Portland planners eye I-5 Rose Quarter hell
The City of Portland is holding a late afternoon-early evening meeting on Thursday to discuss proposed "safety and operations" improvements to the traffic fustercluck known as the intersection of Weidler and Interstate 5. Among the changes on the table are:
- Extend auxiliary lanes and full-width shoulders in both directions (within existing right-of-way).
- Reconstruct structures at Broadway, Weidler, Vancouver and Williams in their current alignment and add a lid over the freeway.
- Move the I-5 southbound on-ramp from Wheeler/Winning Way to Weidler.
- Convert Williams to reverse traffic flow with a center bike/pedestrian lane between Broadway and Weidler.
- Construct a new pedestrian/bike overcrossing at Clackamas Street.
- Remove the Flint structure and add a new east-west overcrossing extending from Hancock to Dixon.
With the Blumenauerites calling the plays here, you can bet that the plan, if implemented, will benefit cyclists and real estate developers, and that it will do little or nothing to help people in cars. Cars are bad, and people in them deserve to be inconvenienced until they get fed up and move out of Portland. It's for the children.
| Posted at 9:45 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (14)
Not only will it not help cars, there is a close to 100% chance that it will make traffic much worse. Planners are not engineers.
Posted by Snards | June 5, 2012 10:06 AM
I have yet to see any "traffic improvement" implemented by CoP in the past 15 years do anything but actually make it worse.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | June 5, 2012 10:19 AM
My thoughts exactly!
Repeat, "cars are evil" rinse...repeat...
Posted by portland native | June 5, 2012 11:33 AM
It's hard to see how they could make that area much worse...but I'm sure they'll give it the old college try.
I do wish someone with brains could do something about that spot as well as the 39th/Sandy/84 interchange, which is equally nightmarish.
Posted by Dave J. | June 5, 2012 11:36 AM
I do wish someone with brains could do something about that spot as well as the 39th/Sandy/84 interchange, which is equally nightmarish.
CoP did "improve" that intersection in the mid or early '90's. IMHO, it's been awful ever since.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | June 5, 2012 11:43 AM
I think the goal here is to quickly build some expensive freeway enclosure so that I5 is permanently locked into its 4 lane configuration...
That, and build a multi-million dollar bike bridge 1 block south of an existing bridge that bikes can use.
Posted by Anthony | June 5, 2012 12:16 PM
Why build lids over the freeway? Why not just take a page from Seattle and build a convention center hotel directly over the freeway instead. Then they could use transportation funds to help fray the cost and build a walkable urbanist neighborhood without obnoxious freeway sights and sounds. It seems a win/win proposition.
Posted by Shadrach | June 5, 2012 1:43 PM
More potholes will help slow down traffic...
Some additional safety tips:
Make sure to make eye contact with any driver that threatens your personal space before cutting them off and flipping them the bird.
An added touch is to configure your hand like a pistol while pretending to blow smoke off the barrel.
Posted by Tim | June 5, 2012 2:11 PM
Why build lids over the freeway?
So we can pretend it's not there?
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | June 5, 2012 2:40 PM
Anything that benifits cyclists needs to be paid for by cyclists, not drivers!
Posted by TR | June 5, 2012 3:06 PM
Anything that benifits cyclists needs to be paid for by cyclists, not drivers!
Good luck with that. While we're at it, I don't have any kids in school, and I could care less about Afghanistan. So . . . .the rest of you can pay up.
Posted by Allan L. | June 5, 2012 4:05 PM
Maybe a dedicated lane for Dump Trucks? So they can quit using the bike lanes.
Posted by Mister Tee | June 5, 2012 7:29 PM
Might be a good idea to sell your house now before the cost of government make it impossible.
Posted by fancypants | June 5, 2012 8:07 PM
Why not just take a page from Seattle and build a convention center hotel directly over the freeway instead
Because the Convention Center atop I-5 in Seattle is not an "iconic structure" that welcomes visitors to the City, unlike the beautiful skyline that the Oregon Convention Center offers to those travelling north-south on I-5 which has generated $294,204,204 trillion in economic impact for the Portland Metropolitan Area and has made Portland a leading location for international conventions and meetings to showcase the environmental beauty of our sustainable region.
Posted by Erik H. | June 6, 2012 12:52 PM