A Portlander suffered a nasty fall on Monday while biking westbound on the Hawthorne Bridge. Shane Dixon Kavanaugh (yes, that Shane Dixon Kavanaugh) took a trip to the emergency room after his front tire slipped on on a piece of yellow tactile warning bumps and he was flung face first into the guardrail. Thankfully he’ll make a full recovery; but he’s sustained a welt on his head, a black eye, scrapes and bruises on his leg, and his brand new Cannondale was badly damaged.
After learning about Kavanaugh’s crash, I talked to him about how and where it happened and I feel it’s worth sharing this incident more broadly to raise awareness of this to help prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.
Kavanaugh, a veteran bike commuter, said he was in the bike lane and riding down hill, about 300 feet west of where the bikeway splits and riders can choose to go down to Waterfront Park/Naito Parkway, or continue into downtown to SW 1st/Main. Just before he came to the intersection with SW 1st and navigated a slight bend, his wheel veered onto the yellow strips and down he went. The ground was slightly damp due to recent rain.
Multnomah County made several significant design changes to the bikeway at this section of the Hawthorne Bridge viaduct late last year. As I reported at the time, the County raised the bike lane to be at equal level with the sidewalk. To more clearly delineate space used by walkers and bikers, they made the bikeway green and added a wide strip of plastic, tactile warning bumps between the sidewalk and bike lane. In my coverage (both on BikePortland and in an Instagram video), I mentioned the potential for slipping, but didn’t share an outright warning. There was a bit of chatter about this in the comment section, with someone asking out loud: “I wonder how long until someone on a bike slips on the linear tactile?”
The county has used these same yellow warning strips on other parts of the bridge and viaduct, but other sections are either on uphills and/or straight and flat, which might make folks less likely slip on them. Perhaps there could be a yellow caution sign near the split similar to bike-specific warnings near streetcar tracks. Or maybe these type of plastic bumps pose unnecessary risks to bike users on downhills?
The yellow bumps are typically used as aids for people with vision or other disabilities. But in this case, they are being used to separate path users.
Keep all this in mind as you ride on this section of the Hawthorne. And if you’ve experience a fall or bobble here, or know of anyone who has, please let us know so we can get a better sense for how big of an issue this might be.
Thanks for reading.
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They have those strips all along the Blumenauer too. I’ve always thought they looked riskier than they need to be, especially at the top as you pretty much have to cross them to get across Lloyd. They’re like mini street car tracks—I hate them so much.
I haven’t had an issue there but I have slipped (thankfully not fallen) on the yellow stuff when it was wet at the SW corner of Trenton Park in North Portland. It has made me paranoid of slipping anytime I have to cross yellow bumps anywhere.
Tactile plastic is used on ADA ramps, and I have slipped on a few; when asked, PBOT said it is a Federal rule, and they can’t do anything else despite their being a hazard in PNW. I see other states used painted or dyed-concrete versions, but maybe they are outdated. In any case, wet plastic is bad for bikers, walkers and vehicles (not to mention world in general) and maybe its time to find something else?
PBOT is gaslighting you. Tactile warning strips are required in certain circumstances, but that doesn’t necessarily mean truncated domes. If truncated domes are required, there are many different suppliers and a range of materials including cast iron and precast concrete. PBOT and PP&R love to blame ADA for their poor decisions, but then are quick to find loopholes when it suits them (see Waud Bluff trail)
Look, I don’t work for PBOT but I am a transportation planner and they are not gaslighting cct. Tactile warning strips like this are the best practice (and often required) to meet ADA guidelines where pedestrians and bikes share a path at the same level. Truncated domes are different than what is shown in these photos, and are the raised bumps at intersection ramps. The reason these are parallel to the lane on these photos is because they provide a “shoreline” which is a discernable ridge for a walking cane to follow/use to discern the edge of their pedestrian lane and not accidentally step into the bike lane. Now, as a regular cyclist I agree they are slippery when wet. It could be great if the material could be mixed with a grit to make them less slippery, but these are pre-fab and basically the industry standard so this isn’t some PBOT incompetence as asserted here.
Detectable Warning strips are a best practice for separating bikes and peds on a shared use path where a grade separation or physical separation is not possible. PBOT is claiming that the design has been dictated by ADA, but that is not true. Thy could have used grade separation, they could have cast the delineators into the concrete, they could have selected a non-slip product, and their are other considerations. You are correct that using detectable warning systems to assist people using a cane or with low vision is the correct move, but PBOT is gaslighting because they are implying that they had no choice is the design or the materials when they do have choices.
Not gaslighting per se – but hiding behind excuses. I did a rabbit-hole of ADA stuff a few years back, and there are indeed usually other options besides plastic. Price and cost of maintenance were the reasons given me for choice of plastic in many instances. Maybe a few more slip-and-fall lawsuits would tip that equation towards safety.
Since you are volunteering to be a PBOT spokesperson, I just was down on the waterfront and was reminded about more examples of PBOT’s constant habit of citing ADA when it is convenient and completely ignoring it the rest of the time: Every year the waterfront is fenced of during the busiest/sunniest months. The “better Naito” project completed sidewalks on the east side of Naito and added 2-way bike lanes. Well, every year, the City allows the various carnivals to fence off portions of the sidewalk. This forces people to use the bike lanes. I tried to have a conversation with PBOT this, alerting them there was no wayfinding/detours provided for people with vision impairments and they were introducing conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists. They said the wayfinding/detour is not an issue and that the bike lanes are actually a MUP. So which is it? Does PBOT need to accommodate visually impaired pedestrians and provided guideways when sharing space with cyclists or not? The fact is that PBOT ignores ADA standards all the time, and when they do implement something poorly, they hide behind the ADA saying things like “it is required” or “industry standard”. THAT is gaslighting- they are refusing to take responsibility for their poor design decisions.
