Take ODOT Survey on Commercial/Liberty and Trade/Ferry State Highway Couplets

ODOT's got a weird survey out on the Liberty/Commercial and Trade/Ferry/Parkway couplets as part of State Highways 99E 

The street/highway segments

They say

We already have some planned projects on OR 99E and OR 22, and through this effort, we will identify specific bicycle and pedestrian improvements that may be added to them.

They show pictures of different crosswalks and bike lanes to illustrate possibilities, but they didn't choose particularly vivid ones. It's like they weren't trying very hard to illustrate concepts or to select images to get people excited about improvements for non-auto travel.

Then they start the survey. It's nearly all about crosswalks. The northmost section I rarely visit, and on that do not have opinions. (Frequent users/visitors of these streets will have important local knowledge, and hopefully they will comment most, as they will notice demand and need where less frequent visitors may not notice.)

The next section is right by Grocery Outlet, and a crosswalk at D Street has always seemed like it would be helpful. Interestingly, they do not show a circle on both Commercial and LIberty, but a crosswalk only on Commercial dead-ending in the median would be useless!

D Street needs a crosswalk!

Union Street is already getting crossing improvements, and because of the RR as a barrier, east-west walking travel along Center or Marion has not seemed high demand. Crossing at Chemeketa is, and it would be nice to see enhanced crossing facilities at Chemeketa, not just mid-block.

Is there much walking demand on Marion or Center?

They also completely omit the Front/Division/Commerical charlie foxtrot, which badly needs to be reconfigured.

In the next segment, is there really crossing demand between the WU campus and Hospital between Winter and 12th? Maybe there is, but this seems like someone looking at a map and not a question based on experience. Moreover, there is the undercrossing between Winter and Church. Crosswalks have not seemed like the deficit here.

Is midblock crossing really an issue here?

The big problem here is the bike lane, on which cars and trucks constantly encroach. The paint is worn down and worn off. There is gravel and leaves and crap in the lane also. This is a nearly useless bike lane, pro-forma only, and only "strong and fearless" sorts will use it.

Even the google cam caught a driver crossing the line
just east of Church on Trade

So that leads to the single most important item in the survey. Buried at the end, after all the questions about crosswalks is a section that talks about bike lanes.

Protected bike lanes on these zoomy segments of State Highway are critical. Without them, proclamations about better biking are just empty.

On State Highways we need protected bike lanes

Take the survey, especially if you are a frequent user of any section on these roads. You might see other issues, and more feedback from people who actually walk and bike on these roads would be helpful to surface real issues.