Keep Portland Moving – Bridge Pedal Edition


From Multnomah County:

Traffic plan set for Providence Bridge Pedal
The 12th annual Providence Bridge Pedal on Sunday morning, August 12, will involve ten Willamette River bridges in Portland. The event includes three different cycle routes and one for walkers. As usual, the event will require some changes in how motorists get around the city, especially when crossing the Willamette River. Several bridges – including the Broadway, Morrison and St. Johns — will remain open to vehicular traffic in both directions, despite the presence of cyclists and walkers.

Here is the traffic plan for Bridge Pedal, starting with bridges from south to north:

  • The Sellwood Bridge will be closed westbound from 6:45 am to 9:15 am.
  • The Ross Island Bridge will be closed westbound at 4:00 am and will reopen by noon.
  • The Marquam Bridge/Interstate 5 will be closed northbound (upper deck) at 4:00 am and will reopen by noon.
  • The Hawthorne Bridge will be closed eastbound from 6:30 am to 10:30 am, with TriMet bus service operating in both directions. The outside eastbound lane will be closed beginning Saturday at 6:00 pm.
  • The Morrison Bridge will be open in both directions. The outer two eastbound lanes will be closed from 6:30 am to 8:30 am.
  • The Burnside Bridge will be closed from 6:30 am to 11:00 am. (The bridge will be closed for lift span repairs starting at 8:00 pm on August 9 and is not expected to reopen until after Bridge Pedal.)
  • The Steel Bridge will be closed in both directions from 6:45 am until 11:30 am. TriMet bus and MAX service will operate in both directions.
  • The Broadway Bridge will be open in both directions. The outermost westbound lane will be closed from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm.
  • The Fremont Bridge/Interstate 405 will be closed southbound (upper deck) at 4:00 am and will reopen by 12:15 pm.
  • The St. Johns Bridge will have one lane open in both directions (the other two lanes will be closed) from 6:00 am to noon.

Bridge Pedal will also require traffic changes on several state highways and Portland streets Sunday morning, including:

  • I-5 and I-405: Motorists approaching the Marquam Bridge on northbound I-5 will be routed to northbound I-405 during the temporary Marquam Bridge closure (from 4:00 am to noon). All lanes of southbound I-5 will remain open at all times. All southbound lanes of I-405 will be closed between U.S. 30 and the Marquam Bridge. Motorists headed for southbound I-405/southbound I-5 will take northbound I-405 across the Fremont Bridge to southbound I-5.
  • The right lane of eastbound U.S. 30 will be closed between NW Kittridge Ave. and the St. Johns Bridge from 6:00 am to noon.
  • Motorists traveling eastbound on U.S. 26 (Sunset Highway) to southbound I-405 will be routed to northbound I-405, across the Fremont Bridge to southbound I-5. This detour will be in place from 4:00 am to noon.
  • SW Macadam Ave./Highway 43: One northbound lane of Macadam/Highway 43 will be closed between the Sellwood Bridge and Ross Island Bridge, with some delays accessing areas east of SW Macadam Ave. from 6:00 am to noon.
  • Highway 99E: One southbound lane of Highway 99E will be closed between SE Mill St. and the Milwaukie Ave. off-ramp. from 6:00 am to noon.
  • Naito Parkway: Closed in both directions between SW Columbia and the Steel Bridge. NW Naito Parkway/NW Front Ave. will be closed southbound from NW Nicolai to the Steel Bridge. SW Naito will be closed northbound from SW Harrison to SW Columbia.
  • N Willamette Blvd.: Closed eastbound between N Richmond Ave. and N Portland Blvd.
  • N Greeley Ave.: Closed southbound from N Killingsworth St. to N Interstate Ave.
  • N Ivanhoe St.: Closed between N Leavitt Ave. and N Philadelphia Ave.
  • N Interstate Ave.: both directions closed between Larrabee and Mississippi, southbound only closed Fremont to Multnomah.
  • SE Milwaukie Ave.: southbound only closed between Schiller and Ellis.
  • N Russell St: closed both directions between Kerby and Mississippi.
  • SE Clay St.: West of Martin Luther King Blvd., access for local traffic only to Water Ave. (OMSI access provided).

The Broadway, Burnside, Morrison and Hawthorne drawbridges will not be able to open for river traffic between 6:00 am and noon.

TriMet buses and MAX trains may experience delays up to 15 minutes in downtown during the event. Many downtown lines will have minor detours and lines 12-Sandy, 19-Glisan and
20-Burnside/Stark will cross the Morrison Bridge instead of the Burnside Bridge.

The following bus lines will also have minor detours: 12-Barbur/Sandy, 14-Hawthorne,
15-Belmont/NW 23rd Ave., 17-Holgate/NW 21st Ave.-St. Helens Rd., 19-Glisan/Woodstock, 20-Burnside/Stark, 33-Fremont/McLoughlin, 35-Macadam, 43-Taylors Ferry Rd., 44-Mocks Crest, 70-12th Ave., 72-Killingsworth/82nd Ave., and 77-Broadway/Halsey. Signs will direct riders to nearby stops where buses are on detours.

The Oregon Department of Transportation maintains the Fremont, Marquam, Ross Island and St. Johns bridges. Multnomah County maintains the Broadway, Burnside, Hawthorne, Morrison and Sellwood bridges. Union Pacific Railroad owns the Steel Bridge.

Keep Portland Moving is a multi-agency effort to coordinate public works construction, manage traffic impacts and coordinate public information. Agencies include the City of Portland’s Transportation and Environmental Services bureaus, Multnomah County, Oregon Dept. of Transportation and TriMet. For more information, visit www.keepportlandmoving.org. For Bridge Pedal information, visit www.providence.org/oregon/events/bridge_pedal.


5 responses to “Keep Portland Moving – Bridge Pedal Edition”

  1. I’ve been advised by a BTA employee that I should “crash” the bridge pedal rather than pay for it; that the profits taken from the event crack the $2 million mark.

  2. That’s way high even for gross receipts. Do the math – registrations only generate 500K max. There’s no way this event gets $1.5 million in sponsorships.

  3. Bridge pedal just sucks.

    No organization, people had to walk on miles due to congestion, Fremont bridge closed.
    They are just good at getting the money from the registration’s fees but don’t invest into making the event enjoyable.

  4. Well I had a wonderful time at the bridge pedal today. Certainly there a few things an arm chair quarter back could suggest to improve bike traffic flow at the event, but walking through a bottleneck is not a problem for me, although it is frustrating at the time.

    The only real bottleneck today was getting onto the Ross Island Bridge, but that had the effect of metering the rest of the ride, which was relatively congestion free.

    Fun event, way to go Portland bikers!

  5. JHB,
    Glad you had fun, but this is two of three years now that the Bridge Pedal has been pretty badly mismanaged.

    let’s be honest about the slowdown at the Ross Island. I started at 8:30, right when the “Blues” were to begin, we walked the Hawthorne, and our wait at the RIsland was about 45 min. People behind us waited well over an hour to get over the bridge.

    As a consequence, many 10 bridge riders could not complete the ride because support shut down. And they ran out of water and bagels at many stops.

    And they screwed up and sent the blue riders over the Steele, not the Broadway, failing once again to split the red and blue waves. That was the third bridge where we had to walk.

    Let me remind you we were in the *front* of the blue wave.

    I’m sure there will be discussion about this. Whatever they did last year worked great. They seemed to forget this year.

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