October 17, 2019
This is the greening of Northeast Glisan Street.
Paint.
Not Trees.
This is Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) at work painting chartreuse a wide-ass, two-way, U-shaped, bicycle thoroughfare along and across Northeast Glisan Street just north of Menlo Park Elementary school and just east of 128th Avenue.
Why?
Because PBOT is obsessed with bicycles.
This chartreuse U-turn is emblematic of PBOT's elevation of bicyclists not just over drivers but also over pedestrians.
There already is an elevated crossover for Menlo Park Elementary students and their parents within yards of the new double-purposed Glisan Street crossing.
For pedestrians, the new ped/bike crossing is redundant to the existing crossover.
Who would walk up 33 steps and then down another 33 steps to cross Glisan when all he or she has to do is push the soon-to-be demand-crossing button to completely stop already slowed-down bidirectional vehicular progress along Northeast Glisan and cross Glisan Street without forced staircase exercise?
So the elevated crossover (from which the accompanying photo was taken) surely will be removed.
Because PBOT's online design pdfs show no elevated crossover.
And PBOT would never lie to us.
Right?
Thus, PBOT's wet-dream of an Eastside north-south bicycle corridor ("Neighborhood Greenway") becomes a waking reality, however roundabout.
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