Portland gets a cycletrack

Portland recently installed it's first cycletrack - a bike lane separated from automobile traffic by about a foot of paint and then parked cars - on three blocks as a pilot program. DC is considering adding cycletracks, with one seriously considered for 15th Street NW (tip). This report ran on the Portland local news, which left Jonathan Maus of BikePortland less than pleased.

some local TV reports that seem to want to turn this into the latest front in the battle of “cars vs. bikes”. One report, by Anne Yeager on KGW-TV seemed to actually encourage negative feedback when she said on their 6:00 newscast: “If you love the idea, that’s great — but if you don’t, contact the mayor’s office.”

On other local media websites, the comments are flying in. The majority of them that I’ve read are negative. There are all the usual concerns that bikes are getting a free ride, that cars are being relegated to the margins, that the city is going insane, and so on.

The Oregonian’s coverage led to so many thoughtfully negative comments that reporter Joe Rose decided to post another story on his Hard Drive blog to stick up for the project. Rose dusted off the old “Green Dividend” study by Portland economist Joe Cortright (which shows that our region saves $2.6 billion annually because we drive fewer miles on average).

Even here on BikePortland, several commenters are staunchly opposed to the project.

Portland Unveils Downtown Cycle Track from Mayor Sam Adams on Vimeo.

Comments

[Froggie]

On a related note, Minneapolis is building what will effectively be a "cycle track" on 1st Ave N downtown. If you look at the revised recommended layout, it shows what looks like a cycle track between Washington Ave and 8th St, with regular bike lanes extending further in each direction.

Als of note on that will be sharrows along Hennepin Ave, along what will be a bus and bike only lane.

On another note, I recently suggested a cycle track through Old Town on my blog...

[Norb]

Can we really call these cycle tracks? It seems like this is a bike lane with a few more feet of paint separating the traffic and not an actual curbed or bollard separation.

At what point is a cycle track just a bike lane? I'm not saying this is a bad bike lane, but there still is the opportunity for cars to veer into the lane for whatever reason.

[Washcycle]

There's a lane of parked cars between the bike lane and the moving traffic, so I'd call that a cycle track.

[Jack]

Froggie, having separate areas on the sidewalk (or path) for bicyclists and pedestrians could ease conflicts on city streets. But the question is, what do you install if bike lanes (or wide outside lanes) are doable, and cycletracks are doable, but you can't do both. The solution surely varies by context, but I see cycletracks more as paths than as bike lanes, with some of the same drawbacks. I'd much rather be in the street on an urban street.