A woman was killed on Friday afternoon while walking across NE Broadway. Local advocates have now planned a memorial event to highlight the inherent dangers at this section of Broadway and encourage the City of Portland to do more to mitigate them.[Read more…]

NE Grand northbound at Broadway.

NOTE: Please see updates at end of this story. It was originally reported as a bicycle fatality; but we have since confirmed that the woman killed was walking prior to being hit.

Portland Police say someone has been hit and killed in the area of NE Grand Avenue and Broadway.
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Nine days apart: Same intersection, same trucking company, same type of collision, same result, same problem we’ve known about for over a decade.
(Photos via @SmplicityCycles via Twitter)

It’s disheartening to start writing a post about the need for changes at a dangerous intersection only to recall that I already wrote the story. Nearly five years ago.

“Another right-hook at Broadway and Hoyt: What can we do about this intersection?,” screamed the headline in our October 2013 post.

And here we are today with the same concerns, the same problems and the same intersection.
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A protected bike lane on SE 3rd Avenue in 2014.
(Photo: Greg Raisman)

Dozens of volunteers are now meeting weekly to plan temporary human-friendly makeovers of Northeast Broadway and the Burnside Bridge this spring and summer.

Better Block PDX’s next “work party” is tonight at Pizza Schmizza at NE 7th and Broadway, from 6-7:30 p.m. Next Wednesday it’s the same time at Black Water Bar, NE 9th and Broadway.

The Broadway demo will create a protected bike lane for one week, from May 9-15.

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This double signal (see upper left of image) at Broadway/Vancouver/Interstate 5 will finally go away.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

On Monday the Oregon Department of Transportation will begin construction on the most substantive changes to cycling conditions we’ve seen on N/NE Broadway in many years. And it’s sorely needed.
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(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

For today only you can feel what it’s like to ride on Southwest Broadway without the threat of someone opening a car door into you, or someone parking in the bike-only lane, or someone squeezing you into parked cars. (Sorry I can’t promise you won’t be right-hooked before you get there.) That’s because a trio of “tactical urbanists” have come together to create a temporary protected bike lane between Salmon and Taylor, just outside the doors of the Hilton Hotel where a smart growth conference is taking place.
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Mock-up of a bikeway that’s set to make a cameo on Broadway tomorrow.
(Image: Nick Falbo/Alta Planning + Design)

Tactical urbanism is about to make another imprint on Portland’s downtown streetscape. Tomorrow morning, a trio of planning and place-making groups are planning to create a temporary protected bike lane on one block of Southwest Broadway.
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One of the first people to wait at the new signal at Broadway and Couch.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland Bureau of Transportation just flipped the switch on new traffic signals at Northwest Couch and Broadway, 10th and 11th Avenues. The signals on Broadway are on a major bike route where they were first flagged as necessary four years ago. At the intersection of Couch and 11th, PBOT has installed Portland’s first ever “pedestrian scramble signal.”[Read more…]

This is the third in a three-part series about the biking potential of the Lloyd District. Read the first two here.

If 1,597 new homes were about to land in the space where, seven years ago, new homes in the Portland metro area would have been most likely to land, they would be the biggest news story in the area.

In the rural outskirts of east Vancouver (yes, that counts as Portland metro), beloved farms would be shutting down. Work crews would be widening intersections and stripping away street parking to make room for more turn lanes. For miles around, residents and businesses would be bracing themselves for traffic paralysis.

But in the next few years, 1,597 homes are lined up to land somewhere else instead: right in the middle of Portland.

[Read more…]