According to multiple emails I’ve received in recent days, we’ve got another Steel Bridge bike path closure problem. This 113-year-old bridge has a history of problems that result in a gate swinging shut and closing access to the lower deck — a lower deck that just happens to be a vital link in our transportation system.
This morning, BikePortland reader Scott reported that the path had been closed since at least Saturday morning. And reader Alex wrote into say he couldn’t find any information about the closure. “No signs or warnings and the alternate route and the alternative over the top deck is not safe or fair to the pedestrians,” Alex added. And a reader named Brianna shared that the blinking warning lights on Naito did not indicate a gate closure, but she’s noticed it closed since Monday. Folks on Reddit are also wondering what’s going on.
I heard from someone named Jessica this morning that they found the gate closed on their way home from work at 11:00 pm last night, then tried the nearby Broadway Bridge, only to find it closed as well (due to a Multnomah County project).
I don’t have any new information to share (I’ll update this post when I hear back from PBOT), but I do know this path is notorious for closures due to technical difficulties.
Last summer the path was closed for over a week due to what PBOT said was a camera malfunction. Bridge operators use cameras to detect whether or not it’s safe to close the path for passing ships, and when the cameras are on the fritz, they keep the path closed by default for safety reasons. BikePortland reported on another prolonged closure due to the camera issue in 2013.
Of course there are other bridges folks can take across the Willamette as an alternate, but they’re not as convenient for many folks. There’s also the upper deck or the sidewalk adjacent to it. But both of those options come with pitfalls: the upper deck is a shared-lane environment that could be stressful for more riders and the sidewalk is very narrow and is often used by pedestrians.
For now, stay tuned for an update from PBOT and keep me posted about what you see out there.
UPDATE, 11:02 am: I just noticed that PBOT posted something on Facebook yesterday that it is indeed a “camera issue” that has caused the closure. They provided no date for re-opening.
UPDATE, 2:02 pm: Just heard back from PBOT. They say vandals messed with the cameras and gate is now open. See statement below:
“Camera operations were disrupted on the bridge as a result of vandalism. The City is working on a long-term solution to lower the risk of these kinds of issues in the future. In the meantime, they back on site making repairs so everything can get up and running smoothly again this morning. As of now, the lower deck should be back open!”
Thanks for reading.
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Amazing timing! I encountered the locked gate this morning- no warning signs, no advisory signs on he gate, just a gate closed and padlocked closed. It really gives the impression that PBOT has completely walked away from biking as transportation.
completely
walkeddriven away from biking as transportation.You might be mistaking incompetence for deliberate inaction. They just finished a bike lane all down 4th avenue downtown with protected concrete bollards, and that’s only the latest of many street reconstructions over the last five-ish years to add protected bike lanes to existing streets.
I thought the broadway bridge resurfacing project was going to keep one side or the other open for non-cars?
It is; but not always. MultCo will have to close the bridge to everyone a few times.
The Broadway bridge has been open for pedestrians and cyclists.
Yes, it has been until about 11 am last night when I needed it to be open on my way home from the west side. They had it closed completely.
It was frustrating to stumble across this over the weekend with no information available.
Especially while PBOT was posting about all the SmartPark lots having free parking.
lol! The comedy writes itself.
If one of the Willamette bridges were closed to cars, it would be a five-alarm emergency and the local media would never stop talking about it.
Really? Barely heard a bleep about the Broadway Bridge being closed to cars for an entire year.
It is closed for 6 months, not a year. Also, there were signs out warning of its closure for weeks, maybe months, before the closure. Also, there are well-posted detours. Also, if you search “Broadway Bridge Closure” there is webpage form the county devoted to it and stories form every local news outlet. If you search “Steel Bridge closure” you only get bikeportland and reddit.
Really? Do you not consume any of these news sources? I count at least 11 different sources with about 6 local ones having several articles about them.
Although I don’t think that was Fred’s point. Do you really think if the Steel Bridge were suddenly closed to car traffic for a week without any notice there would be zero stories about it?
