Publisher’s Note: This is a guest post by Aaron Kuehn. Aaron is a former chair of BikeLoud PDX, is passionate about wayfinding, and wrote a series of articles for BikePortland on bikeway design.
Early Sunday morning, as the springtime sun warmed the asphalt, a group of nearly 20 curious Portlanders, planners, and advocates gathered in hi-viz vests to roll up their sleeves—and then roll through a notoriously treacherous intersection at SE 7th and Sandy.
The event, listed on the Shift calendar as the Street Plaza Test Ride, was no ordinary community feedback session. Instead of just viewing plans on a board, participants took part in a live-action, hands-on “planning by doing” process: sketching new lanes, medians, and turn boxes with tape and cones, then test-riding different configurations to feel what worked best. The goal? Refine bikeway design options for a challenging five-way intersection that’s both a pivotal link in the 7th Ave Neighborhood Greenway and part of an evolving public plaza.
This area has long been a sore spot for people on bikes. In a 2023 BikePortland article, Taylor Griggs described SE 7th and Sandy as a “sketchy intersection,” where crossing Sandy northbound means darting across multiple lanes of fast-moving car traffic with limited visibility. “It’s one of the most complicated maneuvers I regularly make,” she wrote. “I dread the experience every single time.”
Over the past few years, ongoing efforts have aimed to reimagine this space—not just for safety, but for public life. Depave’s 2022 block party previewed the potential of a people-centric plaza, and more recently, a BikePortland video in 2024 highlighted last summer’s creative reuse of space—and lingering concerns from riders about the safety and comfort of the temporary bikeway winding through it.
Sunday’s test-ride event built on all of that, bringing a new level of focus and nuance to the conversation. It was led by a unique collaboration: the nonprofit Depave, now in its fourth year of iteration on the plaza; Adam Zucker, an engineer who previously developed a landscaped plaza nearby; Mobycon, a Dutch firm known for high-quality bikeway planning; engineering consultants KPFF; and BikeLoud, the grassroots advocacy group that helped organize and facilitate the ride.
Importantly, the most recent design options were drafted by KPFF and Mobycon, and the on-the-ground feedback session was led by me on behalf of BikeLoud. After completing a heatmap-style study showing that people on bikes mostly use the shortest path to cross the site, biking this stretch myself multiple times per week, and seeking the next breakthrough in community-focused planning and design, I felt it was important that this exercise be driven by action-oriented planning: an underutilized method that trades static renderings for real-world testing, especially when the stakes are high and the space is complex.
And this site is very complex. It’s not just the five-way geometry, but the steep grade, the blind turn, the vehicle speeds, and the mix of travel modes that make this a crucial test case. It’s also a space in transition—from redundant roadway to public plaza—meaning that transportation and placemaking need to coexist, not compete. For other plazas in Portland and future segments of the Green Loop, this type of engagement could be a model.
The conversations on the pavement were practical and cooperative. Volunteers debated the best turn angles for visibility and lane placements. Some emphasized the need for more direct routes for vehicular cycling; others focused on how to make the Sandy crossing intuitive and reassuring for all users. Everyone brought a valuable lens: riders who use the intersection daily, planners steeped in Dutch cycling infrastructure—even freight operators like B-Line Urban Delivery are invested in the bikeway and the plaza’s success.
The design team is reviewing the feedback collected that day and will use those observations to shape the next temporary buildout of the plaza, scheduled to open August 9 through September 19. Hopefully, Depave will secure the additional funding needed to finally build the plaza using permanent materials—and by that time, the design will have been thoroughly tested through all these trials.
Yes, action-oriented planning can take more time and resources than traditional methods—but it also surfaces better ideas. When people test out designs in real life, they give more useful feedback. They notice things you can’t see on paper. They revise. And they come away with a sense of shared ownership. There were some regrets expressed that this design approach wasn’t used at other complex junctions in the bike network—but also hope that it might be going forward.
