Dangerous Intersections

As part of the community conversation ignited by the city’s recent fatal bike collisions, the Portland Mercury is compiling a list of reader-reported dangerous intersections. I’ll be chiming in on the hairiest parts of my commute, and thought I’d post those thoughts here, as well. These are the Intersections Where I’m Most Likely to Die, listed from least to greatest potential for carnage:

The Place Where the Swan Island Ramp Pipes Traffic Onto N Greeley.

The southbound bike lane runs downhill, along the shoulder of N Greeley. About halfway down the hill, a ramp leads up from Swan Island, a busy industrial park with, amongst other large commercial trucks, huge fleets from FedEx and UPS. The bike lane ends abruptly at the ramp, and you have to come to complete stop in the middle of a descent, and look for traffic coming from almost directly behind you, since the ramp traffic is merging from the north. The vehicles come flying up the ramp, picking up speed to go 45 mph on Greeley, and because of the curve of the ramp, you can’t see them until they are about 5 seconds from barreling across your path.

 

Crossing the Ramp from N Greeley onto I-5.

Continuing down Greeley towards Interstate Avenue (where the cyclist was killed earlier this week), there is a heavily-used ramp on the right that takes traffic onto I-5 and I-405. Because the southbound bike lane runs along the shoulder, you have to cross the ramp to stay on Greeley. The traffic here is building up highway speed as it approaches the ramp. Worse, many drivers shift from the inside lane, which stays on Greeley, to the outside lane, which turns into the ramp, at the very last minute, usually signalling late or not at all. This makes predicting whether it is safe to cross over to the spot where the bike lane picks up again very difficult. I’ve had some very scary moments with commercial trucks here.

N Greeley and N Willamette

N Willamette Blvd is easily the most pleasurable part of my bike ride home, especially the stretch that is local traffic only. The problem is that, particularly at rush hour, getting on to Willamette from Greeley is hideously dangerous. Making the left turn from the bike lane involves crossing the northbound lane of traffic, which is often backed up from the light at Greeley and Killingsworth (one block north of Willamette) down the hill past the Adidas campus. Sometimes I have to wait here for several minutes; usually, some kind motorist waiting in traffic will wave me across. However, because of all of the northbound traffic (often trucks, vans, and SUV’s) and the bend in the road, I can’t see whether any smaller vehicles are coming from the opposite direction until I’m halfway across the intersection. I’ve had a few close calls here, and some angry hand gestures from drivers: the irony is that I’m trying to get to a low traffic street, out of the way of the cars.

There’s a lot of discussion going on in the city right now (for instance, here and here) about bike infrastructure at dangerous intersections, including talk of bike boxes, widened and/or painted bike lanes in conflict areas, and loop-activated warning lights when bikes are present. I’m glad that the city (most visibly, Traffic Commissioner Sam Adams) is moving to invest in these safety measures while the (non-biking) public has the tragedy-induced will to act/spend.

A parting thought: one major way that Portland could address all three of these shitty intersections on my commute to and from St Johns would be to fund the North Portland Greenway project– the only thing safer than Sharing the Road is not needing to.