Looking northwest on NE 33rd where PBOT has installed a new, two-way bikeway between Mason (on the left) and Skidmore (upper right) along Wilshire Park. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Over the weekend I finally got a chance to take a closer look at the new protected bike crossing and bike lanes on the Mason-Skidmore Greenway. It’s a welcome addition that makes getting across Northeast 33rd much easier and helps make an important connection in the bike network.
To refresh your memory, the Portland Bureau of Transportation took advantage of a repaving project on NE 33rd over the summer (the same one that led to the big bike lane removal controversy about one mile north) to make improvements for bicycling. With an east-west neighborhood greenway route planned on NE Mason and Skidmore, PBOT needed to do something about the offset crossing of Mason where it dead-ends into Wilshire Park at 33rd and they wanted to create a stronger connection between existing greenways on 32nd and 37th. Their solution was to put two separate projects together and do the 33rd crossing and the Skidmore bike lanes at the same time.
Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.
Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.
Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.
Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.
Looking south on 33rd from Skidmore.
Looking north on 33rd at Skidmore.
Riding south on 33rd just before Mason.
Looking north on 33rd at Mason.
View west on Mason from 33rd.
View west on Mason from 33rd.
Looking northwest on 33rd from just south of Mason.
Looking north on 33rd from just south of Mason.
Looking north on 33rd from just south of Mason.
Looking north on 33rd at Mason.
Looking north on 33rd at Mason.
Looking north on 33rd at Mason.
From the park, looking north at corner of 33rd and Skidmore.
Riding east on Skidmore toward 34th.For the crossing, PBOT has installed a mix of signal upgrades, colored bike lanes, and concrete medians and curbs to create a short section of two-way protected bike lanes on the east side of 33rd between Mason and Skidmore. PBOT then continued the two-way bike lanes one block on Skidmore to 34th, where they dump back into a shared-street environment via a sharrow marking.
PBOT still needs to install some sort of signal actuators for bike riders to cross 33rd, but otherwise the new infrastructure worked well during my short visit. It was intuitive and I felt relatively safe.
Riding westbound on Skidmore, the design requires you to merge across the road to enter the protected (via flexi-posts) bike lane. I can imagine that being stressful for some riders. Merging across a road to turn left isn’t a big deal, but at this location (which is essentially mid-block) where other road users aren’t expecting that behavior, it could be confusing and a bit more dangerous. Thankfully, PBOT has also added a speed bump on Skidmore just east of 33rd right where the bike lanes end.
The left turn from Skidmore onto 33rd is a bit of an adrenaline rush, since you’re suddenly going head-on against drivers on a relatively busy collector street (33rd is a major north-south artery in the car network).
On 33rd, I was happy to see that PBOT used full concrete medians instead of just “paint and post” (they must have known that with the heavy traffic on 33rd, they needed something more robust than just plastic). They fit the bike lanes on 33rd by taking space from what used to be infrequently used on-street car parking lanes.
This two-way, protected bike lane approach for off-set intersections has become a common design for PBOT throughout the city. We see similar designs on NE Going and 33rd, NE Killingsworth and 54th, E Burnside and 30th, and so on.
If you recall, the bike lanes on Skidmore were supposed to go all the way to 37th (a major north-south bikeway); but when some nearby residents complained about a loss of about 20-25 parking spaces next to the park, PBOT relented and opted for this compromised design. On their website, PBOT explained the change like this:
“Community members had mixed reactions to the initial design. The updated design allows future projects to consider a range of options, including a shared street neighborhood greenway with full traffic calming improvements or a multi-use path along the park. Multiple options remain available for a future capital project.”
We’ll have to hold them to that promise and see what the future holds.
Have you ridden this yet? What do you think?