As we packed up cones, barriers, and rolls of four-inch white duct tape at the end of the day, there was a feeling that something important had happened—not just for this intersection, but for how we approach street transformations more broadly. We didn’t just talk about best practices. We created them as we pedaled. Together.
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Want to help shape future designs at SE 7th and Sandy or other locations? Keep an eye out for upcoming test rides and plaza events. And if you have thoughts about this intersection or ideas for balancing bike access with public space, add your comments below.
Thanks for reading.
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IMO, the only way to “uncomplicate” this intersection with any degree of adherence by speeding and/or inattentive McSUV drivers is to install a bike/ped signal. My vote: none of the above.
These options are all awful for cyclists coming down Sandy onto 7th. How are these even serious proposals?
maybe the Dutch are just that unfamiliar with hills.
Yes. Any of these makes travel down sandy onto 7th significantly worse. I often just take the lane going downhill so I can safely make the left bend without getting pinched (this is mostly on a cargo bike, fwiw). That way I can hold enough speed to make the lights at Morrison and Belmont. Why do we spend so much time/money/effort to inconvenience bike riders while simultaneously doing nothing to actually address bad drivers. Maybe that’s by design…
Yes! Amazing work Aaron. This is so invaluable. So glad we got a cargo bike in the mix. The diversity of riders in these things really helps.
Honest question: why is a group that currently comprises something like 2% of modeshare used to determine the “best” design for an intersection? It seems like that could actually serve the least amount of Portlanders favorably for the benefit of very few.
Well, the mode share on 7th probably has a lot higher percentage of cycling – lots of people bike on 7th, so I think it’s ok that they are trying to improve a place people are already riding. Most of the folks at the event this article is about probably use that same intersection frequently so it’s good to get their thoughts.
I think that including a wider variety of road users in trials like this would result in much better designs. It would be cool to see something like this but with people walking, using mobility devices, bikes, and even driving through.
This is a really weird patch of asphalt that connects important bike routes but is pretty redundant for cars. So if we’re setting it aside as a non-car-focused facility, it makes sense to engage the other modes.
Think of it this way: not that many people skateboard. But it doesn’t make sense to get ask the general population for their input into a skatepark design (e.g., landing angle of the table jumps, radius of the quarter pipes, etc)
Sorry I missed this, and thanks for the informative write-up, Aaron! I still cross this intersection all the time and it has gotten a little better since 2023, thanks to the crosswalk, but still not ideal. Hopefully one of these options can be implemented and make it a lot better.
While all of the designs appear to make nice improvements to bicycle traffic traveling to and from 7th Ave, (I prefer option 1) I’m concerned about southbound bicycle traffic coming from Sandy.
You can pick up quite a bit of speed coming down Sandy and unfortunately none of these designs appears to offer a safe and efficient way to maintain that momentum as Sandy transitions into 7th. In fact they look downright unsafe, forcing riders to brake hard and make sharp turns. I’m not sure what an ideal design would look like, but looking at the options presented here I’d rather avoid the bike infrastructure and just ride in the street.
Fast cyclists could just ride in the car lane. If you’re going fast enough that these designs present a problem, you can probably keep up with car traffic.
My hot take is that there are some places, like bus stops or a plaza (like this one) where it’s okay to expect cyclists to slow down a bit for the comfort of pedestrians.
No. These designs don’t maintain a safe way to take the lane when coming down Sandy. If we want people to actually bike places, we have to have safe AND EFFICIENT ways to do so. The problem we’re trying to solve here is the difficult left turn to continue northbound on 7th. There’s already a crossing, but the problem is that aggressive drivers make this difficult. Asking downhill riders on Sandy to slow down does nothing to improve the crossing.
Honestly the biggest risk for riders coming downhill Sandy or 7th are cars pulling out of Washington Street. Most drivers poke out so far as to block the bike lane. Maybe instead of making riders slow down, we ask drivers to use Alder instead?
A lot more design opportunities open up if we are willing to prevent turns onto Washington from 7th which I agree with you is the biggest safety concern in this area. I think the one way proposal on Washington and the narrowing of the street will help a bit but why not go all the way and just close it down? Its an intersection of two popular bike ways that holds lots of potential and with Portland blocks being to tiny it makes no difference driving to not be able to turn here.
