nd transit station there and across I84 and then reconnect to the 80s bikeway on the N/S sides – that would be a much appreciated connection as 102nd & 74th are so out of the way. That seems like a logical way to improve bike access to one of the busiest transit stops in the region, too.
Yes, but are you an AVID cyclist?.
I see what you did there!
Of course they’re an avid cyclist. They put their bike on a rack on their car and drive it to a nice park where they can ride in circles on separated bike paths a few times a year.
The word has gone out to EPANA (East Portland Auto Normativity Association) to post on BP in support of keeping bikes off 82nd, apparently.
HA! Sign me up Fred lol
Lol. I won’t try to qualify myself, here. Take my perspective as you will!
Also live near 82nd. One piece that is missing here is that accessing businesses on 82nd is difficult by bike. Connecting from a greenway crossing or any street really onto 82nd for a number of blocks to access the business or bus stop is needed, but hard for many to imagine since it is so autocentric now. Agree on the I-84 issue and it should be priority number one for bikes in the northern half of this plan and completely ignored in the ‘bike ladder’.
Agreed 100%! I want the connections to be much improved along the whole corridor to better access businesses by bike and indeed the 84 crossing is entirely ignored. I think this could be an opportunity to improve that.
I live nearby on the other side, and the ladder that I’ve seen is basically the 70’s bikeway, which has an absurd number of turns (used to be straighter but they recently added even more). It’s just a really frustrating experience to be trying to get somewhere and have to zig and zag while cars get the direct route (like Sandy and the nearby greenways)
FWIW the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee (who supports the plan) said they want a new bike/ped bridge over I-84. Here a drawing shared with me by one of the BAC members.
Swoon, that’d be incredible. I’ll take improved bike access on Halsey/Jonesmore to the 82nd transit stop and over 84 to Multnomah in the interim though!
PBOT can’t even muster the existing ROW to connect Halsey to the 205 path under the 84/205 interchange due to the perceived threat of homeless camping. As awesome as these might be, it makes me think this is a total pipe dream.
EEE that is a problem with acquiring ROW from UP. Railroads are notoriously difficult to deal with in acquiring property, even the tiny slice that would be needed for that underpass. This is mostly a legal issue that can only be solved via fed/state level advocacy. BTW changing laws re RR ROW would be a huge win for OR as the legal changes in MA can attest to.
Here’s a cross state rail to trail that has been in the process of acquiring ROW and building for decades. MA has also added hundreds (thousands?) of miles of rail to trail in just the last decade. OR is so far behind MA, but still has a lot of potential.
Are those bridges even technically feasible? They look like they would climb so steeply as to be non-ADA, and higher than the new Columbia River stroadway.
I suspect the BAC was being sarcastic with the PBOT staff by approving the 82nd proposal but with impossible conditions.
It would be much easier to build a bridge over I-84 to the west of 82nd Ave, where the freeway is in a trench, rather than east of 82nd Ave, where is it basically at-grade.
That’s both depressing and encouraging. Would it not be easier as well as more functional to cantilever the bridge over 84, to make the station more accessible as well as safer for pedestrians? I’m not an engineer, so this is pure spectulation.
Yep, the greenways east of 82nd are full of puddles, potholes, and disconnected streets
86th south of Washington is dangerously potholed.
Michael, Are you willing to support candidates and policies that will CUT a lot of the pork out of the $8 BILLION + dollar city budget so the potholes can be filled?
The change that’s possible for 82nd might take a generation. Imagine how the businesses currently along 82nd would change if cars got one lane each direction, we had high-speed dedicated transit lanes, greatly reducing left turn options, less driveways, wider sidewalks, trees…
Drive thrus would eventually leave, car lots would sell and other less car-oriented businesses would buy the lots (housing like on Foster in Lents maybe?), same with the auto parts and muffler shops and car washes and tire stores…
I’ve lived in the Portland area nearly 6 decades and 82nd has been all about cars my entire life. I’m excited to see how that changes in the coming years.
82nd needs hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to make it anywhere close to a desirable corridor for people to spend time on outside of their cars. My kids go to a daycare on 82nd and everyday I have to remind myself I’m not a terrible parent for sending them there. I count down the days they’re in public school and we can move away from the street. It makes me sad, mad, and disappointed in Portland every time I drive down it. I drive through the neighborhood streets on 71st and go around the disaster zone we call 82nd just to avoid it. I used to shop at the WINCO on 82nd and Powell but I’m overwhelmed by the amount of poverty I witness every time I drive down there—the trash, drugs, graffiti, broken windows, it’s terrible. Do a
Google street view and look at how much the street has changed in the last 15 years, it’s like we’re slowly devolving into Madmax. I’m sorry, but
82nd may be a lost cause for the next couple generations, outside the Jade district, it’s difficult to say anything positive about the street.
82nd has two distinct characters. North of Glisan I can imagine a street renovation than enables community building. South of there, there is no street renovation scenario where the car lots, malls and big box stores that exist along 82nd are reconfigured into pedestrian and bicycle friendly destinations. The number of driveways and the size of street fronting parking lots create conflicts that are baked into this corridor.
I ride to Costco and Home Depot occasionally, but not for the big shopping for which those stores are designed. The nature of the businesses are car centric. Bike lanes won’t change that.
The concept plans will help with the heat island effect at this neglected neighborhood and frequent signaled pedestrian crossings are badly needed.
To make the “ladder system” work, PBOT, ODOT and law enforcement must join forces to make the very nearby I-205 path safe. Then maintain that alliance to keep it safe. Right now it is such an apocalyptic dumping ground of humanity that no scenario includes it as a viable option to 82nd street bike lanes
See I don’t see 82nd as a dumping ground at all, apocalyptic maybe–still have painful memories of an accident involving a left turn.
82nd has world-class Chinese and Vietnamese food and dive-bars. Shops sell hardware, groceries, office supplies, pet food, etc. etc. etc. Eastport cinemas is my favorite place to see a movie–there’s often Indian films.
Hawthorne sells tat unless you’re into hot dogs or souvenirs. Division, well there’s only so many $17 glasses of wine, bitchy bartenders or fatty “chef driven” restaurant food I’m willing to tolerate.
And lets be honest, inner Portland plays a single note: pale-face yupster.
The I-205 bike path is the dumping ground of humanity to which I refer. It is agreed that the Chinese food along 82nd is good
He said the I-205 path is the dumping ground, not 82nd.
Here here! I’m frequently amazed by the food I get there that I sometimes have difficulty finding even in NYC. It is a carsewer, but it has an incredible amount of potential.
I ride the I-205 bike path now and again for recreation. It is not an inviting place. I would not recommend it to any friends or loved ones in its current state. It is also far enough away from 82nd that it wouldn’t make any sense to use it to access businesses or destinations on 82nd.
The I-205 path is about 100 yards from the back access to Home Depot’s mall. that distance is not much farther than the distance from 82nd across the expansive parking lot to the store’s entrance. To me that makes sense.
This discussion has evolved on the premise that bicycling is an unpleasant imposition and that every means must be utilized to make it as brief as possible, even if that means riding on 82nd.
Jeebus. This cohort won’t be satisfied until every door everywhere is accessed by moving sidewalks, like in the Jetsons
It’s the one spot where the i205 bike path curves in towards 82nd, everywhere else its more than half a mile. It’s fine if you are coming from east of 205, but if you are coming from the west side of 82nd it wouldn’t make sense to add over a mile to your trip to access somewhere on 82nd.
Every door is essentially accessible by a giant metal box with wheels, is it that unreasonable to expect the same treatments for bikes? Hell, I’d even argue that more places are accessible to cars in Portland than places connected by sidewalks.
Bicycling access to businesses and destinations should be as direct as access for cars. No more, no less. If bike routes are less direct than car routes, people will opt to drive instead. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t care about increasing bike mode share for shopping, commuting, and general errands, than it’s totally cool, and probably preferable, to have bike routes that are far away from housing and commercial corridors.
But I really don’t understand what you’re saying from a spatial standpoint. Mall 205 (where the Home Depot is located) is almost a mile away from 82nd. 82nd is not a good way to get to Home Depot (by bike, car, transit, or foot). The I-205 bike path isn’t a good way to get there either.
Or are you talking about the Home Depot that’s up by Marine drive? Sure that’s pretty close to the I-205 path, but it’s also far enough away from any housing that few people would ever want to bike there. That home Depot is also very far away from 82nd, and pretty irrelevant to the conversation.
Um, I liv
No, I am talking about the Home Depot in Clackamas
Clackamas is outside of the jurisdiction of pbot and the city of Portland. Pbot isn’t going to be making any changes to 82nd south of Clatsop street.
The fact that the I-205 bike path is relatively close to SE 82nd at one specific point that is outside of the city of Portland is not relevant to anything being discussed.
Even if the 205 bike path was in perfect, pristine condition, it wouldn’t be a viable alternative to 82nd anywhere in the City of Portland. Maybe it works for a half mile stretch in Clackamas town center. But that is completely beside the point. Get it?
Oh, I get it. The Portland portion of the I-205 path is about one half mile from 82nd. A cyclist traveling at the sedate pace of 10 MPH would cover that distance in about three minutes. Despite my reference to the Clackamas County store’s proximity to the I-205 path. I contend that a three minute ride would only be a dealbreaker for the least capable cyclists. I understand your refusal to understand my position
I totally get your position.
You’re saying that it should be totally acceptable to assume that someone will choose to ride from their house, on a street that may or may not have bicycling infrastructure, some indeterminate distance to get to the I-205 bike path.
They should then ride along that path, completely out of site of 82nd avenue, and they should know where to exit that bike path onto a cross street that may or may not have bike infrastructure, in order to access 82nd avenue, which, by the way, has no bike infrastructure.
They should ride along this cross street for more than a half mile until they reach 82nd avenue.
They should then ride along 82nd for some indeterminate distance, presumably on the sidewalk or in mixed traffic, to get to their final destination.
A similar trip in a car would allow that same person to travel directly on 82nd. They would be traveling in a lane that was specially designed for their vehicle. They wouldn’t have to know the cross street of their destination, they could just drive until they see it, and then make their turn.
Now, I know that everyone has a smart phone now, so you should be able to get real time way finding directions as you bike. But I don’t see why someone would choose to ride a bike in this scenario if they had the option to drive.
I’m not saying that an average Portland resident wouldn’t be physically capable of making the trip. I’m saying that all of this out of direction travel on streets that are out of sight of the businesses and destinations that people are presumably going to want to access does not make for an appealing trip.
If preplanning and foreknowledge are prerequisites to being able to effectively navigate to a destination by bicycle, and if the dominant paradigm is motor vehicle based travel, a mode of transportation that is relatively easy to use even if you don’t plan your trip out in advance, why would someone that isn’t already an avid cyclist choose to ride their bike to 82nd if they have an alternative option?
If you don’t build bike infrastructure along the roads that people want to access, they are going to choose to use a car to get to those places. They may still choose to use a car, anyway. But they are way less likely to want to ride a bike if you tell them that they should just be okay with an extra half mile here or there.
People in cars go absolutely ballistic if they have to do a u turn or go an extra block out of their way to get where they want to go. Why do you think people on bikes are just going to be cool with that?
If I’m driving to an unfamiliar destination, of course I’m going to look at a map before I go, just as I would on a bike.
Do you really think most people would just wing it?
Based on my observations of what people in cars are doing when I’m out biking around town or driving on the freeway, the random sudden motions to cut into parking lots and side streets without warning, the seeming random decisions to cut across multiple lanes of traffic… I have to assume that a lot of people are just winging it.
I also observe a lot, if not the majority of people looking at their phones or in-vehicle navigation systems. I suspect that most people are just relying on navigation software to get them to their destinations without looking up directions in advance. You can do that on a bike, too, if you have a handle bar mount. But must new cars have built in navigation systems.
I’m pretty old school. I like to map things out before I start a trip. Navigation software is a last resort. But I don’t think most people do that.
