River View Cemetery considers closing grounds to bikes

SELLWOOD BRIDGE COMMUTING

By Steve Law, Portland Tribune

The Bee, Nov 4, 2009

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An elderly widow drives to River View Cemetery to visit her husband’s grave, and is cussed out by a speeding bicyclist who complains that her parked car is in his way.

Maintenance crews close off the cemetery’s main road to make repairs, but bicyclists ignore the signs and pedal over gravesites to avoid the construction site, then continue on with their daily commute.

Such conflicts are commonplace at River View — used by thousands of bicyclists as a safe and scenic route connecting Southwest Portland and the eastside — says David Noble, River View’s Executive Director.

“Many seem to be under the impression that River View Cemetery is their own personal race track, and woe unto anyone who might think to get in their way,” Noble says ruefully. “They barrel through funeral processions, and yell, curse at or ‘flip off’ our cemetery visitors or maintenance workers, who they deem to be going too slow for their liking.”

The sprawling Southwest Portland cemetery at the west end of the Sellwood Bridge recently installed speed bumps to slow bicyclists down, but the result has been at least three injuries as bicyclists lost balance and crashed. The cyclists complain that the bumps come with no warning and are too steep. Some bicyclists recently were observed pedaling onto the cemetery grass to get around the speed bumps.

“If behaviors don’t improve,” Noble says, “we will reluctantly have to take the next step of closing the cemetery to all bicycle traffic.”

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the city’s leading advocacy group for bicyclists, plans to meet with cemetery staff soon, to discuss ways to resolve the conflicts — possibly by installing better warning signs, explains Michelle Poyourow, who does advocacy and public education for the BTA.

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