City leaders met with bike advocates at City Hall on Monday to discuss the strategies and projects they hope will lead to Platinum status (Portland is currently a Gold-level city and Platinum is the highest “Bicycle Friendly Community” designation given by the League of American Bicyclists).
The most interesting thing to come out of the meeting was the announcement of a Portland Bike Summit slated to happen on June 17th, right in the middle of Pedalpalooza. Details on the summit are still emerging, but the emphasis will be to gather Portland’s diverse bike scene (racers, hipsters, MTBers, etc…) together to “tell the Portland bike story”, present workshops and share plans for our bike-friendly future.
Many other ideas and projects were discussed including; focus group studies, opinion poll research, a new bike parking initiative, mode split goals, a Platinum logo, federal funding for bike projects, an economic analysis study, and more. I’ll be touching on some these in more detail in the coming weeks.
Excellent news about the Summit! Some of the momentum gained by the Bicycle Tourism on 4/1 in Eugene should acrry over. NOW I get to ask Sam Adams and hopefully Dan Saltzman this question: “Why is it that a mountain bicyclist that wishes to ride a singletrack trail must load his bicycle in a car and DRIVE 1 to 2 or MORE hours just to ride on singletrack trails? WHEN will the Portland Parks and RECREATION Dept. finally realize there is a lack of this kind of trails for bicyclists to ride within the city? Powell Butte does not count, 20 minutes and you have ridden it all.”
PUMP has been trying to get some kind of access to these kinds of trails, trails that look JUST like hiking trails, but we are denied access.
Is Portland TRULY ‘Bike Friendly’ to ALL bicyclists? Think about it, we’ll chat on June 17th.