Buried a little in the packet for the Public Art Commission this month, last month's minutes have a discussion of what could be a terrific street painting, a super-mural, as it were.
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| PGE substation on Union and Water Streets (2017) |
From the minutes to June 14th.
[Staff Liaison] Keith discusses the recent efforts to submit an application for the Bloomberg Asphalt Art Grant with the assistance of Zach and Chris. The grant offers $25,000 for temporary asphalt art installations and is a smaller version of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Art for Cities grant. Keith had to find a suitable location for the project, considering criteria such as adjacency to transportation and safety concerns. Ultimately, they chose a site near the Gilbert House, specifically the Water Avenue entrance to Riverfront Park, which crosses a busy roadway with significant foot traffic.
The main goal of the project is to use artistic interventions to slow down traffic and improve safety in the area. Keith shared a presentation highlighting the designated area, which includes a PGE substation with an atomic symbol imprint and existing vinyl adherence murals on the wall facing the Gilbert House. Potential partners for the project include PGE, Gilbert House, and ODOT.
The timeline for the project involves obtaining the grant in the fall, with a budget of $40,000. The budget allocates 18% for artists and design fees, while the remaining funds cover preparations such as concrete work, painting, and epoxy. In-kind support from volunteers is expected, and engineers and traffic control personnel will handle the costs of rerouting traffic during the painting event. The selection of artists and contract oversight will be managed by SPAC.
Keith expresses excitement for the project and looks forward to its implementation. They also mention the possibility of incorporating vertical art into the project. The project is called “Water Street Welcome: A Collaborative Community Canvas" and aims to enhance the area while engaging the community. [link to the Bloomberg program added]
This will be something to watch, and hopefully the application is a strong one!
Sidepath Law
Getting to the Library on bike is way more difficult than it ought to be. Because the Library is in the middle of the Liberty/Commercial couplet, essentially on a very large highway median, our right-hand bike lanes don't make a direct connection.
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| Bike lanes don't connect to the Library |
Depending on traffic conditions, if you are a confident and skilled cyclist, you might be able to start a block or two or three in advance and merge left, one lane at a time, finally to make the left hand turn. Otherwise you have to get up onto the sidewalk and use the crosswalk, or take a very roundabout route to use the path under the Liberty St. Bridge.
The maneuver to take the lanes and then turn left might be problematic under Oregon's mandatory sidepath law.
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| Guidance on leaving the bike lane (Oregon Bicycling Manual, 2021) |
Other times it is necessary to leave the bike lane for a storm drain, broken glass, debris, or other reasons. But these exceptions to the mandatory use of the bike lane have relied on police discretion and people have been cited for leaving the bike lane, even when nearly all people who bike would agree the departure was warranted, prudent, or absolutely necessary.
Last week BikePortland reported that Representative Andersen and longtime local advocate Doug Parrow were working on repealing the mandatory sidepath law.
The power boost from modern battery-assisted bikes make taking the lane more convenient, and if we want to make cycling more attractive to all kinds of users, repealing this bike lane requirement, which literally pushes people biking to the margins to get them out of the way of people driving, will be a meaningful ingredient. It's great to see Rep. Andersen an early booster for the bill concept.
5 comments:
There's no way I would ever "take the lane" heading north on S. Liberty to get to the Library. That would be taking my life in my hands. The best way to bike to the Library from the south is to use the alley between Liberty and Commercial. You have to make a "California stop" at the cross streets but there is seldom any cross traffic. I wonder about how to make the alley a bikeway and somehow give bikes the ROW at the intersections. Are there examples of that kind of bikeway in Portland or elsewhere?
Merely to mention taking the lane on Liberty or Commercial isn't to suggest that should be the preferred way! (You may have misconstrued the central point, which was about law - read the BP piece for more! - and not about getting to the Library?) Still, on a Sunday there's often often not much traffic, for example, and taking the lane should be legally available as a way for skilled and confident cyclists.
The alley concept is interesting! But since it is functionally stopped at every block, even with a rolling stop as you suggest, it has seemed inferior. But perhaps others like you have found it more useful.
Is the alley continuous from Superior? If so, that might be an alternative to promote as you say.
But still, this too does not seem like any "best" way to reach the Library.
Since on FB this post has become a discussion of connections to the Library, here's a note from 2015 that more directly addresses that issue, "At the Library: Circulation Problems." The remodel just completed at least built a sidewalk from Liberty along the parking lot to the main entry, but left the street connectivity itself untouched.
I should also have mentioned that even the path under Liberty Street is marked "No bicycling," and the only unambiguously legal way to reach the library from the right-hand bike lanes is to use a crosswalk and employ some amount of biking on the sidewalk.
Yes the alley goes all the way from Superior to Mission. Try it sometime! The sad fact is that there is no "best" way to reach the library on a bike from my house near SSHS. Or to go downtown and back. Salem Bike Vision's solution seems to be traffic calming (lane removal on Liberty?) and protected bike lanes on Liberty and Commercial, but that sounds pretty ambitious and expensive.
Salem should have never built the new crossing over Pringle Creek so wide. It encourages speeding. They should also take the turn lane out of Commercial by Owens and reduce a lane on Liberty by City Hall.
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