There’s a whole genre of news stories in recent years about how millennials and gen z are overreliant on navigation apps. Apparently they don’t effectively build mental spatial maps as well as previous generations. I think I’ve read that young people’s brains have underdeveloped hippocampuses, and that the atrophy is identifiable in autopsies.
There are definitely advantages to driving (which is why so many people get around that way), but cyclists are not somehow oppressed because of navigation issues. We all have a high quality navigation system in our pocket, and I think most people are able to ride where they want to go without much drama.
But traveling on a route with no visible connection to destinations or direct infrastructure connection to destinations makes bicycling relatively more undesirable. If there was a bike network that actually extended from door to door, people would view cycling as a more viable option. That is why bike infrastructure on 82nd is important, and that is why a separate but inequal ladder network is not a reasonable or functional alternative to a complete bike network.
Maybe for you, but I don’t find this to be the case. I think we have a pretty good bike network, at least for the places I go (which, to be fair, rarely includes 82nd, but does include many other streets where I face the same navigation issue).
Given where we are, how do we get bike lanes on 82nd? How can we make an argument that will persuade our political leaders that this fight (and it would be a big one) is worth expending political capital on? Or, if you realize this is futile, how can we extract the most “compensation” from PBOT in terms of other improvements that will make bike riding safer and more pleasant?
These are the conversations we should be having rather than just complaining about a lack of respect bicycling gets from PBOT and woe is us.
Respect flows from numbers and political power. We had those, we’ve lost them, and not many people are talking about realistic ways to get them back.
All? There’s the Portland liberal elite attitude that’s been missing in this conversation, which is inherently an equity issue.
I could walk along 82nd to get groceries at WINCO but there’s too much drugs and a lack on enforcement, so I drive.
If bike lanes exist, it’ll be the same nonsense, bike riders will fill unsafe because of speeding cars and lack of enforcement, so they’ll drive.
It’s a lot-lot more than just infrastructure why people drive.
Oh, I get it. Drivers get straight roads and driveways and parking lots in front of the stores, and cyclists get the 205 Fentanyl highway and a one-mile detour and all is right with the world. Seems fair to me.
Granpa I hear you and as a person who has used a bike frequently for quite long distances, personally it would not be too much of an inconvenience.
Except we should not be talking about “avid cyclists” when such projects are proposed. Most avid cyclists will simply “take the lane.” When PBOT proposes a project its primary goals should be to
Unfortunately, many people who cycle don’t really have that level of empathy, nor does PBOT tend to prioritize those two main goals on its projects.
This blog is populated with a range of opinions from zealous “true believers “ to dispassionate pragmatists. I probably lie closer to the latter. The realities that dominate my opinions are: 1) commercial enterprises along 82nd will oppose diminished auto convenience aggressively and as the character of that corridor is strongly auto centric there is a critical mass for that position which will dominate discussions
2). There is an incredible resource and opportunity in the I-205 bike path only three minutes from the commercial corridor. The desirability of a car free route should appeal to users of BP, but Portland and the State of Oregon (ODOT) have abandoned the bike path and ceded control to campers and drug users and allowed an unsafe environment to flourish.
I am a hopeful and optimistic person and believe that the path can again be a safe and expedient bike travel way. I think the likelihood of that happening is greater than the likelihood of removing car lanes from 82nd.
I share your pragmatism, but would add that policy should be based on best practice and research, which is often ignored by PBOT.
You may be right. But the salient problem that Jonathan is clearly pointing to appears to be the framing of this project at its outset. PBOT decided to pit two modes in conflict as a introduction to the project (i.e., cycling and transit) as a tactic to maintain the status quo.
Most businesses tend to oppose decreased auto convenience and based on evidence are more likely to overestimate how many customers they get from people driving. I can link to research if need be. No doubt 82nd has a huge auto-centric business base. Based on some fairly well documented research, businesses tend to get more frequent revenue when there is a separated bikeway (auto centric businesses clearly might negate some of this effect), but 82nd has a LOT of restaurants etc.
As for the I-205 path I’m more lukewarm personally. I grew up riding along the path to Clackamas and, while it’s separated, it’s not very pleasant (nor very functional). But I hear you on its misuse. Perhaps with time our new mayor will be able to provide evidence of existing shelters thereby allowing the city to remove camping spots in the public ROW and helping people to move to a safer environment.
My hope is that calling out PBOT’s bluff may allow some new council members to alter the design in some parts of 82nd. Given progress monitoring and measuring goals, PBOT can then provide evidence of the benefit of that re-design.
“Based on best practice and research” is an incomplete descriptor, omitting the goal those practices are best for. That language cloaks a political preference (ie the goal) in the garb of science.
The problem is that your goal is not the same as PBOT’s.
That said, if you wanted to make the case that there are better practices which would achieve what PBOT is trying to do, which seems to be to maintain auto access while reducing bus delay and improving safety, I think that would be very interesting.
It is not surprising that this project does not demonstrate best practices for things that it is not trying to do.
82nd in Clackamas has bike lanes btw.
Or is he talking about the Home Depot in Happy Valley (I.e. not located in the City of Portland)?
Didn’t you look at the rendering? They’re going to build multiple 6-story apartment buildings with ground floor retail and plant 25-year old trees out front to make it inviting. 50% of the vehicles on the road will be buses, it will be utopia.
And the trees will be made of tinted glass!
We need a truth-in-drawings requirement for PBOT.
Another way that PBOT is lying with pictures is that the power lines will not permit the sorts of trees they have shown in their illustration.
Very retro, very 1970s. All the trees will be dead with 10 years given the small tree-coffin size (2 feet by 6 feet?) or run over by distracted drivers, and end up being trash receptacles like those on 102nd near WINCO. The crowded sidewalks will see at least 5 annual incidents of car drivers rolling over pedestrians (it was an “accident” I’m sure, since the driver stayed to chat with the police and admire the totaled car), especially as the pedestrians have to get around the homeless campers, the frequent doggy doo (and human doo too, from a lack of city loos). But what really blows my mind is that PBOT has all these urban “sidewalk commercial” buildings built right up to the sidewalk, but absolutely no blue staple sidewalk bike racks whatsoever. Isn’t that really odd?
Some ground floor retail on west Division has been vacant for years. There’s just so many nail salons, Mud bays, and fashion boutiques that can exist.
I wish advocates (not to knock Kuehn personally, I’m sure he has the best intentions) would stop proposing or even considering shared bus/bike lanes. No one in the “interested but concerned” crowd (myself included) wants to ride next to, behind, or in front of a bus. No eight-year-old or eighty-year-old or anyone remotely concerned about their safety wants to do that. It’s just plain bad design. If you’re going to put your time and energy into advocating for something, you might as well propose the best plan you can (Kuehn’s second proposal could use some protection).
Agreed Zach. I’m sure you’re aware of the humorous examples of various bus systems during training exposing future bus drivers to close passes. Mexico City example. In addition, if we want a viable alternative to cars on 82nd, designing a center BRT would be infinitely more resilient to congestion and delay than using the two outside lanes. In the design proposed by PBOT, buses are will remain stuck in traffic likely just as much as they are now.
A street without any bike facilities is a bad design. That is what we got on Hawthorne. If PBOT is going to keep claiming that the only reason they are not adding bikes is because of slowing down transit, the bus/bike lane calls them on it. Aaron’s design will actually speed up transit compared to their design! If bikes and transit work together I think we have a much better chance of winning. The problem is too many cars.
I don’t think the actual (or, rather, “imminently solvable”) problem is too many cars; the problem is lack of best-practice bike facilities. Plenty of arterial streets in Amsterdam carry very high car traffic volumes (see Wibautstraat for a good equivalent to 82nd), but you still feel completely safe biking because the bike lanes are always designed to prioritize subjective safety.
It’s not even a chicken-or-egg thing: You can’t reduce the amount of cars (and reduce pressure on transit; it’s no coincidence that Amsterdam is probably the only major city in the world without some ungodly rush hour subway crush) if you don’t build all-ages bike lanes first.
> If PBOT is going to keep claiming that the only reason they are not adding bikes is because of slowing down transit, the bus/bike lane calls them on it.
I don’t think PBOT actually “believes” this—like Hawthorne, this appears to be more of a political decision from PBOT leadership, who then use their engineers’ faulty models to justify that decision. So I don’t think trying to “call” them on their false dilemna with another faulty design is a great strategy.
Zach, you are mostly correct, an all-ages all-abilities 8-80 protected bike lane on 82nd Ave is best practice, and was the only bike access option PBOT “considered,” because it is what a street like this should have.
That design put line 72 in a single lane shared with cars, which to me is a problem, because line 72, the most popular bus in Oregon should not have to sit in traffic behind cars.
The bigger challenge with a protected bike lane on 82nd is all the driveways and curb cuts. For every one of those driveways, a large section of the protection needs to be removed. There are so many parking lots and driveways on 82nd that there would be no protection left. A protected bike lane with no protection is not a protected bike lane anymore, and it would be concerning to style it as one, if it didn’t actually offer the comfort level all-ages and abilities riders deserve and expect.
The real political lift on 82nd will be closing driveways, curb cuts, and parking lots, which will probably be a long long process, and might happen as parcels are developed. A curb level cycle track would be a better all-ages all-abilities solution that could be built incrementally with new development.
Bike access at street level, with the current amount of car traffic on 82nd, AND the amount of driveways is probably not for everyone, and there are several comments in the thread along those lines — “I wouldn’t ride my bike there.” But until more robust long term changes are realized, there needs to be an interim solution.
People walking need more separation from fast moving cars. Bus line 72 needs its own lane. And people on scooters and bikes need more than nothing. A shared bus/bike lane is a huge compromise, and probably not the best proposal to start a bargaining process with, but it is an honest solution that improves conditions for all modes.
The PBOT vision right now is no bike access, which is like ODOT “closing crosswalks” because they aren’t safe. People are riding bikes on 82nd, they will continue to ride bikes on 82nd because that’s where they need to go. We can make it safer for them, or we can continue to do nothing because there isn’t a perfect solution.
This all has echos of Sarah Pliner’s death on SE 26th at Powell. PBOT was pressured to remove the substandard narrow bike lanes and bike boxes on SE 26th by ODOT in exchange for an improved parallel route and Powell crossing at SE 28th. PBOT ignored protestors, capitulated to ODOT and the sanctity of the arterial, and removed the lanes. Sarah was killed biking to work in the now unmarked lanes. The community was outraged because of the egregious missteps by PBOT and ODOT that led to this death.
When we design bikeways or we advocate for our transportation needs, it’s better to see it as a process, instead of a product. PBOT is using a best-practice design as an obstacle to compromised improvements, just like they did on SE 26th.
There are probably better solutions than a bus/bike lane, but we should be firm that there must be some type of improvement for people riding bikes on 82nd Ave. To quote Director Williams when PBOT was conspiring to remove the protected bike lanes from Broadway, “Doing nothing is not an option.”
Would love to see some kind of PBOT program that incentives land owners to close down curb cuts in commerical distrcits and existing bike lanes.
Just tossing out an idea but PBOT could do a sidewalk level bike lane with continuous sidewalks through the driveways.
PBOT is coming into this conversation saying we don’t want any bikes here. I get the sense that PBOT is scared of doing anything that isn’t politically safe out of fear from the given leadership and any lack of support from city council.
It would sure would help though with PBOT deciding whether 82nd is going to be a main street or a through road. Trying to preserve a center turn lane is for sure one way 82nd will remain in it’s stroad like configuration.
Some reallygreat points Aaron
I’m not sure how legal this is or if PBOT has some sway in limiting entry/exits for SOVs. AS an example look at this business which has a curb cut the length of its property. Apart from imminent domain, how can the city require multiple businesses to share entrance/exit places? This would certainly mitigate the problem of conflict between modes. If there is a process I would like to know about it. Waiting for new developments to trigger sidewalk requirements is likely to take decades.
Even with eminent domain, the city can’t require multiple properties to share a driveway, and it often can’t force a driveway closure since that could be ruled an adverse taking.
