Portland, Ore. – Traffic Calming: Diagonal Diverter
In this short segment, Greg Raisman from the Portland Office of Transportation explains the reasoning behind this traffic calming measure that keeps neighborhoods free of thru traffic.
[intro music]
Greg Raisman:
[16:00] Behind me is called a diagonal diverter. There’s a busy
street that direction, there’s a busy street that direction in one
block. So if motor vehicles wanted to avoid being on those busy
streets they might try to cut down by either this residential street
behind me, or that residential street. Well what happens is because
this diagonal diverter is in place, they’re forced as they turn off
of those busy streets back onto the busy street. And it keeps
these residential streets behind it residential. It keeps it so
that there’s fewer cars, fewer people cutting through the neighbourhood,
and it keeps it so that the cars are on the busier streets where we
really want more cars to be because they’re designed to handle heavier
traffic. This diagonal diverter was designed with pedestrians
and bicyclists in mind. It’s really nice as a pedestrian to
walk by it, but at the same time it’s a cut-through on a bicycle boulevard
that goes east and west through North East Portland. And there’s
actually little pavement markings on the street that point bicyclists
through it, to really let them know that, yes indeed, they should be
using these cut-throughs through the diverter as they’re travelling
through the neighbourhood.
[music]
