Welcome to being-pissed-off-about-leaves-in-bike-lanes season. Last night I sympathized with my former colleague (now Portland Mercury reporter) Taylor Griggs after learning she took a nasty spill on leaves while using the bike lane on Northeast 7th Avenue (see below). At the same time, I happened to be watching Portland’s bicycle coordinator share an update on bike lane maintenance.
Portland Bureau of Transportation Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller shared a brief presentation on this very popular topic at the monthly meeting of the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) last night. He gave an update on the $10 million bike lane sweeping initiative PBOT has been working on. As I reported back in February, PBOT won a grant from the Portland Clean Energy Benefits Fund (PCEF) that gives them $2 million per year for five years to keep bike lanes clean.
That funding is being used to purchase two big-ticket items: a new bike lane cleaning team and tools to do the work. Specifically, those tools include: a new fleet of battery-powered, bike lane-sized sweepers and leaf blowers for those hard to reach places.
Last night Geller said PBOT has hired seven of the eight new staffers. And so far, two of the new e-sweepers — designed specifically to fit inside protected bike lanes — are already here. I’ve seen both of them parked in PBOT’s Stanton Yard, a maintenance vehicle facility on the corner of N Graham and N Mississippi. The cute little sweepers are dwarfed by a massive diesel generator (which I hope isn’t their final solution for charging these babies). According to a slide shown at the BAC meeting last night, in addition to those two e-sweepers, PBOT has purchased two Ford Lighting pickups for all the hand sweeping and more detailed clean-up work a mechanical sweeper can’t do (aka “bunching support”).
So far, the PCEF-funded team has been working on areas with heavy leaf canopy. A map of future sweeping routes is still in the works. A public-facing map and a leaf pick-up request dashboard is also being worked on, but not yet ready for launch. Another slide shown last night included a map of the latest spots that have been swept (see above)
None of these updates are likely to make many Portlanders feel better about the current state of bike lanes — and the vast volume of leaves that have overtaken many of them. “Appreciate your patience, the leaf drop was early this year,” the slide reads.
So for now, take extra caution through the leaves, don’t turn sharply in corners, and hope for the best. If there’s a particularly bad spot, you should report it to 311 so city crews get it on their list.
Thanks for reading.
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Even with those sweepers this will still happen because the city encourages property owners to sweep their leaves into the street. Sure they’re only supposed to do it the day before their leaf day but in reality those leaves are in the street for well over a month before leaf day.
The first leaf day for this section of 7th is only two days away on the 21st. Depending on the weather that means cyclists might be able to enjoy a full week of a relatively clear lane before it fills back up again.The second sweep day is 12/10 by then most of the leaves should be off those trees so hopefully it’ll be good until they cover it all in gravel for potential snow.
The reality is the leaves come down too much too quickly to keep the lanes clear until they’ve all finally come down. I have three large maples at home and my yard can be covered in leaves the day after I fill my compost bin depending on weather. Hopefully the sweepers help with the winter, spring, and sometimes summer months where the lanes remain full of debris.
Hopefully Taylor heals fast and I’m glad it wasn’t worse. Be careful out there folks.
Interesting how this “reality” only applies to bike lanes
Automobiles are heavier, faster, and, let’s face it, more numerous, all of which helps to clear the center of the roadway of leaves or at least make it a negligible traction issue. The same cannot be said for bicycles, so it makes sense that there’s a difference in “realities” here.
Also the drag cross-section is fundamentally different ( ᗒᗨᗕ ), cars naturally funnel some air underneath the chassis. Maybe we all need to start putting upside-down formula-one style front wings on our bikes.
It applies to bike lanes and my yard. Both require weekly and sometimes daily clearing if we don’t want leaves in them. The fact of the matter is the city and I don’t have the time/resources to keep leaves out of either 24/7. So they are a nuisance until they’ve all come off the trees.
The roads stay clear because of cars and the wind. It’s not some conspiracy within PBOT.
