Dirty bike lanes have been a persistent problem for the Portland Bureau of Transportation for years. The influx of protected bike lanes too narrow for PBOT vehicles to fit into has made the problem worse. Portlanders of all stripes have complained about the issue; but rocks, gravel and other road detritus continues to plague our bikeways.
At a June 20th meeting of the PBOT Budget Advisory Committee, PBOT Director Millicent Williams addressed the issue. “We’ve heard the voices,” she said. “We just ordered a bike lane sweeper.”
I reached out to PBOT to learn more and turns out the sweeper hasn’t been ordered quite yet, but it’s coming soon. The bureau is on the verge of buying a new electric sweeper designed for spaces as narrow as 48-inches wide.
According to PBOT communications staffers, they’re looking at two models, a Tenax Electra 2.0 Evos and a Madvac LS125E. Both are electric sweepers built for tight spaces. PBOT says they’re getting demos of each model and have set up rental periods for prolonged test rides before pulling the trigger on the purchase. They want to be sure because the Tenax would set them back $345,000 and the Madvac goes for $283,000.
The new sweeper would be used in addition to their other mini-sweeper used for curb-protected bike lanes. That one, a Mathieu MC 210 I profiled back in 2021, works OK, but PBOT says it requires “quite a bit of maintenance.”
In a speech at Bike Happy Hour last week, mayoral candidate Keith Wilson said PBOT had cut all of its street sweeping, and “especially to bike lanes.” I asked PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schafer about that. She said it’s not true. “We are still continuing with bike lane sweeping and it is incorrect to say that we have stopped.”
Despite the maintenance delays with the Mathieu sweeper, Schafer told BikePortland they’ve swept 343 miles of protected bike lanes in the last 12 months, which exceed their goal of 300 miles. One reason Schafer said PBOT has focused on sweeping bike lanes is because striping crews can’t paint fresh lines on dirty roads. So far this season, PBOT has striped 1,664 miles of roads, with 91% of all high crash corridor streets already receiving at least one pass (they try to do at least two passes of striping on all arterials as Portland winters wear down stripes significantly each year).
Regardless of the reason for doing it, cleaner bike lanes are an essential part of keeping people in the saddle. And folks that ride bikes have a right to well-maintained facilities.
PBOT should make a purchase decision on the new sweeper by this coming October. Stay tuned for a BikePortland video where I ride-along on one of the test runs.