Tomorrow at this time I'll be on a plane flying to Copenhagen. Today I punched "Copenhagen" into a search of all my Front Page stories and the earliest instance I found was over seven years ago. It was a post I published on April 5th, 2006 titled, Copenhagen video shows Portland's dream.
Cover of October 1967 American Cycling magazine shows the nation's top racers at Alpenrose Velodrome. (Photos by Peter Hoffman)
While many people think of only bike commuters and naked rides when the topic of cycling in Portland comes up, our city also has a proud tradition when it comes to racing. We shared a glimpse of that legacy back in 2011 through James Mason's amazing photographs of the local racing scene in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Now we've come across another interesting artifact of our racing past: The 1967 issue of American Cycling magazine that featured Portland on its cover.
Portland earned this cover spot for hosting the 1967 U.S. National Road Racing Championships. The competition took place over two days at the newly opened Alpenrose Velodrome and the infamous 1.7 mile circuit in Mt. Tabor Park.
The man who wrote and photographed that story for American Cycling is Peter Hoffman. Hoffman is 76-years old now and he lives in Beaverton (just over the hill from Portland). After seeing our story on James Mason's racing images, Hoffman scanned his old issue of American Cycling and posted it online. Hoffman was publisher and editor of American Cycling for six years. It became Bicycling magazine in 1968 and Hoffman was its editor for that first year. (Read more about the history of American Cyclinghere.)
There's a renewed effort afoot that could result in something most observers thought would never happen: legal public access to the "Cement Road" that runs through Union Pacific's Albina Yards along the Willamette River between Swan Island and the Fremont Bridge.
Union Pacific Railroad owns the road and they don't allow public use. There are "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" signs posted at its northern entrance (at the end of N Portland Center Way); but many of Swan Island's 10,000 employees who ride bikes to work still use the road because it's the only flat and safe way to get to work. As recently as December 2012, UP spokesman Brock Nelson said they were, "Not interested in either selling or allowing public access to this property."
However, it now appears UP's position on this idea might be softening up a bit.
The Port of Portland is taking the lead on a US DOT TIGER grant request that would fund the first two sections (shaded in red) of the North Portland Greenway.
In case you haven't heard, a bridge on Interstate 5 north of Seattle collapsed and toppled into the Skagit River last night. Two cars fell into the river but amazingly no one was seriously hurt. Reports say it was caused when a large semi truck hit a steel beam truss which caused the bridge to wobble and then crack.
Almost immediately, folks wondered how this eye-popping infrastructure failure would impact the discussion around the Columbia River Crossing project. And almost immediately, the spin began from the pro-CRC side. Here's a snip from a Portland Tribune story posted this morning:
The details of the Portland Bureau of Transportation's plans to invest in downtown bicycle access are getting clearer. As we shared back in February, PBOT has applied for $6 million in regional flexible funding (administered by Metro) in order to improve the transportation network in the downtown core.
Much about the plan — like specific locations and facility-types — remains undecided; but PBOT's grant application (published on Metro's website) provides the most detail we've seen yet about the project.
As I type this, the City of Portland is going through the final stages of selecting a new director of the transportation bureau. This morning at City Hall, myself and over a dozen other citizen stakeholders got to "meet and greet" the final three candidates being considered for the job.
Our involvement in vetting the candidates has been just one part of the selection process. Yesterday each of them went through a grueling interview with eight different people while Portland City Commissioners and their staffers stood and observed in the background. This is all part of Mayor Hales' promise to do a thorough, nationwide search for a new PBOT director. Back in January Hales asked former PBOT Director Tom Miller to resign and Hales made it clear during his mayoral campaign that he wasn't comfortable with how Miller was hand-picked by his former boss, Sam Adams.
According to Hales, the City received 44 applications for the job from all over the country. Now there are just three people left.
The Intermodalists: ODOT Highway Division Administrator Paul Mather and Transportation Development Division Administrator Jerri Bohard. (Photo: ODOT)
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has announced another shift in their approach to transportation planning and it couldn't come at a better time. As recent national research and major news headlines continue to reflect a move away from automobile use among major swaths of the American public, and as highway funding levels nosedive, smart transportation agencies are beginning to adapt.