As annoying as I find the noise generated by leaf blowers it’s the attitude that blowing everything into the street is an acceptable means of property maintenance.
I see some commercial property owners have contractors blowing everything into the street every morning to make their cleaning somebody else’s problems and neighboring business that do nothing so we get to walk on decomposing leaves/fruit for the next several months.
It’s supposed to be illegal. If the city would fine the contractors with heavy fines, they’d stop pretty quick.
Remember enforcement of laws in Portland is considered racist, ableist, ageist and sexist. Wouldn’t this law and order approach you’re suggesting disproportionately impact undocumented immigrants and POC?
My city sends notices and fines in the mail to property owners for infractions like this. Can the City of Portland not do the same? Sincere question.
Embrace leaving the leaves!
Oh I wish but having a rather small yard and three 60 year old maples would mean I’d be swimming in leaves year around. The three additional maples across the street and my neighbors black walnut that overhangs my fence make the conversation moot.
Leaving the leaves is one thing that I’m willing to live with as part of living in an urban rainforest. I’m not okay with property caretakers removing leaves from their property only to put it in the public right of way, making it everyone’s problem but theirs.
On the sidewalk? That’s a hazard, especially for ADA users.
Why not rake them into the center of the street where cars can do their crushing magic? They might also act like traffic calming for a few days.
No, in the yard/greenspace.
But yes, the leaves that happen to fall on or naturally blow into the improved right of way need to be disposed of as a safety hazard. Leaving the leaves does not solve the whole problem. My comment was directed more towards the people that rake or blow their leaves out of their yard into the street.
https://xerces.org/blog/leave-the-leaves
Great concept, but why don’t they provide any helpful information?! Doing it wrong can lead to failure and people returning to not leaving the leaves. All leaves are not created equal- some are really thing and compress into mats that can compact soil (like a Norway Maple or a Silver Linden). Some leaves compost really quickly and are highly beneficial like Bigleaf Maples. You can overdue it with leaves and start ot build up too much soil around trees adn shrubs, thicker leaves like GInkos will do this. Also, don’t pile leaves against woody trunks, leave 1″-2″ of soil exposed at the root flare to prevent truck decay. Don’t drag leaves from the street into your yard once they have been driven over, especially if they are wet- they can bring along nasty car by-products and they get highly compressed and can smother/compact soil. Also, be mindul of where you stash the leaves- some perennials can handul being covered, others cannot. Grass can handle some leave mulch, particulalry small leaves like leaflets from Geditsia or Robinia. Oak leaves and Walnut leaves can change soil pH so make sure you are aware of the plant needs you are mulching.
There are plenty more things to know, but Xerces should provide a bit of guidance if they want this campaign to succeed.
So they are asking to not be held liable? Will Johnny lawman write tickets if I take the lane because the bike lane is unsafe? I’m guessing they’d play dumb and bad mouth me.
I think the law allows you to take the car lane if the bike lane is full of hazards or obstructions.
You should take the lane.
There is no way I will ever ride in a debris filled bike lane.
Bicyclists are allowed to move out of bike lanes when the bike lane is unsafe, but that presumes one feels/is safe in the lane with motor vehicles.
For the huge parts of the city without sidewalks, do adjacent property owners still put out their trash receptacles and debris on the street and in the painted bike lanes?
I have to dodge bins that somebody just stores in the bike lane every day near Tillamook & 82nd. Not a huge deal, though, because just before the bins I have to take the lane to dodge a hedge that grows into the bike lane space as well.
It varies, but I regularly see/interact with cans in the lane in the Rosa Parks, and Cully protected bike lanes
I ask for patience from other drivers as I take up “their” lane.
Both pleas have about the same weight and response.
Agreed, the official message should really be to drivers: “please be patient with bicyclists who use the lane while leaves block the bike lane.”