A shared bus/bike lane is essentially what they’re already proposing—you’re just suggesting they add a sharrow to it. It’s materially the same design (and would lure new riders into a false sense of security even more than a sidewalk-level bike lane would with all the curb cuts, IMO).
At the end of the day, despite what PBOT considered, it’s definitely possible to have both dedicated bike lanes and sidewalk-level bike lanes. I guarantee that’s what any Dutch planner would design if given the chance.
One thing is certain: A Dutch planner would NEVER design a shared bus/bike lane on a busy arterial street.
But your second design is at least vaguely like something you might occassionally see in the Netherlands (on a street that hasn’t been redesigned in 15 years). If you’re really going to preemptively compromise your own standards as a strategy, IMO you should go all-in on that design.
Yea Aaron RIP Sarah. I personally think we missed the mark on that particular design.
While I would rarely support “removing” a bike lane, in this case creating a short couplet on 26th and 28th would make a lot more sense. That design would slow traffic on Powell, and provide one way protected bike routes across Powell that allow for more predictable movement and less conflict. Not sure if the neighborhood would revolt or Cleveland Admin would disagree, but it would be a much safer design.
I publicly and repeatedly supported a bike/bus lane on Hawthorne (here and via comments to PBOT). However, 82nd is one of the most heavily used transit routes in this city and having 30 people in a bus slowed down by one person cycling is not a great way to support alternatives to the bloody and violent SUV.
but having those 30 people in a bus slowed down by one person in a “bloody and violent SUV” is?
Can Jonathan be nominated for cotw?
Your opposition to a dedicated bus only lane is noted.
If there was a dedicated bus only lane that wasn’t also allowed to be used by cars, that would be one thing. But Portland either explicitly allows turning vehicles to use bus lanes, or refuses to enforce violations.
Also, the pbot modeling of traffic and bus delays on Hawthorne was clearly and obviously flawed from the start. The majority of the modeled bus delay was related to the intersection of Hawthorne and Cesar Chavez, and a bike lane design that didn’t allow for a right turn lane. Pbot ultimately installed a bus lane/turning lane. An arrangement which could have been done in conjunction with the bike lane (if the bike lane turned into a mixing lane for half a block) – a configuration which wasn’t modeled by pbot. Other delays could have been eliminated by prohibiting left turns west of Cesar Chavez. But pbot didn’t consider any of those options.
Taking the pbot arguments, which were obviously made to justify a car centric design that was only incidentally transit friendly, was pretty credulous.
I agree. And this is why the only acceptable option for me was always a bus only lane.
Ultimately, these are all political decisions, even if they’re sometimes cloaked in technical language. If we want a different outcome, we have to succeed in the political arena, which didn’t happen on Hawthorne, and seems very unlikely to happen on 82nd.
We did better on outer Division, but it was a somewhat hollow victory because there’s not very many people riding out there compared to the size of the political and financial investment, which makes the political argument on places like 82nd more challenging.
Huh???
A dedicated bus lane would prevent “bloody and violent SUVs” from impeding people using transit (hopefully bus rapid transit).
Perhaps you should take your own advice when it comes to not pitting people cycling against people using transit.
Sorry I don’t follow you. How is saying that bicycle riders and bus operators could share a lane pitting those two modes against each other. Bike riders would be subject to traffic law that clearly states they could not impede traffic and would have to maintain a relatively fast pace in order to use the lane if/when a bus was present. Given that law and the massive influx of e-bikes, the idea that bike riders would slow down buses carries less weight.
Come on now, your response was based on the pretense that I was sanguine with a lane that could be used both by buses and the bloody SUV.
You make a great point, there should be dedicated bike lanes on 82nd
News flash: the bloody and violent SUVs routinely drive — aggressively — in every bus-only lane. I drive (in my car) on SE Grand from the Morrison Bridge to Stark to go from my office downtown to my house east of 82nd and cars ALWAYS travel in the right hand, bus-only lane for multiple blocks at a time, frequently very aggressively. I ride my bike to work occasionally and use side streets and greenways the whole route: Market, over the south side of tabor, etc. Even on those roads, it always amazes me how little it takes for motorists to become enraged and want to kill me.
I’m not really sure what my thoughts about 82nd are yet. Jonathan’s article is the first exposure I’ve had to any concrete plans and it’ll take a minute to digest.
News flash: I ride my bike for transportation every @#$%ing day and have done so for over 40 years so believe me I understand that cage drivers are, in general, violent and lawless ******* *******s. That being said, I believe that transit should have higher priority on the highest volume transit priority street in PDX. If there were funding and political will for a cycle track on 82nd, I would be all over this.
Hey prioritarian, I think people are essentially saying similar things with different words. A “dedicated” bus lane against the curb is de facto a car lane. Outer Division street might be a good example of this. In NYC at the advent of bus lanes, they essentially just became parking.
The hell-ride #72 has the highest ridership in the system (surprising based on how godawful it is but true). IF we want to prioritise transit one functional means to do so would be a median separated bus lane. Any potential abuse of that would be negligible.
This all or nothing framing is not worth a response.
NYC took a large sum of their budget to install cameras on busses for the sole purpose of using that evidence as “parking in a dedicated bus lane.” If a transit agency spends millions of dollars doing that, do you think it was be a small problem? When introduced in NYC, they were parking lots for taxis, cops, delivery trucks etc.
I think even a curb-adjacent BTR-lite
is worth supporting because it means that there are two less lanes for bloody SUVs. And this would be especially true if Trimet bans most left turns and provides aggressive signal priority for buses. They could even use a curb to limit access to the BRT as is done outside of the USA.
PS: I ride on MLK often* and I can count the number of times I’ve seen a car traveling any distance in the rose lane on one hand.
* A far more convenient route for some of my trips than 7th or the waterfront.
Possible Prior. The main issue with curb-adjacent BRT is SOV/other vehicle access at intersections and business entrances. Since these are ubiquitous on 82nd, it would essentially be what PBOT is currently proposing, and its effectiveness as a “rapid transit” will be all but negated by being stuck in traffic.
While I appreciate your experience on MLK (and think a protected bike lane should exist on MLK/Grand for you), remember anecdote does not make evidence. Again, across transit agencies there exists ample evidence of frequent “bus lane” blockage by various vehicles. Here is a recent article on the topic. Here is some research on the topic of bus lane enforcement.
IF PBOT wants to build a mode that competes in any way with SOV traffic, median separated (signal prioritized) BRT is the best option.
Your links focused on bus lanes rather than a BRT with dedicated infrastructure that limits and enforces bus-only traffic. It’s also weird to be so critical of bus only lanes despite clear evidence of their success in Portland.
On second thought, let’s just ban cars from 82nd and Powell:
https://www.koin.com/news/portland/traffic-deaths-record-car-hits-woman-82nd-avenue-12182024/
Also **** the police and media and their euphemisms for traffic violence.
Again, the stylized, pretty renderings of a street plan that will be dirty and decaying in reality. Similarly, the busy, multimodal mix of users in the daylight that slows traffic will not be there when cars are flying down the highway at night, when pedestrians are typically killed.
Yeah SD. LOL it reminds me of the 40s and 50s version of mass urban highways, where everyone (white people) will have safe, clean and rapid access to anywhere via their new AUTOmobile!
Don’t forget the huntched over fetty zombies that we all love to walk by with our children, again, zero drug enforcement along 82nd. “It’s just not a priority” a recent peace officer told me.
The failings of the 82nd Ave project are representative of the systemic failings of our regional transportation system. The demonstrated attitude of some elected officials, and certainly of PBOT is that riding a bicycle is an optional hobby or a recreational activity that is better located in residential neighborhoods away from commercial activities, and not a serious transportation option that deserves inclusion on an important arterial. If bicycle riders have destinations on 82nd Ave, PBOT would prefer you drive a car.
Improvements to the circuitous nearby Neighborhood Greenways, and a ladder-like series of improved crossings of 82nd Ave are all welcome and overdue. But even if this “parallel” bike access scheme worked as advertised, it only gets you to within a few blocks of your school, business, or transit stop. It’s those last couple blocks that are the concern, as your chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
Because of poor planning, ALL of the destinations in the area are directly on 82nd, and not in the residential communities where the Neighborhood Greenways are, so the prioritized goal of bike access is reaching each address on 82nd Ave safely, comfortably, directly, attractively, and without gaps.
The sidewalks on 82nd Ave, which are the only bike access at this time, and are shared with people walking and waiting for transit, are undersized, poorly maintained, and overrun by driveways, and widening them is a very long term process that requires demolishing and rebuilding each parcel. This project will spur development on 82nd, and sidewalks will be eventually widened, but the development will also increase the number of people walking, scooting, and biking on the adjoining narrow sidewalks to reach destinations ON 82nd Ave.
A shared bus/bike lane, or a minimal bike lane on 82nd where the street width allows, that is buffered by a bus lane, is the best way I can think of to provide useable connections from the new ladder crossings to destinations ON 82nd Ave. Future wider sidewalks could include some kind of elevated cycle track, but continuous sections of that would probably be decades away. We could have a shared bus/bike lane tomorrow.
Why is it important that we solve this problem as soon as possible? On Monday an 81 year old person died from the injuries of being hit by a driver exiting a parking lot near 82nd and Powell. Several people are injured or killed walking, biking, using transit, and driving along 82nd every year. It’s not a great place for walking, biking, riding transit, or driving right now, but it is where people need to be able to get to, and so they do, and so they will continue to. Any improvements we can make are welcome, but we do need to be honest about the impacts of our decisions and our spending.
Right now there is an opportunity for substantive change on 82nd Ave to address these issues, but the funding and the opportunity are being squandered, because folks are looking at the issue only through a lens of their own preferences, instead of honestly considering a multitude of people’s actual demonstrated needs. There are real consequences of injury and death for our most vulnerable community members when we settle for inaction or compromised solutions that continue to prioritize driving convenience over safe access for all modes.
The community has been clear that they desperately want improvements to 82nd Ave that finally protect people outside of cars, and the bicycling community should be supporting those concerns at this time.
How do you define “serious transportation option”, and what differentiates a serious mode from a non-serious one?
That’s some world-class trollery, Watts – a cut above your usual.
I wouldn’t attempt to legitimize myself with a term I couldn’t even define.
The smartest person in the chat room has spoken. The master of the disingenuous, non-serious replies dabs their quill. “Show your work.” “Define every concept you utter.” “Delineate every adjective.” Here, in its natural environment, the pedant masquerading as a pragmatist.
This is a well written comment, but it completely avoids the question of why policy makers should consider bicycling to be an important form of transportation when only 3% of trips are made this way.
Biking is certainly serious for me — it is my primary mode of transportation when venturing outside my neighborhood, and it’s something I enjoy doing, but some people feel the same about one-wheelers, which I wouldn’t describe as “serious” from a policy perspective.
“Serious mode of transportation” isn’t some random adjective; it’s one of the primary ways the bike community defines ourselves politically, and I don’t think anyone really knows what it means.
You may not see this since the whole thread/post is a bit older, but here’s a definition of “serious” transportation (though I’d probably not use that phrase, for the most part, myself): one which is not done for its own sake. I.e., transportation that is occurs so as to enable the doing of other things (shopping, work, school, travel to different environments, etc.). We’ve spent the better part of a century, now, treating car travel as the only “serious” mode of transportation.
This to me seems both an implicit confirmation–or strong suggestion; whatever–that a lot of people (maybe most people) who drive probably wouldn’t otherwise do so if they weren’t forced to by the way we’ve built things (also evidenced by the sorts of cars most people regularly drive: practical, not purely amusing), and also that treating other modes of transport in a similar fashion–not just in our provision of transport itself, but in how we assemble the rest of our built environment–is an essential ingredient in getting people to use those other modes (including transit, cycling, and walking).
You and others often retort “our built environment is the way it is”. To that, I say that the low-density milieu in which cars operate best requires that there not be too many people trying to get around a particular place, and yet both our housing situation and net-positive immigration rates (regionally and nationally) show that there’s strong pressure to rebuild our environment in a way that permits more people trying to get around a particular place (i.e., our country’s large metro areas), meaning not with cars.
