More stripes of mystery


An alert reader points us to this site, where we see that the car haters at Portland City Hall want to paint some more confusing lines and boxes on the streets, this time the narrow side streets. Ostensibly this is to make life safer for bicyclists, but really it's just the know-it-all 20-someting bureaucrats giving themselves something to do. You'd think they'd be hanging their heads in shame with the hideous traffic fatality counts in town these last few years, but no, they're ignoring that and doing this. The arrogance is never-ending.

If you want to make the roads safer, you need law enforcement. Cops with ticket books. But no, that's never the Portland way. Instead, the city has an endless supply of money for nonsense like "bike advisory lanes."

The decline and fall of this city started right around the time we became a two-wheeler wonderland. It's not a coincidence. Misguided spending priorities eventually have consequences, and we are seeing them quite starkly these days. These are bike lanes to hell.

Comments

  1. Traffic volume is nowhere near what it was before covid. While it’s down they can muck it all up without much of the congestion it will cause when/if the volume returns to pre-covid. It will be a mess.

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  2. Nothing more pointless than a PBOT public process. I once talked to the current director in the back of the room of the hot process session about why he didn't step up and identify himself. He said, "Why let them yell at me? It's a done deal."

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  3. At every one of these lane grab sites there is a quiet low volume street one block away that would be a much safer path to ride. Cars and bikes aren’t compatible give the bikes the low volume avenues

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    1. Even when the city goes all out with bikey goodness on a side street – speed bumps, copious markings, stop signs all oriented in the bike route's favor – some of the entitled bike children insist on pedaling right down the center of a lane on the main artierial one block over. At 15 m.p.h. "It's my right."

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    2. That’s what I can’t figure out. Even when I did bike a lot, and when it was my only option. I always stayed on side streets as much as possible. Much more serene and a lot less dangerous.

      These lane grabs are just that. I can just picture some dude who had just stolen a car, or is evading the cops coming up to one of these shared lanes. Does anyone actually think that they would actually slow down to navigate through there safely?

      And besides.....isn’t that 53rd Ave bridge close to Providence hospital? I am not a lawyer, but this seems like both a lawsuit and an accident waiting to happen.

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    3. Is the biker with the basket, in front of the car, doing a wheelie?

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    4. It looks like they both are. Just sending a message to the driver in back of them. Only in an urban planners fantasy does this all end well.

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  4. I won’t live long enough to see it, but eventually the bike children will all be having their hips, knees, shoulders etc replaced thus making biking much more difficult for them.
    Good luck then kiddies!

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  5. Oh and head on collisions of cars…but as long as the bikers survive it’s all OK

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  6. Threre are plenty of narrow residential streets in town where the drivers' game of chicken is already ongoing, and has been for 100 years, Somehow we've all survived despite the lack of paint on the pavement.

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  7. Since the bike children don't really follow rules and there are no real consequences for breaking the rules what's the point? My only wish is they would just stay off the sidewalks. It's waste of money and incredibly confusing to drivers of cars who actually finance all this crap anyway.

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