I made this video after I was nearly left-hooked while riding the brand new (and totally wonderful!) protected bike lane on SW 4th Avenue in downtown Portland last week. Then today I learned my friend Marley Blonsky was injured in a right-hook while biking on the new bike lanes on NE Broadway at 21st.
Portland is doing great work improving our streets. That’s a great thing. But I wanted to underscore that as long as we have so many drivers who don’t drive safely and who disregard the well-being of fellow road users, there will still be risks of collisions.
Watch the video in the player above or on the BikePortland YouTube channel (which you should totally subscribe to if you haven’t already!).
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I was almost hit crossing Morrison when I was using the new 4th ave bike lane last week!
I am on the far side of this debate: I doubt we will never make walking or biking safe if the City relies on drivers doing the right thing vs just eliminating the possibility of them killing someone.
4th avenue is still a 4-lane, 50 foot wide arterial street. It´s intersections still rely on driver care and awareness to provide for safety. (Original was too harsh)
When I was stationed in Germany, I learned that getting a driver’s license in Germany was much more difficult and much more expensive than in the U.S. One aspect of that was more driver training & testing around pedestrians and cyclists.
As more bike/ped infrastructure and micro-mobility comes to be, we should ensue that Oregon DMV is requiring that new drivers are trained & tested being able to safely drive through bike/ped infrastructure.
Also, obviously, enforcement of driving laws is necessary, but I sadly don’t have very much hope for this based on my 20 yrs of experience walking & biking in PDX.
However, maybe we need more camera enforcement. I don’t like government surveillance, but I’ll live with it, if it results in less carnage on our public streets.
I have lived in SE Portland for 30+ years. I witnessed the installation of pedestrian islands, marked crosswalks and warning signs on SE Woodstock.
In the first couple years after installation, it was an unexpected surprise if a motorist would even slow down as you contemplated stepping into the street.
I figure it took ten or so years before motorists were pretty consistent about stopping. Now, at least on Woodstock, motorists are really good about stopping for pedestrians.
I continue to believe enforcement can cause people pay more attention instead of simply engaging autopilot and driving without paying attention. Even a verbal warning by a cop or a letter and video clip from a temporary camera letting a motorist know they did something wrong could help. Can we please do that with new installations?
I’ll bet the driver of the black Yukon would swear there were no bikes present. Probably was not even aware of the bike lane. If you had been struck at least you would have had evidence that you didn’t “come out of nowhere,” which we have learned is the magic statement by motorists to avoid a citation and exempt them from any accountability.
We need more city counselors, DAs, cops and judges on bikes so they witness the reality of dangerous motorist behavior.
Although these conflicts still happen, I think the changes on this street and Broadway have slowed cars and monster trucks a significant amount, which helps.
As a cyclist, I like comfort provided by the wide buffer zone of between the vehicle travel lane and the bike lane. But such a wide separation of the two modes, which in places includes parked cars, may make drivers less aware of the bike facility and users. Perhaps a flashing strobe could be activated on the existing caution sign to wake up drivers when cyclists are present?
I haven’t ridden the new 4th Ave bike lane yet, but apparently it’s even worse than I thought. In an earlier post, you said that every intersection would be signalized. But apparently this one isn’t! So why are you surprised that a honking huge SUV turned left in front of you? The driver wasn’t even aware of the separated bike lane on the left. S/he is protected from the world by that huge vehicle.
I said, long before the 4th Ave project started, that putting bike lanes on the left side of streets is very risky. Drivers don’t look for bikes on their left. Only in Portland do we create non-standard infra and then we’re surprised when drivers don’t know how to use it.
The classic formula to improve safety for people using active transportation is:
1) improved infrastructure for people of all abilities to feel safe as we bike and walk, so
2) more people on the streets on our feet and on bikes, leading to:
3) more awareness on the part of drivers.
Is there a missing step or two that you’re suggesting, Jonathan? Should we expect the state to strive for and require a higher level of driver competency? Should we expect the police to enforce more traffic law?
In the classic formula, the state and city are quite passive after building the infrastructure. The inherent wonderfulness of road users and the love we have for being outside on bikes and sidewalks are expected to bring changes in mode share and safety.
What does contemporary research suggest about this? Is the classic formula still good? How long do the changes take? Does a societal selfishness that we’ve seen since 2020 alter the process? Does the recently increased size of motor vehicles mean that driver oblivion, crashes, serious injuries and deaths will all remain high?
Been nearly t-boned more times than I can count when biking through the bike-specific green crossing stark at 30th. It’s unbelievable that almost 100% of the times I cross there a driver illegally turns on red (Both turning from 30th and turning from Stark). The infrastructure is perfect on paper, but people drive like d*cks there so I have to ride with my head on a swivel and yield to cars from all directions even though I theoretically have a protected right-of-ways