Still from on-bike video camera. (Photo: Reader Joe R.)
Red star marks spot where the SUV passed Joe. Orange line is how the driver entered the path.
The Portland area has a bigproblem with people driving cars where they’re not supposed to. On March 19th, BikePortland reader Joe R. faced that reality head-on when someone driving a large SUV entered a bike path he was riding on and nearly forced him off the pavement.
It happened just after four o’clock as Joe was heading northbound on the bike path located in between I-5 bridge on-ramps and the Residence Inn hotel just north of N Marine Drive. “I was enjoying my ride and began to accelerate when I saw the large black vehicle pulling onto the path,” Joe shared in an email with BikePortland. The driver turned onto the path at the culdesac of N Anchor Way.
Back in July, Joe read an article on BikePortland about this exact location. In that article, I reported that the Oregon Department of Transportation has been aware of “ongoing issues with bollards being stolen or ran over” as far back as spring 2023. Despite this acknowledgment of the problem however, a representative from Ask ODOT said, “Staff is exploring options for better bollards or a fix to the problem and do not have plans to reinstall them at this time.”
It appears ODOT has done nothing to improve the situation. In fact, when I shared a video about Joe’s run-in with a driver, several folks said they routinely see people driving on the path at and around this same location. “I see it a lot,” said one person in an Instagram comment. “Same has happened to me there… it nearly took me out,” said someone else.
Thankfully, Joe was riding carefully and managed to stay safe. “I realized there was nowhere for me to go except off the path if I didn’t want to be killed,” he recalled.
After the close call, Joe pedaled over to the opening in the path the driver used. He saw no bollards or other preventative measures in place. Joe frustrated and he sees this problem as another example of the “destruction of Portland” that “horrible leadership” has let go for far too long.
Hopefully the actions taken by ODOT on the I-205 path several miles away will be expanded the entire path network. ODOT, Portland Parks, and PBOT need a coordinated strategy to defend and protect these spaces. Until then, we cannot let this type of driving behavior become normalized. These drivers — and other illegal activities like blocking the path with tents and other personal belongings, dumping trash, starting small fires, and unsafe behaviors — endanger individuals and also send a chill through the entire region that results in many folks giving up on using them altogether.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation plans to make significant changes to a northeast Portland intersection where a 12-year old was struck and injured by the driver of a car.
Back in November 2023, two 6th graders at Laurelhurst School were crossing NE Glisan at 41st when the driver of a car sped through the intersection and hit one of them. The driver was going well over the speed limit (25 mph) and didn’t stop to see what happened (I don’t know if they were ever caught). The 12-year-old suffered a broken bone in their leg and various bruises and scrapes.
Now PBOT is ready to spend $150,000 on a project that aims to calm traffic and make crossing NE Glisan safer. PBOT’s planned changes will shorten the crossing distance, add a push button-activated bike traffic signal, stripe new bike lanes with some concrete curbs for protection (the bike lanes will connect to existing one east of 41st), and reducing driving space. PBOT says the new design will “increase driver awareness of the crossing.” On the project website, PBOT says people driving on Coe Circle, “may not expect people walking and biking to be crossing at this intersection.”
This intersection is just one short block east of Coe Circle and it’s currently 65-feet to cross from one side to the other. NE 41st is a neighborhood greenway route and is classified as a Major City Bikeway in Portland’s Transportation System Plan. This crossing is just 0.4 miles south of the bike/ped bridge over I-84 that connects the Laurelhurst neighborhood to the Hollywood Transit Center at 42nd Ave.
In addition to the changes listed above, PBOT will also remove 127 feet of on-street parking on the south side of Glisan and 71 feet of on-street parking on the north side. Car parking will also be removed on both sides of 41st north of Glisan. The new signal will complement the existing HAWK (high-intensity activated crosswalk beacon) signal PBOT installed just four blocks south on NE 41st and Burnside in 2006.
Final design should be complete this month and PBOT expects to build the project this summer. The funding comes from the Fixing Our Streets program.
Scene from a transportation advocacy lobby day in Salem in 2023. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
I hope you’re ready, because April will be a huge month for transportation policy in Oregon.