“People don’t want to live in dense areas”. Okay, leaving aside the almost-universally-higher housing prices in large cities/metro areas, it’s a coming-to-terms that we all need to do that if people want to benefit from the agglomeration effects of living in large cities, we cannot passively allow/actively foster a transportation paradigm which by necessity diffuses that agglomeration.
I think you are saying that people prefer driving over other modes because our society and built environment have evolved to make that the logical choice, but it is possible we could have made different choices and created a society that had a preference for, say, transit.
I would agree with that. It’s not what we did, but I believe it might have been possible.
Then you say that driving allows/causes people to spread out, which I also agree with, and think it’s inherently related to the first statement.
You close by saying that relying on cars makes density difficult, and that if we really want dense cities, we’d better start focusing on different modes of transportation. I also agree with that.
What we’re left with is how we redirect the political winds and convince people that moving to dense cities is a transformation worth investing in. It will take a monumental amount of money and energy, and cause decades of disruption and upheaval, unless you do it gradually, which is essentially what we’re doing now (even as we continue building in outlying areas, creating ever more investment that can only be served by cars).
PS I don’t think I agree that any contraption for getting to a destination is worthy of being called “serious” in this context. I think there has to be some sort of minimum number of people using it to qualify, or perhaps some realistic minimum potential or something. Some people use rollerblades to get places (and they are probably quite effective), but I would not consider them a “serious mode of transportation” from a policy standpoint. So why bikes and not rollerblades?
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html
Watts, the long-term trend in the US (and the rest of the world too) is toward increased density. 80% of the US population lives in urban areas.
So I agree with much of what you say: Portland is going through what will probably continue to be a bumpy transition toward a density that will allow for most trips to be made without a car.
I’ve lived that way for long stretches of time earlier in my life, and prefer it. I don’t like having to get around by car, but the bus system needs to expand service a lot before it can be useful to me.
What would it take to provide bus service to you and a critical mass of others in the region who is in a similar position, that is good enough that you (and enough others) would choose it even if you had a car available to you?
Right now I have a five-hour mid-day service gap, between, going off top of my head, around 8:45 to 3:00, and no weekend or night service. W/o a bus downtown I can’t access the rest of the system. A new line down Bway would be nice.
And yes, I’m a bus-lover, so I’d be on it, and considering it a more convenient, less stressful way of getting around town.
My neighbors? I don’t know. But their children all take the bus to high school, and then when summer hits, like clockwork, a new cohort discovers that the bus doesn’t serve their summer schedules.
(And I’m in Portland Heights, an old, close-in, Trolley line neighborhood.)
“I’m in Portland Heights, an old, close-in, Trolley line neighborhood.”
It sounds like you are an easy case. What do you think it would take to serve more outlying areas and encourage people there to take the bus?
That’s what we’re really talking about when we discuss how to reduce reliance on cars. We need to reduce the need for cars sufficiently to make taking space from them for transit and bikes more politically feasible than it is now when so many people rely on them.
As it stands, we’ve only been able to partially address some of the easiest cases (I’m thinking of folks in my neighborhood who already have excellent transit access and still drive, in part because “access to transit” doesn’t mean it goes where you want in a timely fashion, and many people find driving to be more pleasant).
You still elide the most important part of my definition of “serious transportation”: transportation that is occurs so as to enable the doing of other things, i.e., transportation not done for its own sake. It’s not about the particular vehicle; it’s about the reason for the vehicle’s use–instrumental vs. intrinsic. I think that gets to the heart of the “serious” vs. “unserious” distinction.
I’m not nearly as bike-fanatical as most people on this site. I do have one, but I rarely ever use it, preferring to walk, or take transit for longer trips (then again, I also have plenty of time to spend on walking), and driving for the rare occasion I’m going somewhere far that transit can’t take me.
Others have tackled why cycling deserves different considerations from walking/transit/driving (rollerblading is similar enough to walking that as long as there’s a smooth sidewalk, either can be reasonably accommodated). Cycling permits notably higher speeds, and bikes take meaningfully more space than a person walking does, even if a bike isn’t being ridden at the moment (which rollerblades and, I dunno, pogo sticks don’t). In many ways, they perfectly split the difference between a pedestrian and a car, and like either (or mass transit, which operates meaningfully differently from private transit), benefits enormously from being provided its own infrastructure.
What bugs a lot of urbanists is that we don’t actually need to convince people that moving to cities is worth it; they’re already doing it. You can argue–very fairly–that places like Phoenix and Austin and Houston and Orlando are not dense cities, but they are in fact cities nonetheless, benefiting (albeit less than ideally) from urban agglomeration effects, operating under singular metropolitan or regional governance structures of various forms that make them cohere to at least a certain degree.
The struggle is pointing out to people that these places would work much better as cities–as places they and lots of other people are drawn to for all sorts of reasons borne specifically out of their nature as urban areas–if they were denser and less car-dependent.
Maybe we’re describing the same thing different ways. Yes, there has been a huge urbanization movement in the US and other countries where people are moving to cities from rural areas. But when Gov. Kotek dedicates farmland to become new subdivisions, you are calling that “urbanization”, which it is, but I call that people not wanting to live in the sorts of dense housing that urbanists love the idea of (often for other people). Those new developments rarely get the sort of transit that would let them leave their cars behind. I fully agree that cities work better in some ways when they’re denser and less auto dependent, but that’s not the direction we’re headed, and new technology will continue to make living in outlying areas easier (as did trollies and then cars).
So sure, if we’re just talking about continuing to sprawl, then I agree, Americans like cities. They also like the single family houses and yards and trees that can be found there.
We’ve essentially developed two bike modes: normal bikes that travel at 10-15 mph and electric bike-shaped motorcycles that travel at 25-30 mph. They don’t always mix well. Maybe 82nd needs two bike lanes.
That’s because people are, at this point, very used to benefiting from being in urban areas while passively wishing for their destruction by complaining about lacking downtown parking or traffic congestion into central cities. I’ve discussed this here before, but the rapidity with which density drops off outside of downtown Portland is remarkable, and part of the reason that people expect to bring their cars with them even into downtown.
Paradoxically, especially coming from a part of the country where suburbanization as a side effect of urban sprawl started earlier, it’s baffling to me that so many of the suburbs out here are both higher density than what I’d come from and also still extremely car-dependent, in large part simply because of fencing off blocks of development in the suburbs or making them otherwise impractical/impossible to travel between, even if houses are themselves just feet apart from each other. It’s a real worst-of-both-worlds scenario that I can’t imagine anyone’s really happy with.
And it’s also been discussed here and elsewhere both the historic media bias against cities, and the extent to which even positive experiences that many Americans have in cities is framed by noisy, traffic-choked snarls–problems inflicted upon cities primarily by cars. We’ve spent a long time building our cities wrong; convincing people that we can do better is no doubt a long-term project, but it’s also one we shouldn’t–can’t/don’t really need to–wait for popular permission to start
I agree; but we have to start by actually doing better–building facilities that alienate many and are highly underutilized like the bike lanes on outer Division is probably not the right way to go about convincing people there is a better way.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Automation is likely to make these battles even harder.
aquaticko, really great post. And based on the common ideology in the US that congestion is our “enemy” to be somehow defeated, I think it hints at a basic misunderstanding of how static we tend to think about the world. When a US citizen goes overseas and walks through a pedestrianized city center elsewhere in the world (e.g., a medina), they often return not thinking twice about returning to a daily 50 mile commute or at the very least assuming “it can’t happen here.”
Many examples exist of what happens when cities decide to reverse the induced demand of a single mode. The Philly Freeway Collapse, is just one recent example of an enormous number of case studies re what happens when a road is quickly redesigned. The expected carmageddon evaporates. This is because road “capacity” is not static, it’s fluid based on expectations and choices. If much of downtown were pedestrianized, and commercial to residential transformation allowed en masse, downtown would completely transform (and be much more economically viable).
The TLDR is: This is related to your point about any particular mode vs purpose. So the idea of “serious transportation” is essentially nonsensical, i.e., it depends on who (or what culture) you’re asking. Serious transportation to the store 3 blocks away is any number of things (e.g., feet, bike, wheelchair, red wagon, Cocotaxi).
PBOT, the city council and mayor all play this odd game of pretending it has a mandate to “reduce congestion”, and “improve transportation”, but often preclude any change to the status quo via assuming the first step in any project is to measure car counts. That’s one very specific, very inflexible mode. Whether this is done as a ruse, in the name of pseudoscience, or as a genuine misunderstanding of engineering methodology, who knows. But it precludes the effectiveness of a transportation system where people have flexible choices. It assumes that any neighborhood’s inherent “transportation value” lies solely with one mode of transportation. It is the Scammell S 24 from Brazil trying to fit into your living room.
Simply allow people viable alternatives to driving and they will choose them. This basic misunderstanding about transportation needs to be the first introduction to any project by PBOT. I hope at some point we decide as a city to make any street design project leader someone other than a traffic engineer, because that is certainly part of the problem.
“Simply allow people viable alternatives to driving and they will choose them.”
Except, in large part, they don’t. I won’t give you examples because you’ll dismiss them as anecdote, but lots of people drive around the inner parts of Portland that are easily bikable and have multiple transit options. They may walk short distances, but most longer trips are by car.
Of course if you define “viable” as “good enough that people will choose it over driving,” then we fully agree and are only left with the question of how do we design and implement and pay for such a wonderful system. (One exception is that a lot of people seem to be willing to pay for and use Uber, but that’s not the “right” sort of alternative for right-thinking urbanists.)
And I am willing to get good money that if there were a politically viable street design that would get most drivers on 82nd out of their cars, PBOT would adopt it in a heartbeat. Engineers aren’t the problem, we are.
Thanks Matt. Definitely on point.
Oh, that should come together quick and easy.
I think most politicians see bicycling not as a hobby but as a choice. You could drive, but you ride your bike instead. Whereas the roadway serves people that have no other option. There’s no doubt bicycling in Portland is done by a demographic that typically doesn’t work minimum wage jobs, unless it’s a choice and then they’re going after a life style job, which bicycling usually fits into their identity.
Not all roads need to be all things. I’m happy biking down Ankeny or Couch parallel to Burnside, and see no need to demand a protected bike lane on Burnside. Same with 82nd. Jonathan, I say this with respect because you’re like Mr. Bike in this town and I love bikes, and the Street Trust ain’t even about bikes anymore so you’re it, you’re all we got, but look again at your comment about driving being the “true culprit.” Driving isn’t a culprit, it’s how members of the community and families, including struggling families, buy food and bring it home and get where they need to go. No driver on 82nd Ave is a “culprit” unless they’re speeding from a hit and run. The city doesn’t work if people can’t get around. Arterial roads help people get around. Small bikes fit on small roads. Thanks for listening and keep peddling.
It’s a personification. Driving is definitely a culprit, not necessarily drivers. I hope ‘peddling’ was just an unfortunate typo.
I ride my bike to the store and buy food and bring it home on my bike- all the time. Your framing of driving as THE NORM is the problem.
Just speaking statistically, driving is the norm in both Portland and the US.
There you go again.
It’s not my fault things are the way they are.
In fact, I’ll go further. I’m willing to bet that I’ve done more than 95% of the readers of this blog in terms of letter writing, testifying, meeting with city and state and federal officials, and giving money to organizations trying to make a positive change in Portland transportation.
If more people joined me, instead of just bitching about things here, we might be a bit further along than we are.
You’re welcome.
Even if Aaron’s design happened, the majority of 82nd would be dedicated to just cars. You could still drive on 82nd. During rush hour it might take a little longer and transit would be a much faster option, especially with dedicated lanes. This isn’t just about bikes. It is about transit and pedestrians. No one is seriously saying we should ban cars on arterials. If we can’t figure out how to have bikes on arterials, biking is going to remain a small and exclusive thing in Portland.
Are we looking at the same design proposal? If I’m reading the graphic correctly it looks like cars would get two lanes @ 20ft, transit and bikes get two lanes @ 26ft, then pedestrians get 28ft on the sidewalk. Out of a total of 84ft, that means cars would get 23% of the space. I realize 82nd is a lot more nuanced than the proposal but it’s a bit hyperbolic to say “just cars” would be getting the majority of the space.
