The Portland Bureau of Transportation is engaged on a plan that would assist treatment considered one of its most intractable issues: bike lane upkeep.
Portlanders have lengthy lamented that bike lanes are so soiled that they endanger present riders and discourage would-be newcomers. From snow and gravel in winter, swimming pools of water in spring, and leaves in fall, lots of our metropolis’s vaunted bikeways languish with out consideration from sweepers for a lot of months of the yr.
Regardless of PBOT efforts to deal with the quite a few complaints, budgetary and personnel limitations have all the time constrained their response. And because the bike community has grown, PBOT’s funds has shrunk. Now that cycle would possibly lastly be damaged because of a $10 million grant award from the Portland Clear Vitality Advantages Fund (PCEF).
The funding will likely be unfold throughout 5 years and can permit PBOT to workers up a devoted workforce, purchase two bike lane sweepers and a pair of electrical backpack leaf blowers (for these hard-to-reach areas).
At a gathering of the Bicycle Advisory Committee final evening, PBOT Upkeep Operations Division Supervisor Shaylee Robanske laid out how the bureau plans to deal with bike lane upkeep with this new inflow of funds.
The PCEF award will permit the upkeep workforce to “actually put a deal with cleansing bike lanes and vegetation overgrowth into bike lanes,” Robanske mentioned. “I’m positive it’s very irritating to bike the identical space and see the identical factor that you simply’ve already reported for a number of days.”
PBOT’s new Bike Lane Upkeep Program will include eight full-time staff that will likely be cut up evenly into two groups: one east of the river, one west of the river. These workers will likely be devoted to dealing with bike lane upkeep requests and doing a scientific clearing of hassle spots. They’ll function three electrical sweepers and leaf-blowers to scrub and preserve 50 miles of protected bike lanes and 325 miles of non protected/shared bike lanes within the coming yr. Robanske mentioned she’ll lean on BAC committee members to develop an preliminary record of prime precedence bike lane segments.
Robanske additionally revealed at Tuesday’s assembly that the Upkeep & Operations Division will quickly shift to a brand new software program platform (Zendesk) to deal with all citizen complaints and clean-up requests with a brand new interface meant solely for bike lane points. A brand new public-facing dashboard for this system can also be within the works so everybody can see what number of miles of bikeways have been swept and the precise areas which have been serviced by PBOT crews.
By 2027, Robanske says her objective is that, “You’ll be able to go sit within the bike lane and also you cook dinner pancakes and so they’ll be clear as a whistle.” “With a devoted workforce and gear that performs the way in which it’s alleged to, PBOT will turn out to be a spotlight within the nation for what PCEF is doing for this program,” she added. “I’m tremendous excited. I hope you are taking my enthusiasm as some hope and promise into how PBOT can present up for cleansing these bike lanes. Given the proper devoted funding and workers, we’re able to wonderful issues.”
The objective is to hit prime precedence bike lane segments six occasions per yr and nonetheless have time to answer particular person requests and hot-spots. The plan is ready to enter impact this summer time.