Any day now, lawmakers in Salem are expected to reveal the long-awaited transportation funding and policy bill (or at least a broad stroke outline). And on April 17th, transportation reformers from around the state will meet in Salem for Move Oregon Forward’s Advocacy Day. Then just one week later, on April 23rd through 25th, The Street Trust will host their annual Oregon Active Transportation Summit (OATS).
The funding bill should be very interesting. We’ll finally get to see the mix of funding sources the legislature believes to be ready for prime time. When it comes to new money, my money is on some type of e-commerce delivery fee, more bonding authority for ODOT, new fees on electric vehicles (including e-bikes), tying the gas tax to inflation, another toll pilot program, and maybe a mandate for some road users to join the OreGo pay-per-mile system. I’ve heard rumblings that lawmakers want to tweak the traditional 50/30/20 State Highway Fund (40 cents from every gallon of gas) formula where 50% goes to ODOT, 30% goes to counties, and 20% goes to cities; but that might be too political to stomach given the other heavy lifts the bill will face.
In a post today, The Street Trust said, “Whatever quilt lawmakers patch together to cover ODOT’s needs, it cannot leave our communities, transit agencies, or active transportation users out in the cold.”
I’m not sure what we’ll see in the bill and I’m eager to see what gets placed on the table.
To get plugged in, I would highly recommend signing up for the Advocacy Day. I attended in 2023 and it was really cool. You’ll meet other advocates, get some training on how to speak with lawmakers, then you’ll visit offices in the capitol to share your opinions. It’s democracy in action and with all the stuff going on in D.C. these days, it will feel really good to exercise that muscle.
OATS is sure to be a solid event. This year it will be held at the Hilton DoubleTree across from Holladay Park in the Lloyd. Expect the typical slate of keynote speakers, smart presenters, workshops, networking across many fields, and fun social events.
So gear up, stay tuned, and read those articles you’ve had bookmarked to make sure you’re up to speed on the latest news. It’s going to be an eventful month!
And if you need to decompress, the annual Ladds 500 is April 12th.
P.s. I’m getting a total knee replacement surgery on April 11th (and then another one on June 13th!), so I’ll be slowing down a bit. I’ll work as I can, but will probably miss a bunch of stuff too. We’ll see how recovery goes. Wish me luck.
View looking south at project area. (Photo: Oregon Department of Transportation)
Metro Council just voted to give the Oregon Department of Transportation $250 million for the I-5 Rose Quarter project. The vote was a significant step that makes key funds available to ODOT so they can move forward with preliminary construction work this summer.
The vote comes just days after Metro Council members heard strong support for the project from leaders of Albina Vision Trust, a nonprofit working to re-establish the Black community displaced by construction of the freeway in the 1960s, and the owner of Raimore Construction, a minority owned and operated company that will receive contracts to build the project.
In addition to adding lanes to I-5 in a bid to reduce crashes and congestion, the project includes a cover over the freeway that will come with significant changes to the surface streets with a goal to improve bicycling and re-stitch neighborhoods together. The project has been nearly 15 years in the making and has changed considerably since ODOT first shared design proposals. Even with the addition of buildable freeway covers (which happened only through strong advocacy by Albina Vision Trust), folks who oppose the project don’t trust ODOT. They say it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that ODOT is hiding a larger, 10-lane freeway plan. Many opponents want congestion pricing in place prior to any work to widening the freeway, a policy that Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan already endorses.
“Any normal DOT engineer would have proposed nine lanes in each direction at this spot to balance out lanes… This is a tweak”
– Lynn Peterson, Metro Council president
Beyond those concerns, the total unraveling of ODOT’s budget for the project has become an even greater concern of many project skeptics. If the Trump administration continues to freeze around $400 million of an already-promised grant, the budget deficit could balloon to $1.4 billion. Critics say by allowing ODOT to move forward, the state will be on the hook to fully fund the project — siphoning funds from other needs in the process.
At their meeting this morning, Metro council passed the $250 million funding resolution 5-1 with one abstention. ODOT says they now have $863 million lined up for the project, enough to build major elements of the new freeway lanes and about 30% of the highway cover.
Metro Council members. L to R: Juan Carlos Gonzalez, Mary Nolan, Ashton Simpson, Lynn Peterson, Christine Lewis, Duncan Hwang, Gerritt Rosenthal.
