A key portal for people who ride bicycles into downtown Portland from southwest will have more room for cycling and smoother pavement by the end of this summer. As revealed on the City of Portland’s website earlier this week, the Portland Bureau of Transportation plans to eliminate one northbound general purpose lane used by car drivers on SW 6th between SW Caruthers and SW Broadway (just south of I-405) in order to create more space for the bike lane (see before-after image below).
This segment of SW 6th is an important connection to the popular bike route on SW Terwilliger and is an area where PBOT has heard from advocates about the urgent need to improve cycling access. In March 2023 I joined southwest cycling advocate Keith Liden on a ride-along and we met at the exact spot where this new project will begin.
While demands for better bicycling here influenced this project, PBOT says the main impetus is an already-planned repaving project that gives them the opportunity to re-stripe the block any way they want. And as we’ve seen numerous times in recent years, when given a clean slate PBOT is very likely to adhere to their adopted plans and guidelines and reduce space for drivers and improve conditions for bike riders.
You might also recall our reporting over the past year about PBOT’s efforts to make it easier for bike riders to get into downtown from both Terwilliger and SW Barbur. When we checked in back in May, we shared that PBOT’s Bicycle Advisory Committee urged the agency to close the gap between Terwilliger and SW 4th in order to capitalize on the $16.9 million being spent on the SW 4th Avenue Improvement Project (which should be completed by the end of this year). Another reason to improve this section of the bike lane on SW 6th? It will align directly with an upcoming project recommended in the Southwest in Motion Plan (project BP-02, shown below) that will add a new bike lane on SW 6th north of SW Broadway/I-405 where it currently drops off.
According to PBOT’s project website, the wider bike lanes and other striping changes on SW 6th, “aims to create safer conditions… In particular, the intersection of SW 6th Avenue and SW Broadway was flagged for safety improvements due to bicycle collision[s].” Despite PBOT’s goal of improved safety, the plans do not appear to include any physical protection between bicycle and car users. The paint-only project is likely a cost-saving measure and advocates will have to continue to push PBOT and Portland City Council to take additional steps forward.
The funding source for this project is a mix of Fixing our Streets (local gas tax) and General Transportation Revenue (which comes from State Highway Fund disbursements and parking revenues). PBOT plans to break ground on this project in May and expects to finish by later this summer. Check their website for more details.
UPDATE, 1:24 pm: I asked Keith Liden what he thinks of this project. Here’s what he said:
I like it. When the city added the third northbound lane on 6th 20(?) years ago, it immediately made things worse for cyclists on the bridge (before it had a bike lane) because drivers were primarily interested in using the 2 left lanes on the bridge. This was reinforced because the two left lanes on 6th aligned with the two left lanes on the bridge, encouraging drivers to simply proceed forward and not use the right lane on the bridge. This meant cyclists generally had the right vehicle lane to themselves until the new third lane on 6th arrived. By going back to two northbound lanes feeding into three lanes on the bridge, I believe traffic will return to the previous pattern of primarily using the two left lanes, creating a more peaceful environment for cyclists on the bridge who will now have a bike lane plus a lesser used travel lane beside them. Southbound will be better as well with a wider bike lane from Broadway to Caruthers where it feels like cars are traveling the fastest with many coming off I-405 intent on reaching OHSU.
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Ugh, this intersection. The worst intersection in the entire city, and I mean that in its literal sense. For eastsiders who aren’t familiar with this area, this intersection serves most of the core traffic that access all of: OHSU, the Ross Island Bridge, Highway 26 through the tunnel, Barbur Boulevard, and more. There’s simply no way around it for drivers without going through downtown, and I think we’re all in agreement that we don’t want more car traffic going through there. Although this is a positive change, I question how effective it will be considering how absolutely terrible car traffic backs up at this intersection every single day and how drivers disobey the traffic signals/laws at this intersection all the time.
Frankly, I don’t see this doing much to help safety concerns and I’ll continue to avoid this intersection due to red light runners and unsafe lane changers unless the entire area is reconfigured. In reality, we need to get all car traffic off these surface streets, which means making it possible for drivers to access the Ross Island Bridge from I-405 without going through this giant mess. With the current situation nobody wins: not cyclists, not drivers, not buses (the 19 was actually rerouted away from this area due to its terrible backups), not walkers.
This is great! I use this when riding with kids from Tigard into Portland and this is one of the sketchy parts of that trip. I hope this will encourage drivers to give cyclists a little bit more space – it’s amazing what risks drivers are willing to take to save a couple seconds.
“When given a clean slate PBOT is very likely to … improve conditions for bike riders.”
Except on Hawthorne, of course.
Holy Moses! Congratulations all involved — the BAC, and of course Keith Liden (who, IIRC, was knocked off his bike at this intersection by a driver ).
“Blank,” at top, is correct, this (and Barbur crossroads near West Portland Park neighborhood) are the worst intersection messes in the city. This is but an incremental, although helpful, improvement.
To truly fix this spaghetti, I-405 should be capped, and the redundant on- and off-ramps should be taken out. (And give peds a place to walk on lower Broadway Drive.)
Completely agree on — in my pipe dream — capping the freeway in this area between 6th and 4th (at a minimum) and restoring the street grid. The ramps at 5th and 6th that lead to the southeast could be removed as redundant to the close-by ramps at 4th and Broadway without causing anyone any inconvenience. This would would also give us a blank slate to add an entirely-separated multi-use path from 6th/Caruthers to 5th/Lincoln, which would be by far the lowest-stress solution to this mess.
