You may remember a discussion a little over a year ago of the Union Street bikeway:
[Citizens] asked for separation and protection greater than mere paint. The eastern side of the project shows a buffered bike lane marked by paint only.
City staff said that problems with sweeping the narrow space of a curb-protected bike lane were an important reason it is not being used and reason that the design relied on paint only. Councilor Stapleton suggested we will face this problem more and more, and that the City should figure out how to sweep narrow spaces rather than design more paint-only bike lanes.
At Council on Monday, City Staff propose something of a solution.
The City has an opportunity to pursue grant funds from the Portland General Electric (PGE) Drive Change Fund grant program (PGE Drive Change Fund 2023 Guidelines Attachment 1) to purchase an electric battery-powered mini-street sweeper. The narrow width and short wheelbase of the sweeper would make it ideal for sweeping buffered bicycle lanes, downtown alleys, parks pathways, plazas, parking lots, and public spaces.
It would probably look a little like this!
 |
| This fits six-foot lanes! - via Twitter |
It would involve a City match of $25,000 and a PGE grant of $225,000. The City would have to use it for 10 years, so maybe it's more like PGE subsidizing a lease than an outright purchase.
It is important to find out how wide would be the sweeper and if it could be used on future curb protected bike lanes, not merely on existing buffered bike lanes.
Still, this looks like a real advance on bike lane maintenance.
Bullets for the rest:
- An application for a State Parks and Recreation grant to fund construction on projects at Geer Park, including more bike parking.
- Approvals for a pot manufacturing facility and change of use in the old German Motors site on 12th Street. (Haven't we reached saturation on these yet? It sure seems like there would be higher uses for lots along 12th.)
- Second Reading and final enactment for designating the charmless concrete bunker as a local historic resource.
- Approvals for 90 apartments in three-story walkups set on a large parking lot off of Portland Road. Eliminating mandated parking minimums wouldn't eliminate parking in a development like this, but it will be interesting to see how it modifies the amount of parking and moves to decouple it from rent so that people who don't need to pay for spots don't have to.
1 comment:
The Blossom Drive project is good news. It has 90 units at a minimum density of 15 residents per acre. It is adjacent to a mixed use zone (although not built out). The project includes one acre of open space for the residents and 71 new trees. It is one-third of a mile on foot to a grocery store.
Post a Comment