Exciting progress on Willamette Blvd project

The City of Portland has made major progress on what will soon become Portland’s longest protected bikeway. Once construction is completed on the North Willamette Blvd Active Transportation Corridor project this coming fall, the concrete curb-protected bike lanes on North Willamette Boulevard will connect to existing ones on N Rosa Parks Way for a five mile corridor that connects the Woodlawn and St. Johns neighborhoods with a (relatively) safe bikeway.

Since I live in this area and travel Willamette almost every day, I’ve watched with excitement as the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has embarked on key pieces of the project as they prep for the major repaving work this summer. Before the pavement is poured, all the new intersection changes must be finished. And with this project there are some major intersection changes! I’ve covered the entire project in the past, but today I’ll just share photos from four intersections that have already been transformed: N Chautauqua, N Wabash/Bryant, N Vincent/Saratoga, and N Liberty/Oatman.

N Chautauqua

This is one of the locations where there will new bus stop islands will float between the bike lanes and general travel lanes. You can see one of the new bike paths through the island already built.

N Wabash/Bryant

A similar bus stop design will be built here, and much of the new sidewalk and bikeway work has been done. Eventually the last section of N Wabash where it enters Willamette will be bike only!

N Vincent/Saratoga

These next two are situations where PBOT is narrowing down very very wide intersections. At this location, PBOT has extended the sidewalks where Willamette and Saratoga meet way out into the intersection in order to provide a safety peninsula for walkers and rollers. This neckdown will force drivers to slow down and it will vastly improve safety of the adjacent neighborhood.

N Liberty/Oatman

Another pedestrian safety peninsula thanks to an extremely generous curb extension. I cannot wait to see people hanging out here.

About Rep. Nelson

Some of you might be wondering how things are going with concerns aired by Oregon House Representative Travis Nelson. His concerns are based on how it might create diversion onto other streets and how some folks in the neighborhood might have not been properly notified about it.

According to his office, Rep. Nelson met with PBOT staff last week to learn more about the public outreach process and traffic analysis. An aide tells BikePortland that Nelson is, “still waiting on additional information and data regarding diversion modeling.”

Nelson shared his concerns in a constituent newsletter last Friday. Here’s an excerpt:

“I want to be clear that there is a lot in this project that I think is beneficial to the community. My biggest concern is related to how diversion from Woolsey will impact narrow residential side streets in University Park and Arbor Lodge. PBOT will be providing me with more data on diversion modeling which may help ease these concerns. We also discussed ways the bureau can better engage with the Black community which has faced a long history of exclusion from the process. It’s important we continue the work of repairing harm and rebuilding trust. PBOT has made commitments to better engage with the Black community in the future.”

I’ll continue to follow up with Nelson and will be watching his next newsletter in case he shares any updates. For now, have fun watching PBOT’s progress and please use extra caution in work zones when you are using N Willamette.