Portland thinks outside 'bike box'
The city tests the traffic device while looking for ways to increase cyclist safety
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
JOSEPH ROSE and STUART TOMLINSON
The Oregonian
Bradley Richards' daily bicycle commute takes him smack-dab through Portland's newest experiment in bike safety. But the 25-year-old admits he hadn't even noticed the "bike boxes" he has been passing for more than a year.
Located in front of a quick-changing signal at Southeast Clinton Street and 39th Avenue, the box -- an idea borrowed from Europe -- allows bicyclists to move ahead of cars waiting at the stop light.
But Richards isn't the only one who has failed to notice the new feature, designed to prevent motorists from making the type of deadly "right-hook" turns that have killed two Portland cyclists in the past two weeks. Few cyclists and fewer drivers Tuesday afternoon paid attention to the bike-only area marked off before the crosswalk.
"Is that what that is?" Richards said. "I had no idea. I just always stay to the right in the bike lane."
The only Portland intersection with bike boxes is still, clearly, a work in progress. The same could be said for other nascent efforts to ease tensions and reduce accidents involving bikers, drivers and pedestrians on the city's increasingly crowded streets.
When it comes to educating the public about rules and responsibilities on the streets, "we could certainly be doing a lot better," said Roger Geller, bicycle coordinator for the Portland Department of Transportation.
Nearly two years ago, the story of a TriMet bus rider slugging bicyclist Randy Albright triggered a not-so-pretty public debate about rights to the road.
City officials responded to the tensions by printing "I Share the Road" bumper stickers. Since then, PDOT has handed out nearly 15,000 stickers, which have been spotted on everything from buses to a mini-train at a sushi restaurant.
The city has helped start a program where up to 200 motorists, pedestrians and cyclists a month get out of minor citations by attending a Share the Road safety course.
But judging from the angry and caustic comments surfacing this month in the wake of the deaths of cyclists Tracey Sparling and Brett Jarolimek, it's hard to say if the bumper stickers and classes have changed many attitudes. The back and forth on a local Craigslist community page has been particularly severe.
A bicyclist wrote that he carries a gun while riding and would "take out" any motorist who endangered him.
Meanwhile, an anonymous user from Multnomah County posted: "Must be open season on bike riders for trucks -- anybody know where a bicyclist hunting license can be obtained? I can borrow a truck."
Declared another: "Another one bikes the dust."
Greg Raisman, a PDOT traffic safety program manager, said it's difficult to measure the success of the Share the Road program, but he's convinced that civility has improved on the streets.
"Yes, there's still a lot of negative conversation among certain users," he said. "But I think there is a higher level of awareness out there."
Traffic officials often say they are guided by three Es -- engineering, enforcement and education -- when designing safer and smarter streets. But Geller said his agency has never done particularly well with the education component, largely because the funding doesn't exist.
The city's new bicycle master plan, due next year, is supposed to outline public education and funding strategies for the future. But with the city scraping for money to keep existing streets from falling apart, he said, the challenge could get more difficult.
As the bike boxes on Southeast Clinton show, new engineering often needs education.
Bike boxes are popping up in New York and London. They have been a fixture in bike-friendly Amsterdam for years. Earlier this year, Brussels installed 2,000 of the boxes in two months and "people got it," Raisman said.
But at the bike boxes on Southeast Clinton Street on Tuesday -- one on either side of 39th -- only two out of about 40 cars that traveled through the intersection during one half-hour period stopped at the bike box line -- set about 15 feet from the crosswalk -- when the light was red.
Few of the dozen or so cyclists that passed through during the same time strayed far from the bike lanes that straddle the boxes. A majority of the drivers made illegal right turns when the light was red, despite large signs telling them not to turn.
"I just stay back behind the cars if I think they're going to turn," said Theo Ellsworth, 31, an artist from Southeast Portland who relocated from Missoula, Mont., a year ago. "It's much safer here. In Missoula, people can park in the bike lane."
John Replinger, a transportation engineer for David Evans and Associates in Portland, said the bike boxes at Southeast Clinton Street make "good sense" because of the intersection's unique configuration.
But he conceded that there's a problem. "It's an uncommon adaptation from Europe that drivers here are not familiar with."
Geller believes the city may have fumbled the initial design. But changes are coming, as are several more bike boxes at intersections around Portland, he said. Portland likely will next try a design that has proven successful in London, where the boxes are deeper and clearly marked with bright colors and a large stencil of a bicyclist.
"Putting something out there that doesn't make sense to motorists," Geller said, "means they're just going to ignore it."
Joseph Rose: 503-221-8029;
josephrose@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/...540.xml&coll=7
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