I gotta say, that stretch of 7th (especially between Broadway and tillamook) has been awful ever since they changed it from a sharrow to a bike lane. The bike lane was dirty when it was installed (you can see on the white line that there rocks down when they applied the paint.) and it has *never* been clean in the two years since. It’s also really slanted and has a few grates and is just a generally terribly unsafe bike lane. Why are cars even allowed to drive north/south on 7th when MLK is a block or two away?
I found myself on this stretch just last week after dark. A combination of poor lighting and someone (who would do this??) piling up leaves in the bike lane made for a very dangerous situation. I didn’t fall, but with the awful lighting, I couldn’t tell I was plowing into a full-on pile of leaves until I was in it. Maybe regular riders know to take the car lane on this stretch, but I rarely travel that route and naïvely thought I could, you know, use the bike lane.
I detour to 16th Ave this time of year.
Good choice. Wide. 17th is even better with fewer stop signs if you can handle the extra block.
the entire 7th ave bike route including the Blumenauer Bridge is an abject failure- I am surprised Earl hasn’t asked to have his name removed!
I truly don’t understand what they did with 7th and Tillamook. It was so much better with the mini roundabout and tree.
I shit you not, because a few business owners who happen to be black needed to preserve unfettered through-access for cars. Social justice I guess.
It’s interesting when you put into place policies to “fight” racism, you become even more blatantly racist.
We aren’t allowed at my work to use the phrase “reverse racism” but it’s exactly what is happening when decisions are made based on someone’s skin color (regardless of the skin color it is still bad).
Did you see the 3 finalists for Portland City Administrator? And the city of Portland says it doesn’t discriminate in hiring? Hmmmm….
Preventing cars from traveling north/south on 7th would have proven their point.
There’s a huge jump from thinking that PBOT’s changes to 7th don’t work well for bikes to thinking n/s vehicle traffic should be banned there.
“unfettered through-access for cars”
It was even lamer than that because that access was never under threat.
I feel like it’s fundamentally a hard problem. The leaves fall all at the same time (continuously over the course of weeks or months), so without an army of sweepers it just isn’t going to happen.
Not to excuse PBOT from responsibility. They can at least triage popular routes (sounds like they’re working on it!). But there is no avoiding leaves this time of year.
Cars have it different. They move faster and cause more turbulence (and have this nice gutter that we try to ride in), which I think goes a long way to just blowing the leaves to the side. It’s not like the roads have been swept yet either.
But anyway, it’s annoying and dangerous, and I look forward to this new leave crew getting up to speed.
John V- great point- this is a predictable, annual event with a known duration. It is something we can and should plan for, similar to a construction event. If PBOT cannot handle the maintenance, they should be using other tools at their disposable: detours to an adjacent street that is temporarily closed to cars, temporary lane sharing with cars with adequate signs and lighting, close the driving lane temporarily to give bikes a safe place to ride. I am sure their are other options. PBOT just needs to be told that providing bikes safe route is a higher priority than driving lanes and they can figure it out. The fact that cyclists are told to be patient with insufficient and unsafe lanes tells you what PBOT/the City’s priority is: driving. PBOT has become a driving-first transportation organization.
Maybe they should divert cars into the bike lane to sweep away all the debris, and let bikes ride in the center of the road.
Agree that it’s a fundamentally hard problem. I’ve been trying to balance my disdain for leaves in the bike lane against how much I love having street trees.
Also spotted the leaf crew in action on Rosa Parks. They do a great job! I just wish we had a few more.
I live on Rosa Parks and have 3 giant trees. Keeping up with the leaves is a season long problem. (After a decade I finally I bought a leaf mulcher/vacuum — it looks like a Ghostbusters bag — that has helped me stay on top of them a little better.) I know there are tons of bike lanes that are not well maintained by the city, but their work on Rosa Parks has been so much better the last two years. We see the mini sweeper 1-2 times a month and they do an incredible job, usually taking two passes to really clean up the lanes.