I like this idea Daniel. It’s not really there for anything but local access (I count one business and a parking lot), and a cul-de-sac on Washington would do a lot for this intersection. Alder and Stark are a block away if we’re talking about car access to Washington.
Sure, but we should at least try to accommodate speeds of 10-15mph which I don’t think is possible in these designs.
I can imagine many of the faster cyclists would choose to hop into the main vehicle lane going southbound to avoid all of this. I know I would if this design gets built.
Unfortunately, that would expose you to a ticket.
What ticket would that be?
The one for not using the the bike lane if there is one, even if it’s some dumbass design that steers you into some whackass bike-sized roundabout at the bottom of a hill, rather than just following the gentle arcing momentum preserving curve of the road that cars get to use.
Mandatory sidepath law. Seems extremely unlikely that:
A. Police are present.
B. Police care enough to do something
C. You can’t argue that the sidepath presented a hazard, due to blockage of some kind.
We absolutely should not be designing bike facilities where the only sane way to ride them is to break the law, regardless of your perception of the likelihood of actually getting a ticket.
It’s not like there’s no solution here — there’s a simple and obvious solution, which I’ve described, and to which no one has raised any practical objection to.
Agreed on the Sandy/7th transition; was overall disappointed in these designs. There was so much dust kicked up over the initial Hawthorne Bridge eastbound design having a sharp turn, but people don’t seem to have the same reaction to this one – maybe it’s because most cars are turning right on Morrison, and won’t be able to turn right on Washington? With that said, it still doesn’t add up to me why they’d want bikes to make such sharp turns while going downhill.
“I’m not sure what an ideal design would look like”
Would a lane that follows the general route used by car traffic be too complicated?
In isolation, no. The current bike lane follows a nice path that works well, albeit a bit close to other traffic. I’m just not sure how to combine that with the intention of also improving bicycle traffic to/from 7th.
Agreed! And NOT weaving across the sidewalk is a good idea.
I admire the work that Mobycon does and their methods. We had them out here in central NC prior to the pandemic for an all-day planning seminar set up by our 9-county rural planning organization – and while what they were trying to teach was a bit over the heads of our car-centric planners and engineers – the Mobycon staff were patient and everyone came away having learned something.
Glad to see all the proposed designs have eliminated the giant* vehicle pass-through. As it stands today, the logic of maintaining a northbound car lane is fatally flawed and never should have been included.
There have been countless times I’ve see someone drive north through there, only to see that they are forced to make a right turn at Stark, get totally pissed off, and proceed to do a question mark maneuver to get around the bollards and proceed westbound on Stark.
The point is that drivers only ever enter 7th from Sandy with the intent to go directly north or westbound … if they are going eastbound, they logically stay on 7th/Sandy as it bends to the northeast.
Cargo bikes seem pretty big to me 🙂
I am actually only four inches tall; skateboards horrify me.
To us antmen, you 4″ Giants are terrifying.
Were I able to attend (on my dahon folding bike) I’d have brought and shown a SW Park bikeway design through the South & North Blocks. The street west of SW Broadway permanently removes parking on park side.
Enough space for 2-way BIKEWay AND TRIKEWay.
At Teachers Plaza north straight through with curbside for bikeway. Then at Burnside though that terrible corner is Dangerous! Redesigns are considered and bike way either splits to two one ways or remains a 2-way. Most Important!
The safest ramp to the Broadway bridge is a short eastside ramp Johnson to Irving.
Westbound bikes down Lovejoy Ramp to 9th nor near DANGEROUS 3-way stoplight.
Put an elevator there down to do walkers and bikers some good.
Directing walkers and bikers to a HAZARDOUS 3-way stoplight is a crime.
AnyHoo, that’s my assessment of the Fed Post Office redevelopment debacle.
Predictions are Trump will NOT finish his first year for health reasons.
Mike Johnson will likely assume the Presidency.