“This isn’t just about moving cars, it’s about rebuilding the community that was torn down,” said Metro Councilor Ashton Simpson when he introduced the resolution. “This project represents a significant economic opportunity. It will create thousands of good paying jobs” and “provide contracting opportunities for Black-owned businesses and Black contractors.” The project, Simpson said, will, “Restore the economic vitality that was stolen decades ago.”
“If we are serious about racial and economic equity,” Simpson, who is Black, continued: “Then we must hold ourselves accountable to the voices of impacted communities, and they have spoken clearly in support of this project.”
Councilor Christine Lewis said her “yes” vote should be seen as a sign that Metro can seen as a partner in progress with ODOT. “If we are going to move forward as a partner, working on big things for the state, this is the exact moment when we have to move forward.”
The idea that the time had simply come to do something, anything, to show progress on this project, also rang true for Councilor Gerritt Rosenthal. He expressed misgivings with the project, saying he doesn’t think it will reduce congestion, but that, “It’s necessary to move forward.”
Councilor Juan Gonzalez, who has taken principled stands against freeway expansions in the past, also voted yes this morning. “The action before us is to help program the largest restorative justice project in America. That’s a big deal right now,” he said. Gonzalez sounded proud of how Metro helped “mold” the project from just another freeway expansion into something he thinks, “will achieve so many of our goals across the board.” And similar to councilors Lewis and Rosenthal, Gonzalez said his support is also based on the belief that, “It’s important to send a message to Salem and D.C. that this region can and will build big, beautiful things.”
Councilor Duncan Hwang couldn’t get himself to vote “yes” or “no,” so he abstained. He said he is “deeply supportive” of all the jobs for Black business owners and the reconnection of this historic Albina community; but he also has serious reservations about ODOT’s fiscal irresponsibility. Hwang said he couldn’t live with the double-standard of taking other agencies to task for spending money they don’t have, then turn around and support ODOT doing the same.
Mary Nolan was the only Metro Council member to vote against the resolution. She said, “I find a deep irony that this project intends to repair past harms to the Black community that was caused by highway construction, and the solution is more highway construction. I don’t think that will work as a reparation.” Nolan echoed Hwang when she added that, “I won’t join a chorus that lectures other governments about how to be fiscally responsible — how not to bust their budgets — and then turn around and do exactly the same thing with this project.”
Metro Council President Lynn Peterson is the strongest supporter of them all. She referred to ODOT’s plans for the freeway as a mere “tweak” and said our region should be grateful ODOT isn’t going even bigger. “Any normal DOT engineer would have proposed nine lanes in each direction at this spot to balance out lanes.” “This is a tweak” Peterson continued, “It’s a tweak to give us another option in the future, to be able to reduce fender-benters, increase the safety, be able to mitigate congestion in the future, but also be able to do things with the community in hand that they want, and this cap is part of it. And slowing down at this point would indicate to the state that we are not interested in the cap at all.”
Peterson then addressed concerns with ODOT’s budget:
“There is no money that will be budgeted until there is money in hand. I want to be very clear about that. This is not something that we’re giving permission to the state to go out and sign a contract that they can’t actually commit to. That’s what happened in other situations. That’s why we called them out. This is allowing the project to move forward into the next step. So if no money is in hand, we can expressly move forward as quickly as possible.”
To Peterson, the freeway expansion plans — which call for one new “auxiliary lane” in each direction between I-84 to the south and I-405 to the north — coupled with the cap and surface street elements of the project are a “balanced approach”:
“… That balanced approach is being able to see a little bit of work for the future of the interstate system and our economy, as well as a maximum benefit to the community it goes through. That is what I call an amazing amount of balance. And it was not easy to get to, because it is not the way we normally do business. So I would just try to recognize that we are no longer in the ’70s. We are not fighting that fight. That fight is over. The fight that we have now is to make sure that every project that we invest in, that we spend our time in, has a balanced approach that allows everybody to benefit, not just one part of our community.”
In a statement after the meeting, No More Freeways, a nonprofit group that has organized community opposition and has filed several lawsuits against the project, said, “ODOT will do anything, say anything, promise anything, to get the project started because they know we’ll have to pay whatever it takes to finish it. This is cynical and wrong.”
