Portland is one of the most biked cities in America, with an estimated four percent of residents regularly biking to work. Although Portland has substantial biking infrastructure in place, bike commuters still face many barriers. For SE residents and commuters, one of the main challenges is navigating the train tracks.
One of Portland’s solutions to this has been installing bridges that go over the tracks, and commuter elevators to access them. There are two sets of commuter elevators crossing the tracks in SE Portland: two on SE Rhine St. and SE 17th Ave., which are funded by TriMet, and the Bob Stacey elevators on SE Gideon St., which are funded by Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). These elevators are designed to provide a way for pedestrians and cyclists to cross train tracks without having to wait for trains to pass, making their commute shorter. However, since their installation, the Bob Stacey elevators have regularly been closed due to vandalism, damage or mechanical failures.
Jocelyn Muller, a resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood who bikes to work, says that the train tracks “present a major barrier to commuting,” and the Bob Stacey elevators are “vital to [the Brooklyn] neighborhood’s access to schools, grocery stores and almost all city services.”…