These are a similar material to what is used on the yellow dots for updated curb ramps. I’ve noticed that after few years, the texture wears down and they get really slippery in the rain. Much slicker than the surrounding concrete. Feels like a big accessibility issue.
I think on the Hawthorne bike lane they should’ve used flex posts or textured paint to separate the bike lane and sidewalk if they are that concerned about cyclist/pedestrian conflict.
Agree with this, as someone who has nearly fallen off my bike on several of the intersection goosebump pads. These things need rethinking.
The designers of this infrastructure seriously cannot be that dumb.
Oh yes – they can be. Or more accurately: The have designed for peds, not for cyclists. They probably have never ridden a bike, so why would they think about what would work best for cyclists?
When I complain about unnecessarily dangerous bike infrastructure (often just there to get bikes out of the way of cars who want to speed, or just as performative lip service), I sometimes get labelled a “vehicular cyclists”. E.g. when I point out the street was safer to ride before they put in the dumb “bike-specific” infrastructure which you’re legally required to use once it’s in, that does nothing but add a false sense of security while actually making things more dangerous.
“Vehicular cyclist” is a flexible term usually deployed in the same way as NIMBY, to discredit a person as being against the prevailing religion when the deployer can’t think of a good argument.
Where does it say you’re legally required to use bike-specific infra once it’s in?
https://bikeportland.org/resources/bicyclelaws#814420
I’ve never heard of this being enforced in Portland (which is not to say that it hasn’t).
But I often duck out of awkward bike lanes when I can keep up with traffic (riding the green wave up SW Broadway, heading down SE 45th towards Johnson Creek, etc)
I saw a fellow rider get called out by a cop for not being in the bike lane heading north one Interstate once. …. while being on the WEST side sidewalk & turning toward the bridge over the rr tracks to the lower deck of Steel Bridge one day years ago.
It happens.
I wasn’t doubting that it did. Just saying that I had no experience with it.
Welcome to Portland.
I am not a big fan of the new bikeway, and while I’ve managed to avoid a fall on those parallel tactile strips, it really isn’t ideal – especially where they cut over to the curb. Speaking of which – why did they do it that way? If a blind or vision impaired person was using a walking stick and following the tactile strips, wouldn’t they lead them straight into the path of oncoming cyclists? That seems pretty bad to me – but I could be misunderstanding how they are used in practice by vision impaired folks.
Agreed, after many years and I assume hundreds of thousands of dollars, they have a bridge that’s worse to bike across than it was during the bike boom 15 years ago. Golf clap to PBOT. Shocking that all this poorly thought out gimmicky infrastructure hasn’t driven bike mode share to the noon!
er, make that “bike mode share to the moon!”
Seriously though, I have about 20k miles of bike commuting in Portland and often come across infrastructure where I either have no idea what to do or it feels more hazardous to ride than a crappy 1970s 3 foot bike lane to the right of the fog line. What’s up with all this incoherent claptrap where if you don’t ride that route all the time you have no idea WTF to do or where to go?
I have always hated the thermoplastic, including a few areas where bikes have to share with pedestrian curb cut ramps. I’ve had a few close calls when wet. I think over time they become more warn and less slippery.
But… infrastructure for bikes shouldn’t be built with unnecessary features that increase injury rates. This could have been much worse if it were a less experienced or faster rider, or if they would have ended up in the car lane.
Between this, the problems with the east slip lane, and the lack of guard rails to keep bikers out of “the valley of car-death,” I have doubts about the bike expertise used to design this project.
Many of the poor quality asphalt patches caused by sewer repair, utilities, and private contractors now have grooves that can catch wheels. I strongly suspect that people have already suffered injury-crashes due to these deteriorating road patches.
I’ve bobbled these several times out on Powell and 130th, they can be a nightmare. Its always been dry.
I have initially slipped then caught and slipped again, very jarring and amazing I never went down.
I go around them at all cost now.
These should be made with robust sanded (grit embedded) surface, no excuse for such a glaring problem.
The ADA angle is BS, these are going to put you in a wheelchair at some point.
The city installed these same plastic mini-gutters on SW Capitol Hwy between Multnomah and Taylors Ferry. I’ve slipped on them several times and I’ve been wondering who would have the first serious-injury crash (sorry, Shane!).
I recommend all cyclists TAKE THE LANE on SW Capitol when riding downhill. You can easily roll at 20 mph, the speed limit is 25 mph, and car drivers can jolly well wait a few seconds if it means cyclists can descend the hill more safely.
Suggestion to PBOT: Remove the plastic and replace it with simple paint mixed with sand to provide traction to both shoes and bicycle wheels.
I’ve definitely gone safety 3rd on that spot before and people consider me an expert cyclist. It needs to be removed and replaced with yellow “sandpaper” paint. Some cyclists don’t wear a helmet and it’s just a matter of time before a cyclist or a pedestrian being hit by a cyclist is killed there.
The novel stuff we use in the states used nowhere in real biking countries never ceases to amaze me.
The common theme in all levels of Oregon governments is that we know better than everyone else.
Yikes, I bike here every day with my child on my bike. That’s really scary. Other than being careful and slowing down a bit, any tips to safely navigate this stretch? I do hope PBOT changes it for something safer!
Treat them like railroad tracks. when crossing slick surfaces, don’t make any sudden handlebar movements, and don’t pedal hard. Best just to coast and point forward. If you need to cross them, try to stay as perpendicular as possible.
Also, hit the breaks lightly so your wheel doesn’t lock up and slide. Especially with kids on a heavy bike.
This is the reason I don’t follow the bike path up the elevated bus platforms on NW 18th and 19th. Wet plastic=slippery, who woulda thunk?