ODOT says this funding from Metro, coupled with the (still very uncertain) $450 million federal grant and other funds already dedicated to the project, will allow them to get started on the project this summer and begin construction of the freeway expansion and cap in 2027.
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The driver and their blue pickup truck were captured in a video by a bystander while doing donuts in Peninsula Park last week.
A man is driving recklessly through north and northeast Portland and recording it for anyone to see.
In dozens of videos posted to the keepingitlittlike06 account on Instagram, a man who goes by “Mr. 06” can be seen driving a pick-up truck with his legs while hanging out of the drivers’ side window and filming himself with his phone. In other videos, he can be seen doing donuts in public parks. Many people are worried that his highly distracted and dangerous behaviors while operating a motor vehicle could lead to an innocent person being injured or killed.
Last week someone captured video of a driver in a pickup truck driving on the grass at Peninsula Park. In the video posted to Nextdoor on Wednesday, someone driving a light blue truck can be seen spinning out the rear tires in the grass near the tennis courts in the northeastern corner of the popular neighborhood park. The video also shows the driver’s arms outside the vehicle filming with their phone as they drive. A video posted to the @keepingitlittlike06 Instagram page shortly after proves it’s the same driver seen in the Nextdoor video.
There are numerous reports of this same person wreaking havoc with his driving throughout many Portland neighborhoods. “I called the cops on this guy swerving on 28th the other day,” someone shared with BikePortland via a direct message on Instagram after I shared one of the videos. The person said Mr. 06 was also driving down the bike lanes on Naito Parkway and on sidewalks. “Bikers and pedestrians (and frankly other motorists) should watch out for him,” they wrote.
Someone shared one of his videos to the r/Portland Reddit thread Friday and there are nearly 700 comments that share concerns and tips on what to do about it. Most people think the police won’t act until something terrible happens. One person who messaged BikePortland on Instagram Friday said they sent one of Mr. 06’s videos to the Instagram account of the Portland Police Bureau Bike Squad. The person who manages the PPB account replied: “Thanks for the tip, we’ll check it out.”
This type of driving is very dangerous and needs to be taken seriously. If you see this light blue pickup out and about, please be careful.
Welcome to the week. Here are the most notable news items our community has come across in the past seven days…
Real regulations: In a move that the automotive media says could signal a shift toward stricter speed enforcement nationwide, the state of Virginia has passed legislation that will allow judges to mandate speed limiting devices in vehicles. (Motor Trend)
Intercity transit: Read this personal reflection on the “vanishing lifelines” of rural transit in Oregon and you’ll be even more radicalized against the billions ODOT continues to throw at expanding freeways. (Oregon Humanities)
Required reading for lawmakers: A research institute that focuses on state transportation departments says there’s never been a more important time for DOTs to get their acts together, shed the highway-building emphasis of the past and focus on clear goals and innovative ways to get there. (Streetsblog USA)
Dutch bike theft stats: Interesting to ponder that bike theft remains a major problem in the cycling haven of Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, and that they these cities actually keep records on bike theft year-over-year. (Dutch News)
Cars ruin cities: A British TV personality who hosted a show about cars says he thinks they don’t even belong in cities because driving them is “totally pointless”. (The Standard)
Foreshadowing: Washington State lawmakers released several transportation budget bills that could foretell what’s in store when Oregon’s legislature does the same thing any day now. The Washington bills proposed new revenue sources like a gas tax increase and new taxes on electric vehicles. (Seattle Times)
Pay per mile: I’m loving renewed interest in ODOT’s pay-per-mile “OreGo” program, which found itself in the headlines last week as Governor Kotek celebrating the number of electric cars on the road and lawmakers struggle to find new revenue to maintain the roads people drive them on. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
E-bikes banned on transit: The transportation authority in London has decided to ban nearly all types of e-bikes on subways due to fears of batteries catching fire. (Guardian UK)
The Gorge Transit Summit is a great chance to plug into transit advocacy, and it comes at a crucial moment for the future of bus services in Oregon.
