Remember the Rose Lane Project? What started as a grassroots call for bus-only lanes in 2017, then launched as an official City of Portland project in 2019, and was adopted by City Council in 2020 — the project was supposed to result in a network of dedicated bus (and sometimes bike) lanes criss-crossing the city.
Of the 70 total identified projects where the Portland Bureau of Transportation and TriMet team up to make bus service faster and more efficient, only about half have been built in the past seven years. And it’s been a full two years since we’ve heard even a peep about them. By my count there have only been four significant Rose Lane projects implemented in the past three years: SW Alder, NE Couch, SW Capitol Hwy, and E Burnside. A combination of the Covid ridership decline, changes in political leadership at City Hall, and a triage budgeting environment have likely put the Rose Lanes on the shelf to gather dust.
“The Rose Lane Project was a big deal before Covid hit and we are deeply concerned that it has been deprioritized.”
— Jamey Evenstar, chief of staff to Councilor Avalos
But City Councilor Candace Avalos is poised to put the plan back into action. At Wednesday’s City Council meeting on Vision Zero, Avalos shared a comment that raised quite a few eyebrows in transit lover circles: “I just wanted to flag for my colleagues that my office is looking into proposing a resolution on affirming our commitment to the Rose Lanes,” Avalos said. “That will contribute to our Vision Zero goals. So that’s some legislation we’re working on and we’ll bring that to a future committee.”
Curious what Avalos has cooking, I emailed her Chief of Staff Jamey Evenstar. Evenstar (formerly Jamey Duhamel) was chief of staff to former PBOT Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and was the point person for the Rose Lane project when it launched in 2019. The idea was to make transit, “fast, frequent, and full,” and it was framed as an urgent priority to fight climate change and to help Black and other Portlanders of color who are disproportionately impacted by our car-centric transportation system. In late 2019, a national movement was coalescing around mobility justice and Evenstar said the primary goal of the project was, “to allow people of color to reduce their commute time.”
A lot has changed in the past six years, but the political will for faster, more frequent buses remains.
In response to my inquiry about Councilor Avalos’ recent comment, Evenstar said, “The Rose Lane Project was a big deal before Covid hit and we are deeply concerned that it has been deprioritized and changed over the last 5 years.” Evenstar also acknowledged they are only in the early stages of the effort. Here’s more from her response:
“All I can share at this point is that we are interested in learning where the administration is in terms of implementation of the original plan and then working with our community partners to identify what needs to happen moving forward. Maybe all that is needed is a resolution to recommit to the plan as it was originally created since it was done with a lot of intentional root cause analysis, or maybe the community is looking for something updated and different in these new times.”
Avalos’ office is in the early stages of this effort. Once something more concrete emerges, she’s like to have very strong support for better bus service among her council colleagues. And if you’re a transit advocate, now might be a very good time to dust off your organizing hat.
Thanks for reading.
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Any street in Portland that has 2 or more lanes going in a single direction should have 1 lane reserved exclusively for bus and emergency vehicles.
Doesn’t take committees or consultants to do it, just buy the paint and send the crews out to start from the river and work outwards, then once those done do north/south.
There just saved the City a couple million dollars for consultants and 5 years of committee time.
Was it the first or second new council meeting where they voted themselves more money for extra staff and offices? They don’t need any committees formed or much discussion when they actually want something done. Kudos to Avalos (or I suspect her Chief of Staff) for at least talking about bus only lanes.
I’ve come to regard many of the actions of our “Peacock” councilors as performative, but I do appreciate Councilor Avalos bringing the Rose Lanes back to life.
Nice to hear more attention to shifting the subsidies away from cars and into public transit.
Is this idea based in comparative analysis of what the people want and are willing to pay for? One would think political will for better bus service would make improvement happen. It seems to me that political will, or substantive demonstration of it, is exactly what we have been missing.
YES to transit priority lanes on 82nd!
in Portland, we want to ride transit and ride bicycles.
Generally, 60.2% of people want to ride transit, and 45.4% want to ride bicycles, if it were affordable and safe.
“Respondents’ desire to increase their utilization of various transportation options, assuming it would be
affordable and safe, was highest for Riding Public Transportation (60.2%) and Biking (45.4%)”
Source: https://www.portland.gov/cbo/documents/2022-portland-insights-survey-executive-summary/download
the 2022 Portland Insights Survey and was delivered to the City Budget Director on July 31, 2023.