That said, I did see the owners of the Ebike store blowing leaves into the bike lane a few weeks ago. I shook my fist as I rode past (on my analogue bike).
pathetic response. The City should have 2000 signs reading “yield to bikes using full lane during leaf season” then spend your energy telling drivers to be patient with the lanes full of people biking, scootering and walking until the City can get the leaves picked up form the bike lanes and sidewalks.
Its an ordinance violation to sweep leaves into the street in many parts of this country. Kind of odd the city is spending millions to pick up wealthy home owner’s trash off the street. (yes, if you own property) you are wealthy or if you rent on wealthy owned property.
Seems far simpler to pick up ones own trash, bag it and let the karens report violators of said trash dumping…
But instead we have injured people falling on trash of wealthy homeowners and shilling renters.
“…the leaf drop was early this year.” Why is it always a surprise in Portland when it comes to leaves, or ice, or whatnot? Literally the same story every year, no matter how many bike lane sweepers PBOT has.
Yep, every year we have that week where a few streets flood just because leaves were blocking a storm drain.
It’s been quieter this year but only a fool would believe that anything other than this unusually dry November deserves the credit.
They should add a form for people to submit non-city actions that cleaned leaves. I know of some people getting it done without these tools. Having 8 people out cleaning seems like a lot but the task is huge
It’s frustrating to watch Portland struggle with something as basic as keeping bike lanes clear — especially in a city with very high taxes. What stands out even more is that PBOT is relying on PCEF dollars, a fund that was never really intended for core city services,
I’m glad to see progress with the new sweepers and staffing, but it’s hard for residents to feel reassured when the leaves are already creating real hazards and the public-facing tools and routes aren’t ready yet.
Hopefully this new team gets up to speed quickly and we start seeing the basics handled more reliably, without needing to dip into special-purpose funds just to keep bike lanes safe. Right now what I see when I’m out riding are just more reasons for beleaguered Portland taxpayers to move to where they are appreciated and their dollars are put to good use.
$10 million intended to hasten our transition to clean energy is what is keeping our bike lanes free of leaves.
At this point PCEF looks less like a climate fund and more like Portland’s municipal slush jar — raided whenever the city needs some cash for basic municipal services and then justified with bureaucratic yoga to make it sound climate-adjacent. If we need leaf sweepers, just say we need leaf sweepers. Don’t run it through a Rube Goldberg machine of ‘clean energy’ storytelling to make it look legitimate
And we’re not even getting clean bike lanes.
I was so annoyed by the piles of leaves littering the sharp turns at the Hawthorne Bridge on the Eastbank Esplanade that I brought a leaf blower and rake and cleaned them up after work the other day.
I figured, even though it requires a few hours of work every fall, reducing my chance of crashing my bike will be worth the work. It’d be better if a City employee were doing it, but the job just needs to get done.
Thank you!! But doesn’t it make you wonder where all our tax money is going when citizens have to provide basic essential services.
Most of it is going to PPB. Worth it to have shitty roads when our police officers are so stellar though!
It goes to glitzy projects that our local construction industry continues to profit, and profit very very well, from.
You should send a bill to the City! Literally, The City could reimburse people for doing the jobs they cannot manage. The City used to charge for leaf pick-up, but in my neighborhood they would wait until December 18-20 or so. By that time, we had had 3+ months of slippery, slimy, muddy streets. I found out you could opt out and I started managing my own leaves and helping out a few neighbors. For the most part, people now manage the leaves a lot better and the streets are actually use-able for bikes and basketball like god intended! That was not exactly reimbursal, but I do think if a citizen can demonstrate some amount of work like keeping a couple of blocks of bike lane cleared they should get reimbursed for that.
I think the real solution is regular, City-wide street sweeping. I think Vancouver BC swept streets monthly or bi-monthly, and if your car was in the way it got towed. This keeps the streets safe and usable, and also prevents the salmon-killing 6PPD (from tires) out of the river.
How powerful would a leaf blower have to be to strap one to the front of a bakfiets bike and blow leaves to the side as you ride? Like a snow plow but for leaves in the bike lane.