Can’t help but cry at the reminder of a key advocate of car-centric development policies that helped create this mess! So quickly we adopted RM’s driving of central city destruction for automobile convenience, decades later we celebrate as huge the small reversals to include a bit of concern for persons outside of cars.
Duncan, what a careful reader you are! that double entendre hadn’t even occurred to me. But yes, that location is ground zero of the colliding visions the Olmsted brothers and Robert Moses had for Portland. (Moses won.) The Olmsted brothers had intended Terwilliger to continue to the Park blocks, where we today have 405 and freeway ramps.
What is helping me maintain some equanimity during the tumult, is to remind myself of the tremendous uncertainty we currently live with: 9/11, 2008, iPhone, covid. They all profoundly changed who we are and how we live, in unpredicted ways. Who knows what’s next? But if it’s the Big One, well it might take out all the surface-street-destroying ramps and flyovers of Portland. Might take me out too! For some reason I find that soothing. I guess it reminds me that we have very little control.
Also, incremental changes can be good.
The rate of change/uncertainty keeps increasing. AI could be transformative (or it could be a dud), automation of driving could bring about sweeping changes, and Trump is a real wildcard at the moment (though I suspect after the initial spasm passes, that will settle down a bit). Climate change introduces huge uncertainty as well.
As covid showed, unalterable urban facts can change overnight. Planning for 10 years in the future is hard enough, never mind longer time horizons.
We live in interesting times.
I just took this stretch of 6th to get from terwilliger to Naito and it’s absolutely confusing on the best way to do that. There are few legal right turns off 6th due to the tracks on the right side. Harrison is the most obvious but it has terrible pavement quality and parallel tracks in the left lane. And the turn onto Naito is a two-step Copenhagen style. It leaves much to be desired.
Anyway, some thought given to ways to make this connection work better in addition to the extra lane space would be much appreciated.
Are they moving the curbs? Or just doing a grind and repaving?
Glad to see this mess is getting some bandages, if not the much-needed surgery. It ain’t any better on foot.
If they do BP-02, paint isn’t gonna cut it; that dumps cyclists right in the middle of the street, with the lane to east being an off ramp… an off-ramp heavily used by drivers to begin with, and especially when the ramp to 26 is backed up for a mile. Many of those drivers then want to take an immediate left at the next block to go south or west. There;s a pedestrian crossing right there as well – nearly been hit in it twice by speeding offramp cars. So it needs physical barriers to prevent cars from slipping left over the bike lane; make them make two rights to go west.
This is what I mean by bandages vs. surgery; the whole thing is a Moses mess, and needs a complete redoing – like Lisa says, cover it and take out one or more off/on couplet parts. Never gonna happen tho: when the light rail was designed, they were told specifically not to mess with any of this crap, and so tracks would have gone over it in a ridiculous (and ridiculously-expensive) viaduct.
As a frequent downtown commuter on Barbur, this change isn’t gonna help me at all, since I stay on Barbur and cross 405 to reach 4th. When cycling south I usually take Broadway and then I do use 6th southbound, but it looks like it will be just as difficult to make the left turn off 6th to reach Barbur.
Yes, this change should make things marginally better for Terwilliger riders, so I am glad of that. But it’s not a game-changer – more nibbling around the edges, which is what PBOT does.
With so many paint projects and so little actual protection, I wonder if PBOT has considered using pre-cast parking curbs to protect bike lanes? It’s a simple solution so I would be surprised if it’s never come up. I saw it in practice visiting Pittsburgh this last summer. Don’t see why it wouldn’t work here…
If PBOT finds repositioning frequently hit concrete planters weighing hundreds of pounds so arduous that they planned to remove them and PBOT can’t seem to replace flexible wands with any consistency I’m not sure why pre-cast concrete curbs seem like a better choice.
I often ride north on this stretch of SW 6th, and it is VERY rare (while waiting for a green light myself) that I don’t watch at least two or three (sometimes more) vehicles on SW Broadway racing through a red light well after it’s turned red, one after another, either to continue along Broadway or to turn north to merge onto 405. It is routine and absolutely brazen.
In fact I’d be surprised if this isn’t the worst intersection in the city for red light violations. I often wonder (a.) whether the city and the police know this and (b.) if they do, why on earth aren’t there cameras or something in place.
Because they aren’t serious about enforcement, safety, Vision Zero, or really anything else.
“… as we’ve seen numerous times in recent years, when given a clean slate PBOT is very likely to adhere to their adopted plans and guidelines and reduce space for drivers and improve conditions for bike riders.”
I appreciate the upbeat callouts to remind us that there are good people working on necessary improvements to our transportation system to enable the long overdue transition from such a heavily car-dependent culture to something less deadly and more environmentally sustainable. For those of us who have been strong/brave/reckless enough to try to do business without a car using the driver-dominated streets, it seems like this transition is taking way too long.
But, are they still going to let cars parking in it kinda slide by? Jonathan, have you figured out why PBOT considers cars in bike lane is considered a lower priority than cars parked in reserved zone reserved by rich, influential, construction companies?
If you watch driver behavior, they typically ‘wander’ 5 or 6′ all the time. They get it together when there is an obstacle (cyclist, bollard, etc.). Shrinking the lane does not, by itself, do anything to make life safer for cyclists, until the last second. And that is, if they see the obstacle/cyclist. So, I wouldn’t count on this move making it safer for cyclists. By using powerful blinky lights, and getting driver attention, I avoid the ‘last second’ maybe yes, maybe no, collision.