The document is located here: https://www.portland.gov/cbo/documents/2022-portland-insights-survey-report-pdf/download see page 44
The results of this survey are quite compelling.
Please note that while we do have a good network of bikeways, many people want it to be a safe network of bikeways.
Let us remember that those bicyclists who are “interested but concerned” are very concerned about feeling safe. City of Portland should be investing in bikeways to make them safe.
And they could quickly make a lot of safe bike infrastructure by putting diverters every two blocks on the greenways. I think we are all tired of having cars speed past us on the greenways.
One thing that the current Rose lanes could really benefit from would be some automated enforcement. I see too many drivers using them as express lanes.
I find it very hard to listen to anything “Councilor Avalos” says especially given her dismissive attitude towards the plight of east Portlanders.
Here is what Avalos said about the closing of the Fred Meyer at Gateway in East Portland. Talk about tone deaf!
“Some people might see this as a loss, I see this as an opportunity.”
Yes, an opportunity to burn more gas.
I used to drive 2 1/2 miles to Gateway, now I drive 6 1/2 miles to Wood Village.
Quite the opportunity for my local gas station.
Yes, 2 big department stores now gone. I bet Avalos didn’t provide any concrete ideas, just hot air.
Exactly. A completely empty statement.
It’s not “SW Hillsdale” – it’s SW Capitol Highway, leading to Hillsdale in both directions.
As a frequent bus rider on the 44 and 45 lines, I can assure everyone that the Rose Lane project has been a smashing success in Southwest. No longer do we all sit on the bus inching up the hill in the afternoon, waiting behind all of the solo drivers. The Rose Lane has improved trip times significantly.
Let’s not forget the merchants of Hillsdale who organized a petition to stop the Rose Lane. They said the lane would kill businesses, but it hasn’t. They were wrong. So let’s build more Rose Lanes around the city.
I think it is great and Councilor Avalos is pushing for bus lanes. Bus lanes are like diverters – a really cheap and effective way to improve non-driving alternatives for new and existing users alike.
The question is whether or not Councilor Avalos is willing to have tough conversations with her “embattled” carbain constituents (and carbrain Eric Zimmerman) who feel like they are being “punished” and “squeezed off the road” by all these woke lanes.
“The question is whether or not Councilor Avalos is willing to have tough conversations with her “embattled” carbain constituents (and carbrain Eric Zimmerman) who feel like they are being “punished” and “squeezed off the road” by all these woke lanes.”
As a frequent transit rider, I agree with your assertions, but question whether this is what (“car brain”) Councilor Zimmerman is really saying?
Making traffic even slower on main thoroughfares doesn’t push people to take the bus. It does increase traffic in neighborhoods and greenways as people look for shortcuts. Maybe it seems counterintuitive but giving cars an easy way to go means they will take it and leave the neighborhoods alone.
That’s such a dumb take. Selfish drivers are already ratrunning on neighborhood streets to avoid congestion, bus lanes change nothing about that. Powell Blvd could be 15 lanes but the minute any congestion happens Boomer Randy in his F250 would still be storming down Woodward. People are already “looking for shortcuts” and the answer to those is diverters and traffic calming.
Bus lanes are the most finically responsible way to speed up transit; faster transit encourages more people to use it, and because traffic congestion scales exponentially, you don’t need many people to leave the car at home for it to make a difference.
Take a moment to look into this thing called “induced demand”
This will help you understand how giving cars an easier way always increases traffic.
As the paint is worn away, where does it go? More micro/nano plastic in the environment?
Let’s see, which is worse, car pollution which in turns warms the environment, or micro plastics?
Seems I’d vote for paint to, hopefully, encourage less cars and more bus riders.
You can paint “BUS ONLY” in white without the surrounding lane of red. The colors seem to wear more than white. Whenever I bike/walk/drive off the Hawthorne Bridge I feel like I’m entering an IKEA kiddie rug. Less icky paint, more signs and MORE enforcement
Yeah. It’s unfortunate that the bus lane initiative was named for a gross process that takes weeks to off gas whatever smells like that– a new pavement installation can be tinted in a fairly stable way but applied color or graphics don’t seem to last. It’s another reason to diss sharrows.
If we have a chance to spread less plastic, why not take it? Signs, overhead signs, even retractable bollards if MV operators won’t take the suggestions. It costs money to put in car launchers but maybe we could get some of it back by selling the footage.