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These folks attending the PSU Farmer’s Market on Saturday apparently couldn’t discern the purpose of the cycle track striping.
Interestingly, it only occurred on one block, and they were all gone 45 minutes later, but not before getting ticketed.
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These folks attending the PSU Farmer’s Market on Saturday apparently couldn’t discern the purpose of the cycle track striping.
Interestingly, it only occurred on one block, and they were all gone 45 minutes later, but not before getting ticketed.
25 responses to “Unclear on the Concept”
From the few photos I’ve seen, it seems to me that the problem could be solved by painting the first ten feet or so of each block with that green paint they use to denote a bike lane or bike box. My experience with the bike boxes in town is that those that are filled in with green paint are almost always free of cars, for those without the paint there’s a 50/50 chance that there will be a car in it.
The cost of painting might be prohibitively expensive, if so I understand why they didn’t go that route, but if it continues to be a problem I hope they consider the idea.
wow, group mentality. more bike markings on the pavement Portland!
Well the diagram of it does show a green-painted lane. Another idea would be to put a divider, like some of those plastic pipes, at the edge of the bike lane. I think that might actually make it too narrow to enter. Lastly, what if one of the middle vehicles wants to get out, and it’s surrounded by other vehicles?
These folks attending the PSU Farmer’s Market on Saturday apparently couldn’t discern the purpose of the cycle track striping.
JK: Perhaps they need a sign:
Please park 10 feet from the curb to allow room for bikes and pedestrians in the street.
Thanks
JK
pdot should let city repair volunteers paint it green as if its an intersection repair. i also think some old railroad ties driven into the pavement would do the trick by creating a temporary cheap curb to keep cars out and give cars a curb to park against.
i dont think they should give tickets (at least initially) but rather a warning and a paper slip explaining how it works for in future.
and with both this cycle track and the brand new stark/oak lanes they really need lots of street signage all along the street (preferably hanging from the traffic lights) diagraming how it works. with stark & oak there is real confusion over whether cars enter the buffered bike lane to right turn or right turn from the single auto lane. even though i’m a big time ped/bike/transit/livable streets advocate, this stuff needs to be really clear to motorists through signage, they shouldnt have to research downtown traffic patterns before entering downtown.
on a related note, i think there should also be large signs at the beginning (south end) of 6th avenue suggesting motorists use 4th avenue (or naito) for travel downtown especially for thru-traffic. at the max opening, traffic was all backed up on 6th for many many blocks (i realize due to 405 closure) but this street is not designed for heavy thru auto traffic traveling the length of downtown since it only has 1 auto travel lane.
jon: on a related note, i think there should also be large signs at the beginning (south end) of 6th avenue suggesting motorists use 4th avenue (or naito) for travel downtown especially for thru-traffic. at the max opening, traffic was all backed up on 6th for many many blocks (i realize due to 405 closure) but this street is not designed for heavy thru auto traffic traveling the length of downtown since it only has 1 auto travel lane.
Judging from the behavior of autos on the Mall, signage is close to useless in controlling driver behavior. After awhile, I would guess that savvy drivers would discover for themselves that 5th & 6th are not great auto options.
Regarding the auto lane on 5th & 6th, I just hope the Portland Business Alliance who insisted on it is happy. Also, when it’s full, it’s not usable by other modes, which was one of the arguments for it. One idea now is to possibly trade the lane the cycle track takes up for making the mall auto lane bikes, etc, only during weekdays.
I’m befuddled by how those folks parked on the track thought that they would be able to get OUT of their “parking” space with a sidewalk to their right and a line of properly parked cars to their left. The buffer hardly looks wide enough for any car, let alone the SUV visible in the picture.
I’m chuckling as I imagine those improper parkers returning to find a ticket on their windshield, and then having to wait for the people in front of/behind them to return and move THEIR cars first.
Seriously folks, it goes against 100 years of driving logic to not park against the curb. Some paint, physical separation or massive signage is needed. I was down there Saturday after noon and a women parked against the curb. I told her to move it since she parked in a bike lane. She told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
That’s pretty rude to think they got ticketed. Clearly, it’s difficult to tell where to park.
