PORTLAND, Ore. - In the wake of two cyclists killed in collisions with trucks on our city streets, a crowd gathered at City Hall on Friday, many of them bike riders, as city leaders held an emergency meeting to talk about ways to keep those kinds of deadly crashes from happening.

Portland City Commissioner and transportation chief Sam Adams organized the meeting to discuss ways to make the city's roads safer for bicyclists.  The meeting was not open to the public.

"The recent tragedies that happened on Burnside and Interstate should be, and I know are, unacceptable to all Portlanders," Adams said.

Adams was referring to two recent crashes in which bicyclists were killed.  In one crash, 19-year-old Tracey Sparling, a Salem art student, was killed in a collision with a cement truck in downtown Portland.  In another crash, 31-year-old Brett Jarolimek, an employee at the Bike Gallery, was killed in a collision with a garbage truck in north Portland.

To try to make the roads safer for cyclists, Adams favors first spending $4,000 to paint bike boxes at 14 Portland intersections.  Used in Europe, they let bikes pull into a driver's view.

Another proposal is already in use along the Oregon Coast - a flashing sign outside tunnels that warns drivers if a bicyclist is inside.

At some Portland intersections, bike sensors might use a similar system to warn drivers a bike is approaching, or it could control traffic signals.

"Safety is our number one core value," said Scott Bricker with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.  "We want to do whatever we can to improve safety on our highways."

But privately, trucking advocates say Portland's bike lane system is a confusing jumble of inconsistencies that remains a mystery for many drivers. 

Others criticized Adams' initial private talks over bike lane proposals that did not include the public.

"I wanted to have a frank and straightforward conversation among the stakeholders and I wanted to have it outside of the glare of the media," Adams explained.

Adams plans to hold public hearings in the next couple of weeks and still has to come up with the final cost of all of the proposals.