I heard a lot about the Broadway Bridge being closed. There were PSAs, emails, web pages, you name it. You’ve made my point here. Thank you.
It’s not completely closed though, the car lanes on the upper deck are open. I thought you liked vehicular cycling? The lower deck path is a narrow, infantilizing cattle chute forcing you to ride like an eight year old after all.
Would be good to figure out this closure either way… but in case people aren’t aware, the Broadway bridge is still open to peds and bikes on the sidewalks during the closure to other traffic.
This was the problem for me. Last night the broadway bridge was closed to peds and bikes too! So I detoured to the steel bridge to find the bottom path on the steel bridge also locked.
Good to know! I actually did not realize they eye closing it all the way sometimes. Thanks – and sorry this happened to you.
Except when it isn’t.
Can PBOT give an ETA on when they expect the camera malfunction to be fixed? It seems like it’s the same camera issue almost every time the bridge is unexpectedly closed. Can we crowd fund a new camera system??? At the very least, they need to activate the indicator lights alerting riders that the bridge is closed.
Ultimately it’s kind of a minor annoyance to folks like me who use it every day, I guess, but like Fred said, if they couldn’t let cars use the Steel Bridge (or any bridge) for a week, we’d get lots of warnings and heads-up and cones and flags around indicating detour routes. It’s the difference in response, and the lack of urgency about it that annoys me most!
I have a friend at PBOT, who tells me that, unfortunately, the camera parts are stuck in the Bob Stacy elevator. This may take awhile.
Doesn’t the Steel Bridge belong to Union Pacific Railroad? Or does PBOT “own” the lower walkway / bikeway?
Yeah, good q, I’m not totally clear on that. In the past, it was PBOT who needed to repair the camera. I did some light googling and could not find a clean answer myself.
This is particularly rough for cargo biking with kids. The top sidewalk is too narrow for many cargo bikes and riding in the spacious lane with car-drivers sucks. Diverting to Hawthorne or Broadway after showing up to find the bridge closed easily adds 10-15 minutes. Not fun, when trying to get to afterschool activities on time.
I’m sure this could be fixed quickly, if it was a priority. More importantly, They could fix it in a way that prevents it from happening again and again.
Install two cameras? Keep a spare camera, replace the spare when it is installed? Get a drone?
There is no way to win on the Steel Bridge. The bottom is always a cluster — I never take it.
The lane sucks. In a best case scenario, hypervigilance while lighting one’s legs and lungs on fire is mandatory when crossing from downtown — but the movement is often herky jerky and it’s actually slower to take the lane than the sidewalk because traffic gets backed up. At least playing in traffic on other bridges always buys you speed.
The sidewalk also sucks. I often ride a trike (even wider than most cargo bikes) and while passing people going the opposite direction works well enough, getting by people going the same is awkward because they can’t hear due to all the racket.
In practice, I usually take the sidewalk despite being a lane taking type of rider unless I notice more than 2 or 3 people already there.
Last night, I was running along the waterfront paths and went to cross the lower deck, found it was closed, detoured to upper deck. I was 3/4 of the way across before I heard some squeaky disc brakes behind me. I stopped and stood the side to let the cyclist pass and found a stack of 6 cyclists waiting behind me. Not one of them dinged a bell or call out their presence. It came across as hovering. C’mon now, let’s communicate better.
omg so annoying! It is a huge pet peeve of mine when bike riders don’t announce their presence with a bell or at least a “hi there!”
I can understand this, but I feel differently and will never do it.
Why have the default mindset be impatience?
Seriously when I have to bike or drive behind someone going slower than me I just wait. Impatience would be incessant ringing of a bell or honking.
Exactly, biking is both transportation and an enjoyable experience. When I need to slow down to share an area, my reflex is usually to enjoy that moment rather than squeeze by someone. Maybe I have been biking long enough now that I ride a bike like I am biking instead of biking like I am driving a car.
Wait, some bikes were riding patiently behind you, then you stopped and let them pass, and you see a problem in this situation? People will make a decision to not pass when there is no room to pass. It’s normal.
