The Shady Side of Infrastructure

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Dave Feucht

NW Everett
Image via Google Street View

There’s a lot of discussion in the transportation world about the benefits and downsides of cycling-specific road infrastructure. Many people feel it’s just simply a bad idea, and that everyone should ride in the road with the automobile traffic. Many other people feel that any bicycle infrastructure is a good thing, and a positive move forward.

I would say I fall somewhere in-between there. Having had years now to ride around Portland, I’ve had a chance to ride on the road in mixed traffic, to ride on what I think is pretty good separated bicycle infrastructure, and to ride on what I feel is dangerous and poorly-designed bicycle infrastructure.

Just this morning I had the pleasure of riding on a piece of road with very poorly-designed bicycle infrastructure. Above you see NW Everett street, facing East, from just on the west side of NW 14th. Coming down Everett, which is the only remotely bike-friendly street that crosses the freeway (I-405) going East within at least 5 blocks in either direction, you come to a bike box at the freeway, and then a standard painted bike lane across the freeway overpass and down the next block, which then ends right here at 14th.

There are a lot of problems with this. The bike lane ends on the near side of the intersection and basically turns into car parking on the other side of the intersection, which forces you to change lanes IN the intersection (which is actually illegal in a car, because it’s dangerous), it forces you to merge with traffic that is probably moving significantly faster than you and is not necessarily expecting you to merge, and if you’re not expecting the bike lane to end, it can put you in kind of a panic situation, where you may do something dangerous simply due to surprise. Not only that, it creates the expectation that you will use the infrastructure, and if you choose not to use it because it puts you into a dangerous situation, people driving get angry at you for being ‘in their way’.

Essentially this same situation exists in many places all over Portland where it was deemed that automobile parking was more important than the safety of people riding bicycles (that is, pretty much everywhere), and therefore when the road narrows to the point that you can’t have both automobile parking and a bike lane (which, the way we usually do it, is arguably unsafe in many cases as well), the bike lane just suddenly disappears.

To me, this is a case of infrastructure we would be better off without. They should either remove the bike lane after the bike box at 16th (the bike box would allow bicycles to get out into the lane at the light more easily), or they should (preferably) remove the car parking down the rest of the South side of Everett, and continue the bike lane all the way.

As it is, this strip of bike lane is creating a dangerous situation, putting people on bikes in harm’s way.

I had the pleasure of getting yelled at by a FedEx driver this morning, who was very unhappy that I exited the bike lane before it ended (while there was no traffic coming), so that I wouldn’t have to merge in the intersection shown above, and ended up in front of him while there was still bike lane to the right. He came up behind me right before a red light, and turned at the next block, so it’s not even that he was annoyed at me holding him up, he was just in a fit of moral rage at my not using the wonderful infrastructure that was provided for me, and paid for by his (and of course not my) tax money.

This is why it’s critical that we 1) design our infrastructure well from the start, especially if you’re going to legally require people use it, which Oregon does and 2) work really hard to stop this insane bikes vs. cars thing that plagues the public discussion about anything to do with bicycles.

It’s not about any kind of moral judgements of people who drive cars or ride bikes, it’s not about favoring bikes over business, or allowing people to get off easy by not paying for the roads but getting all kinds of money spent on them (which isn’t even remotely true, anyway).

The fundamental issue that it all boils down to is letting citizens of a city move through the city to the places they need to go without fearing for their lives. That’s it. Currently, you cannot just assume that you can do that in Portland unless you’re driving.

We’re willing to spend tens of millions of dollars re-arranging and widening freeways to help prevent automobile collisions, but we’re not willing to remove a dozen parking spaces in a dense, congested area (where it would make sense to encourage people not to drive as much anyway) to eliminate a dangerous situation like this, and it takes a mass citizen uprising to close an entrance to a street (N. Wheeler) where people are repeatedly being injured in right-hook collisions, because a few businesses are concerned it might take people an extra 40 seconds to get to their business.

There is something fundamentally wrong here.

We need to start thinking about our roads in a way that enables people. We need to start designing our infrastructure (not just the bicycle-specific stuff) logically, thoughtfully, and well. We need to consider that anyone moving on the roads is a human being, a potential customer, a potential acquaintance, a potential co-worker. This is not a war, we all lose if we go at it like that. This is about collaboration and enabling. We all win if we do that.

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  • http://www.blogan.net/ Brent Logan

    If you back up one “click” on Google’s street view, you’ll see a bike sign on the right. Although I can’t read the sign, it looks like it has arrows suggesting going left (north), which results in having bike lane. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see another street heading east with a bike lane.

