PBOT needs your local knowledge for two key northeast Portland projects

PBOT’s proposal for the 70s Greenway would create a carfree lane through Rose City Park Golf Course.

Are you an expert on the North Tabor, Montavilla, or Madison South neighborhoods? If so, the Portland Bureau of Transportation needs your help designing two key projects: the 70s Neighborhood Greenway and the Halsey Street Safety and Access to Transit Project.

The $4.5 million 70s Neighborhood Greenway Project aims to create a five mile low-stress cycling route between SE Flavel and NE Sacramento. It would be a valuable north-south connection parallel to 82nd Avenue. Since we last checked in on the project in summer 2018, PBOT has done a lot of planning and design work and is on track to break ground in next summer.

The 70s Greenway will have all the greenway bells and whistles we’ve come to expect from PBOT like curb extensions, median islands, and flashing beacons to make intersections safer — and new off-streets paths and protected bike lanes to make cycling better.

Beyond the usual, PBOT has some special features they’d like to build. One of them is a fully carfree lane through Rose City Park. The current proposal (see below) is to limit NE 72nd Avenue between Tillamook and Sacramento to one-way (southbound) for car and truck drivers. The eastern lane would become carfree.

Another significant element is a major crossing update of SE Foster at 78th that would include a two-way “cycle-track connection” across the off-set intersection.

PBOT is also working on major updates to NE Halsey between 68th and 92nd with an eye toward making it easier to walk and bike to the 82nd Avenue MAX station. The Halsey Safety and Access to Transit Project includes several significant changes.

PBOT wants to add buffered bike lanes where no cycling space exists today on Halsey between 70th and 80th…

The project would also reconfigure the 68th and Halsey intersection…

Another part of the proposal is a roundabout at the Halsey/80th/81st intersection…

And check out their plans for a two-way protected bike path on the Halsey Street overcrossing of I-84 Avenue…

Going further east toward 92nd, PBOT wants to create space for cycling along Halsey. These are just some of the project elements. I haven’t even mentioned new sidewalks, new streetlights, and transit improvements!

Neighborhood resident Eric P shared his comments about these projects in the BP Forums. He’s excited about these proposals and he wants more people to join in him taking the survey PBOT just launched today. He reports Nextdoor is already buzzing about the potential carfree lane through the golf course. Eric P is also worried about how the greenway proposal jogs so much north of Glisan. “They want to send the greenway down a narrow, dark alley-like street on Pacific between 76th & 77th,” he report. “It would be great if this greenway stayed closer to businesses on 82nd and connected more directly to the 82nd MAX hub.” He also worried about people driving carelessly through the roundabout.

I agree with Eric that if you want to make these plans better — or want to tell PBOT how much you like the designs, please take a few minutes for the survey. This is the stage in the project where PBOT is dreaming a bit and flying some trial balloons to gauge community interest. To make this stuff a reality they’ll need to know where you stand.

Here are those links again:
— 70s Greenway
— Halsey Street Project
— Survey for both

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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