Friday, January 23, 2009

NEW TRANSIT MALL GUIDE





Click to enlarge.


TriMet promises that downtown Portland's new transit mall will mean a better commute for bus and light-rail riders.

But with daily changes on Fifth and Sixth avenues, including test runs in freshly striped bus lanes, there's no lack of confusion. Is it OK to drive on the MAX tracks? What's up with those new signals? Where's the best place to get information?

This handy-dandy graphic and map should help. As a bonus, we offer five things every commuter should know to prepare for the $220 million transit mall's opening in September:

Most intersections on Fifth and Sixth will no longer allow right turns because they would cross new light-rail tracks and bus lanes. But signal-controlled right turns will be allowed at Fifth and Jackson, Sixth and Harrison and Sixth and Irving. Vehicles will be able to turn left every other block.

MAX signals are about to go live. The upper horizontal bar tells the train to stop or stay at a station. The lower vertical bar means go. When a train has the right of way at an intersection, a regular red light will hold back bus and car traffic.

Tracks and bus lanes eventually will be off-limits to cars. Left-hand traffic lanes are for motorists, delivery trucks, taxis and cyclists. Buses are allowed in left lanes when necessary (to get around a stopped MAX train, for example). So be prepared to share the road.

The city is in the process of removing parking spots placed on the mall during construction, which began in January 2007. All but a few short-term metered spaces will be gone by March 2 and possibly earlier, since cyclists have started to raise safety concerns about parked cars giving them little room to ride.

Go to portlandmall.org to learn more. To see a computer-animated movie of how the mall will look and work, visit The Oregonian's Hard Drive commuting blog at oregonlive.com/harddrive

--Joseph Rose

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