Final Design Project: SW 1st Ave, Porltand, Oregon

This blog documents the final design project inspired by our team spend learning from the Dutch. This was done as a team effort with two other classmates.

SW 1st Ave Road Diet
(Orginally presented by Todd, Borkowitz, Bradford Tower, and myself)

SW 1st Ave is located south of Downtown Portland. The project limits are Columbia Ave in the north to Arthur St in the south.


Red circle highlights project location

Project limits: SW Columbia St to Arthur St

Our objective was to redesign SW 1st Ave to improve bicyle safety and connectivity into Downtown.


Some of the problems included:

• Lack of bicycle connectivity on SW 1st AVe between Southwest neighborhoods and downtown
• Exposure of bicyclists to fast-moving motor vehicles
• Wide car lanes seemingly encourage high vehicular speeds and minimize roadway space for bicycling
• Standard intersection design on the corridors offers limited safety for roadway users

Another concern was the development of the Southwest corridor with a new transit line as highlighted by the image below.

 







Project location with a bike map of Porland.

Below our images of the existing conditions, along with existing dimensions, followed by our proposed designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following images include a Turbo Roundabout as highlighted by Dutch Transporation Engineering.
This rendering depicts what our proposed design would be for the intersection of SW 1st Ave at Arthur St.

Benefits of this proposed design included better access to downtown for cyclists, improved safety with the reduced number of travel lanes as well as reduced travel lane widths.