If you haven’t noticed yet, intercity and rural bus service in Oregon having a moment. Take the Columbia River Gorge as just one example: The Gorge Express service (operated by Columbia Area Transit or CAT), saw a 72% jump in ridership from 2022 to 2024. And the LINK service (operated by Mid-Columbia Economic Development District) that connects Hood River to The Dalles saw an 80% increase from 2022 to 2023.
Buses are so cool across Oregon right now that Oregon Public Broadcasting devoted an entire series to it. And with Oregon’s dedicated transit funding source (known as the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund or STIF) going into its eighth year of investments, while lawmakers in Salem have heard loud and clear that Oregonians want more bus service, the future looks very bright.
But there are clouds on the horizon. Sources in Salem say the STIF — which is funded with a 0.1% payroll tax — is in bad shape. A combination of inflation, the drying up of Covid relief funding, and other factors, means more funding is needed to maintain what’s been built since 2017. As lawmakers polish up a major transportation funding package for release in the coming weeks, transit investments could be at risk.
I’ve digressed a big from what I sat down to write about, which is now is a great time to get involved in transit advocacy and attend the Gorge Transit Summit on Thursday April 10th in Hood River. “Join us for a day exploring transit in the Gorge from the breathtaking speed of growth over the past few years to the ways it is helping to solve some of the biggest issues in our region,” reads the event website. “Hear from our experts panel and from our riders game show. Join in a hands-on workshop to create your own route system. Be there for big reveals and explore the possibilities of how Gorge Transit can look in the future.”
Sounds fun, right? And the keynote speaker is none other than Jarrett Walker, a Portland-based transit guru and author of Human Transit!
So check out the full agenda, grab a shuttle bus out to Hood River, and connect with other folks who will write the next chapter of transit in the Gorge and beyond.
A bus outside Union Station in Portland. (Photo: ODOT)
Expect a lot more buses on Portland roads and freeways as Amtrak grapples with an unexpected service disruption. The operator of the Amtrak Cascades line between Oregon and Washington announced Wednesday they’ve removed all but one of their trainsets because a routine inspection revealed a high level of corrosion.
The corrosion is related to the age of the Horizon trainsets and has resulted in a total of 70 cars across the country being taken out of service. 26 of those are on the Amtrak Cascades line. “This leaves just one non-Horizon trainset in service on Amtrak Cascades,” reads a statement posted by Amtrak. “This affects nearly all trips on Amtrak Cascades daily service to 18 stations between Vancouver, British Columbia and Eugene, Oregon.”
Buses will be used in the short-term through March 30th for all trips except those served by train numbers 503 and 508 between Seattle and Eugene (providing only one remaining daily roundtrip). Amtrak is working with bus providers for longer-term service but that’s still up in the air.
The aging Horizon trains will need to be replaced and Amtrak says they’ll try to redistribute trains from its nationwide fleet to fill the gap until new trains come online. They’ve already got an order for a new fleet of trains, but those are expected to arrive until 2026. According to the latest update provided by ODOT, four new “Amfleet” cars (two coaches and two dinette cars) are on the way to Seattle and are expected to begin operations on the Cascade line the first week of April.
This is really bad news for Amtrak’s service along the I-5 corridor. And it comes as the Cascades line has shown a strong increase in ridership and amid growing political momentum in Oregon for rail travel. Amtrak set an all-time ridership record last year and launched two new daily trips on the Cascades line, bringing the number of daily roundtrips between Seattle and Portland to seven.
The Oregon Legislature passed a bill in 2024 calling on Metro to study the use of existing heavy rail assets for passenger rail in the Portland metro area. A bill in the legislature this session (SB 753/HB 3233) directs the Oregon Department of Transportation to work with transportation agencies in Washington and British Columbia to develop plans to operate and fun rail transportation. A bill in the Oregon Senate (SB 689) seeks to create a new agency, the Oregon Rail Department, to take over rail operations from ODOT. Other bills seek to expand TriMet’s WES service and create a task force on high speed rail.
But now all hands are on deck to solve this current service crisis. Amtrak says they are meeting with ODOT and WSDOT officials twice a day as they work to restore service and fully understand the cost and operational impacts of this disruption.
I-5 from above with the Broadway-Weidler couplet in the center and Moda Center on the left. (Photo: ODOT)
Earlier this month I reported that the Oregon Department of Transportation was on the brink of putting shovels in the ground on their I-5 Rose Quarter project, despite a massive hole in their budget made even worse by a new edict from the Trump Administration that had frozen a key $450 million grant.