That path makes passing impossible. I would be really annoyed if someone came up behind me and dinged a bell expecting me to get out of the way.
You ding a bell when you want to warn someone that you ARE passing, so they aren’t surprised. If there is no room to pass (your case), the right thing to do is ride slowly, or walk. It is not a “get out of my way” signal.
Wait, are you saying it is impolite for me to follow behind a pedestrian when I use a narrow sidewalk as a detour? That is too narrow to pass comfortably, even on foot! I would not presume to ask you to stop your progress so I could squeeze by. Just as I would expect a car driver to follow at a safe distance behind my bicycle if my only choice through an area is to take the car lane.
Why won’t cars please honk at me when they are behind me, so annoying! I turned around and 6 of them were just waiting patiently, ugh!
This is an interesting perspective.
I don’t announce presence until I initiate a pass, and whether/when I decide to pass is a function of how disruptive the pass will likely be to whoever I’m passing, their awareness of surroundings, and time saved by a pass.
In the case at hand, I would avoid disrupting someone’s run, because running is largely about rhythm and many runners care about timing.
If I decide to just hang back, it may come off as hovering (I will pass when I can do so cleanly), but only to those aware that I’m there — many aren’t
Thanks y’all. This sheer number of you who think that I misread the situation is making me think more about these sorts of runner/cyclist interactions. Being a runner makes me more conscious of how I should behave when I’m a cyclist, just like learning to ride a motorcycle in my 20s changed the way I was driving my car.
Not overtly communicating is still communicating. Space is how you signal patience. If you want to communicate at attitude of patient abiding, then hang back and don’t ride on the runners heels, and definitely don’t mutter “ugh, finally” as you roll by. Maybe there was only one impatient cyclist in the peloton whose behavior spoiled my perception of the bunch.
As for Jay Cee’s false equivalence, yes, I expect the interactions between cyclists and runners to be different from (better than) the interactions between people in cars because drivers, cyclists, and peds are in fundamentally different vehicles with different tools of communication available to them even if we share the responsibility for road/path safety.
There are a lot of, for lack of a better term, novice bicycle commuters in Portland and everywhere. Many riders never seem to leave this stage for reasons I don’t understand (maybe it’s just not natural for them?). I know it doesn’t really help, but it’s never going to go away. The world will continue to mint new, novice bicycle commuters and they we do not have the atmospheric cultural norms that would give them facility from the beginning of their experience.
I’ll usually wait to pass until it really clear and safe, I’d rather someone be annoyed at me for hovering compared to being an “aggressive cyclist”, so I also don’t ding or say anything until I’m going to pass because I don’t want someone to assume that I am asking for them to move.
Why aren’t the flashing lights that indicate the Steel Br. is closed (on Naito and at the entrance to Peace Park) turned on during this closure? What is the point of installing these potentially useful signs if they don’t faithfully indicate the state of the bridge? Hard to imagine a more appropriate time to activate the lights. I find myself shaking my head at the apparent incompetence (not to mention indifference) displayed here.
FWIW, the lower deck was open again last night.
I cane here to say this. 🙂
I have pure schadenfreude rn. Whenever I try to walk on the bridge or east bank bikers are huge aholes. They do not yield to pedestrians. They ride when they should walk. They do not respect speed limits on shared pathways. It IS a shared pathway BTW. NOT JUST FOR BIKES to play speed racer.
I stopped biking after getting hit by a car and having PTSD only to find that when you walk cyclists are just as evil and dickish when you share a path with them. Cyclists make drivers look good sometimes.
Weird time to have schadenfreude. Unexpected closures of the lower deck arguably have a larger impact on pedestrians than cyclists.
But you probably already knew that.
The bridge operators lose the camera connection so they just close the bridge and don’t make one phone call to PBOT who apparently are in charge of the camera? Does anyone understand why the “Bridge Closed” sign was not functioning? Maybe it is manually turned on as part of the bridge lift checklist. I guess UPR does not have pedestrian or bike travel anywhere in their priorities.