Mike will decide beforehand to serve only 1 term.
I’m confused. What does your folding bike have to do with Mike Johnson bypassing JD Vance inline for the presidency?
Great punchline. My use of humor I expect indeed does soothe fears. A folding bike is an architectural means to study walk/bike corridors. Folding bikes are SLOW. Spandexian bikes are TOO fast. Self-driving AV scooter idea: AV recognizes sidewalk and slows to a walking speed. EU mandates this tech to personal EVs. “Driver assist” it’s called, dufus dimwits.
Were I to attend on a Dahon folding bike. I’d brought and shown a SW Park bikeway design through the South & North Park Blocks. The street west of Broadway permanent removal of parking on park side. Enough space for 2-way BIKEWay AND TRIKEWay.
At Teachers Plaza north straight through with curbside for bikeway. lAt Burnside that terrible dangerous corner, redesigns considered and bikeway splits one way or remains 2-way. Most Important, safest ramp to eastbound Broadway bridge is a short eastside ramp Johnson to Irving.
Westbound bikes down Lovejoy Ramp to 9th nor near DANGEROUS 3-way stoplight.
An elevator there down do walkers, bikers some good.
Directing walkers, bikers to a HAZARDOUS 3-way stoplight is a crime.
That os my assessment of the Fed Post Office redevelopment debacle.
Predictions Trump will NOT finish his first year for health reasons.
Mike Johnson will likely assume the Presidency.
Mike will decide beforehand to serve only 1 term.
From previous comment: “At Burnside though that corner is Dangerous, redesigns are considered and bike way either splits to two one ways or remains a 2-way.” I’m talking about removing parking on both side streets of the Fed Post Office Park.
Oh I like that.
What a cool process. It reminds me of the mcdonalds movie (I know, I know) when they sketch out the kitchen in chalk and have the workers pretend to cook so they can figure out the most efficient layout. It also feels like a more productive version of “quick-build”. I’d like to see something like this repeated but with a wider variety of road users. How does it feel to cross the bikeway on foot or in a wheelchair? What are the sight lines like for drivers? How is it for trike users?
Personally I like the “Median” design, #1, the best. Though, after thinking about it I agree that the Southbound Sandy -> 7th lane is bad. It should just continue to run parallel to the car lane. And no more bike roundabouts please!
These are really poor quality, overwrought designs! Why is north pointing to the right? The downhill bike lane on Sandy should not be crossing a sidewalk! We do not need that little bike roundabout. There should not be turns on to Washington from Sandy, make Washington one way westbound east of Sandy for one block and vice versa across the street. The little segments of 2-way bike lanes are awkward and unsafe. The bike movements are just so convoluted and awkward! I hope to god this does not get built.
Leave it to PBOT to constantly re-invent the wheel. Every design is an “experiment” never to be revisited OR repeated. Good luck to anyone who encounters a new facility or feature and needs to figure it out on-the-fly. Good luck to drivers expecting predictable patterns, too.
Once you’ve mastered our 1.5 blocks of contraflow curbside cycletrack, try your hand at a left-hand bike lane up Williams for some ungodly reason, or perhaps enter a “crossbike” and guess how any vehicle in sight is going to react.
I love the spirit of this work and am inspired by it. Nevertheless, I’m going to leave a critical comment here. Kudos to bikeloud and Aaron for producing these nice design options and for considering a variety of bicycling experiences!
This is especially unfortunate because the lane coming down Sandy is part of a nascent network in near-in SE, including the green paint and wands at the top of the hill (Ankeny/Sandy/11th) that feeds 7th Ave. as an effective N-S bike thoroughfare. Disrupting this connection seems particularly unproductive. I would encourage future efforts to consider the existing network (and yes, ‘vehicular’ cyclists) in the designs. If “interested and concerned” users are to become regular bicyclists they will need bike infrastructure that actually helps them get where they need to go, and it makes sense to design projects with a progression in mind.
