Here’s Where Portland Officials Want to Create Protected Bike Lanes Downtown

It may someday be possible to bike through downtown Portland shielded from cars.

A protected bike lane in Vancouver, B.C. (Paul Krueger / Flickr)

On June 4, City Hall rolled out its most dramatic proposal in years to make Portland more bike-friendly.

That's not saying much.

For years, City Hall has rested on its laurels as a bike-friendly town, especially when it comes to protected bike lanes. Such lanes protect cyclists from traffic by using barriers, including parked cars or a raised curb.

Currently, Portland has just 5.2 miles of protected bike lanes, with another 19.8 across the city that have funding but aren't yet built.

In the densest, busiest part of the city, which sees the most cyclists and drivers, a new proposal called Central City in Motion could more than double existing protected bike lanes. Roughly 15 miles are under consideration.

That's enough to piss off the drivers who will lose parking spaces and lanes of traffic to the dedicated lanes.

But it's still hard to say for sure where they'll be mad. The Portland Bureau of Transportation has only $30 million in funding for the Central City in Motion package (which also includes crosswalk improvements and bus lanes). It will have to ration that money to a select list of streets that could get protected lanes.

This summer, PBOT will release cost estimates for specific projects.

Here's where city transportation officials imagine protected bike lanes going—if they can find the money and get the City Council's backing. (The map does not include the city's greenways or bike lanes that offer distance from traffic but not the protection of a physical barrier.)

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