The new bike lanes on middle Commercial are almost done, and in a preliminary way they are a solid incremental improvement for those who already bike, but not enough of a change to induce new trips by those who don't already bike.
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| Buffer helps with passes from large vehicles |
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| Zooming up the hill on a throttle-bike |
The buffer helps with spacing from large vehicles, and a person zooming up the hill on what looked like a "throttle bike," basically a small moped, seemed certain to appreciate it. (But it's a reminder our current bike lane configurations are not adapted to passing at multiple speeds: A person laboring up the hill with a strictly pedal bike, a person pedaling with a battery assist, and a person who does not need to pedal operate across a broad range of speeds, 20mph difference or more.)
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| Same width for bike lane, smaller car travel lanes? |
On the hill at the cemetery the bike lane itself was maintained at the same width and the buffer may have tightened up the auto travel lanes. (You can see the residue of the old bike lane in the portion ground down.)
In other places the bike lane shrank and the widths of the auto travel lanes did not seem to be altered. This section at Roth's will be altered when the missing sidewalk north of Ratcliff is filled in (no earlier than 2026 and may be pushed out to 2028) and this striping may change yet again.
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| Shrinking the bike lane and widening car travel lanes? |
Some of the buffer, like this part near Fred Meyer, was much wider, even doubled.
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| Double width buffer |
The crossings with flashing beacons aren't fully installed yet.
At the Y with Liberty, the bike crossing was moved a bit south in the final design and employed a channel through a landscape median. On a tree advocacy group earlier this summer, a person had criticized the construction as disturbing tree root zones.
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| Striping not yet complete, nor crossing installed Bike channel relocated |
This change will be interesting to learn more about. Here's the first concept from a decade ago with the crossing in front of the median, without any channel.
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| Concept: Crossing in front of the landscape median |
Earlier this week Salem Bike Vision highlighted new green paint at intersections on busy streets.
Like the new bike lanes, these are meaningful incremental improvements for those who already bike.
But what the green paint and buffered bike lanes don't do is offer enough change, safety, and comfort to induce substantial numbers of new bike trips by those who don't already bike.
Without stronger change and reform, we won't hit our climate and safety goals, which require more trips without using a car.
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| Busy streets need bigger interventions |
Speed is a central matter. Earlier this month the City announced a new posted speed on a segment of south Commercial Street.
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| Incremental reduction from 40mph to 35mph |
As incremental change on the margins this is an actual, real improvement. But 35mph is still plenty fast to kill a person. Our approach to speeding with 10mph padding tolerates speeds up to 45mph.
Altogether it's still too fast for the urban environment.
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| Just perennial |
And always, with Strong Towns, "If you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed the street wrong." We need deeper change, need to destroadify, including our largest arterials like Commercial Street.
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| Strong Towns |
Next week the MPO looks to adopt the new Metropolitan Transportation Safety Action Plan, and there will be more to say about its insufficiently on lawful, system speeds that are too high, especially on stroads.
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