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Clinton Street Bike Boulevard Enhancement Project
Updated August 17, 2010: Final Project Design Elements
See the recommended project elements
The overarching objective of this project is to let people know that they are on a street prioritized for use by cyclists and, by association, other non-motorized users. We want to make people aware of this by using design & art features to communicate this message to cyclists, pedestirans, and motor vehicle drivers. The outcome should be to make this bike boulevard a more pleasant, safer place to live, walk, & bike. This pilot project will test out this innovative approach to communicating Clinton Street’s designation as a bicycle boulevard that, if successful, could be replicated along other bicycle boulevards in the city.
more information on this project & bike boulevards
Portland currently has many existing miles of bicycle boulevards – quiet, neighborhood, bicycle-friendly streets - and anticipates substantially expanding and developing the network further in future years. City code defines bicycle boulevards as “routes where bicyclists are given priority of movement”. Despite this definition, many people bicycling along Portland’s bicycle boulevards, particularly more vulnerable or less confident cyclists such as children, seniors and families - for whom the bicycle boulevard network is ideally meant to serve - still feel uncomfortable, threatened, or usurped by motorists in the travel lane. In turn, many motorists who drive on bicycle boulevards do not appear to be aware that they are traveling along routes prioritized for bicycles and not motor vehicles. Currently, this problem can be largely attributed to the fact that Portland’s existing bicycle boulevard network is not visually well-signed or marked. The ultimate goal of this project - to better communicate the street’s designation as a bicycle route - will seek to address this issue.
Why was Clinton Street selected? Clinton Street is one of Portland’s oldest and most well-established bicycle boulevards. It sees some of the highest bicycle use of any bike boulevard in the city - around 1800 bikes per day along many sections. It already has a comprehensive range of traffic calming tools in place including speed bumps, traffic circles, a bike box, a semi-diverter, & pedestrian crosswalks. However, despite the presence of these traffic calming tools, Clinton Street still sees higher cut-through auto-traffic than most other bicycle boulevards in the city - between 2000 and 2400 vehicles per day along many stretches. Bicyclists often say they feel squeezed and uncomfortable with the high volume of auto traffic along the boulevard.
How do we envisage seeing art incorporated into this project? The objective is not simply to create & implement art for art’s sake, or to be solely aesthetic in nature. Rather, it is to utilize art as a strong communicative project tool to clarify the street’s designation. The project intends to strongly communicate the important safety message “This is a bicycle boulevard” to all users of the street. All artistic components developed should be capable of communicating this message clearly to everybody traveling along the street.
PBOT envisages potentially utilizing a mix of on-street pavement markings, signage, & other potential artistic means. All creative content developed for the project will need to be bold, creative and striking. It will also need to be simple, comprehensible, straightforward to install and maintain, and not so intricate that it cannot be potentially replicable on other bicycle boulevards throughout the city.
What is the project timeline?
Where is the funding coming from?
Questions? contact Jeff Smith at 503.823.7083 or jeff.smith@pdxtrans.org
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