Yesterday the Bond Steering Committee saw some new drawings on the Union Street bikeway.
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| A new crosswalk and crossbike at the bridge |
The City (and advocates too) really should stop calling it "family friendly," though, as it does not fully meet "all ages and abilities" standards. It relies too much on buffered bike lanes, and does not employ enough separation to meet a full "family friendly" standard. There's a good bit of "rounding up" going on here.
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| Union Street overview (split into three, click to enlarge) |
Even so, it will be a great improvement.
One new thing is a crosswalk and green crossbike at the east bridge connection (at top).
There's also a curb extension on the northwest corner of Front Street. Maybe the blue line means too they will beef up the center median, which a jaydriver crossed at high speed, crashing and killing four people.
At Commercial Street, the drawing doesn't quite mesh with what we previously saw from ODOT, and perhaps they have revised their plans.
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| Does Commercial show two bike lanes? |
The drawing almost seems to show a contra-flow northbound bike lane at Union Street and a "normal" southbound bike lane. How this all connects with the multiuse/sidewalk path on the east side of Commercial Street that ODOT has planned is very unclear! Commercial Street here is just a wild mess for non-auto travelers.
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| Sidewalkification on Commercial St. (April 2022) |
Moving east, past the new light at Liberty and a couple of blocks of parking protected bike lane, there are four more blocks of plain buffered bike lane to Summer Street. At Cottage Street it will be interesting to see the final curb radii in action. It has looked like the curbs are shortened for easier turning and also to accommodate the bike lanes. Hopefully drivers won't whip around them on turns.
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| Tighter corners at Cottage And what about the Honeysuckle? |
In late September also, work on the northeast corner, across from the mystery Honeysuckle, appeared to have killed a tree.
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| Dead tree, NE corner Cottage & Union (Sept.) |
It would have been nice to have some diversion also on Union. There's still too much priority for driving through on it, though it may be the bus route required some compromise.
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| Cottage and Union with traffic diverter Concept from 2013 |
On Winter Street there still was no roundabout shown and the segment from D Street to State Street still unfinished and not planned for bikeway improvements.
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| Still no roundabout at Winter |
At Capitol Street, the transition to the curving segment to connect at 12th Street, Marion Street, and the Esplanade was very interesting. There was no information on the proposed 4/3 safety conversion with bike lanes for Capitol, only the note about "analysis."
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| The latest on the last phase to 12th |
It looks as though the plan is for plain buffered bike lanes only.
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| Detail on curve showing buffered bike lanes only |
Drivers are likely to hug the curves even with buffers, and this definitely does not meet a family-friendly standard.
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| Even the google cam caught a driver crossing the line just east of Church on Trade |
We see this on the Pringle Parkway constantly. The City is certain to need to harden separation here with more than merely paint or even plastic delineater wands, which will be knocked over repeatedly.
And then, at 12th, what is going on???
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| What is this northbound transition? |
Between Center and Marion a northbound bike lane magically appears!
I guess the markings really are to "steer" drivers into proper lane position on the north side of the intersection, and are nothing meant seriously for people biking to employ, but that just looks wild.
The plan for this segment looks very cobbled-together and chimerical.
It was nice to see an updated plan for the whole, and hopefully further, incremental improvements will be possible and implemented. With connection to the Union Street Bridge and West Salem, this is a key corridor.
Previous notes on the bond and on Union Street.
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