Will a 'cycle track' keep bikers, car drivers and walkers safe?
PORTLAND, Ore. - It can be called a safety and social experiment.
The city of Portland is building a new type of street to keep drivers, cyclists and pedestrians away from each other.
The project in northeast Portland shows the three groups won't cross paths while on the same street by using something called a “cycle track.”
On one stretch of Northeast Cully Boulevard in Portland, there are no sidewalks and no bike lanes. But the City of Portland aims to change the situation with a new type of street, which incorporates a cycle track.
“You've really got to walk on the side if somebody's going fast,” pedestrian Teresa Cunningham said of the street as it exists now, “otherwise you're gonna get hit.”
Cyclist Tom Lechner said “it gets a little dicey when it's raining especially on this side of the street,” where the shoulder is narrow and fringed with grass and gravel.
That’s not to mention a tricky five-way stop where some pedestrians cross wherever they can, despite the traffic.
The street could be transformed, however, with the addition of a cycle track, a separate roadside bikeway for cyclists that also includes a walkway for pedestrians.
“On a cycle track you are physically removed from the auto lane,” Tom Miller said. Miller is Chief of Staff for Portland Mayor Sam Adams.
The cycle track would move cyclists off the street, away from parked cars and separate from pedestrians. City officials said cycle tracks are very popular in northern Europe and the thought of them has cyclists optimistic about improved safety.
“In terms of safety, I would [use the cycle track], but at the same time every other bike lane in the city is at the same level as the street,” cyclist Lechner said.
Portland officials hope to start construction this summer and finish in the fall of 2010.
The new cycle tracks will run along Northeast 60th Avenue from Prescott Street to Killingsworth Street.
The construction is projected to cost about $5.4 million dollars.