It’s kind of like the “diamond” on the MAX tracks downtown. Most people don’t know what that means, so why not just spell out “NO CARS” on the ground so people don’t accidentally drive on MAX’s lanes.
That would be too easy.
Most people don’t know what that means
They may not know what it means, but it is in the drivers’ manual and, as I recall from decades ago, is on the test.
Bob R.: They may not know what it means, but it is in the drivers’ manual and, as I recall from decades ago, is on the test.
Further evidence that an actual test should be required from time to time for renewal, instead of “I showed up and brought some ID”.
No need to bend over backwards to accommodate for willfully ignorant behavior. At some level they must have suppressed their curiosity for convenience. They got their ticket. They got blocked in. They got what they deserved. Justice served and lesson learned.
an actual test should be required from time to time for renewal
Not a bad idea. And also not be so lax on enforcing the rules. But there are cases where the rules could be clearer. On the trackways on 5th & 6th, there’s just a (T-like symbol)/BUS, and no signage about it. In addition, I think the double-white lines can cause confusion since they are rarely used elsewhere. However, I have seen a fair amount of vehicles turn into the US Bancorp garage, even though there’s 4 different signs and a pavement marking saying that its illegal.
Jason McHuff Says:
Regarding the auto lane on 5th & 6th, I just hope the Portland Business Alliance who insisted on it is happy.
My small town in Germany has a car-free area equivalent to about 2 Pioneer Squares. Strasbourg across the river has a entire central core car-free and its where the prime housing AND BUSINESS real estate are located. I’ve never understood how ungodly stupid urban core American business owners are in understanding this and it pains me that they seem to have veto power over these basic livability issues. If you can’t keep cars off of 5th and 6th, really the whole thing seems pretty hopeless.
Jason McHuff’s idea about restricting cars on the mall weekdays should be explored. The two streets might have too many office towers and not quite enough businesses of the kinds (i.e. restaurants, small shops, theaters, etc) to be a successful full time no-car zone. A reasonable number of cars can add to a feeling of vibrancy and even safety. It could get eerily quiet on the mall without cars rainy evenings.
The problem is, with very rare exceptions (Santa Monica promenade being the only one I know of, although we’ll see if New York City’s experiment in closing Broadway works), American efforts to create car-free pedestrian districts have uniformly failed.
Almost every business along the transit mall went under, with only a few notable exceptions (like Radio Shack). Those that survived were corner businesses that had auto access and parking on the east-west cross streets. In fairness, the city could adapt to that: put all the businesses on the corners, turn the auto lanes into a bike path, and leave a few low-rent midblock spaces for small businesses geared specifically for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders.
Of course, Portland does have some nice car-free streets: Second and Third between Market and Lincoln, and the South Park Blocks at PSU campus. But none of them are exactly bustling commercial corridors.
In fact, Lovejoy Park is at the intersection of four pedestrian streets is very nearly a ghost town most of the time. (In Europe, it probably would be a thriving plaza). It isn’t lack of retail opportunities: the designers put in lots of opportunities for shops, offices and restaurants around Lovejoy Park. But those stores are either sitting empty, struggling, or being used as office space.
“The problem is, with very rare exceptions (Santa Monica promenade being the only one I know of, although we’ll see if New York City’s experiment in closing Broadway works), American efforts to create car-free pedestrian districts have uniformly failed.”
Well, there are more of those exceptions than you think. I live in one of them — you might have heard of Ithaca, NY?
One of the non-obvious tricks is that you do a lot better if there’s a big obvious parking garage just outside the *small* pedestrian district, with all the signage pointing people to the pedestrian district. Then it’s just like an open-air mall.
I think the thing is that you don’t really want to create a giant pedestrian-only *district*. You want to create a separated pedestrian path near, but separated from, cars — the people escape from the diesel fumes but it’s not really that hard to get to a taxi or be dropped off or whatever. So small one or two-block pedestrianizations, or a pedestrianized street where all the cross streets have cars (such as Broadway in NYC), work better than a giant pedestrianized district.
Closing Broadway in NYC will obviously be effective; the foot traffic was spilling into the street *before* they closed it, and all the auto traffic can simply take the north-south avenues — in fact, the auto traffic will go faster by removing the distortion of the grid caused by Broadway. No business will be more than one short block away from a car cross-street, and NYC has a subway line running underneath Broadway its entire length plus dozens of other subways.
