Kenneth C. Martin Blogs: Paving project will lead to cycling detour for N Williams Ave

Friday, August 31, 2018

Paving project will lead to cycling detour for N Williams Ave

Bike traffic on North Williams… coming soon to NE Cleveland.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland Bureau of Transportation just announced a repaving project that will require bicycle users to detour off North Williams Avenue for two weeks beginning this Tuesday.

PBOT plans to grind down and then repave Williams as part of regularly scheduled maintenance on a one-mile stretch between Beech and Killingsworth. The project will require lane closures from September 4th through September 18th from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm and possibly on weekends. They also say bicycle users will have to detour around the work zone onto an adjacent street.

Here’s more from PBOT:

Streets with ground down surfaces are open for travel. Lane closures are only in effect during project hours. Access will be maintained for businesses and residents during the project. For the safety of people biking on this popular bike route, bicyclists will be detoured onto NE Cleveland between N Beech and N Killingsworth.

Cleveland is one block east of Williams. It’s not clear why PBOT is requiring bicycle users to detour while allowing auto users to continue on Williams. We’ve asked for clarification on that as well as whether or not bicycle riders and other vulnerable road users could share lanes on Williams with other road users. Also worth noting is that one block to the east of Cleveland is NE Rodney, which is the designated neighborhood greenway route.

Williams Avenue is the sixth busiest street for bicycle users in the city. PBOT counted 3,835 bicycle trips per day at Williams and Going in 2017.

We’ll update this story when we hear more from PBOT.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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