We discussed the pluses and frustrating minuses of the new eastside Burnside/Couch couplet on the blog a couple weeks ago. Now the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) and BikePortland.org are chiming in that the new bike lanes on Couch are unsafe to ride.
- Michael O'Leary
In response to the fears, bike planners at the city have promised to come up with an "immediate, interim fix and a list of longer-term solutions" for the unsafe engineering. Interim fix #1: shutting down the bike lane and telling cyclists to ride in the car lane. Gaahhhhhh. It's so disappointing that bikes are clearly a poorly planned afterthought for this $17.8 million project that's been 20 years in the making. A worst case scenario in the weeks after East Couch's unveiling is to see cyclists hauled off the bike lane in ambulances.