    IMHO, taking the lane was the right thing to do. It’s strange that a professional driver didn’t recognize your actions as appropriate.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      That sign to the right is just a general directional sign pointing in the general direction of and giving the approximate distance to some notable thing, be it another district/neighborhood, or a museum or hospital or something like that. They’re posted all around inner Portland.

      I think I did the right thing taking the lane as well, but I’m frustrated that I’m constantly forced into these situations where I have to make decisions about my safety that get viewed as invasions of other peoples’ convenience, or as some kind of moral statement, or whatever.

  • Alex Reed

    Generally, I avoid door-zone bike lanes wherever possible (sadly, the addition of a bike lane made many streets in portland *less* safe/comfortable for me) but Everett is the best option for blocks around, so I use it. I leave the bike lane early just like you did. I think that most drivers who beep/yell at me in such situations really just do not understand why I’m doing what I’m doing, so I try not to get annoyed with them. As you pointed out, the real problem is the infrastructure, which indicates that people should use it while biking, but leaves them at great risk if they do so.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yeah, I agree that most people driving simply don’t understand the dangerous condition that the bike lane creates in spots like that, which is another good reason to up the game on our infrastructure design. If it requires study to understand how traffic should be moving down the street, it’s probably not designed well. It should be clear as you’re going along what to expect, and without a dozen signs instructing you step-by-step.

      These kind of situations exist all over Portland, and it’s really about time we started dealing with them seriously.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=13302839 Malex Reed

        Do you know of any good organizations for agitating about infrastructure reform? I have to say that I’ve been disillusioned with the BTA ever since their executive issues and announcement that they wouldn’t oppose any hypothetical future all-ages helmet law. Is AROW a good bunch?

        • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

          I feel like at this point, in order to actually install good infrastructure, we’re going to have to start really re-designing the streets, at least the ones that need separate infrastructure. This means, in order to do that, the city would have to step on some very wealthy toes. I may be getting more cynical with age, but it seems to me that nobody in Portland who has any power to do something about getting infrastructure installed is willing to step on those wealthy toes.

          I honestly don’t know all that much about AROW, so I don’t know if I can really comment that accurately on them specifically.

          I just get the feeling that whenever it gets proposed to limit automobile capacity, either in terms of throughput or parking, the proposal is almost immediately killed (or hijacked and turned into a project to install more auto capacity, as in NE Multnomah), and almost without a peep from anyone with a say in the matter, other than “oh, what a shame”.

          But “oh, what a shame” doesn’t do anything except make all the people riding bikes around town feel like they’ve just been screwed over again and nobody cares.

          So, to summarize, no – I don’t know of a good organization to put weight behind to get things done, unfortunately.

  • bc

    I bike this way often and always nervously, in part because of the disappearing bike lane but also because of the even more dangerous approach to crossing the freeway. Roughly every other time I’m heading down Everett just before the freeway entrance, an oblivious/uncaring car head almost right hooks me. They’re looking at the oncoming traffic from their left and trying to get up to speed quickly to enter the freeway, and too many of them don’t bother to check to see if there’s a cyclist on the right, particularly because we’re moving downhill probably much faster than they anticipate. There’s no excuse for this stupidity and obliviousness, though, and I’m afraid this spot will be the site of the next serious bike-car collision in Portland. I don’t know how to fix it, but I sure hope the city will take a look at it.

    As for the disappearing lane, this is all about shortsightedness and greed on the part of the business owners. There’s a huge parking garage just a few feet away for their car storage. when are they going to realize, as so many others in Portland have, that it’s better for business (especially in the Pearl, of all places) to make it easier to bike to walkable stores? The more worried potential bike riders are, the less likely they’re going to want to shop in those places.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yeah, that freeway exit is also not great, and I’ve also been nearly right-hooked there a few times when going through on a green light. Probably it would be wise to do something like they did on NE Broadway, and install a separate signal for bikes that is off-phase from the main traffic lights, so that the right-turning auto traffic never has a green while bicycle traffic is going straight. It might be too much to hope for, but maybe they’ll even consider doing it before someone gets seriously hurt here.

      Also agreed, businesses simply fail to see that people get around by bicycle, and that these are potential customers, who will not visit their businesses if they have to navigate sketchy traffic. Businesses in NW Portland and the Pearl District should be the first ones pushing heavily for awesome bicycle accommodations, as there is simply not room for many automobiles. If they can get people to come by bicycle/transit/foot, they can get a lot more people to their businesses.