But that is really a very special case — I can think of few other cities where a major shopping street is actually *obstructing traffic* by being open to cars. Actually, the diagonal avenues in Washington, DC are excellent candidates for pedestrianization for exactly the same reason (traffic obstruction).
Does Portland have any “grid-breaker” streets which would benefit traffic flow if closed? Burnside west of the bridge (Substitute through route from west end of Burnside: roads approaching Morrison Bridge). US 30/Sandy Blvd. from Burnside to I-205. (Substitute through route: freeways, but it’s too darn long to make pedestrianization really feasible; lots of short hunks of parkland, instead?)
Well, there are more of those exceptions than you think. I live in one of them — you might have heard of Ithaca, NY?
Very familiar, I used to visit some friends there when I was in college near Syracuse and in Buffalo.
It’s a great little college town, but it’s also a fairly small town in a fairly small metro area. College students make up about half the city’s population if I remember right. Not to say we can’t learn anything about planning from it, it’s a very dense city without feeling cramped.
As far as breaking up Sandy, I think it’s unlikely with the Burnside Couplet project started on the east side. It’s too important as a regional street. Sandy west of NE 12th could probably be turned into a linear park without any major problems, but considering the neighborhood I don’t think it would really be worth the cost and inconvenience to those who have driveways on it.
The only close in areas I can think of where a pedestrian-only area might work would be redevelopment. The Burnside Bridgehead (if it ever happens) would be an interesting site to have a pedestrian plaza to tunnel/bridge to the east bank trail, but likely would be too expensive to be worth it.
If people in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Freiburg, Siena, Ravenna and dozens more cities can get rid of cars in their downtowns – it’s not like they’re from another planet. We seem to be stuck in this cars vs. transit/bikes battle. These other cities add to the equation the rights of human beings as a just as valid bipedal mode of transportation and the realization that automobiles (and aggressive cyclists in spandex) reduce our freedom and make us increasingly slaves to the machine. And this is particularly applicable to the most vulnerable in our society – children and the elderly. America has thousands of car-free shopping areas – their called suburban malls. Sure you normally have to drive there. But they provide a safe, car-free environment. If my choice is to go there or go to downtown Portland where I must constantly watch out for the kids because we’re never more that 20 ft away from a moving vehicle, I’ll go to the mall. And that’s why American cities are becoming devoid of kids. We just can’t seem to value people as individuals separate from their cars. One other thing. After spending a year in Europe I took my first vacation back in the US and landed at Baltimore. I was shocked at how overweight we Americans have become in comparison to Europeans. Especially heart-breaking was the number of obese children and young people. We can’t continue being prisoners to a life-style that damages our health and reduces our quality of life. We need more exercise then pushing a shopping basket around Costco.
If people in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Freiburg, Siena, Ravenna and dozens more cities can get rid of cars in their downtowns – it’s not like they’re from another planet.
Where do we get rid of them then? I hear people complain about cars, but nobody offers a real answer. We tried on the transit mall, and businesses weren’t happy.
Baltimore isn’t Portland, how about talking about a solution for Portland rather than just insulting America.
Most of these European cities mentioned never had many cars in their downtowns to begin with–the city centers there predate the automobile by centuries, and there’s no room to put them.
plus other wealthy nations invest in pathways through and around their communities for transport, recreation and exercise, in the US thats considered “pork” according to several influential congressmen from oil states
Most European cities also have a much higher population in their central cities – Portland needs a much higher downtown population to be able to support retail. Downtown residents won’t drive much to access nearby downtown retail, either, so they would already be pedestrians.
To those of you calling for abutments. First off, the city assures those of us who ain’t fans of segregating bicycles from the public-right-of-way that this EXPERIMENTAL Cycle-track is going to be exempt from ORS 814.420, and is currently, “Opt-In”. With the addition of abutments this promise gets broken.
This Cycle Track is a disaster. I live on SW Broadway and this is a daily occurrence. Plus, now the traffic lanes are whittled down so far to accommodate this abhorrence that there is no longer room to courteously operate my bicycle in them.
Hey, but they sure look kool, and what a stick in the eye of those terrible, terrible, people trying to get anywhere.