Reviewing Portland (OR)’s Central City in Motion Plan

Last November, the City of Portland (OR) approved an innovative plan to dramatically improve the downtown bike network and bus routes. While Portland’s reputation as a cycling city lost some of its luster, this plan will boost the city back to the head of the peloton.

One of the vexing problems of riding in American cities is that few have low-stress downtown bike networks. Ironically, that is where low-stress infrastructure is needed most. With a plethora of buses, delivery trucks and ridershares, regular bike lanes simply do not cut it because they are blocked far too often. Therefore, only a small percentage of potential cyclists will ever ride downtown.

In recent years, cycling’s modeshare gains have started to flatline or slightly decline because we have maxed out that pool. Portland’s bike modeshare has followed this pattern, growing until about 6% and then barely budging for four years at 6.5%. Looking at Portland’s bike to work rates by neighborhood, downtown neighborhoods hover around the city average, unlike some of the lower stress neighborhoods just beyond the central city where rates are 3-4 times the city average. That matches with my own experience, riding downtown was much more stressful than riding in the neighborhoods. How do cities start growing again?

A few years ago, I listened to a presentation by some Vancouver (BC) planners. While Vancouver had built miles of neighborhood greenways and other low-stress infrastructure in residential areas, their bike modeshare gains were not as dramatic as they had hoped. It was only after Vancouver began building a downtown protected bike lane network that modeshare began to take off and nearly doubled in four years. While Vancouver’s has built carbon copies of Dutch-style protected bike lanes, its downtown network is still relatively small. But it has provided the keystone towards attracting the interested but concerned cyclist, boosting its cycling rates in a dramatic way.

Portland’s Central City in Motion plans to create a similar downtown low-stress bike network. A disconnected 1.8 miles in downtown will become 7.1 miles of protected bike lanes. The Eastbank and Lloyd District will get 8.9 miles of protected bike lanes. While Portland’s current protected bike lanes have only temporary protection (flexiposts or planters), the plan upgrades that protection with concrete curbs and new lanes will be concrete protected.

The new lanes will be well-connected to the existing low-stress network. The bridges, Waterfront Park Trail, and the Springwater Trail will all link up with protected bike lanes. Neighborhood greenways also get connections in Northwest, Salmon St, and Harrison St. A few new lanes are not protected though, 11th St and 12th St are both buffered lanes which is odd because if a street has sufficient width for a buffer, there is enough space for a protected bike lane. Unfortunately, the Portland Fire Department requires 20' of unobstructed width on a street which inhibits road diets from two lanes into one lane and that may be at play here.

When people find that their jobs and homes are connected by low-stress routes, bike commuting becomes much more appealing to many more people. Watch for that 17,000 commuters to double and Portland to edge out a dramatic lead among bike commuting cities!