Hey Micah, I get that design should be all-inclusive, and theoretically that’s a great rule of thumb. Everything from people on wheelchairs, to tall bikes to scooters to gigantic cargo bikes should participate in the design process. Aaron et al really gave it a good go with including various types of riders, and this sort of experiential design is such a great model open to tweaks.
But I’m not really sure about how we can better include “vehicular cyclists,” since that’s essentially who US cities have exclusively listened to and designed for for decades. It’s the reason why we have a lot of people on bikeportland advocating for vehicular cycling, because who else is going to ride a bike in current conditions?
If people are confortable riding with cars regardless of speed, then much of the cycling infrastructure is moot, right? The exhausted argument that cyclists will get fined for not using the bike lane is kind of the crutch that keeps people who believe in vehicular cycling a part of the design equation. That law needs changing, but it’s not a great reason to focus on the opinions of people who wish to ride quickly through a place like this.
This intersection is presumably going to be an attractive place where a lot of perhaps distracted people will be using it in many different ways (e.g., walking, skateboarding, selling stuff?, just hanging out). That to me means it’s not that much of a trade-off to slow cyclists, particularly where there will likely be places of conflict such as this future plaza.
It’s not an “exhausted argument” — it’s a totally legitimate issue. Asking people to violate the law just to ride sensibly is pretty ridiculous, and I’m surprised you’d advocate for that. Cyclists descending the hill should not be in the plaza at all, so there should be no conflict with the crowds of distracted people milling about the plaza.
Thanks for the response, eawriste.
Not sure I understand how retarding effective bike traffic furthers the plaza. I think in situ mock ups are great tools to get a feel for proposed designs, and the value of diversity among the design testers is obvious. But compatibility with existing infrastructure seems like a noncontroversial basic characteristic of an effective design. Designs that are incompatible with the existing network risk causing friction with stakeholders that rely on or hope to expand existing functionality.
I would separate the problem of determining the priorities and immediate goals for bike network development from the problem of designing proposals to meet the goals. I worry that trying to set priorities by influencing design specifics leads to suboptimal designs and increases factional tensions among the bike community.
Hey Micah, thanks for the reply. Appreciate the thoughts.
Just as the other public plazas have areas where speed is deprioritized for a very short segment (50 feet or so), such as the new Broadway development’s mixed areas, this and future plazas also deprioritize speed. This has obvious safety benefits, but also gives people time to stop if they want (presumably this plaza will be a destination).
One bizarre idea that has permeated our transportation system for the last hundred years is the idea that traveling as fast as possible will make us more efficient and save time. I’m saying that assumption needs to be questioned. The design of our streets has prioritized cars in such a way to make speeds higher, while at the same time increasing the average distance we travel (and the number of people killed/injured in the process). I’m not sure how much this parallels cycling behavior, but that fundamental ideology certainly exists in the cycling community as well. Speed often equals good. It is really important that we recognize this. Things like bike highways are great! But mixed use plazas such as the above also have their place.
Apologies, TBH I’m not exactly sure what you mean. My argument is that we already have inherent assumptions for design which prioritize speed, mainly because the population of cyclists are skewed white, male, athletic, young etc. And our inability to incorporate other groups of people into cycling (and increasing mode share) is largely a function of lack of safe and separated infrastructure.
I get that. It’s certainly a political decision. Both “suboptimal” and “incompatibility” with current design is extremely subjective (particularly when talking about Portland’s odd mish-mash of designs), but I get what you’re saying. And judging from the reactions here your worries are not unfounded. I am saying we should question where those reactions originate and how they affect both our bike network and our design outcomes.
It’s just crazy how some people think going faster will reduce travel time.
It is also crazy to route downhill bike traffic through a pedestrian area and into a tiny little roundabout rather than provide the direct connection that does not cross the pedestrian plaza at all, and is both intuitive and obvious.
You say speed isn’t everything, but most cyclists know that when you’re building momentum on a short downhill, it’s pretty close, at least for those of us who don’t have motors on our bikes.
