5 - Proposed Recommendations

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The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is working with the community to develop a comprehensive plan for improvements along 122nd Avenue. This is Slide 5 of our online open house for the 122nd Avenue Plan: "Proposed Recommendations."
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Overview

In the city’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan, 122nd Avenue is identified as a "Civic Corridor." This means it is one of the city’s "largest, busiest streets with good transit connections, safe sidewalks, distinctive trees and planted areas, and big buildings creating active places where people want to be.”

Unfortunately, the 122nd Avenue corridor doesn't have many of these features. In terms of safety, 122nd Avenue also sees a high number of crashes. PBOT recommends improving safety in the near-term, while making incremental improvements that support the growth and development of 122nd Avenue as a Civic Corridor. PBOT has laid out this work in three phrases:

  • Phase 1: Make critical safety improvements
  • Phase 2: Make all modes of travel easier and safer  
  • Phase 3: Help 122nd Avenue grow into a Civic Corridor

These phases will address critical safety issues and incrementally expand access, comfort, and connections along the corridor.


Phase 1 recommendations: make critical safety improvements

Here arerecommendations for critical safety improvements. These are meant to protect pedestrians and other vulnerable people on our roads, as well as make fixes where crashes occur most often.

Summary of Phase 1 recommendations:

RecommendationExample photos and designs 

1. Add lighting along the entire corridor to meet current guidelines. Note: new lighting is already funded for 122nd Avenue between NE San Rafael Street and SE Powell Boulevard.

Photo that shows street lighting on both sides of the street.

2. Make intersections safer where 122nd Avenue crosses NE Halsey Street, NE Glisan Street, E Burnside Street, SE Powell Boulevard, SE Holgate Boulevard, and SE Foster Road. Many crashes occur at major intersections. Redesigning them means providing better separation between vehicles and people. Learn more by going to Slide 7 - Intersections.

This shows a concept design of a protected intersection.

3. Reduce travel lanes from SE Powell Boulevard to SE Foster Road from five to three motor vehicle lanes. This would slow vehicles down, making more room for safer pedestrian crossings and protected bike lanes, while keeping parking intact. Learn more by going to Slide 6 - Lane configurations. 

The image shows a concept for the lane reduction between SE Powell and SE Foster. The image shows a parking and bike lanes on both sides of the street with a travel lane in each direction and a center turn lane.

4. Improve crossings identified as priorities for Phase 1. Learn more by going to Slide 8 - Crossings.

Photo of a painted crosswalk with a median island and rapid flashing becon.

5. Install new speed reader boards or relocate existing ones. These help alert drivers who are driving over the speed limit.

Photo shows a speed limit sign of 35 miles per hour with a speed reader below it as well as a sign that says traffic laws photo enforced.

6. Add protected or enhanced bike lanes between NE San Rafael Street and SE Powell Boulevard, making it easier for people biking, scooting, or skating. Learn more by going to Slide 6 - Lane configurations. 

Photo of a bike lane protected with white pylons.

7. Add delineators along center turn lanes. These help prevent people driving along the median unsafely or for long distances.

Photo of yellow pylons for center turn delineators.

8. Install raised safety curbs to "calm" left turns, while ensuring pedestrians have access to intersections. Learn more about PBOT's left-turn calming pilot project.

Photo showing a tuff curb along the left turn lane.

9. Add trees and vegetation which not only look good, but help protect our climate and provide safety benefits as well.

Photo of plantings in concrete planter in the ground next to the street.

Progress and funding for Phase 1

PBOT is already at work on the recommendations above which are already funded. PBOT crews and contractors will install new street lighting on 122nd Avenue soon between NE San Rafael Street and SE Powell Boulevard, improving safety and visibility. Crews will also make improvements to the intersection of SE 122nd Avenue and Stark Street as part of the Safer Outer Stark project and at the intersection of SE 122nd Avenue and Division Street as part of the Division Transit Project. PBOT also has the funding to repave and restripe SE 122nd Avenue between Powell Boulevard and Foster Road. As part of restriping the newly paved road, PBOT is recommending a change to lane configurations that would help slow vehicles down, add safer pedestrian crossings and bike lanes, while keep parking intact. Learn more about this proposal by going to Slide 6 - Lane configurations? here


Phase 2 recommendations: make all modes of travel easier and safer

In addition to improving safety, another goal of the 122nd Avenue Plan is improving access for pedestrians, people biking, as well as those taking transit. The following recommendations aim to address this goal and continue the evolution of the corridor into a Civic Corridor that can move people safely and efficiently.

Summary of Phase 2 recommendations:

RecommendationExample photos and designs 

1. Improve crossings identified as priorities for Phase 2. Learn more by going to Slide 8 - Crossings.

This photo shows a signalized marked crossing. Cars are stopped while two people on bikes cross the street.

