Northeast Portland reimagined.
(Image: Terry Dublinski-Milton)

Let no one say that Terry Dublinski-Milton lacks vision.

The advocate for better neighborhood greenways — back in 2012, before he teamed up with BikeLoudPDX, the Southeast Uplift neighborhood coalition and other groups, he founded a niche greenway advocacy campaign called C.O.P.I.N.G. with Bikes — unveiled a map yesterday of what it’d look like if traffic diversion were required “at or near every greenway crossing of a neighborhood collector, corridor or civic corridor” in inner northeast Portland.

Neighborhood greenways are low-traffic, low-stress side streets, mostly developed in Vancouver BC and Portland, that have become the backbone of Portland’s biking network. The city has long used diverters to reduce auto traffic on a a street; last year it created formal guidlines for determining when to install a diverter to keep auto traffic on a neighborhood greenway below 2,000.
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Take your pick.

The debate over the best route for a future NE 7th/9th neighborhood greenway is, for the moment, largely about appearances. But in this week’s battle for appearances, backers of a 7th Avenue route are definitely winning.

As we mentioned in Monday’s coverage of this issue, an anonymous supporter of a 9th Avenue route launched a petition on Sunday in which he or she suggested that a 7th Avenue route would send traffic spilling onto other small residential streets. As of this writing, it’s got 50 signatures.

Yesterday morning, resident Montse Shepherd started a competing petition in favor of a 7th Avenue route, itemizing 16 reasons for that route. 26 hours later, it’s drawn 368 signatures.

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NE 7th Avenue is technically a local street, but it’s become heavily used by cars as an alternative to MLK.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Advocates for turning NE 7th Avenue into a low-stress neighborhood greenway scored a significant victory this month, but opponents of that change are pushing back.

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Detail of city plans for diversion at SE Ankeny and 15th. More detail here.

Portland’s mission to upgrade its first-generation bike boulevards into lower-stress neighborhood greenways is continuing.
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NE 7th Avenue is technically a local street, but it’s become
heavily used by cars as an alternative to MLK.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

A roomful of inner Northeast Portland residents gave an “overwhelming” thumbs-up Monday night to a plan to eventually turn Northeast 7th Avenue into a low-traffic neighborhood greenway between Alberta and Broadway.

That’d vastly improve the bike network just west of Alameda Ridge, but require traffic diverters that would send thousands of vehicles a day to other nearby streets, probably Martin Luther King Boulevard and 15th Avenue.

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The corner of Southeast Ankeny at 15th. The Imago Dei church is on the left.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

After about a year on hold, proposed improvements to a much-used neighborhood greenway are back in action.

City project manager Sheila Parrott will meet March 10 with the Buckman Neighborhood Association to discuss the need for speed bumps and a new traffic diverter to reduce auto speeds and volumes in inner SE Ankeny Street.

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The issue on Clinton.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

In a digital companion to its Nov. 5 open house, Portland is circulating another online survey taking the political temperature of Clinton Street residents, businesses and users about traffic diverters on a busy stretch of Clinton Street.

It takes about 30 seconds to complete.

This is the second online survey asking how people feel about the city installing an experimental diverter in the 30th and Clinton area to see what happens to traffic patterns. The current proposal is to install one test diverter at 32nd, in addition to one planned for 17th.

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A poster taped to some poles in the Richmond area.

In advance of Thursday’s city open house about a proposed traffic diverter at SE 32nd and Clinton, a set of flyers shows the nuance among people who are concerned about the current plan.

In short: even the people who are trying to organize opposition to this plan seem to be arguing for more diverters, not fewer.

The anonymous creator of these flyers is concerned that if a new traffic diverter is placed at 32nd, “hundreds of cars” currently using Clinton as a westbound neighborhood cut-through during rush hour will turn south at 32nd and then make the first right, which is Woodward Street.

This is reminiscent of a sentence that advocates for bike infrastructure hear frequently:

I support bike safety and ride a bike myself but (PROPOSED BIKEWAY IMPROVEMENT) is wrongheaded because (POSSIBLE PROBLEM FOR ME) so the real solution is (POLITICALLY OR FINANCIALLY IMPOSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE).

But if you look closely, that’s not quite what’s going on here.

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The issue on Clinton.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Here’s the latest on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s effort to decrease the amount of people driving on SE Clinton…

A trial traffic diverter is now set to be installed at Southeast Clinton Street and 32nd Avenue, instead of Clinton and 29th as first proposed. In addition to the east-west diverter, it’ll use semi-diverters to prevent turns onto Clinton from 32nd while allowing traffic on Clinton to turn either north or south.

That’s in addition to the trial diverter planned at Clinton and 17th.

That revised proposal has raised objections from some neighbors, just as the initial one did. While some nearby residents are reportedly organizing to oppose the latest plan — possibly at a mostly unrelated town hall this evening attended by Transportation Commissioner Steve Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales — the city has delayed installation to allow a second open house early next month.

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Portland is at a crossroads..
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

In their open-ended comments about traffic diverters and speed bumps proposed for Southeast Clinton Street, one Portlander after another has chimed in to support the concept of making Portland’s most important bikeways more comfortable to bike on.

“Please fix things before my girlfriend moves to Detroit,” one frustrated Clinton Street user wrote.

As we reported last month, people who’ve participated in the city’s very public open house and its online survey have been overwhelmingly in favor of the diverters. But as fans and critics of the city’s plan both organize politically, the city has received memorable comments on both sides of the issue. Here’s a selection of what they said, lifted from results of the open house and online survey that we requested under the state’s open records law.

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