Here’s an interesting study out from Metro today: http://news.opb.org/article/local-study-shows-main-streets-are-more-accident-prone-highways/?utm_source=Sightline+Newsletters&utm_campaign=e056dfa420-SightlineDaily&utm_medium=email

Freeway caps are AMAZING compared to none at all. In my experience however, they look dreamy on paper and are prohibitively expensive. There is nothing that would preclude ODOT from drawing up a great plan, appealing for funds, and then deleting the lids as non-essential when cost savings is necessary. This is a cycle repeated through history time and time again, and they often use such infrastructure to delight the neighborhood activists. Well this time it didn’t work, at least not in our neighborhoods–Eliot and Irvington said NO to the plan. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the other active transportation advocates at the table.

I’m also unclear on what exactly a freeway cap would look like. Could it have sidewalks? Grass? Buildings? Any of this seems a lot nicer to me than the existing open highway, which certainly functions as a scar through a potentially exciting neighborhood, and which as an occasional car driver I do indeed find unsafe.

On the other hand, it’s a very expensive investment in urban highway transportation.

Not making arguments here myself, just trying to understand the ones at play in order to cover this intelligently.

What’s the counterargument?

I see that “right turn waiting refuges” are located to the left of the cycletrack. Versus the current PBOT/Alta proposal for the N Williams Cycletrack, where they are to the right of the cycletrack.

It’s an interesting choice.

To the left is a little more conventional. You’re waiting the edge of the intersection, waiting to cross the entire street. Its a standard place to wait, you’re out of harms way of cars, you can back up and be on the sidewalk if things get sketchy. But, you need to cross an entire roadway — 40 feet wide. (8′ buffered bike lane, 8′ parking lane, 2 12′ driving lanes). You need to wait for a simultaneous gap in bike traffic and car traffic, which will incur longer delays.

Too the right is less conventional, more exposed, but more expedient. You only need to wait for a gap in cars, and you only need to cross a 24′ roadway. But you’re also in a spot where vehicles (bikes or otherwise) are unexpected — with the front end of the vehicle 16′ out from the curb, inches away from passing cross traffic.

I think I prefer the “Chicago” style to the proposed Williams style, just based on “safety before convenience”.

But its an interesting question.

Thanks for posting,
Ted Buehler

Bend, OR uses red asphalt, similar to the approach in the Netherlands. The material is locally sourced from a quarry with red volcanic rocks.

(see a picture of it on a cycle track in this slideshow: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?a=228196&c=34816
and here in a bike lane: http://smartgrowthusa.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/bendb2.jpg)

Regarding compliance with the MUTCD – it’s true that green coloring is easier to implement than other colors, though I’m not sure if applies to colored rock pavement. I doubt Bend had to get approval for all of their red bike lanes because they are so pervasive, which leads me to believe it’s purely a materials issue.