NE Broadway Transformation on the Horizon

Two projects may come together in the next few years to transform NE Broadway from a busy, car-dominated thoroughfare to a calm, green street that’s friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians.

The first piece will come when NE Broadway is repaved from NE 11th to NE 24th. The street is only being repaved, not redesigned completely. However, back in 2022, The Portland Bureau of Transportation started a smart new program where they use repaving projects to reimagine some streets, taking the opportunity to make reconfigurations to make bike lanes and pedestrian crossings safer.

This year, when those 14 blocks are repaved, PBOT will place the bike lane directly next to the curb, with parked cars serving as a buffer between the bike lane and the traffic lanes. (This same setup has been implemented on other key bikeways, such as SW Broadway downtown.) Additionally, PBOT may reduce the car traffic lanes from 3 to 2, making pedestrian crossings safer.

The second project is PBOT’s Civic Main Street project, which recently won a $38 million federal grant and would change Broadway from NE 7th to the Broadway Bridge. The project would create protected bike lanes, improve sidewalks and pedestrian crossings, plant loads of new street trees, and make other improvements to make it easier to use public transportation on the street. The goal is to make that section of NE Broadway a pleasant and safe street.

This leaves a short section of NE Broadway, between NE 7th and NE 11th, which would likely get incorporated into these plans to create a seamless, safer street.