Sean C. Morgan
The city has painted sidewalks at downtown corners with a warning to bike riders to walk bicycles when using the sidewalks.
The city has banned riding bicycles on sidewalks downtown for years, and a handful of street signs warn against it. But it’s no secret that the law is often ignored.
About two weeks ago, the city began painting a warning at each corner of Long Street.
“It’s been in the works for a number of years,” said Police Chief Jeff Lynn. The idea is “to promote more safety, just trying to keep people from getting run over.”
City Staff Engineer Joe Graybill said the goal is “to try to prevent people from riding bikes on our narrow sidewalks.
“It’s just not a good idea,” he said. “Pedestrians move at different speeds than bikes.”
Many doors downtown open directly to the sidewalks, which is a function of the city’s narrow sidewalks, Graybill said. That doesn’t leave a lot of clearance for bikes.
As a result, the city banned the use of bicycles on sidewalks on Main Street and Long Street from 10th Avenue to 18th Avenue. At times, the activity has been more common than others.
“I’m not seeing it as much as we used to,” Graybill said, but city officials haven’t been talking about it as much as they used to before the Traffic Safety and Public Safety committees combined. The Traffic Safety Committee used to meet regularly. The new committee meets as needed.
“We had talked about (the notices) a number of years ago,” Graybill said. “It came out of discussions at the Traffic Safety Committee with Jim Bean (a city councilor) and Bud Mather (a member of the committee – a long discussion of how and where.”
Finally, the city located a good positive stencil to use, Graybill said. The message tells people what they should do rather than saying “don’t.”
“We’re doing Long Street first,” Graybill said. He is beginning the process of getting permission from the Oregon Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over Highway 20, to paint them on Main Street.