southwest corridor plan

Big upgrade to commercial stretch of Barbur looks likelier as Metro rejects OHSU tunnel

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
buczek walking

Metro staffer Anthony Buczek walks Barbur’s
current auto-oriented commercial strip in February.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Long-term plans are falling into place for a federally-subsidized biking and walking upgrade to one of Southwest Portland’s most important main streets.

And oh, it might come with a rapid bus or rail system, too.

Staff at the regional agency Metro announced last week that they weren’t going to recommend a $900 million light-rail tunnel beneath OHSU, instead sending the proposed Southwest Corridor high-capacity transit line on the surface of SW Naito and Barbur as it passes through Southwest Portland toward Tualatin and Tigard.

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Taming outer Barbur: MAX or BRT could bring raised bike lanes through Southwest

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
barbur

SW Barbur near SW 78th – just west of the section that might be rebuilt by a new transit line.
(Photo by J Maus/ BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

It would certainly be ironic if Southwest Barbur Boulevard became the first arterial in Portland to receive a Copenhagen-style protected bike lane retrofit through a high-destination commercial area.

But that’s exactly what might happen if a regional committee chooses Barbur as the best route for a major new transit line. And getting around outer Southwest Portland would certainly be transformed.

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Anti-transit vote in Tigard throws wrench in southwest corridor bike plans

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Riding Portland's urban highways-21

Biking on Barbur Boulevard.
(Photos by J.Maus/BikePortland)

An anti-transit vote in Tigard Tuesday could bite bike plans, too.

When Tigard voters narrowly approved a ballot issue this week designed to make it harder to build a light rail or rapid bus line through their city, they also threw a wrench in a different process: improving biking in the suburbs southwest of Portland.

Metro’s Southwest Corridor Plan, a 20-year effort to expand high-capacity transit down the Barbur Boulevard corridor potentially as far as Sherwood, has also been seen as a way to get state and federal funding for a related project: a flat, comfortable bike route through the area such as a physically protected bike lane on Barbur Boulevard.

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