  • deborah

    Salmon going east at 16th (right before the overpass) has the exact same problem, though no bike box. I’ve ridden this route for years now, and I take the lane about 1/2 a block before the intersection so that the people in front of and behind me know that I’m there. It might slow them down just a touch and possibly piss them off, but I prefer that to taking them by surprise and dealing with a right hook possibility in the ensuing cluster of off-ramp traffic and right turn lane one block up. I do what i can to bust ass out of the gates when the light turns green, but since the light at the other side of the overpass on 14th is timed at ~12mph, I’m rarely holding anyone up.

    The FedEx truck driver (who I bet I know since my work is on his route) was out of line yelling at you. But who has the time or energy to explain the nuances of traffic and bike infrastructure in the heat of the moment to someone that is clearly just taking his 8-10 hours of driving frustration out on you? I really agree that giving the benefit of the doubt saves you the trouble of getting mad at him. Honestly if he looked farther than the end of his patience he’s realize why you were there and calm down a bit. Luckily it seems that most people in Portland are aware of the infrastructure pitfalls on their regular routes and have been conditioned to deal with the bike traffic they have to contend with. Of course we all have our moments of dealing with life’s frustration in less than ideal ways…

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      In general, I don’t think most people are intentionally malicious or want to hurt other people – I think, and that’s where the second half of this post comes from, that both our infrastructure, which creates conflicts that aren’t easily understood by all parties, and our public debate, which creates moral dichotomies and flares up tempers, really aggravate this kind of interaction.

      Imagine everything going on here. Tired driver. Poor infrastructure putting me in a position of riding in the lane where there’s a bike lane. Driver perhaps has just been reading the Oregonian piece on how we can’t pave any roads because we’re spending too much on bike lanes, and then sees me sitting in the road in front of him, with a bike lane over to the right. Driver thinking, “stupid cyclist, we’re spending all our money on stuff for them, and they don’t even care.” or something like that. Given that, and perhaps a bad night of sleep the night before, and you get him shouting at me to get in the bike lane.

      This whole thing wouldn’t have happened if a few things were different. If we actually had consistent cycle facilities, I would have been using them. If our media wasn’t so bent on inflaming peoples’ hatred of each other, maybe the driver wouldn’t have been so bent out of shape (and just the level of tension from all sides between people on the road might be a notch lower). If we presented transportation issues as just that – issues of how to effectively move the most people around our city – we wouldn’t have this same feeling of having to fight each other for the ‘resource’ of the street. If we made cycling less about moral superiority (being ‘green’, saving the planet, fighting big oil, etc), and simply about effectively moving around the city, we would probably also save a lot of anger and misunderstanding.

      I don’t know, I just felt like this brought up a lot of issues that kind of collided all together in one incident.

  • dev*

    The same sort of situation exists where 47th crosses sandy, with a bike lane on the south side of the intersection. and a designated shared roadway (bike marker on the road) on the north.

    You end up with an interesting situation when at a stop there. Locals know it’s a bikeway and often expect the bike next to them to pull off quick and get in front of them, so they’ll sit for a second after the light turns green (which I don’t like because I’m a slow starter and prefer to let the car go first and pull in behind them). Others don’t know, don’t care, or just don’t want to be slowed down by the bike across the way, so they speed ahead. You don’t always know what type of driver or rider you’re going to get so there’s often an awkward and potentially dangerous jostle in the intersection as people figure out who’s going first. At least it’s a long intersection, so it usually get’s worked out, but it is nerve-wracking sometimes.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yeah, I don’t think I could even count the number of intersections I’ve ridden through like this in Portland, and that’s only one of many different types of poorly designed facilities that put people in stressful and dangerous situations.

      It kills me that people (mostly who don’t ever ride bikes) think we 1) have this amazing network of bicycle facilities all across the city anywhere you’d want to go and 2) that we spent billions of dollars putting it all in. It just increases the anger all that much more when you end up inconveniencing them because the amazing bicycle facilities suddenly put you in their way.

  • KYouell

    I know you’re frustrated, but you write about it so well. If this was me it would come out with a bunch of “*(&^(* !!1!” in it and no one would see the logic in my point-of-view.

    I don’t know if it’s my age leading to being jaded or just The Oregonian and it’s commenters, but I’m starting to question the Almighty Power of The First Amendment. I know that we need the freedom of the press, but when was the last time a media business told a truth that would have them in hot water with the government if the first amendment wasn’t protecting them? It seems to me that the day-to-day business of selling papers and, therefore, playing up the us-vs-them in any situation is more what The Media is about. I would like to see them earn their first amendment rights by being a little more moral and ethical and a little less “let’s make sure the shareholders get a profit.”

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yeah, it’s important to have freedom of the press, it would just be nice if they wouldn’t abuse it for their own gain, at the detriment of society and the people in it. Agreed on all points.

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