5 September 2006 Archives

Cyclist wins fixed-gear case

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

This morning Portland cyclist John Boyd successfully defended himself in a Multnomah County traffic court trial for a ticket he received for riding a fixed-gear bicycle without a hand brake.

Boyd, a 40 year-old architect and resident of Northeast Portland, was given the ticket by Officer Barnum of the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division. Barnum is the same officer who ticketed Ayla Holland, a local messenger who lost her case for the same violation on July 27th (that case is under appeal with the State of Oregon).

[Who would have thought?]

Last Friday in Beaverton, just across the street from a Share the Road demonstration, there was a strange car/bike crash that I still can’t figure out.

When I first saw the scene, it looked pretty simple. An older lady sat flustered in her big Town Car while an adrenaline-pumped cyclist gathered his broken bike and began to call the cops to report the crash. I could not believe the irony.

I walked over to talk to the cyclist and he told me the lady turned right into him without even looking. It sounded completely plausible and I immediately believed his story.

PDOT is close to releasing their 2006 bridge counts and so far the results are very exciting. In 2005, the average daily bicycle traffic over the four main downtown bridges was up over 10,000 for the first time ever and showed a three-fold increase from 1995.

This year, preliminary reports show a 20% increase over last year (the bridges included in the count are the Steel, Broadway, Hawthorne and Burnside).

PDOT has yet to release final numbers on the Burnside, but according to city bicycle coordinator Roger Geller, all the numbers are way up,

Cyclist wins fixed-gear case

A strange but true bike arrest

Bridge bicycle counts up 20 percent

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