Commercial Street Plan

The Vision 2020 Bicycle and Pedestrian Workgroup started working on a project to accomodate bicycles in the restriping plan for Commercial Street in downtown as part of the first resurfacing project funded by the bond measure that passed last fall.

Between Marion on the north and Trade on the south, Commercial currently has 4 travel lanes, some dual-turns, and no accommodations for bicycles. The right-most lane is little used, and traffic volume projections indicate no loss of capacity by swapping the right most lane for a bike lane.

Here is the current proposed plan, again for Marion to Trade, in section.



The plan retains angle parking on both sides of the road. Going south, the left hand lane will be slightly wider and marked with sharrows. The next two travel lanes are narrowed, and then the right-most travel lane is a 7 foot bike lane.

Current Oregon standards call for a 5 foot minumum bike lane. A 7 foot lane is not the largest possible bike lane, but it is considerablely larger than the minimum.

By comparison, the section below is from the 1995 Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan and shows both wider auto lanes and narrower bike lanes. (It also shows parallel rather than angle parking - I couldn't easily find a relevant image with angle parking.)