Sorry, my graphic is a little misleading, or isn’t intended to be used to calculate the percentage of space allocated to cars in the ROW.
The 10ft center lane is already being built, and is mostly for cars turning left, but includes trees occasionally. A landscaped median with trees is a big part of the soul of this reconfiguration, so I felt it important to continue showing that in these cross sections.
The sidewalk widths show the design standard for this type of street, so what would be built as properties are redeveloped over time using existing standards. Currently the sidewalks are just 4ft in some places, and in others don’t exist at all.
See this quote from the excellent page 23 of PBOT’s 82nd Ave Plan, “Most existing sidewalks along 82nd Avenue are too narrow, too close to traffic, lack street trees, and don’t meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. Only 5% of sidewalks along 82nd Avenue meet current PBOT guidance.” (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/planning/82nd-avenue/documents/building-better-82nd-plan/download)
The point of my diagram is to demonstrate that there is adequate width in the roadway to include some type of bike access, even if it isn’t ideal, and that it would improve conditions for transit and walking, instead of being at odds with those modes. The diagram refutes PBOT’s claim that it would be impossible for bikes to have any access.
The current plan from PBOT is for cars to have primary access to 2 lanes, and shared access to the other 3. A center turn lane shared with trees, and outer Business And Transit lanes, that are bus lanes shared with right turning cars. So PBOT’s plan is for the roadway, not including the variable width sidewalks, to be roughly 70% allocated to cars. Excluding cars from the outer lanes drops it down to roughly 50% access for cars.
The latest figures from the American Community Survey show that only about 50% of workers in Portland commute by car, and it’s well known that non-workers have a much lower percentage of car ownership, because they are young, or old, or cannot afford a car. 50% of the roadway for cars, as shown in my cross-sections, is actually overly generous and demonstrates that even bike advocates like myself still work hard to maintain motonormativity.
I don’t think PBOT made this claim. They said they may allow bikes to ride in the bus lane.
Comment of the week!
There are no roads that parallel 82nd in the same way Couch and Ankeny parallel Burnside. Outside of the stretch of 80th in Montavilla (which incidentally was a streetcar line at one point), the 70s bikeway is hopelessly winding.
Paul makes some excellent points. This would make a great COTW so more discussion could be had.
I guess you object to the term, culprit, because of the jurisprudential connotation?
Lots of people driving in cars produces congestion. The car-caused congestion causes transit delays. The people driving around in their cars aren’t guilty of anything, but they are the cause of many things.
Transit, walking, and biking is also how members of the community, including members of struggling families, get around.
Right Yut, the only means of reducing congestion is to provide people with other modes that are functional and somewhat similar in duration of travel. That means BRT or separated bike/scooter/wheelchair/one wheel crazyman lanes.
But I am there on my scooter.
Not!
Only an idiot would ride a scooter on 82nd.
Plenty of people do ride scooters there https://public.ridereport.com/pdx?vehicle=all&time=all&x=-122.5779600&y=45.5442439&z=14.87
People do a lot of stupid things.
I don’t think they should die or be hurt because of them though. It seems you’re suggesting that that’s fine?
People who live in wealthier neighborhoods in Portland get safer biking/scooting/walking locations, but East Portland shouldn’t?
0.1% of trips since the program started. Filter for more recent time periods and I am not sure a couple hundred uses every 3 months justify much.
I did, and it looks plenty busy to me, more popular than nearby greenways. Suggests that it should have safe space to people to roll.
I am not sure 3 people per day is busy.
There’s a pretty clear reason why the strava heat map of 82nd is essentially blank. Even avid cyclists shudder to ride there. The design precludes nearly anything but cars. Even the sidewalks are at grade in many places. The data on bus mode share is the most surprising to me because, despite the inherent flaws (e.g., congestion with SOVs, shoddy sidewalks/stations) people still have a high demand. Imagine that demand if buses were a viable alternative to SOVs with their own ROW and signal priority.
I’m imagining it. But without knowing more about why people traveling along 82nd choose the modes they do, it’s hard to tell which imagined scenario to believe.
I presume that most people driving on 82nd are either starting or ending their trip at some place not on 82nd, so a faster bus for that segment of their trip may not be a huge attractor. But if a lot of drivers on 82nd are simply traveling along the corridor, and are making the sort of trips that are replaceable by bus (i.e. not delivering things, carrying tools, making awkward-to-carry purchases, chaining many stops together, etc.) then a faster bus might indeed increase ridership and reduce auto trips.
We may find out: it looks like 82nd will give buses their own lanes (except where vehicles need to turn right), and it seems likely the FX-style buses will have signal priority as they do on Division. We can revisit this in 5 years and see what actually happened.
Portland ever going to do the correct, much less conflict-prone, global-standard BRT thing of center running bus lanes? Get rid of all those right turn conflicts, entirely change the hierarchy of lane speeds by getting rid of the left “passing” lane for cars, notably shrink pedestrian crossings by putting islands in the middle of all these 5-lane roads, eliminate the chance of people parking in the bus lane….There’s a reason central lanes are the way it’s done anywhere that’s taking BRT seriously.
This. 82nd would be the perfect place to do this. Dont rush to an imperfect solution. take another couple years and do center running BRT
aquaticko yes for sure. If we want a viable alternative to driving on 82nd PBOT must include another mode that offers a comparably fast and consistent option. Their current design does not offer any alternative to SOVs. Even despite the poor conditions and consistent congestion:
If PBOT remains steadfast in precluding the cycling mode, it needs to include a viable alternative to cars, or it will cement 82nd as a congested nightmare well into the future. One of those options is a median BRT, something used successfully worldwide. Because why would anyone use a bus that is regularly stuck in traffic unless that was their only option?
“much like riders do on current Rose Lanes on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and elsewhere” …. is this officially permitted? Or just something that people do?
Both. PBOT has tacitly supported bikes on “bus only” lanes even though it’s not explicitly promoted through signage.
That chimes with my experience of cycling the rose lane in Hillsdale. The bike lane has been FULL of leaves and debris for the past month and basically is unrideable, so I bike in the rose lane til a bus comes along and then I nudge over to the right and the bus nudges over to the left to pass me. It works just fine.
Yeah, the bus lane on Capitol Hwy in Hillsdale makes riding there sooo much more pleasant even with all the crap in the bike lane. Having 10 or so feet between general drivers make a huge difference.
For all the people that want urban mountain biking trails, come to SW and ride our bike lanes 🙂
Is there any documented language from PBOT that supports the idea that people biking are allowed to ride in bus only lanes.
I’m not sure about that. I’d have to do some digging. But I know the there’s no language opposing it either. Also, it would defer to Oregon law, which I don’t believe has anything about bus only lanes, so we’re all operating in a legal grey area. PBOT would have to go to Salem and codify bus only lanes. And if that happened, I would make a LOT of noise about how it should not prevent bicycle riders from sharing those lanes.
All it takes is “bikes allowed” signage added under the “bus lane” signage. Easy. I think they have that on the Couch St bus/bike lane.
“Is there any documented language from PBOT that supports the idea that people biking are allowed to ride in bus only lanes.”
It’s in the same chapter as the explanation of the legal basis of crossbikes.
Did 82nd ave lose its designation as Highway 213 when most if it changed hands?
How do you widen a road (some sections are pretty narrow, as in the bus doesn’t stay in it’s lane narrow), widen sidewalks, improve transit access, relocate utilities that block part of the sidewalk, not take more property from people and businesses, not further infuriate people who will never ride a bicycle or bus with more “Portland hates you for driving”, all while the neighboring highway is also being eyed for tolling which will surely push people off it?
ODOT wasn’t stupid to get rid of this public relations/ logistics nightmare.
No, 82nd Ave is still Highway 213 per the jurisdictional transfer agreement, but highway numbering is just a way-finding system and doesn’t really have anything to do with whether it’s really a “highway” or not. Technically, 82nd Avenue is no longer in the state highway system, but it’s still Highway 213. Weird, huh? It’s the same with Hwy 99E on Grand/MLK, which was transferred long ago, no longer a state highway, but still has the national highway number. Whereas Sandy Blvd was stripped of its Hwy 30 status when it was transferred, and Interstate Ave is no longer Hwy 99W as of the transfer. It’s all a bit random.
Geralt this is interesting. Are there any reasons you can decipher why the designations were kept/changed, or is it simply clerical?
Is the bus service going to be like the FX? I’d enjoy to ride to 82nd, roll my bike onto the bus, go north/south, and roll off again. But that’s only useful with frequent service. I don’t particularly want to ride the extra half mile or so to the 205 path or MAX and then ride back to 82nd again. I already use the “ladder” method now as described if I need to get to something on 82nd, and even with improvements it’s gonna be pretty zigzaggy and frustrating.
Yes, the “new” 72 will be the big, FX-style bus, I believe.
Technically, yes, but without any substantive means to mitigate ROW and SOV travel, it will have the same schedule, just be a bit longer bus.
disappointed
Really short sighted. The general public and people who bike may see these as bike lanes, but PBOT should know better. Lanes should be added that can accommodate 20 mph “last-mile” micro-mobility including the scooters in the image, bikes, boards, one-wheels, etc. Electrification of these modes is a new paradigm. There are a ton of destinations on 82nd for patrons and workers. The development of non-sketchy retail would also be further developed by better placemaking that cannot be accomplished by bus lanes filled with angry car drivers.
82nd Ave as we call it today isn’t a road in Portland. It’s a friggin highway! Bicycles are not allowed on the road or in the lanes on highways, freeways or expressways! Pick a road that runs parallel to it that’s 1 or 2 blocks off the main road, so people don’t die for no damn reason. And make that the bike lane or bike friendly road. I see people on bikes getting run off the road way to often. Just because we ride bikes does not in anyway mean that traffic is supposed to change for us. Get real Portland. Bikes really belong on side walks the way we were taught to ride. Or on a road that is not to congested with auto traffic. Go play Russian roulette in some other city. Stop trying to move here and change our small town life so quickly. Damn. Move here and figure out a way to make subtle out of the way changes that don’t take people’s lives. Bikes DO NOT BELONG OB 82ND PERIOD. EVER!!
That is an extreme take. With this logic we should probably ban people walking on 82nd or in East Portland in general. And forget it if you have a wheelchair or need any kind of mobility device. Just stay home and enjoy your small town life which now includes massive freeways and highways?
In addition to being extreme, she’s also flat out wrong in her statement that bikes are categorically prohibited from most of the roads she names.
Funny, I was taught sidewalks we for pedestrians and except for wheelchairs, wheeled modes belonged in the street.
The only time, when on a bike, I’ve gone on a sidewalk was at the corner when I’d have to press a walk signal to get a light to change for me.
“82nd Ave as we call it today isn’t a road in Portland. It’s a friggin highway!”
Exactly!!! That’s why it needs to be converted from a friggin murder zone to a street!
It is surrounded by residential development where people actually live and don’t want to die. There are schools on 82nd. And a goddamned Bag o’ Crab, for crying out loud.
Might want to check with ODOT on that because they have a different opinion:
https://bikeportland.org/2024/09/30/bridge-and-road-closures-impact-key-gorge-bike-routes-390207
Bikes are allowed on some freeways and expressways, including I-84, but they are supposed to ride in the shoulders, not “on the road or in the lanes.”
I love me some bike lanes but after 10+ years biking + driving in NYC, 82nd feels akin to Flatbush ave in Brooklyn, and I have to agree, taking car lanes away from either would have far greater negative impact than positive. Flatbush is a major thoroughfare with working class drivers that need cars making long commutes using it daily (e g , driving to JFK to work on the tarmac until late at night). I don’t know exactly where the line of too-heavy of car traffic is for a no on bike lanes, but 82nd feels similarly too busy without enough space for a protected bike lanes (my fav are the ones with parallel parked cars as a barrier!)
