🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
As bike ridership spikes in cities across the state, Oregon’s upcoming legislative session is sure to be full of bike-related action. Figuring prominently in that mix will be the lobbying efforts of the Portland-based Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA).
Leading the charge for the BTA will be their new Government Affairs (a.k.a. lobbyist) man Karl Rohde. Today I learned more about what Rohde and the BTA might be focusing on in January when Oregon’s 75th Legislative Assembly convenes in Salem.
The Oregon Manifest Handmade Bike Show (October 10-12 in Portland) is shaping up to be an event you won’t want to miss. I’ll be writing much more about the show in the days to come (not to mention complete daily coverage once it’s here).
Local bike apparel company, Rapha, has announced they’ll bring back their Roller Races event that was a smash hit when it was held during the North American Handmade Bicycle Show back in February.
This time around, in honor of the Oregon Manifest show and Portland’s cyclocross season, Rapha will host the “Cross Roller Race” event. Here’s how they describe it:
“…Cross Roller Racing is a highly competitive and thoroughly costumed night of 500 meter on-stage roller sprints combined with running, dashing and jumping through a 250 yard indoor cross course, complete with barriers, run-ups and Zoo-Bomb bikes.”
As part of an ongoing effort, the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division is performing a series of “traffic safety educational missions” at the intersection of Broadway and Flint.
Traffic Division Captain Larry O’Dea says his officers are conducting the missions during morning commute hours every day this week. According to O’Dea, the missions are being done in conjunction with the first round of changes made by PDOT (the “Bikes Stop” markings installed last week).
In an email sent by O’Dea this morning, he described the PPB’s efforts as,
Bikes to Rwanda, a Portland-based non-profit that provides cargo bikes to cooperative coffee farmers in Rwanda, is hosting a special screening of the highly acclaimed cyclocross film, Pure Sweet Hell.
The event (this Thursday from 5-8pm) is being billed as a kickoff party for the Cross Crusade race series (it’s starts this weekend!), but more importantly, it’s a fundraiser for the great work being done by Bikes to Rwanda.
Here’s the event flyer (download larger PDF):
This morning’s Gresham Outlook newspaper has a story about new legislation that has been drafted by Oregon State Rep. John Lim (R-Gresham) that would give a tax break to bike commuters.
According to the Outlook, the current draft language of the bill says,
“a taxpayer who rides a bicycle to work at least 10 days a month could receive a $15 tax credit per month that would be applied to their personal income tax. A business could claim up to a $5,000 corporate tax credit for installing bicycle racks and showers for their employees who commute by bicycle.”