Two more Portland City Councilors oppose diverter removal – BikePortland

Two more Portland City Council members have shared opposition to a plan from Mayor Keith Wilson’s office to remove traffic diverters on neighborhood greenways in northwest. Meanwhile, Wilson has shown no sign of halting the plans.

District 2 Councilor Sameer Kanal and District 3 Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane have both used social media to explain their views. They join District 4 Councilor Mitch Green and District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo in opposition to the plan.

“I briefly toured the NW 20th and Everett area yesterday, and I am confused as to the justification for removing these diverters,” Councilor Kanal wrote in a post on Bluesky this morning. “If anything, the SUV I saw drive around the planter and use the bike lane as a car lane makes me think the whole road could be closed to cars, not just one direction.” Kanal went on to encourage city administrators to attend the August 12th meeting of the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee before making any changes on the ground.

Councilor Koyama Lane, who’s been a champion of the City’s Vision Zero traffic safety effort, shared a long and thoughtful comment on an Instagram Live recording Thursday (notably, she used her personal account, not her City of Portland account) where she questioned the City’s lack of transparency and public outreach. “Why are we removing these safety interventions without really explaining publicly what the rationale is?… I’m concerned that I wasn’t looped-in and I believe that even the [Portland Bureau of Transportation] Vision Zero team has not been included and looped-in on this. That’s pretty concerning,” Koyama Lane said. “A public process is deserved.”

Since Koyama Lane’s video didn’t make it clear if she supported or opposed the removal of the diverters, I asked her in a comment, to which she replied: “I do not want the diverters removed. In order to put my support behind this, I would need to see more information, accessible data, and engagement of community activists and groups.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Keith Wilson still plans to move forward with the removals. In a statement shared with local media yesterday, he said he’s heard enough complaints from business owners and residents to warrant the changes. Wilson bases his decision on what he describes as, “escalating drug dealing, narcotic use and sales, reports of assaults on pedestrians and cyclists, and obstacles for emergency responders in this corridor.”

Wilson says PBOT traffic engineers and the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Safety Division, “worked together to develop a plan that recommends repositioning diverters, adding intersection signage, daylighting intersections and restoring two-way vehicular traffic while preserving safe bike and pedestrian access.”

That sounds interesting, but no outside the City has seen that plan. PBOT tells BikePortland their traffic engineers were asked to design options that allow police access while still addressing traffic safety concerns. Perhaps it’s possible. I guess we’ll have to just trust the Mayor and his public safety partners.

I’ve tried to learn more and get further clarity on this story; but today I learned that a series of follow-up questions I sent to the Portland Solutions office on Wednesday morning will not be answered. After waiting nearly two days and hearing from a Portland Solutions spokesperson that they’d spent time working on responses, this morning I was told to forward my questions to the Mayor’s office. The mayor’s office has since told me, “We’ll hold off on responding to additional questions for now.”

As for when/if the removals and changes to the intersections might occur, no one has shared a specific date or time. Thursday evening I heard the plans had been paused, but I have not been able to confirm that information.