I used to cross Flatbush at well designed bike crossings and it was great, so the laddering idea makes sense. I also drove on it necessarily at times and couldn’t imagine rush hour down one lane. I’ve cruised some Manhattan bus lanes that allow bikes and that can be a joy, but there’s a level of “hectic” where this breaks down.
Thanks for sparking the discourse!
Hey Zach and fellow former neighbor. You may be aware of the Flatbush Ave Bike lane (Separated adjacent to the park), as well as the movement to redesign Grand Army Plaza to make it more of a park and not a highway including separated bike lanes.
I wouldn’t characterize Flatbush as a “working class commuter route to JFK”, primarily since it’s a N/S route, whereas JFK is far East. In any case there some big differences between Fbush and 82nd, namely parallel routes. Flatbush has the Ashland PBL, Jay St, the Vanderbilt Ave open street, as well as the Prospect Pk path, all safer alternatives than riding down Flatbush of course. 82nd doesn’t really have practical parallel routes.
I feel you. Even some of the better separated bike lanes in the city suffer from the sheer number of unpredictable behaviors due to lack of space. That’s one of the reasons why NYCDOT is widening some PBLs (e.g., 10th ave). Induced demand works on bikes too. 🙂
What a massive mistake it was to put light rail next to the freeway and not on 82nd ave. Ridership would be higher, adjacent land uses better served, and the street would be significantly calmer and maybe even be good for people biking. If only we could go back in time.
Ten years from now we’ll probably be lamenting that there isn’t a dedicated busway on 82nd. If you want serioustransit, it needs its own space.
It’s because 205 was built with transitway space, so Trimet/Metro took the easy/cheap way out. Now I usually see single car trains on the green line, even during rush hour, because ridership is so abysmal.
The Clackamas to downtown route should have gone up 82nd and turned west at Powell, connecting across the Tillikum. This was a huge missed opportunity.
Looking at the ridership, bus line 72nd gets as much ridership as all the other MAX lines other than the Blue line. https://trimet.org/about/pdf/route/2024spring/route_ridership_report_(sorted_by_route)_weekly.pdf
This goes to show how not having accessible transit routes right on the main corridor is not good planning and why placing bikes many blocks over is equally not going to produce results.
YES! COTW
Daniel this is the most salient part of the discussion PBOT and most people on BP tend to miss. The MAX is planned as a “corridor” to mitigate auto congestion, in the same way that PBOT plans any project as a corridor to mitigate auto congestion. Does anyone see the inherent problem with that?
Auto congestion is an indicator of a demand for an increasingly vibrant neighborhood when it exists on streets. The only solution to this congestion is viable alternatives to driving.
While the Green line did benefit (e.g., was cheaper to build, had ROW) from preexisting structures adjacent to I-205 it suffers as with most freeway adjacent designs from a basic flaw: most people don’t live on that corridor. Transportation is a fluid choice based on a lot of variables. A functional transportation system reflects those fluid choices.
The current proposal by PBOT essentially reinforces the status quo on 82nd in the same way as the Green Line makes people drive to it to use it. The “ladder system” is just another euphemism for that same dysfunction.
With such a precipitous drop in cycling, it makes sense not to take so much space for bike lanes that would ultimately sit empty most of the time. Building parallel greenways is an excellent solution given all the context that 82nd exists in. I love our greenways.
I am more upset that the express bus service is going to take so long to happen. They are talking about 2029 for FX service. Surely some improvement can be made in the meantime.
Unfortunately, there is no parallel Greenway. The current Greenway is 10 blocks away and there is no way for it to go straight. I tried counting once but lost track at the number of turns you have to make at 20.
Do you ever ride out by 82nd? I don’t ask that to be snarky, but just to understand where you are coming from.
I would rather make 30 turns on a calm street than have to look over my shoulder every 30 feet for cars turning into and out of driveways. Surely you understand that much like the bike lanes on Division (which I use every day, for the record) bike lanes on 82nd would be very sparsely used and a terrible experience for everyone given the land use. I see maybe 1 or 2 other people biking on Division each day. I’m sure in a decade or two there will be more but elections happen every two years. The real politicking here is the fact that empty bike lanes don’t sell people on riding bikes; they just frustrate drivers who don’t wonk out on transportation in their free time. What does improve things for a much larger segment of the population is improving neighborhood streets that people are already using to get places.
Bike mode share is in the dumps, but the infrastructure that has proven to attract riders is the greenway system. No, it isn’t Amsterdam but we are dealing with an entirely different cultural, economic, and societal context here. For the money, time, effort, and political will it would take to instal bike lanes on 82nd, we could build 1000 modal filters all over the city.
The also serve as a highly visible advertisement that bike riding is very marginal, and might simply reinforce the perception that bike riders have an unfair and outsized political voice.
Portland doesn’t really have a “bike lobby”, but many people think we do, and resent it.
It’s not really a bike lobby – it’s more like a bike MAFIA, and it’s very dangerous.
I hear this, but they are not really proposing to develop a greenway. They are saying that a theoretical greenway that is parallel and will be added later will meet bike needs. Maybe. Someday. This project is not going to provide the wayfinding and lighting, the pavement repair and paint, the diverters and signals to cross arterials, and infrastructure to cross I-84.
bikes turn and aren’t they so efficient 10 blocks is not that far? This is such a confusing take, on the one hand the usage of the idealized 82nd improvements is “we’re bikers, we’re out in the hot, cold, rain, running errands, getting stuff done” then its “oh, not too many turns, and definitely not 10 blocks on flat ground to my destination, I want to be next to the cars to prove I have value too”.
A person doesn’t know what an energy suck a bumpy, twisted and conflicted route can be until they’ve ridden on one that’s straight and flat and has signals that let you run a mile or more between stops.
I hardly ever ride a bike on Sandy Boulevard because even if you travel at the posted limit you still get strafed, but for a couple weeks in 2020 it was pretty sweet.
“I think sometimes in Portland we try to put too many modes of transportation in a small space,” he said before voting “aye” on the plan. “And we’re not connected to the reality of the importance of arterials to move goods and services around which everyone wants. So I think you’re striking a really great balance.” I agree with this completely create better bikeways on side streets that parallel major thoroughfares. Make safer crosswalks for peds and cyclist.
I guess if I ride on 82nd, I’ll take the rose lane and take my chances.
Well it’s not like there is any significant traffic enforcement in Portland so odds are you would get away with it….
I could imagine an angry person, a little rough for the wear, perhaps needs a trip to the salon, taking that enforcement job on telling him to get out of the bus lane out of the window of their car.
Bro why the fuck would you want to bike on 82nd? Plenty much better and safer options just a couple blocks away.
Not every street needs to be a cycling route
Factually incorrect. According to state law (in place for the last fifty years), every street needs to be a cycling route.
The actual law: https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_366.514
See 2B in Watts link, kinda why there is a lot of road construction all the time and yet they don’t put in bike facilities.
Hey Tony, I’m upvoting this because I agree that 82nd is currently a shitshow to ride on. Except, in most cities where cars are not the only option, boulevards such as 82nd exist with LRT, SOVs, and protected bike lanes. That combination of modes actually means more people can safely move around the space.
The status quo presented by PBOT essentially excludes any other mode, as well as essentially guaranteeing SOV congestion.
Sure, but what streets we choose to build safe protected infrastructure on, make for a more predictable, safe (for all modes), and believe it or not, more economically viable place.
Please point to me on a map on a better option than 82nd between Vestal Elementary and McDaniels High
Aside from the Bike Bill, I think the crossing of I-84 is the biggest lever for getting some bike facilities on 82nd, even if only for part of its length.
Sacramento West to 72nd, South to Tillamook, East to 74th, South to Multnomah, East to 79th, south to Flanders into the school. Maybe it takes 3-4 minutes longer, but more enjoyable by every measure compared to riding on 82nd regardless of bike facilities. This maybe inappropriately assumes one like riding their bike.
Or that one isn’t an elementary schooler and adding a couple of miles doesn’t matter.
The difference is 1/3rd of a mile, but again, the victimhood complex of people and their hypotheticals will prevent them from even exploring alternatives because somehow that means cars win.
Well, you can thank the past bike riders with victimhood complexes and their hypotheticals for fighting for the scraps that you now get to enjoy.
It’s not a victimhood complex to think that bikes deserve the same direct routes as cars do – especially since cyclists don’t command 220 hp by wiggling their toes.
The difference is way more than 1/3 of a mile. It’s 1.3 miles driving vs. 2.3 miles biking. It’s a confusing and poorly marked bike route on 5 different streets versus a simple zero turn route. Sure, it’s better than riding on 82nd right now, but 82nd could be a lot better to ride on
Lol. I would like to see the adjacent streets get some more traffic calming and modal filters. 80th is WIDE is some places!
Weird. Clack co has bike infrastructure. Albeit, hap hazard in many places, it’s still holds a place. Shoot, even 182nd and 122nd have it. Please don’t mention the 70’s greenway as it is not rideable with all those big a$$ speed bumps. Roger and team missed big on that.
Ryan I hear you and I’m a little worried that the current council members in Dist 1 representing me will ignore the obvious problem with 122nd: It’s unsafe for peds, drivers and people on bikes.
There is a possiblity Candace Avalos might listen to you. I’m not sure whether to think of her as willing to say anthing to gain power, or actually committed to her stated campain goals which were eco-friendly transport and equity.
If this blog can come up with a consistent sort of message about how to configure these streets, I would tell Candace that the fact is poor people do ride bikes, you can see them doing it on the MUPS. Also, the more housed types would bike, say when they have a bad financial year, lose their insurance or whatever, IF they felt safe and others were also doing it.
At the very least poor people are ocassionally forced to walk.East Portland needs years of improvements on the walking front, which will also help make it safer to bike. I really think we need those inter subdivision connectors.
She might have potential. Loretta Smith–wouldn’t waste my time, I suspect her take is that her consitituents are anti-bike lane and drive exclusively. The other person I dont have an opinion.
Candace answered a few questions for BikeLoud a while ago, which were substantive and give me some tentative hope that she cares about safe street design.
Jamie Dunphy had a critical statement on his site about the protected bike lane on Halsey (admittedly it’s a poor design). I contacted him and he seemed open minded but uncommitted to any street safety topics.
I have the same worry with Lorettta Smith, since we know from her stint at Multnomah Co. She ran due to term limits, not because she has some inherent tie to E Po. She is a career politician.
I guess one out of 3 candidates who are about street safety for District 1 is a start.
Drive down division around 122nd to 148th where they put the bike lanes in. Guess what, no bikers. I can’t wait till I move out of Portland, there are completely wrecking the roads in outer Portland. This city is the worst ran of all big cities on the west coast
Maybe, like 102nd Ave, people don’t bike often on those lanes because there’s no physical barriers and cars sometimes pass on the right regardless of the danger to others.
Maybe it’d take just a few concrete barriers spread out along there to get the point across that bike lanes are for bikes, and not for impatient drivers.
Not to be that guy, but Division does have protected bike lanes from 122nd to 148th. There are some pretty glaring gaps and notably dangerous intersections – which is probably why there aren’t many bikes there.
PBOT counted 155 daily cyclists at 122nd and Division in 2023. The closest greenway counted 140 cyclists at Market and 130th. So Division is more popular than the greenway in that section.
Bye.
Would you bike on 122nd? Could there be a reason why most people on bikes are riding on the sidewalk?
“TSP goals” do not include reducing auto traffic?
Jonathan,
You should put up a poll on this. My hunch is even amongst readers of Bike Portland you would see overwhelming support for the plan.
***Comment deleted by moderator. You got too close to a personal insult and I don’t want that happening here. Please try a different way to express yourself. — Jonathan Maus***
Well done, JM. You don’t want to alienate your many readers from EPANA.
I suggest that the 82nd plan has majority support from nobody, much less Bike Portland readers. I’ll take $20 of that bet if anybody wants to start a pool.
I won’t be the first person to express my frustration with the “ladder”/”parallel greenways” schtick that PBOT always rolls out for these projects, but it’s particularly ineffective the further east in Portland you get. There just are not reasonable parallel routes for 82nd Avenue. It’s an approach that works well on SE Clinton, a road that’s actually parallel to Division (and reasonably close) but that falls apart when the grid disappears.