Mostly just a funny thought, but I wonder.
they have walk-behind leaf blowers you could tow that likely be effective.
The leaf situation points up the fallacy of curbside bike lanes. Commercial property owners especially shouldn’t be allowed or encouraged to dump leaves in the street and deliberately littering bike lanes, what the hell? In residential areas with more trees it’s a bit tricky but there’s more than one way to address it.
Piling leaves on the street is normalized even in areas that have no scheduled leaf pickup by the city. If you look at the leaf removal map and compare it to the old redlining map you’ll see what’s up. The service is unevenly distributed and there’s no penalty for ignoring the rules, whatever they might be.
Grass lawns might be the real culprit here. They’re high maintenance and not really compatible with tree cover. If you like trees the best thing for them is to minimize the area of grass and landscape with perennials underneath the trees. Rake the leaves from areas you need to keep clear (walks, steps, play areas?) under the trees and compost the excess on site.
It’s not at all free for the city to remove leaves and the burden on street maintenance crews is crazy, they stop all normal activities to move leaves around. There’s a communication problem around what is reasonable land management and the current leaf removal program sends the wrong message.
The “leaf” program should end and the City should dictate that the property owners are responsible for removal. Heck the City confiscated our trees, why not the leave that fall from them too??
The leaf program only covers a small fraction of the city. Most property owners are solely responsible for leaves on their property.
I’d like to open a can worms and point out that this is where separated infrastructure does fail us and actually makes us less safe during part of the year. And if that infrastructure includes physical buffers like curbs, it makes getting into a clear lane actually impossible. The expectation that the city keeps the lanes clear during leaf drop time is clearly unrealistic as others have pointed out. So we end up with infrastructure that, during 1 quarter every year, definitely doesn’t conform to the “8-80” standard even if it would during the other 3 quarters of the year.
That’s why in this debate about infrastructure and separation or not we’re missing out on the needed cultural education and expectations that cyclists belong with other vehicles in main traffic lanes at times, and should be treated respectfully and as the vulnerable users that they are. Only separated infrastructure misses the point that cyclists deserve physically safe routes AND safe drivers to get everyone where they’re going, safely. It also ignores the longer history, that before cars became king, roads were actually designed for everyone.
Global climate change and electricity/energy “shortages” certainly won’t be solved if we continue, as a culture, to believe that inefficient cars are suitable for mass personal transportation.
That’s right folks, the leaf debate isn’t just about leaves, it’s about the future of humanity.
I think it’s more an argument for better maintenance and sidewalk-level bike lanes instead of protected gutters. Shared streets are also good – but the infrastructure there is diverters (ideally) and those also need to be maintained.
I started using some wider tires and slowing down a bit, and the leaves haven’t been much of an issue. The only time I have ever wiped out on leaves was when I was forced out of the middle of a lane by an aggressive driver when I was vehicular cycling. So I guess if the “future of humanity” rides entirely on the goodwill and emotional regulation of SUV drivers… we better get ready for the worst.
Wider tires on your bike doesn’t make the infrastructure safer, and neither does advocating exclusively for separation, which is my point. The goal would be to address the cultural problems which allow us to normalize the anti-social behavior of emotionally disregulated SUV drivers. Unfortunately no one is attempting to work on that problem, at either the government or advocacy level, since we’re so fixated on separation as a solution that it’s not. Continuing to frame it as unfixable and unaddressable is part of the problem.
How do you suppose we should go about changing the behavior of drivers?
Put spikes on their steering wheels where the air bags used to be?
Advocating for violent injury to drivers….seriously?
Amazing huh?!? Most drivers are just fine. Just going about their business and being safe. But we have to vilify all of them and get out the tar and feathers.
Cars are here to stay in one form or another. We need to make the streets safer, absolutely, but the vast majority of drivers aren’t the enemies.