To respond to these changes, ODOT has announced "Intermodal Oregon" a new initiative that will help the agency "move away from a siloed and highway-centric approach to business." Here's how ODOT describes the transition they're going through (emphases mine):
The "spiderweb" of Regional Bicycle Parkways as envisioned in Metro's plan.
Metro will host an open house tomorrow (5/23) for their Regional Active Transportation Plan. The plan will be the region's first specifically tailored to bicycling, walking and access to transit. The planning effort has been underway for well over a year and is set to wrap up by the end of next month. In summer of 2014 the plan's recommendations and a list of prioritized projects will be proposed for adoptions into the Regional Transportation Plan.
The plan's ambitious scope includes: the creation of a new set of design guidelines for bicycle facilities; an update to regional biking and walking maps; integration of the existing active transportation network; identification of a network of 'Regional Bicycle Parkways'; a recommendation of strategies for implementation, and more.
In other words, this is a big deal. As its projects get adopted into the RTP, Metro's Regional Active Transportation Plan will give regional policymakers the crucial political breathing room and decision-making framework they need to make real and significant investments that could vastly improve bicycling conditions.
Pedalpalooza kicks off in just over two weeks and the buzz is really starting to build. The official calendar already has 129 events listed and I can sense growing chatter and excitement amongst lovers of bike fun throughout the city. I wanted to bring your attention to some nifty rides and remind you that the deadline for submitting one of your own — if you want it to appear in the printed calendar — is tomorrow (5/22) at midnight. The benefit to having your ride in the printed calendar is that it gets inserted into an issue of the Portland Mercury and gets passed out all around town.
Below are a few gems I noticed on the calendar so far...
The 8-Bit Bike Ride (June 8th) will be a "ride down retro lane, 8-bit style." The ride leader, Zed Bailey, is encouraging everyone to show up wearing their favorite retro video game costume. The ride meets at Avalon Nickel Arcade on SE Belmont for pre-ride video-game playing. He even made this cool video promo...
The exercise is based on a bioterrorism attack that creates a massive public health emergency. The entire population will be at risk unless they receive medicine that's doled out at a "Point of Dispensing station". Tigard will test the POD station concept for the first time on Thursday and officials from many other regional jurisdictions will be on hand to observe it. The medicine would be flown in from other areas and the challenge is to get the boxes of treatments and supplies to the POD stations as fast as possible. With traffic jams and other unforeseen circumstances, vehicles are needed that can operate regardless of traffic conditions.
Our story last week about a lawsuit against the Timberline Mountain Bike Park has sparked a lot of conversation. Several people commented and contacted me to express concerns that I failed to offer adequate context to the story. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups that have signed on as plaintiffs to the lawsuit, strongly maintain that their stance is not about bikes at all. Rather, they say their concerns are about the broader environmental impacts, the private developer that will construct the park, and a feeling that the U.S. Forest Service has not fulfilled its obligations within the public process around the project.
In our story last week, I included an email from Kenji Sugahara, the executive director of the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association, to Brian Pasko, the director of the Sierra Club's Oregon chapter. In that email, Sugahara questioned the Sierra Club's actions and requested their immediate withdrawal from the lawsuit. Today I want to share Pasko's response to Sugahara because I it adds some important context to this debate (emphases mine):
Hi Kenji,
Thank you very much for this note and for your past support of the Sierra Club's work in Oregon. I want to assure you that the Sierra Club did not approach this litigation lightly, nor should our involvement in this lawsuit imply that we oppose increasing the level of mountain bike recreation opportunities on the Mountain.
We chose to engage in this lawsuit because we believe that this particular proposal is not appropriately located and the environmental costs vs. recreational benefits are just too high. In contrast, we chose not to oppose a similar proposal on Mount Bachelor because its location is much better suited to this type of bike park.
Additionally, we appreciate and admire IMBA's exceptional trail maintenance work. It is our understanding that the trails on this proposed bike park would not be trails open to the public and managed by IMBA or other volunteer trail crews, but would instead be maintained by the private owners at Timberline for their economic gain.