The option they give is the 70s greenway, which has 31 turns between Flavel and Sandy, 82nd of course has zero. I ride the Salmon/Taylor greenway fairly often, and find it difficult to follow in parts even though I’ve ridden it probably hundreds of times. Signage is rarely as visible as it ought to be, and making one wrong turn often means you end up at an unprotected crossing of a major road. This is obviously worse in the 70s, where there are 8 or 9 high crash roads to cross, so 8 or 9 points where a cyclist may end up at a bad crossing through basically no fault of their own.
PBOT loves talking about how constrained 82nd is, but every option they present is guaranteed to include at least three car lanes. It’s like we want to have plans that posture us as being bold and making changes, but when the projects actually roll around we end up with sort of lukewarm changes that don’t address the major issues we face.
A person traveling either of the nearest greenways sees nothing of what is available on 82nd so they’re not likely to go there unless they, somehow, have already been there. The nearest cross streets may or may not be bike friendly and there are definitely no signs naming nearby businesses.
If PBOT is shunting bike riders to adjacent routes as somehow being better for bike travel it’s just lip service without internal diverters, signal priority at arterials, good signs, and at least a minimum of pavement repairs. I’m with whoever said, paraphrase, the hell with speed bumps. They don’t work and they make biking worse.
PBOT loves talking about “ladders” or parallel routes as a concept, but in terms of whatever project is being discussed, those parallel routes are ALWAYS a future improvement that in reality never shows up. IF they want to use the ladders analogy, they should be showing the routes and the infrastructure that would be needed to bring the ladders up to a basic standard along with the 82nd improvements. To actually create useable, navigable parallel routes, they will need add navigation and street lighting, diverters, signalized crossings, potentially new R.O.W., paving repair, and paint. The parallel routes sounds great if it was actually done, or in this case, if it was possible. But PBOT should definitely be called out for this as plain bikewashing or bullshit.
It’s worth noting the Join Office of Homeless Services intends to open two shelters on 82nd in Montavilla this year Oak Street Village and 1818 SE 82nd Ave (Mill Street Village?). The Mill Street site is in the very early stages of planning and the county will vote on it today. PBOT has plans to improve some roads around these sites (mainly Mill) but there is very little being planned for 82nd itself. The entire section of 82nd between them has no plans at all for improved crossings or calming. I’m sure the area will be improved when the final Better 82nd plan is complete but that’s years away. There’s going to be an immediate need for better pedestrian and transit options in that area within the year.
It’s difficult to find other future shelters on the JOHS site, probably because they don’t want an uproar from neighbors about them before they even start, but I think it’s safe to assume more sites are coming to 82nd. The transit access and host of abandoned lots make it a perfect area for these shelters. PBOT should really be thinking about the impact these will have on people walking, cycling and taking transit along 82nd.
I can see only two ways to get bike lanes on 82nd:
1. BikeLoud wins their Bike Bill lawsuit (and even then I think PBOT will continue to lean on the “nearby parallel bikeway” escape hatch the Bike Bill offers).
2. Enough people make a strong case to their city councilors to somehow force PBOT to add them.
Does anyone see any other options?
Just want you and other folks to know that — at least for me — the concerns here aren’t just “We need a bike lane on 82nd.” Everyone has understood from the beginning that a dedicated bike lane was a fantasy at this time (and my previous stories reflect that). My concern is how PBOT is framing this. PBOT has a choice to make about how they talk about stuff like this. They chose to pit bicycling vs transit. They chose to leave cars out of the discussion. This goes against everything we should be doing. Bicycling is suffering in Portland in large part because of PBOT’s lack of confidence in it and that lack of confidence manifests itself in presentations like the one Julia Reed gave at council. We saw this on SE Hawthorne as well — where bicycling was the political scapegoat for PBOT’s inability/unwillingness to talk tough when it comes to drivers and cars and the need to constrain them more.
Again, when Dan Ryan’s takeaway from that council meeting is that PBOT “learned a lesson” by putting bike lanes on SE Division, then PBOT has not done a good job in their framing.
PBOT should know that we need to make every effort possible to demonstrate to electeds and the public that bikes and transit go great together! They are allies, not enemies. The enemy is our abuse of driving. But the politics of fear at PBOT prevent them from addressing that simple fact. And each time they fail to address the problem with driving, we fall further back. PBOT needs to take off their kid gloves when it comes to driving. They either get tougher on cars or they continue to get beat up by them.
Can we give Jonathan COTW?
We know who is the big dog. Level of service refers mainly to cars. Let’s call it what it is, PBOCars.
I’m kind of used to dining on scraps, riding where it feels safe-ish, changing my route when some damn thing like an 8 month construction project or an awkward trolley track appears, and breaking laws at times if that favors bodily integrity.
If it’s bikes versus transit and we’re losing, could we at least double down on the buses? Put in an 82nd Avenue Rose Lane and run a shuttle bus with a bike bay in between the 72 buses, from 82nd Dr. up to NE Sandy. On second thought, run it all the way to the airport, on a 24 hour schedule.
A two block long (whatever) is a nothingburger, a bandaid, a wish sandwich. ‘See, we sped up the 14 bus by 17 seconds on average’.
I’d like PBOT to commit to something, stop with the half measures and freak shows, and blow my mind with something amazing once in a while.
Clearly the city would have to convince Trimet to play ball to do what I suggest. Maybe they could be persuaded if PBOT found a way to pry buses out of car jams. What if the #12 ran free from Parkrose to Tigard? That route has two travel lanes and is parallel to interstate highways almost every inch of the way. Show me something PBOT!
Loved your point about Barbur, but don’t forget ODOT owns that road and will never never ever give up their precious two “travel” lanes in each direction.
ODOT is at least 10x the barrier to cycling (and other non-car modes) that PBOT is.
Well, I’d take half, it would be a natural experiment of sorts. We could compare on time service, ridership, productivity, all sorts of things. We could also track the speed and volume of car traffic on Sandy Blvd just to see whether two lanes were really pulling their weight.
It’s not a simple thing to do, the lights would have to be timed for approaching buses and somehow we’d have to keep SOV out of the bus lane.
I like the idea of a right lane running bus being promoted at each signal with only the bus and any vehicle in a turn lane ahead of it allowed through. You could give a camera ticket to anybody who cuts in on a bus to go straight.
My primary beef with PBOT is not necessarily their end product or design (sure, historically they aren’t great), but their methodology and how they justify that design. I would rather an honest and open, data-based presentation to the public precede any change in infrastructure.
The use of “flow” and “ladder” and “congestion mitigation” are all euphemisms. Simply relaying data on the current baseline including all modes, the research on death rates and crashes, economic data etc. Project changes to important variables such as all modes, deaths, economic viability based on different designs. It’s a lot of work, but measuring SOV traffic and basing a design on that is misleading at best. If they were honest about their design, the mode change, death rate and economic viability of the proposal would essentially be static.
Incidentally, their document states that their proposed design is primarily limited due to a:
Back of the hand calculation puts a median BRT at 60′ feet between curbs including a 9′ curb-adjacent auto lane, 4′ tree planter, 5′ transit station and 12′ bus lane. That makes for an astronomically safer pedestrian crossing, and true BRT, which would be unhindered by SOVs, have signal priority and higher bus capacity (with the option of upgrading to MAX in distant future.) Future additions to development/zoning could include cycling infra.
Jonathan, I emailed you about this.
PBOT parking enforcement considers cars blocking a sidewalk, or parking in a bike lane as “priority 2 parking violation” meaning that they aim for same day response.
parking in “no parking at any time” posted zone, or in HOTEL ZONE as “priority 1” violation, something they aim for response within 30 minute.
How do you feel about this and I want to see you do an article about it.
My question would be, are they, PBOT, waiting for citizens to complain, or are they also actively patrolling looking for offenders with their own staff?
That’s area dependent.
If swanky richie rich Ritz Carlton calls about someone parked in their hotel zone, PBOT will aim to respond within 30 minutes.
If someone calls about a vehicle from a private construction company building a new building illegally parked in the bike lane for the purpose of increasing their own profit, they’ll assign priority two, meaning respond sometime within the same day and if it involves construction, they’re much more likely to let them off with off the book verbal warning.
So, if someone called at 7:30AM, that truck might go unbothered until 4:30PM, then someone might say they’ll move it by end of the day and PDX PBOT may resolve it with a nudge nudge, wink wink.
If it happens again with a different vehicle involving the same construction company, everything starts from scratch all over, because of no formal record tying the company to offense.
Wow, this is a really interesting. Is this based on city code, or just an unofficial agreement on priority? If this is true, the current Broadway design could potentially have a lot of cars parked in the bike lane and a response of <24 hours. If someone is in a wheelchair and the curb is blocked by a car, I would say that is much more of a priority.
My hope is that, like DC and NYC, Portland will adopt a similar automatic enforcement protocol via bus cameras. There is also a law in NYC where you can film ~5? minutes of a parked car idling, and your evidence begets a slice of the fine. Some people make a lot of money doing this.
It’s not, but that’s based on their operating practices. Parking is not the topic of this article, but it’s a great example of how PBOT sees auto vs all else.
If it’s SW Broadway downtown, it will get enforced, because it isn’t about “what” the violation is, but it’s about finding a lawful reason to issue revenue generating citations.
What I’m saying is if someone illegally parks in hotel zone in downtown by Ritz Carlton and their management calls PBOT, they’ll setup a priority 1 tow request.
If someone calls in a construction company’s dump truck parked across the planting strip and the bike lane on N Rosa Parks, it will be complaint driven priority 2 “respond the same day” request handled at meter maid’s discretion. If it’s construction related, that often means site personnel talking to the meter maid and saying “we’ll have it gone by the end of the day” and no citation being issued.
Thanks for this Chop. Do you have a link for this? I’d love to know the evidence behind it, or how it came into being. This is so effed up.
@eawriste
Is this good enough? https://sndup.net/z7fxj/
The meaning of priorities are explained in consulting firm’s report which you’ll have to pore through, but it’s published in “the consultants wrote in the report, obtained by The Oregonian via public records request.” as cited in https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/08/portland-parking-enforcement-open-to-favoritism-and-illegal-conduct-review-finds.html
Nice. Thanks for the references. For perspective in NYC (this may be a bit antiquated) about 2% of cars parked in bike lanes (including NYPD personal vehicles) were ticketed based on data from 311 calls. My hope is that PBOT follows NYC and DC in adding automatic ticketing on bus cams.
We could balance the budget for years into the future if we started ticketing people who speed and / or run stop signs.
But we don’t, because Portland doesn’t use ticketing as a source of income generation.
In my experience, only low tax / law and order jurisdictions do that.
Fortunately, we have a safe, accessible, direct alternative with the I-205 path. Oh, wait…
The absolute worst part of this is that 82nd is the best shot that this part of town and these communities have at having a “main street.” – a local destination street that can build off of all of the great businesses that are there and the residential density surrounding 82nd.
It’s not ideal, but because of bad zoning, it is what it is.
With this move, and lack of vision, PBOT is saying- nope, no main street for you. All of you can just suck in the exhaust and live in the danger zone, so that non-local drivers can use your neighborhood (if you can even call it that) as a car sewer.
PBOT would point to Foster as their crown jewel. Maybe it is, but you should scope it out during rush periods. Not sure anyone would feel safe biking on it.
Ugh Ryan Foster is as lukewarm as PBOT gets. Buffered bike lanes. A few medians for peds, and zero mitigation where gigantic areas of space that a sneckdown would scream at. Marginal improvement at the very best. I do miss/love the Rusian furniture store’s signs that disparaged any change to foster.
82nd has so much potential SD. I just found a Chinese restaurant that serves a Chinese/Korean dish that is so hard to find in Portland.
I guess one of my only hopes is that, since 82nd is technically shared between districts 1,2 and 3, that some of those council members will recognize that PBOT’s design is status quo: same crashes, same deaths, same congestion. Is that acceptable for those council members?