Now it appears ODOT’s luck has shifted.
At a meeting today, Rose Quarter Project Director Megan Channell said they’ve received word from the Federal Highway Administration that they can move forward with processing grant funds. We still don’t know if the Trump administration will honor the grant and send the rest of the funding to ODOT, but Channell framed the news to Metro councilors as “big news.”
In order to keep construction moving forward, ODOT is highly reliant on a $450 million Reconnecting Communities grant they won from the Biden Administration. But as of early February, ODOT said just $37 million of that total had been obligated, leaving over $400 million up in the air due to the Trump administration’s executive order pausing all discretionary transportation grants. That amount, combined with being already about $1 billion short on the $1.9 billion megaproject, put ODOT in a precarious situation.
This morning, Channell shared an update with Metro Council where a separate allocation of $250 million for the I-5 Rose Quarter project was being discussed. During her presentation, Channell shared the “big news” on the separate $450 million federal grant.
“As of last week we did get notice that because we have a signed grant agreement, and because we have a portion of those funds already obligated, we can continue to proceed in the obligation of the remaining phases of that grant,” Channell said. “So that’s big news to be able to keep moving forward,” she continued.
“And I will say, hours after we got that notice, we put in our obligation request,” Channell added, as she and several councilors broke into happy laughter.
Upon hearing that news, Metro Councilor Duncan Hwang asked Channell, “So there’s less uncertainty, but still uncertainty?” To which she replied, “I’d say there’s substantially less uncertainty, but there still remains some risk.”
Part of that risk comes from the fact that the Reconnecting Communities grant in question is funded to ODOT on a reimbursement basis. That means ODOT will spend state money to get work done, and then ask FHWA for a reimbursement. Given Trump’s unpredictable policymaking and his disdain for Portland and projects like this one that have centered racial justice, there’s no guarantee the grant agreement or the reimbursements will be honored.
Channell made it clear at Thursday’s Metro meeting that if the Reconnecting Communities grant does not come through, ODOT would need to change the scope of the project.
ODOT Director of Finance Travis Brouwer told BikePortland today that last week they learned the Federal Highway Administration has begun processing obligations for projects with signed agreements (ODOT learned this in conversation among federal and state staff, there was no written communication of the new direction). ODOT has received this go-ahead from FHWA because they already signed a grant agreement and have obligated $37 million toward design of the project. “In response, we are working with FHWA to obligate the remaining grant agreement funds for right of way and construction,” Brouwer said.
This Reconnecting Communities grant funding will allow ODOT to build Phase 1 of the project, which is about 30% of the highway cover and the initial phases of the freeway expansion, including new northbound and southbound lanes. The portion of the highway lid they plan to build first is the southern portion (which is considered the most complicated) near the Broadway and Weidler couplet. ODOT hopes to begin construction on Phase 1 in 2027. Phase 1A of the project, which includes stormwater facility upgrades and bridge preservation work, is scheduled to begin this year.
At the same meeting, Metro councilors heard strong support and opposition to the I-5 project. Many backers of the project, including a representative from Albina Vision Trust, spoke about the deep engagement work ODOT has done with the community and the organization’s strong desire to build the entire project (not just the freeway lane expansion).
Metro plans to take an official vote on this latest funding allocation at their meeting on April 1st.
This rider on SW 3rd Ave will soon lose the protection of the buffered bike lane. The Downtown Neighborhood Association wants to change that. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
At their meeting Wednesday night, the Downtown Neighborhood Association voted to send a letter to the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Multnomah County that includes a formal request for a lane reallocation (a.k.a. road diet) on SW 3rd between the Morrison and Hawthorne bridges.
Section in red is the current bike lane gap on SW 3rd Ave.
“This eight-block section of 3rd is one of the few remaining streets in all of central Portland to have three, one-way lanes,” reads the letter, which is signed by DNA President LaJune Thorson and DNA Vice President Xavier Stickler.
