PORTLAND, Ore. -- They're big, green and tough to miss. Of course, that's on purpose. Still, that doesn't mean their purpose is completely clear.
“I didn't know what it was,” Kegan Unger of the green, striped pattern stretching across Northwest 21st at Johnson.
The green striped pattern is a ‘crossbike.'
It works like a traditional crosswalk for cyclists.
Noticed these "crossbikes"? Many have. But few know what they mean. So @PBOTinfo had to post signs to clear it up. pic.twitter.com/8sVMtF30Qc
— Maggie Vespa KGW (@Maggie_Vespa) September 18, 2016
The city installed them throughout the summer at several intersections throughout Portland where heavy traffic intersects with popular bike routes.
Legally, cars don't have to stop to let cyclists cross in them, though officials hope they do.
Simple enough, say some.
“Bikes in the green, pedestrians in the white,” said cyclist Ken Schwerd.
Still, amid lingering confusion, officials aren't taking any chances.
“We try to educate the public about what it means,” said Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dylan Rivera.
And that education is continuing with large, illustration filled signs popping up around the city explaining crossbikes.
They will stay up indefinitely, as part of an effort to eliminate traffic related fatalities in Portland.
“To get to vision zero, we're going to need not just engineering changes like this, like different markings and bigger bike lanes, but also education,” Rivera said.
And it's a point that becomes clearer with every crash.
Four cyclists have died in Portland so far this year.
Rachel Mossey is a cyclist whose house faces a crossbike in Northeast Portland.
She's glad to see any effort to get drivers' attention.
“It's made people, made drivers aware that there's something else to attend to, like maybe other types of traffic in the area, and you noticed like a marked slow-down in people's driving speed just approaching this intersection,” she said.