Yes- they may look at the drawings and think “Oh, what a wonderful bus lane with no cars in it. So progressive, so green, so equitable, such a sacrifice we have made for everyday working class people.” But we all know that “bus” lane is going to be used illegally, constantly by cars. Enough so, that it is going to feel and be as dangerous as any typical car lane. Maybe even more so, due to being unpredictable.
Exactly, that is what happened with the streetcar on H street NE in DC. The road remained a 4 lane road with the streetcar on the outside two lanes. That essentially negated any speed/capacity advantage the streetcar had over SOVs, and tended to make people in cars to change lanes with more frequency, creating a nightmare for all modes.
But if PBOT were to consider a median protected BRT, not a lot of people are going to be willing to clearly flaunt the law and drive down the curb separated median with buses, particularly if Portland adopts a similar system of automatic enforcement via bus cameras.
Based on the costs of previous gold-level BRTs this would require something like $150-200 million alone (and probably more given the way inflation has hit the construction industry).
https://brtguide.itdp.org/branch/master/guide/why-brt/costs
I would support this but I suspect few of the “stakeholders” would support waiting another 5-15 years to find funding for a quarter billion dollar project.
Yeah it’s not necessarily cheap. I hear you prioritarian, but it’s way cheaper than LRT, and much more viable an option that competes with bikes/cars with its own ROW. Also, It’s feasible for between $25-50 mil per mile, to phase in a project where it’s needed most (e.g., between Division and Glisan). That would be about 1.5 miles.
I’m not sure how a “phase-in” would work given that the buses would have to cross over to the other lane. I should also note that this option would completely nix the idea of making a bus only lane useful for people riding.
I think the biggest failing here is that political will for major cycling improvements in Portland has collapsed*. It’s at best an afterthought and PBOT’s casual dismissal of cycling facilities for 82nd reflects this political reality. And other than Green and, maybe, Morillo, I just don’t see any STRONG support for transportation cycling on this council. I hope I’m proven wrong, however.
* From “protected bike lanes are the default” to “pave and painted” bike lanes
When cycling was in its ascendency, we enjoyed outsized political power. Now that it’s in decline, that support has diminished, though I think we still do better than most groups that, by the statistics, represents 3% of the city.
Decent points prior.
Phase in projects are common for BRT and LRT, particularly in countries where the capacity building framework exists. In the US it’s much more expensive (there are other reasons as well) to build BRT/rail because the teams doing them are not constantly moving to subsequent projects. Busses can change lanes and that makes phasing in, or prioritising certain areas with median BRT that much easier.
TBH there’s not a lot of research on this so I would take the results with a grain of salt. In general, curb-adjacent bus lanes tend to attract avid cyclists rather than increase modal share (interested but concerned). Bus lanes also tend to become less efficient timewise, seeing delays due to people on bikes.
In general, this is one of the cycling fallacies in the US that pops up when an agency pits transit vs cycling (when the problem is actually SOVs). Shared bike/bus lanes are both inefficient in increasing bike mode share and safety as well as have a detrimental affect on the speed/frequency of buses.
Lastly, damn I get it. But to be very blunt, Portland never had the political will (or even the budget and capacity perhaps), to build gold standard protected bike lanes. Apologies, but this is a reminiscing for a time that never existed.
Most cyclists bought the Greenway idea that bikes didn’t belong on commercial streets. Today we see the result of that historical marketing success/failure, and Portland is just starting to expand a separated network. Who knows? We might actually see it expand out of downtown soon?
The existence of greenways tells me nothing about where I “belong”. They are a guide to what routes PBOT thinks might be useful, and where, sometimes, they’ve made accommodations to make cycling easier. I take them as a recommendation, and nothing more.
This, like other commercial streets in Portland, is a carbrained design.
When I’m on foot or biking I’m more likely to cruise/browse for places to go. The destinations can be random. The better the non-car-environment, the more lingering and shopping I’ll do.
If driving, people have a destination and go point to point. Lingering and random shopping is literally impossible.
Putting bikes on parallel streets only considers point to point. Browsing for places to go is impossible so shops can expect lower than possible visits by cyclists.
It is such a bummer PBOT/advocates don’t push for “at grade” bike lanes more. Widen the sidewalk 2-3x, and place the bike lane there. Keep all the parking lot entrances at grade sidewalk grade too. Keep the curbside lane BRT only (cars can turn right when there’s no bus coming). This would obviously require thoughtful design to ensure there’s no utility poles, signage, etc. in the actual path of the bike lane.
82nd has so many cool businesses on it currently, and it is clearly ripe for development. In 10-20 years the used car lots, lingerie stores, and abandoned buffets will be replaced by dense, multi-use housing. Getting more people to 82nd (dense public transit, rideshare scooters, bikes, and pedestrian) is a win for everyone.
I don’t like to ‘settle’ for a compromised design but it’s pretty clear that 82nd is going to be a challenge for a while. If I were king I’d probably go for center running BRT as the technically sweet option but with the need for sidewalk improvements is there even room for it?
One improvement that seems doable is to set up signals that give sole priority to any lane where a bus is ready to depart. Stop the other lanes, move the bus out, do a pedestrian scramble if there are any beg button signals outstanding, and then start the cycle over. SOV traffic is delayed because bus? Seems OK.
Parking lots aren’t great or really safe places to ride a bike, but I’d like to see an initiative to make sure every block with big parking lots is permeable to bikes, with marked crosswalks mid block on side streets. It’s more of a bodge than a hack but in a world where people are telling us FO to the side streets, it’s not nothing.
I love that PBOT is super-duper concerned about motorists diverting around 82nd, but a-okay with me having to bike a mile out of the way in order to find a safe crossing over I-84 because there’s no bike facilities at on 82nd near Halsey. Yep, no second-class citizens here, Portland is a Bicycle City(R)!
Not diverting car traffic into hoity-toity single family residential area is also a concern of PBOT.
And it should be! That’s a valid concern! One that can be relatively easily mitigated by modal filters that make dodging congestion through a back road impractical.
82nd Avenue is not the street to advocate this strongly for bike facilities. The sidewalks are already inadequate and in some places less than a few feet in width. There’s also not a lot of bike-friendly development in this area. Let’s prioritize pedestrians/ADA improvements, transit reliability and speed, and make it a whole lot safer than it is today. Having gridlock here won’t exactly lead to safer roads.
Gridlock always results in safer roads because the single basic rule of traffic homicide is that people driving markedly over ~20 mph are more likely to kill their neighbors.
I’m interested in the idea of ‘bike-friendly’ development. Bikes come with people always, and some people don’t come without bikes. It’s the people who are important, right?
Gridlock is a car thing, there can be gridlock without bikes but I’ve never seen it without four wheeled vehicles of some kind. Critical Mass at its peak always kept moving…
Does anyone know how to contact candidate-elect council members? I’m guessing they don’t take office and get official email addresses till January, and I’m not sure how to contact them.
Here are the Council Members by District that could have some sway on any project on 82nd:
Dist 1: Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, Loretta Smith
Dist 2: Dan Ryan (sigh), Sameer Kanal, Alana Pirtle-Guiney
Dist 3: Steve Novick, Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama Lane
Angelita Morillo is active on TikTok lol
I feel like having like having a parking protected lane for bikes would be the best configuration for making 82nd Ave. into more of a main street. It’s hard to imagine it being anything other than an arterial to get from point A to point B without the street parking.
I’ve skimmed the 300 comments.
Most folks think PBOT and council should have put in bike lanes, and have cited many authoritative and logical reasons why they should. And props to Aaron and Kiel for attending the hearing, and everyone who contributed in other ways.
I didn’t give much thought to this over the last 2 years, since I figured it was unlikely to succeed, and my effort would go better into lower hanging fruit. (Also, it’s my style to go for the lonely but easy pickings that otherwise rot on the ground).
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The comment that hits home best is Douglas K’s —
“I am bothered by the apparent disinterest in using 82nd Avenue planning and funding to complete the “ladder” by acquiring enough right-of-way to complete a 79th/80th greenway from Alberta to Cooper, and an 84th/85th greenway from Going to Flavel, including a pair of pedestrian/bike bridges over the Banfield.”
And a few others, including Jonathan’s post showing the Oregon Walks proposals for a I-84 crossing east of the 82nd Ave of Roses.
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My thought all along were that the exiting road diets east of the 82nd Ave or Roses have not gone well. They were all launched with fanfare. PBOT and Council took big political hits for them. They were not popular when launched, and are certainly not popular today.
I’ve spent a lot of time riding in outer East Portland in the last 18 months. The lanes are lonely. And PBOT neglects maintenance.
The big examples:
I’ve biked on all of these recently. Some a lot. Some just a bit.
To get the political will to do something like this on a busier, fussier street like 82nd Ave of Roses is likely going to take some ringing success stories on the predecessor streets.
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However, I see some low hanging fruit that I think could have been achieved in this process, and I see some positive options moving forward.
The big thing is for BikeLoud to take a position that the alternate north-south routes need to be developed in synch with 8nd Ave of Roses. PBOT did this in ~2012 with developing Rodney in conjunction with Williams.
Get the “possible” routes brought up to Greenway standards, with signalled crossings of the lineup of east-west street barriers — Powell, Division, Washington/Stark, Burnside, Glisan, Prescott.
And get interim detours around the physical barriers — I-84, McDaniels High School, Bird Alliance, parks, schools, etc.
Then get the process started on the I-84 crossings done as part of the implementation of the 82nd Ave of Roses project.
This can all still happen. (If I ever figure out Slack I’ll cross-post this on the BikeLoud slack)
A couple other easy things:
1) The name of the street is the *82nd Avenue of Roses* (props to Aaron for using it in his diagrams).
I think this was pushed on ODOT by PBOT 10 or 20 years ago to try to force them to pretty it up. But PBOT is not installing roses. I went to one comment forum (probably a booth at Sunday Parkways) and submitted the request that they use the full name and add roses all over the streetscape. They replied that they didn’t have the budget, they were just using low maintenance, drought tolerant plants.
We could easily get the political will from somewhere to get a lot of pretty roses planted on this street all over!
(ODOT has roses on one section of its remaining ROW — the southbound Columbia Blvd ramps. They look good, don’t you think?)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FeXmukbzyEaCkrwr9
2) Get PBOT to adopt the name “82nd Avenue of Roses” on all of its literature. With an end goal to cultivate enough roses on the street that the name will eventually become “Avenue of Roses” (Just like 39th became Cesar Chavez, Union Ave became MLK, and Portland Blvd became Rosa Parks)
3) Get a 20 mph speed limit in the business district from just south of Foster to north of Division. This qualifies under the state laws governing business district speed limits. I requested this of ODOT about 7 years ago and got a polite “no” that listed five reasons it didn’t qualify. Most of which were not factually correct. I will re-submit the original request to PBOT and see if it gets any more traction.
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Summary — with a major project like this, in a physically confined corridor, there will be challenges to getting an good outcome for bicycle infrastructure.
But there will always be options for significant improvements in the corridor, even if the best outcome is not realized on the major street.
Because bicycle use will be underserved in the main project, there is a larger-than-usual opportunity to get bicycle improvements added nearby to improve alternative routes. And to get concessions on the main project that will have small benefits to bicycle traffic.
My thoughts.
Ted Buehler
COTW!
He wants to see the street re-classified as a Major City Bikeway in the TSP to bring it up to par with other modes. Kuehn has spacebar clicker sketched out two cross-sections showing how bike riders can be accommodated on 82nd: One shows the shared bus lane, the other shows a bike lane that’s protected from car drivers by a bus lane buffer. n that dictates the type of bus lane that’s ultimately built on 82nd Avenue, or whether or not we allow bike riders on it. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with TriMet Planner Michael Kiser about this subject back in June 2023: “I’d like to say,
Dear goodness. It was so simple. Just get rid of left turns across traffic, put a divider down the middle, bikes on the outside, then busses then a car lane. But nope. Had to screw it screw it up Portland like it’s 1965. So sad.