More importantly, we are pursuing this lawsuit in part because we believe that the Forest Service has fundamentally failed in its obligation to fully evaluate the potential for additional mountain bike recreational opportunities in the Mount Hood National Forest. We too are disappointed that the Mountain bike and environmental communities are being divided over a debate about the location of a single privately-owned bike park, when instead we should be engaged in a collaborative effort to substantially expand the publicly accessible mountain bike trail system forest-wide.
The Sierra Club believes that the Forest Service should be carrying out a robust analysis and implementing a formal stakeholder process to expand mountain bike opportunities on our national forests. We are keenly interested in working with the mountain bike community to achieve this goal. In fact, we are meeting with leaders in IMBA and others in the next few weeks to discuss this and how we can move forward together.
I appreciate your concerns about our involvement in this litigation, and hope that I have given you some assurances that the Sierra Club is very interested in partnering with the mountain bike community to convince the Forest Service to do better recreational planning on the Mount Hood National Forest. I hope that this is the start of a continuing dialogue with you and others about how we can work together to make that a reality.
Thanks,
Brian
Chapter Director
Sierra Club - Oregon Chapter
1821 SE Ankeny Street
Bicycle frame and component manufacturer Chris King Precision Components employs over 100 people in northwest Portland. (Photo: Chris King Precision Components)
Travel Oregon released the Bicycle Industry Survey yesterday to begin data collection for the study. Here's more from them from the email announcement:
The bicycle industry in Oregon is a unique and growing part of our economy. To get a better handle on the size, characteristics and growth of this industry, a research project has been launched to gather current data that is not available from any existing sources.
One of the best things about bicycling in Portland isn't even in Portland. It's a small town called Vernonia. Situated a perfect day's ride from Portland (about 50 miles, or less if you take MAX to HIllsboro), Vernonia is nestled in the woods at the end of about 20 miles of the smoothly paved Banks-Vernonia Trail.
This past weekend I packed up a few panniers and joined some friends for an overnight bike ride out to Vernonia. On the way out we rode through some great new trails and rural backroads through Washington County; and on the way back, we opted for logging roads and dirt trails that led us to Scappoose. Even under grey and wet skies all day Saturday, it was fantastic riding.
But what made this weekend so great wasn't just the pedaling and the good company, it was the town of Vernonia itself. From the easy and comfortable camping at Anderson Park, to the hospitality of locals we experienced at Black Bear Coffee and the Cedar Side Inn.
People who ride bikes at night consistently overestimate their visibility to other road users, a new study has found.
They also overlook a few tricks, like reflective strips around the ankles and knees, that can help the most.
The report, led by Joanne Wood of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and published in next month's issue of Accident Analysis & Prevention, asked both regular and occasional bike riders wearing black clothing, fluorescent or reflective vests, and vests with reflective strips to estimate the point at which an approaching driver would be able to spot them. Different lighting setups were used, too.
People wearing black clothing on their bike at night, or just a reflective vest, were far too optimistic. They thought drivers would see them from nearly twice the distance drivers actually tend to.
About 80 local business leaders and bike lovers packed the second annual Portland Employers Bike Summit Friday to swap advice and anecdotes exactly like Sam Blackman's.
The award-winning young tech CEO spoke at one of the afternoon's panels to show how his company, the fast-growing digital video startup Elemental Technologies, saves money and attracts top-notch employees by putting low-car commuting at the heart of its workplace culture.
Even before Blackman and his two co-founders started paying themselves, they were renting a workspace with bike parking and showers and buying a TriMet pass for every Elemental employee.
The City Club of Portland, a respected local civic institution founded in 1916, will release their comprehensive research study on bicycling in Portland on May 31st. On that same day, bicycling will be the subject of their Friday Forum speaking series (speaker TBD) which will be attended by Portland's movers and shakers at the Governor Hotel in downtown Portland.
"With the release of City Club’s report on bicycle transportation in Portland," says a description of the event on their website, "we’ll answer the question: 'How should we improve our transportation system to optimize choice, efficiency and safety for all modes of transportation?'"
- Independent, daily bike news since 2005 -
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