- Amanda Smith
- Tight squeeze: Cyclists, cars, and new development vie for space on Williams
Where last we left off in the Mercury news section, the city’s plan to rework North Williams to make it safer for cyclists and pedestrians had been delayed, allowing more time for public input on changing the street that now sees 3,000 cyclists a day.
Well, that public input has come in these past two weeks at two major public meetings. BikePortland.org has an exhaustive write-up of last night’s contentious meeting. Mayor Sam Adams also issued a statement welcoming the public comment on the plan this week, announcing Deborah Leopold Hutchins (an African-American woman who leads a women’s bike group called Sistahs Weekend Cyclers) as the chair of the project’s stakeholder committee.
There’s a couple options on the table—spelled out here—including removing a parking lane or car travel lane to make more room for bikes.
But what the controversy comes down to, it seems, has less to do with the statistics surrounding bike use, excess parking, and underutilized car travel lanes and everything to do with change in the neighborhood. The city is treading very carefully because North Williams is a neighborhood that has every historic reason to be skeptical of new development plans: The Legacy Emanuel hospital expansion wiped out blocks of the neighborhood back in the sixties. And in just the past three years, condo projects and over a dozen new bike businesses have transformed the area.
So here’s the question: Can the community discussion separate bike improvements on North Williams from other change in the area? Or are bikes inextricably linked to all the other demographic and developmental change along Williams?
And, of course, will all this public venting about change actually affect the city’s plan? Or, once all the neighbors get the change issues off their chests, will the city revamp the street the way it originally planned?
Biking is a much more affordable method of travel and gives people of color–who do on average make less money–more financial opportunities long term. It gives them a wider budget to not be forced to move out of their homes given other gentrification factors.
I suppose the fear is that bringing bikes to the area will make the area more attractive to people as a place to live, thus spurring development, thus some current residents might not be able to afford to live there. It’s always odd when people protest making an area more attractive and livable. I would guess that many people welcome the changes, but the loudest voices will be those who resent “outsiders” coming in to the neighborhood. Nobody in this case is being forced out of the neighborhood like in the old days when the hospital and road projects came in–if people leave because they don’t like the new “character” of the neighborhood, it will be by choice. I would also point out that bikes are a lot cheaper than cars, so a bike-friendly neighborhood is inherently more affordable.
“allowing more time for public input on changing the street that now sees 3,000 cyclists a day”
How many cars does it see a day?
I would argue that what you’re seeing is a manifestation of braoder community-wide annoyance of inconveniencing cars to make the shrill bike advocates happy. It’s just that in this particular neighborhood that the city has to pretend to listen. In every other neighborhood, criticism is simply ignored and dismissed out of hand.
“will all this public venting about change actually affect the city’s plan?”
No it will not. The city doesn’t actually care about public opinion unless your opinion is already 100% “with The Plan”. Public involvement is a farce. Planners come in with the decision made about what they want to do, pretend to listen, and then do what they want.
This doesn’t bother people like Mirk, because she is completely on board with The Plan.
FYI, traffic counts show over 8,000 cars per day on N Williams as of 2005.
How about when the number of cyclists outnumber the cars, we give them a second lane. Until then, the cars can have the second lane.
How about we deal with major roads that don’t even have sidewalks before we deal with this bs? We have arterials through neighborhoods that pedestrians can’t even walk down, let alone bikes. N. Williams is a bike boulevard compared to some roads in Portland.
@Blabby — Traffic counts show 6,000 cars per day circa 2010. Counting car parking, six times the space is allotted motor vehicles than bikes. There are 4 northbound bike lanes in North Portland over the span of 100 northbound streets. Williams is the busiest bike lane in Portland.
Any more questions?
Where did you get the 2010 traffic count data?
“Counting car parking, six times the space is allotted motor vehicles than bikes. “
Makes sense, since cars are more than six times bigger than a bike.
Sarah,
Do you know the actual plan? Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Is the proposal to reduce the entire stretch of Williams from Broadway to Killingsworth to one lane or is it just from Fremont to Skidmore?
#1 — talk about condescending!
Night moves – bikes also take up alot less room on the road, and thus need less.
Blabby wins. PBOT and the BTA should just get it over with and merge into one, belief-driven entity. It’ll spare their little wonk brains the trouble of interpreting statistics so they can concentrate on rhetoric more effectively.
I ride a bike, and I agree with Blabby. I don’t feel I should get special consideration at the expense of others. I do want better bike lanes, sure.I am also not one of those tools that ride on Burnside downtown and hold up traffic.@jake…..I hope that was intended as humor. Because if it was’nt….
@Blabby — From the meetings but the City has it in writing: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportati…
Cars are roughly twice the width of a bike and how much width to allot people on foot or bike is what’s on the table.