The Portland Bureau of Transportation has provide you with an infrastructure answer to automotive customers who do donuts and drive recklessly by neighborhoods.
The residential intersection of Southeast Woodward and 59th has an especially vast opening that measures about 85-feet — that’s over 3 times the width of an ordinary neighborhood avenue. Largely due to that width, folks have shared considerations with PBOT about harmful drivers who pace across the intersection whereas sliding out their rear tires. Any such habits is dangerous on any avenue, however SE Woodward is a neighborhood greenway in style with bike riders, walkers, and runners.
To treatment this situation, PBOT recognized a small quantity of funding by their Multimodal Lacking Hyperlinks program, a small and versatile pot of cash town makes use of to handle scorching spots and fill minor gaps within the community. The annual funds of this system is about $200,000.
In March of final 12 months, PBOT reached out to individuals who stay within the South Tabor Neighborhood to be taught extra in regards to the Woodward and 59th intersection and current design ideas that might tackle its points. They determined to construct a site visitors island in the course of the intersection utilizing 12-inch excessive concrete curb separators. The curbs will scale back the quantity of area out there for automotive customers and create a extra predictable circulate of site visitors. Most significantly, if somebody tried to do a donut, they’d slam into the curbs and severely harm their automotive.
Native advocate David Binnig snapped a photograph of the finished separators and shared it immediately on the Bike Loud Slack channel. He additionally shared a earlier than photograph that exhibits skidmarks.
I wrote an opinion piece in 2022 that inspired PBOT to make use of primary site visitors calming remedies like this to handle avenue takeovers and burnouts. It’s nice to see them take motion and tackle this drawback with an inexpensive and simple answer.
Now all that’s left is to do one thing with that area in the course of the island. People on Bike Loud recommended it might be an ideal spot for a lemonade stand, some potted crops, or a shuffleboard courtroom. It’s wonderful what’s potential after we reclaim our streets from harmful folks and their autos!