I agree that “inherent” assumptions have shaped what has been built, and I’m completely on board with debating our priorities as a community, including examining how implicit and explicit preconceptions have affected the built environment. In fact, I think such a debate is vital for our community as a prerequisite to wielding our political power in a unified manner. That’s what I’m trying to do here. I love what you’re doing, and I want to row in the same direction, but I object to the insinuation that infrastructure that is useful for confident cyclists is inherently exclusionary. I agree that we need more protected bikeways (that feel safe and accessible), and I think there is a broad consensus among cyclists on this point. I would have assumed the existence of a similarly uncontroversial consensus that new infrastructure should aim for complete, efficient routes between popular destinations around town. That all the design options presented force traffic going to southbound 7th from Sandy to either merge with the (busy) car traffic or navigate a low speed detour through a (hopefully) crowded plaza challenges this assumption. Is it possible to find a design that simultaneously meets the goals of facilitating a vibrant street plaza and giving folks that need to travel south from Sandy at least the same level of service they enjoy today.
A couple of broader points:
I agree that invoking the law against using car lanes when there is a bike lane does not further the conversation.
I think you underplay the growth potential among people that are confident enough to use unprotected but reasonably safe bikeways but don’t because driving their car is more convenient. This is the type of rider that might be deterred by your ‘inclusive’ designs. I think these people are lower hanging fruit in the sense that they could be ‘brought on board’ with less ambitious, incremental projects that are more politically realistic than a complete, separated bike network. No doubt everybody wants a totally redesigned streetscape centered around human interaction and facilitating primarily nonautomotive transportation, but the best we are likely to achieve is partial redesign of the existing road network that makes things better for us while still allowing substantial personal auto traffic.
Thanks Micah! Great points! Appreciate the ideas.
Awesome. It seems like this conversation is still in its nascent stage.
It’s possible. TBH I’m not sure, but I would defer to people who have biked around the area and tested various options over abstract drawings any day. That’s why this is such a great opportunity.
1) Maybe, but I would like to see some evidence regarding this. I’m very doubtful this is the case. Portland has had virtually no growth in cycling for over a decade now while consistently targeting primarily confident/avid cyclists using ad hoc designs with no plans for any network. We’ve already collected most of that low-hanging fruit, and prevented most people who would bike if they had a safe place to do so.
2) As for people being deterred from cycling for slowing at plazas, I’m extremely doubtful. Think about any number of plazas like the plaza at Ankeny and 28th or NW 13th. Are cyclists tearing off their kits and quitting because of these?
If we (e.g., BikeLoud, the city, safety advocates) are to decide as a community to target mainly people who are already confident cyclists, that to me is a solid continuation of the status quo and essentially a recipe for continued stagnation. 8-80 designs should be the standard full stop. That doesn’t mean we can’t accommodate 15 mph cycling, but any design that has the potential to include a lot of people should prioritize UD so everyone is welcome and safe.
How does including a good connection for cyclists descending along Sandy deter the 8-80 crowd (or anyone) from riding?
I appreciate your thoughtful reply — it gives me a lot to consider!
I agree that we should focus on “all ages and abilities” and that this requires high quality facilities that physically separate timid riders from fast traffic.
Completely agree. Right now, Sandy has a pretty good bike lane that that allows one to carry some speed onto 7th in a convenient way. We should maintain this feature unless there is a compelling benefit to be realized by giving it up. I think there is value in bringing confident cyclists along, even if you feel they have been over served in the past (I’m not sure this is the case, but it’s a reasonable position). I can only speak for myself, but I want everybody to bike, and I think disrupting the downhill bike lane is a bad idea.
The proposed designs introduce a lot of unnecessary bike/pedestrian conflicts.
How would you change them to accommodate all ages and modes?
Here is the basic idea: strong, simple pedestrian connections, simple, safe, direct bike routes, and controlled motor vehicle movements. Basically reduce conflicts points and help people get where they are trying to go.
This won’t work — there’s no little roundabout.
Nice! I wonder if the group can do another run to test it out? I like the right turn only and one way for cars. Thanks for taking the time to figure out another potential option. Seems like it has potential.
thanks!