A key section of the Naito Parkway bike lanes will finally be re-hardened after a long row of ornate, steel bollards went missing in 2023. As we’ve reported, the bike lanes adjacent to Portland Saturday Market between Ankeny and Burnside were left unprotected after the bollards vanished sometime in spring of 2023. It’s still unknown what exactly happened to dozens of bollards — some say they were stolen for scrap, others say they were simply damaged and then discarded by drivers and/or vandals.
After our story in 2023, the Portland Bureau of Transportation installed temporary orange traffic cones to help provide protection for the popular, two-way bike lanes. On Tuesday, PBOT announced that a crew of contractors will begin a project this week to install concrete curb separators to protect the bike lane. “They are expected to install about 210 feet of concrete separators along the outer edge of the two-way multi-use path, from SW Ankeny to the Burnside Bridge,” reads the PBOT statement. “The separators are intended to provide protection for people biking and walking, while requiring less maintenance than movable bollards that were previously used in this section of the path.”
The bollards (at right) were removable so that vendors of the Saturday Market could park in the bike lanes to load and unload their stalls. It is an annoying compromise (since it leads to people parking in the bike lane), but it allowed the Saturday Market to support the Better Naito project and be a willing partner with PBOT going forward. With the new curbs on the way, I asked PBOT if anything had changed in their agreement with the Market.
“Our agreement with them, and the loading operations will be unchanged,” said PBOT Public Information Officer Dylan Rivera. “Vendors will be able to enter Better Naito at the intersection of Ankeny or drive over the traffic separators at slow speeds to load and unload. The vast majority of the time (when vendors aren’t actively loading or unloading for the Market) people biking and walking in this segment of Better Naito will benefit from new concrete protection separating the facility from the northbound travel lane.”
PBOT expects the new concrete treatment to be much more durable than the bollard design they initially installed.
If you ride this section of Naito, expect a detour around the construction work and into the Waterfront Park path for about a week from yesterday.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Tangential question: does anyone know what the plan is for the relocation of the Saturday Market if/when construction on the new Burnside Bridge starts?
I’m happy with this and would like to see it for more bike lanes. Curbs that cars can mount at walking speed are a good compromise here and should still provide good protection from inattentive drivers
They’ve been diverting bike traffic out of that section of Better Naito from about 7:30 a.m-5 p.m. all month due to Burnside Bridge work anyway (what one of the construction workers told me a few weeks ago), so I’ll keep going around on the waterfront trail to the fountains a while longer. Glad they’re finally putting in a curb there anyway.
“Protection” like this is about as protective as paint. Riding towards oncoming traffic in the dark with only a little concrete curb to “protect” me makes this the least favorite part of my morning commute. Especially with drivers trying to access the parking lot under the bridge. I suppose I could go back to riding through the waterfront. Jersey barriers may be less aesthetically pleasing but so is my body smeared on the pavement.
I still think the best solution to vendors parking in the bike lane is to close the travel lane during Saturday Market. It’s the weekend so there’s less traffic and drivers have seven other northbound lanes within three quarters of a mile. It’s fine for bike riders to go a half mile out of their way year ’round to keep them off of Hawthorne but asking drivers to go 500′ to 2nd ave on the weekend is asking too much.
Much more durable (and theft resistant), but much less effective if the goal is to deter parking in the bike lane, as it will be “open” 24-7, rather than just when the bollards are removed.
I predict a slightly more attractive bike lane (i.e. no orange cones), but no real functional change from today.
Proud Boys systemically removed them as their ongoing war against Portland.
For the Saturday market vendors, would love if there was any sort of enforcement to prevent them from block the whole daggone bike lane (which has happened several times when I have ridden that way recently).