About nine months ago Vancouver announced the completion of the area's first "cycle track". If you've ridden east on Fourth Plain Blvd between F Street and Ft. Vancouver Way (near the VA complex) you've seen or been on it. Tracks have been used for some time in Portland (e.g., on Naito Ave) but they are still relatively new to us.
It is designed to give cyclists a safer way to travel on Fourth Plain, and includes the track, which is blocked off from traffic, and bicycle-specific stop/go lights at intersections. It is important that we treat these as we would any other stop light... meaning only proceed through the intersections on the green... and not as stop signs which, in Washington (and Oregon) can be treated as yield signs and passed through on the roll if conditions are safe.
Take a look at this video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM19rUvfMfY .
Thanks to Monica Wolfe and Becky Stanford for alerting me to this, encouraging all of us to obey the traffic signals and forwarding this video.
Tom Eggers