The City of Portland is ready to spend $11.5 million on dramatic changes to a busy section of the Southeast Stark/Washington couplet. Their SE Stark & Washington Street Safety Project will reduce space for driving, add protected bike lanes, install bus-only lanes, and upgrade bus stops and traffic signals between SE 92nd and 108th. The project aims to make it safer to walk and take transit along the corridor, while enhancing bikeway connections east and west of I-205 between Montavilla and the Mall 205 shopping center.
The new bike lanes will offer safer and more convenient connections to destinations, including the I-205 bike path.
This section of Stark and Washington are very driver-centric at the moment and PBOT wants to encourage a more diverse mix of modes — while taming car traffic at the same time. Their plan is to re-stripe the roadway to make space for wider bike lanes, while removing one of the existing driving lanes. As a nod to how people use the corridor, PBOT says they’ll maintain the turn lanes and freeway ramps as well as add 47 new on-street parking spaces.
PBOT has chosen to invest in this project primarily because of how dangerous the current design is for humans. An analysis by their Vision Zero team found that there have been an average of about five serious injury crashes along this corridor per year since 2015. Of those crashes about half of them involved someone walking, including one person who was killed while on foot. A bicycle rider was the victim in 14% of the crashes in the past decade, with two of those being fatalities. Between 2015 and 2022, PBOT found that there was a serious injury crash at every intersection along the corridor.
Why are there so many crashes? The car-centric design encourages people to drive fast. One-third of all car users in the corridor drive over the speed limit, and at the SE 105th intersection that number rises to 40% and 60% (on SE Washington and Stark respectively).
Changes coming to the corridor include (taken from PBOT website):
- Safer pedestrian crossings between 99th and 106th avenues
- Enhanced bus stops at 92nd, 99th, and 105th avenues
- Signal upgrades at 99th Avenue, 102nd Avenue, and 103rd Drive
- Safer bike lanes from 92nd to 108th. Wider bike lanes protected from vehicle traffic with buffers, parking and concrete barriers. This would be a huge improvement over the current bike lanes which are 5 feet wide (or missing) and have no buffers or physical protection.
- Signal upgrades. At key intersections, PBOT will modify timing and add new bike signals to eliminate conflicts between bikes and turning vehicles.
- Pedestrian safety and access. New curb extensions, curb ramps, and pedestrian push buttons that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will make the corridor safer for pedestrians.
- Safer crossings. Work will include new marked, enhanced crosswalks as well as safer signals where pedestrians get a walk sign ahead of vehicle traffic, known as a “pedestrian head start.”
- More parking. Plans call for adding on-street parking on SE Washington Street and SE Stark Street to serve businesses and support the area’s Main Street designation. This will mean about 47 more parking spaces along this corridor.
- More trees. Planting street trees on SE Stark Street will provide shade for pedestrians and people biking as well as add to the overall tree canopy in East Portland.
PBOT expects to spend this year finalizing the design and engineering and will begin construction in 2028. Funding for the project comes from a mix of funding including: federal (distributed through Metro), local gas tax (Fixing Our Streets), and the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund. For more information, check out the project website.
