Portland is Programming Traffic Signals at Busy Intersections to Give Bike Buses Longer Walk Cycles – BikePortland
- GVF TMA
- 3 minutes ago
- 1 min read
The latest illustration of how the City of Portland supports bike buses is a novel innovation that gives school ride leaders superpowers: At several locations across the city where bike bus routes cross busy intersections, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has programmed traffic signals with a custom, bike bus-friendly timing plan that is activated by a longer push of the beg button.
We’ve heard of transit signal priority to move buses through traffic. You could think of this as bike bus signal priority. I first heard about this from PBOT Director Millicent Williams when she spoke at the Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting last Tuesday. I then reached out to PBOT for clarification.
According to PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schaffer, signals engineers have re-programmed several traffic signals with added green “Walk” times that are initiated by a longer push of the pedestrian “beg” button. When activated, the new “Walk” signals give a significantly longer period of green crossing time than usual — in some cases over one minute (when combined with a shorter, flashing “Don’t Walk” signal), compared to just 10-15 seconds for a typical “Walk” signal. The extended walk signals are available for only a short window of time during the morning bike bus commute.
