PDOT recently made a handful of moves to improve the safety of the Broadway/Flint intersection, in an effort to reduce the number of bike/car collisions at what is one of the most accident prone spots in the city…   There’s a nice article from Jonathan Maus on BikePortland.org that gives good background and insight into both the issues and present day solutions (not to mention big props to PDOT’s Greg Raisman and our neighbor Betsy from the Paramount Apartments).   If you ever move through the area, it’s definitely worth a read.  These moves are largely the product of a series of meetings organized by the Water Bureau beginning last year, and seem to run the gamut of ‘what can be done right now’.       Regarding the long term, the coming streetcar improvements have the potential to truly transform the area and offer a tremendous opportunity to fix the issues here once and for all.   A broad group of folks gathered last fall (I spoke to it a bit in an earlier post, here) to identify just what that might look like, and it was a productive session, for sure.     There’s a healthy conversation growing out of recent threads on bikeportland.org, too, and as far as streetcar improvements go, the time to share your thoughts is now.    We’ll be sure to spread the word when any streetcar meetings come up and in the mean time, ride well…

Seen from above, Leftbank, Greenroom, and the triangle lot in front of them form a wedge-shaped island that splits traffic into 2 directions just east of the Broadway Bridge. The plans to bring the Portland Streetcar across the river have marked the tip of that triangle as the first stop on the east side. It’s true now that a walk from Leftbank to the Pearl District or Old Town takes just minutes, but the easy connection that the streetcar makes is bound to affect how people think about that distance. more