If you live or work near SW Main Street in downtown Portland, prepare to start seeing red.
On Wednesday, a crew from the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) will be painting one of SW Main’s lanes red between SW 1st and 2nd avenues. The lane is already designated for buses, but the red paint will help distinguish it as such—the first of many red bus-only lanes planned in the city.
A PBOT press release sent Tuesday noted that red bus lanes help ensure drivers don’t infringe on bus-only lanes by making them more visible, and that public transit can move more quickly through densely populated areas. As a result, red bus lanes could increase transit ridership and reduce traffic fatalities, a problem that seems to be growing worse in Portland. According to the release, New York City’s lane violations were cut in half after the city’s bus-only lanes got a coat of red paint.
“We cannot combat climate change without dramatic changes to the way we currently live, and Portland traffic congestion is among the worst in the nation,” said Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, the city commissioner who oversees PBOT, in the press release. “These new red lanes signal our commitment to doing everything we can to make transit an attractive option for more Portlanders and prioritizing tangible climate action in the face of looming climate catastrophe.”
Other cities, including San Francisco and New York City, already use red paint to mark their bus lanes. But while PBOT has been planning to install red bus lanes for months now, it only recently got the go-ahead from the Federal Highway Administration, which governs street markings and traffic signs across the country, to proceed with the plan.
PBOT, in partnership with TriMet, Metro, Portland State University (PSU), and Portland Streetcar, plans to also add red lanes near the following intersections this year, weather permitting: NE Martin Luther King Jr and Lloyd; NE Grand and Burnside, and NE Grand and Couch. Even more red lanes will likely be coming in 2020, as part of Portland’s Central City in Motion plan.
Researchers from PSU will collect data on driver compliance with the new red lanes. According to a PBOT spokesperson, there will not be any increased traffic enforcement around the red lanes at this time.
red paint is great but what our bus only lanes really need is automated enforcement with cameras.