Ah, Ray's book. Ray Thomas puts on a bicycle legal clinic every month or so at the Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Portland. I hear he also sometimes travels throughout Oregon to have the legal clinic in other areas. I went to one and it was very helpful. You can thank Ray for a great many cool changes in the last 20 years to the Oregon statutes relating to cyclists. Mary, you've certainly hit the nail on the head when you wonder if motorists need more education about cyclist's rights and how traffic law pertains to them. Unfortunately, the OR DMV doesn't seem to think it important and then nearly all if not all of the state legislature are motorists and not cyclists. What do they care? I'm sure that's the same in all US states to varying degrees.

I got out my North Portland bikeway map and I think I see the bridge you are referring to. Just southeast of Smith and Bybee Lakes? The map even marks it as a "difficult connection". I don't get out in that direction much, but I've found that whenever the city maps refer to a place as a "difficult connection", I need to be prepared to ride in a pretty agressive, vehicular cycling manner. Gives me flashbacks of riding in the metro Detroit area... Anyway, you'll get better at dealing with these places with time and practice. It's kind of like the TE members who have physical training regimes - we need to have urban cycling psychological training regimes. I highly recommend attending one of the legal clinics as part of that training regime.

P.S. I went to Jantzen Beach last week for something I could only get at Toys 'R Toxic, and it took me a freakin' hour of riding around dodging the drunk drivers coming out of Hooters before I found the bike entrance to the I-5 bridge. I talked to someone in the city DOT, and they say the new bike signage is being made right now.