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I'm late to this Hawthorne issue, but being a transportation planner, I have some thoughts. @PBOTinfo @enobacon @kiel_by_bike @pkoonce @sarahforpdx @JoAnnPDX @CityObs
To think you can't take 4 travel lanes and turn them into 3 travel lanes and 2 bike lanes is suspect, and that option does not exist. The city engineers didn't offer it.
Engineers can't deal with 9 ft lanes cuz the std is 12, and Hawthorne has four 9 ft travel lanes. There's 51 ft of pavement, parking takes 14 ft (7 ft each side), leaving 37 ft.
They could have offered you an 8 ft center turn lane, two 10 ft lanes travel lanes, and two 4.5 ft bike lanes, but they didn't. They can.
They could have said we'll keep the current configuration and paint the outside lanes as transit only, but they didn't. They can.
Engineers get really nervous about travel lane widths for no reason but "standards". They have no evidence that these 9 ft lanes are a cause of the road violence on this street. They're not.
Is there evidence that cars need 33% more lane width than they currently have to make it safe? Absolutely no such evidence. It increases speeds, and so do center turn lanes.
Is there evidence that a center turn lane needs to be 10 ft or more? Absolutely none. Cars that use it are virtually parked. Farmington (an ODOT highway) & Tucker in Beaverton: turn lane less than 9ft wide.
The safety claim that a 6 ft refuge island is too small because some bikes are longer is an invented danger.
Unfortunately, Commissioner Hardesty is new at this role, and just like Chloe, they're going to feed her systemic pro-car crap until she realizes it, just like Chloe did.
There are lots of red flags here that you're being fed engineering standards over any real analysis.