PSAs, licensing standards which include continuing education, driver testing more than once in a lifetime, enforcement of licensing standards. Since we currently do basically nothing, anything we can do to help people understand that driving is not a god given right, is dangerous, and that motorized vehicles should be treated as the heavy machinery they are would be helpful. Or let’s just throw up our hands and do nothing, hoping the problem fixes itself (it won’t).
additional licensing for oversized vehicles- it is wild that anyone with a drivers license can drive a motorhome, sprinter van or giant U-haul, but you need a special endorsement to drive a motorcycle
I would support that if it is evidence-based. For example, do sprinter vans have a higher crash rate that would indicate the need for a special license endorsement?
Motorcycles have a lot of unique characteristics that suggest some special knowledge and training is necessary to ride them, so that requirement makes sense to me.
Replace them with computers. This is probably the most effective and immediate solution.
If people bicycling in the “cycling utopias” of The Netherlands and Denmark (at least Copenhagen) don’t feel comfortable as “vehicular cyclists”–in these countries where there is a heightened sense of social responsibility, connection and individual respect, at least compared to the US–then I don’t see how it could be possible here. The Dutch, Danes, French, Germans, British etc all want separated and protected bike lanes. Turns out–with the exception of the “strong and fearless”–so do the Americans.
Doesn’t that entirely depend on the context? On routes like 43, I’d bet almost every cyclist would agree that a separated path is essential, whereas on routes like SE Clinton, almost no one does.
Your wires got crossed somewhere thinking I’m advocating for “vehicular cycling,” whatever your definition for that is. Completely separated infrastructure is infeasible in all places, regardless of how beneficial it is in many places. My point is that we need to do something about “carhead” in order to make the cycling experience in this country safer and more enjoyable during those times we do have to share the road with motor vehicles (like when the bike lane is so littered with leaves it’s dangerous to ride in).
so much this!
Is 311 the new way to call in street sweep dispatch, or is it just for the leaf situation? I used to use the direct email/phone if I found like, piles of glass and such in the bike lane.
Jonathan – regarding ‘bunching’, perhaps the F-150s will also help ‘ferry’ these little sweepers to more distant corners of the city, as this would help to reduce the wear and tear (and extend battery life / shorten response time)? I know that many US cities have struggled with the maintenance transition to protected 1 way bike lanes as many only had 1 sweeper and when that one broke down there was nothing as back up (nor the manpower resources to perform it manually / old school).
[Too bad that area ‘bike friendly’ cities have not collectively formed a regional ‘mutual aid’ system for sharing this type of specialized equipment when it was not needed in the owner city that day, of course.]
I still want that hotline to be called the SWEEPER CELL.
I wish the city would impose heavy fines on licenced landscapers and contractors that deliberately blow leaves into the bike lane or into any street. It is against city charter except in leaf zones the day before leaf pickup day. The landscapers that work all around the Lloyd District commercial area are the worst. I complained to them directly to a guy actively doing it and he just laughed as if he could give an f.
PP&R has blown leaves from Overlook park into the bike lanes multiple times. Not this year though- yeah!
So no consequences for the majority of delinquent leaf blowing gardeners and landscapers (who are not “licensed”)? How will that help?
It’s part of having trees in the city. it happens once a year. Live with it.
Insightful point, Matt P! I think that is what people are trying to figure out how to do. The Mayor says bike riders need to be patient. PBOT says give us PCEF money and we will buy sweepers but that may take a few months. Living with trees means acknowledging that the deciduous ones drop leaves annually, what is our City’s plant to keep the sidewalks, bike lanes and driving lanes safe? Would “living with it” include having “fall Rules of the Road” that convert driving lanes to Sharrows when bikes are impassable?
Portland Parks and Recreation should not sweep or blow leaves into the Naito bike lane. I saw a vehicle that seemed to be vacuuming and shredding leaves in a different part of the waterfront park. I don’t know why they don’t use this everywhere.
So Johnathan when are you going to call the city out on their lies? They don’t need millions. They literally need an atv and this thing.
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