2. Improve high-priority transit stops. This helps make taking transit safer and more reliable. Not only will stops be relocated closer to improved crossings, but we will improve sidewalks and curb ramps to make transit stops more accessible for people with disabilities. Learn more by going to Slide 9 - Transit stops.

This photo shows a transit stop that is shaded by a tree, has a shelter, seating, and trashcan, as well enough sidewalk space for transit riders to wait and pedestrians to pass by.

3. Add transit priority lanes and other improvements as part of the city's Rose Lane Project. This helps make taking transit safer and more reliable, by reducing delays. Learn more by going to Slide 9 - Transit stops.

The photo shows an example of a Rose Lane transit priority improvement. This example shows a bus and turn lane. Buses can proceed straight through the intersection from the right turn lane but cars must turn right.

4. Build new sidewalks, improve existing sidewalks, improve access as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The photo shows ADA accessible sidewalk ramps with yellow truncated domes.

5. Make the I-84 underpass safer by giving more room for pedestrians and people biking. PBOT also recommends making similar improvements to the Sandy Boulevard underpass. Learn more by going to Slide 6 - Lane configurations

This image shows a potential design of 122nd Avenue at the I-84 underpass. This include reallocating a traffic lane in the southbound direction for a protected bike lane and raising the bike lane to sidewalk level in the northbound direction.

6. Improve theintersection of NE 122nd Avenue and Sandy Boulevard to make it safer for pedestrians as well as people biking, rolling, and scooting. Learn more by going to Slide 7 - Intersections here.

The image shows a potential redesign of the intersection of NE Sandy and 122nd Avenue.

7. Improve intersections where 122nd Avenue meets NE Fremont, NE San Rafael, SE Ash, SE Harold, and SE Market streets. Learn more by going to Slide 7 - Intersections here.

The image shows a potential design to improve safety at intersections along 122nd Avenue.

8. Build concrete median islands along 122nd Avenue to manage driveway access and left turns along the corridor.

This photo shows a pedestrian crossing with a median island. There is space for people biking to cut through the median but cars are unable to make left turns.

As part of Phase 2, PBOT will also look at all the places where people driving might utilize a center left-turn lane to access neighborhoods along 122nd Avenue. PBOT will develop a plan around this kind of access specifically.


Phase 3 recommendations: help 122nd Avenue grow as a "Civic Corridor"

As the neighborhoods around 122nd Avenue grow and the road becomes more centered around people, the way the road looks, and how we allocate the space there, will evolve. The illustration below imagines what is possible on 122nd Avenue as it develops into a Civic Corridor. With wider sidewalks, more reliable transit service, and safer places for pedestrians and people biking, rolling, and scooting, many more people can move throughout the corridor compared to its current configuration. Concrete pedestrian islands in the median give people safer and more frequent places to cross. Separated and raised bike lanes help separate people biking, rolling, and scooting from car traffic. This kind of transformation will take time. The entire corridor may not look this way in the future, but the recommendations in this plan are meant to complement this kind of evolution along 122nd Avenue, while completing short-term changes wherever possible.

This image shows what 122nd Avenue could look like in the future. There could be lighting that is more at the level of pedestrians, more trees, more crossings, planted median islands, bus shelters and bus platform enhancements, separated bike lanes that are raised to the sidewalk level, wide sidewalks, and transit priority, such as bus and turn lanes.
Long-term vision for 122nd Avenue. This type of transformation will not happen immediately, and perhaps not for the entire corridor.

Recommendations

RecommendationExample photos and designs 

1. Improve crossings identified as priorities for Phase 3. Learn more by going to Slide 8 - Crossings.

This photo shows a car stopped at a signalized pedestrian crossing that a person biking is using to cross the street.

2. Build safer sidewalks and places for people to bike safely.

This photo shows an example of a wide sidewalk and a raised bicycle lane separated by a planting strip with trees.

3. Convert outermost lanes to bus-and-turn (BAT) lanes or other uses, such as for transit, freight, or parking during non-peak hours.

This photo shows a light rail, buses, and trucks only lane that can use this lane to proceed straight through the intersection. Cars in this lane must turn right.

4. In addition to concrete pedestrian islands, build medians with trees and other planted material. 

This photo shows a signalized crossing with a landscaped median island with trees.

5. Enhance transit stops. Learn more by going to Slide 9 - Transit stops.

This photo shows a bus platform that extends from the sidewalk into the street. A red bus only lane is adjacent to the bus platform. People biking use a green bike lane that goes between the bus platform and the sidewalk.

6. Add lightingthat better illuminates the sidewalks and crosswalks, or other places where there are pedestrians and people biking, rolling, and scooting, typically areas designated in the Comprehensive Plan as "Town/Neighborhood Centers."

This photo shows an example of pedestrian scale lighting which is positioned lower, more at the level of people walking, than typical streetlights.

Click below to move on to the next section of the online open house and learn more details about these recommendations:

122nd Online Open House, Slide 6: Lane configurations