Neighborhood Bikeways

What are Neighborhood Bikeways?

Neighborhood bikeways are typically low-volume, low-speed residential streets, where people feel comfortable walking, biking, and rolling. Safety is improved along these corridors by prioritizing people and providing low-stress routes for individuals traveling by foot or wheel, while still accommodating motor vehicle traffic and on-street parking. These routes are vital connectors between neighborhoods, parks, schools and business districts.

What elements make up a Neighborhood Bikeways?
 

City of Corvallis Neighborhood Bikeway Design Guidelines and Best Practices are available for download here

Pavement Markings & Bicycle Guide Signage

Signs and pavement markings are the minimum treatments necessary to designate a street as a neighborhood bikeway. Together, they visibly differentiate neighborhood bikeways from other local streets, reminding people driving to watch for bicyclists.

Signage informs bicyclists that they are on the proper route, and alerts them to upcoming decisions, turns, or destinations.

Pavement markings can guide users through jogs in the route and help them navigate around busy intersections. The primary marking for neighborhood bikeways is the shared roadway marking, also known as the sharrow.

Traffic Calming

Traffic calming measures consist of devices that reduce motor vehicle speeds closer to cycling speeds and/or reduce motor vehicle volumes, thereby making the neighborhood bikeway a safer, more pleasant bicycle route. 

  • Speed humps are a familiar tool to reduce motor vehicle speeds.
  • Neighborhood traffic circles reduce motor vehicle speeds, and eliminate the need for people cycling to stop as is the case where stop signs are provided. Visit the Traffic Circle FAQ page for more information.
  • Curb bulb-outs (examples shown below) extend the sidewalk into the parking lane to narrow the roadway. This increases the visibility of a person at the intersection, gives more safe waiting space and shortens their crossing distance. This also encourages slower, safer vehicular turning speeds for vehicles.

Neighborhood Bikeways in Corvallis

The City’s Transportation System Plan identifies a network of low-stress bicycle routes that are proposed to become future neighborhood bikeways. Corvallis’ first neighborhood bikeway was the 11th Street Bikeway. Future projects are listed in the table below.

Project Estimated Project Date
NW Tyler Avenue Neighborhood Bikeway (NW 1st St to NW Kings Blvd) Fall 2026
Neighborhood Bikeway Prioritization and Scoping Project January 2027
SE Corvallis Neighborhood Bikeway (Crystal Lake Drive to SE Goodnight Ave) 2026-2027
NW 26th/27th Street Neighborhood Bikeway (NW Monroe Ave to NW Walnut Blvd) 2026-2027
NW 16th/17th Street Neighborhood Bikeway (NW Monroe Ave to NW Grant Ave) 2028-2029
11th Street Neighborhood Bikeway (NW Cleveland Ave to NW Harrison Blvd) Completed
11th Street Neighborhood Bikeway (NW Harrison Blvd to SW E Ave) Completed

Frequently Asked Questions

Why and how were these streets chosen and prioritized?

Between 2015 and 2018, the City engaged the community through open houses, public hearings, work groups, advisory committees, and a community-wide survey to create the Transportation System Plan (TSP), which was adopted by the City Council in 2018. It was during this process that the low-stress network was identified to improve walking and biking conditions throughout Corvallis. The streets chosen provide an alternative to adjacent, higher volume roadways for those on foot, wheel or mobility device.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will we lose on-street parking?

Removal of on-street parking is not typically part of a Neighborhood Bikeway. However, there may be a small number of locations where parking may need to be restricted. For example, areas adjacent to intersections or where a speed hump is installed.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
What about emergency vehicle access?

Emergency vehicle access will not be affected. The Fire and Police Departments review plans for treatments like speed humps and traffic circles to ensure they are designed to maintain emergency vehicle access. By their nature, Neighborhood Bikeways are almost entirely on low volume residential streets, which are not considered backbone emergency response routes for Police and Fire.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will other neighborhood streets see more traffic as a result?

Though proposed treatments are designed to achieve safer, slower speeds on Neighborhood Bikeway routes, we do not expect a significant diversion to nearby streets.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will my street be closed to cars?

No. All streets will remain open to vehicle traffic. Access to homes and businesses will be unaffected.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Are you installing designated bike lanes?

The vast majority of Neighborhood Bikeway streets will have shared roadway markings (also known as “sharrows”) to indicate that the streets are shared by people bicycling and driving. Some routes are on collectors or arterials for short segments and these connections will typically have already-existing bike lanes.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
What about speed limits on these streets?

All local streets in Corvallis currently have a speed limit of 25 mph. Traffic calming may achieve lower speeds without changing posted speed limits.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will these streets get repaved?

Some segments of Neighborhood Bikeways will see localized repairs or patching. However, due to limited budgets, the priority for major rehabilitation projects is the collector and arterial system. For more information on future resurfacing projects, please visit the Capital Improvement Program’s latest adopted plan. To learn more about how Corvallis streets are assessed and prioritized for repairs visit the Street Maintenance webpage. If you see a small scale repair like a pothole you can report it to the City via Report A Problem (select “Pothole”). City staff will assess the location and determine if it is able to be repaired.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Why is a traffic circle proposed at 11th Street and Tyler Avenue?

11th Street and Tyler Avenue is the intersection of two Neighborhood Bikeways, where heavier than usual bike traffic occurs. A traffic circle will facilitate continuous movement for both cyclists and motorists through the intersection while keeping speeds reasonable. It also provides passive traffic control and discourages cut through traffic in the neighborhood.

For more information about traffic circles, visit the Traffic Circle FAQ page.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will the railroad crossing on 11th Street be upgraded to concrete similar to the crossing at Adams?

When we analyze a span of road to implement a Neighborhood Bikeway, we look carefully at every element. Railroad crossings are no exception. We are aware that the condition of these crossings can pose a challenge for some street users. Although improvements may appear straightforward on the surface, crossings are actually located within railroad-owned land and require complex coordination, negotiation, approval, and agreements with the railroad and the State who regulates rail crossings. This makes the process very difficult, time consuming and quite expensive. So expensive, in fact, that the cost of crossing improvements alone can quickly surpass the budget for the entire project.

Due to the complexity of parties involved, high costs, and the desire to still advance other beneficial elements of the Neighborhood Bikeway network, we have elected to remove railroad crossings reconstruction from the current project phase. This does not preclude a later effort to attempt to tackle this complex work here and elsewhere.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
Will speed humps have channels cut in them so bicycles can ride through them?

Currently, we do not have any speed humps on Neighborhood Bikeways that have channels cut to accommodate for bicyclist and/or vehicles with larger axles, such as emergency vehicles.

While a good idea in theory, we have found that there are two main issues. When bikes and vehicles are sharing the road on local streets, and both a vehicle and bike arrive simultaneously at a speed hump, bikes may be squeezed out of their path of travel by vehicles so vehicles can drive through the channel too. This is when a chain of events can occur. While being closely passed, the rider is forced to move quickly and into crossing the speed hump gap at an angle, which could result in a crash due to the abrupt edges and elevation.

From a maintenance perspective, speed humps with channels are a challenge. The gap accumulates debris such as leaves in the fall, gravel in the winter, and other debris throughout the year. It is simply not possible to remove this material from this gap with our street sweepers. Eventually, it must be manually removed, which is time consuming from an automation standpoint. Since local streets are not swept as frequently as arterials and collectors, this will likely lead to frustration for cyclists.

We will continue to monitor and internally evaluate this topic but at the current time, there is no plan to change the current design of speed humps to accommodate channels.

Category: Neighborhood Bikeways
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