The current cross-section of 3rd (which is a one-way street southbound) between SW Harvey Milk and Madison is three general travel lanes and two parking lanes. Stickler told BikePortland this morning that, “There’s simply no reason this eight-block stretch needs to be three lanes wide. More to the point, it’s time we close this gap in the network.” The DNA wants a new bike lane and one less driving lane.
The genesis of this request dates back to the “Better 3rd” project undertaken by tactical urbanism group Better Block PDX in 2014. That’s the project that resulted in Ankeny Plaza near Burnside (Voodoo Donuts) and the bike lane on 3rd Ave that PBOT striped in 2015. (Unfortunately, the existing bike lane ends abruptly at SW Harvey Milk and thrusts bike riders back into lanes shared with car users for eight blocks before a bike lane reappears after SW Madison St.) Nearly 10 years later, when a steering committee formed to discuss a plan to reimagine Burnside during the impending closure of the Bridge Bridge, the bike lane gap south of Harvey Milk was identified as a priority. Stickler took the nudge from Better Block and got the DNA to support the idea.
Existing conditions on SW 3rd.
The DNA strongly supports PBOT’s major bikeway project on SW 4th Avenue, but they think now is the time to finish what was started on 3rd. PBOT has framed Broadway as the bikeway couplet, but Stickler and the DNA think a high-quality bikeway on 3rd would, “create a more adjacent and logical couplet with 4th when it opens.”
In their letter, the DNA says PBOT and the County should work together and make these lane changes as part of the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project. “By implementing lane consistency with that already in place on 3rd Ave. north of Harvey Milk St., the City will improve pedestrian safety, close a notable gap in the Central City’s active transportation network, and facilitate the safe detour of people walking and rolling to the Hawthorne Bridge during the closure of the Burnside Bridge.”
The DNA says the new bikeways on NW/SW Broadway have resulted in safer conditions and they want the same treatment on SW 3rd. Here’s more from their letter:
“We believe the existing road format utilized north of the Morrison Bridge and south of the Hawthorne Bridge–consisting of 2 lanes of parking, 2 vehicle lanes, and a bike lane–strikes the appropriate balance of mode dedication between all users. This reallocation will provide tourists, drivers, people walking, bike riders, and business patrons with an intuitive, safe, and human-scale streetscape.”
I’ve asked PBOT for comment and will update this post when I hear back.
View looking north from NW Glisan. (Screenshot from video by PLACE)
A video shown at an open house earlier this month for the North Park Blocks Extension project created a stir among those who viewed it. The video shows the most detailed conceptual rendering of a project that I’ve ever seen. Someone told me about it excitedly a day or so ago and project staff with the Portland Parks Bureau (the agency leading the project) have finally made the video public.
To back up a bit, the North Park Blocks Extension Project will expand the Park Blocks north of NW Glisan and eventually connect them to the Broadway Corridor redevelopment. In addition to an exciting new public space, I’ve covered this project because of how it includes a major piece of the Green Loop. In June 2024 I shared a few of the design concepts the Parks Bureau was considering. Now they’ve narrowed it down to one choice and have opened a new public feedback phase to help them flesh out the design.
This new video released today is part of an open house and online survey that is open through March 31st at 5:00 pm. Watch the video and see more stills of the bikeway below the jump.
This meander reinforces that some sections of the Green Loop are not meant for fast bike travel.Note the separation of walking from biking.Bikeway as it goes under the ramp.Headed up the ramp. View of downtown looking south from the ramp.
The video was created by PLACE, an architecture firm hired by Portland Parks. It offers an awesome view of what’s in store for the North Park Blocks and gives us our best perspective yet on how cycling will work on this section of the Green Loop. This is just one piece of the larger loop that is enshrined in Portland’s all-powerful Comprehensive Plan as a route through the central city that utilizes the Tillikum and Broadway bridges. Progress on the Green Loop is strong right now, according to Friends of Green Loop Executive Director Keith Jones. In addition to the North Park Blocks Extension, a segment of the route adjacent to the new Darcelle Plaza is also in the works. Jones told me today that both PBOT and Prosper Portland have made Green Loop-related hires recently and he expects a Green Loop Concept Plan effort to being next year.
Getting back to the video, note that the ramp you see at the end will take riders through the future Broadway Corridor development and deliver them to the western landing of the Broadway Bridge (hence the elevation gain).
