Want to get involved this week? Here’s how.
Tonight! October 24th
CRC EIS Public Comments due
Send to feedback@columbiarivercrossing.org by midnight on Monday. EIS Link. Speak up or assume that your elected officials think you love this five mile, 10-20 lane freeway expansion megaproject.
Workshop: Bike Safety on Highway 43
5:30 – 7:00pm
Lakewood Center for the Arts (368 S. State St., Lake Oswego)
Clackamas County is spearheading a bicycle safety improvement project on Highway 43 from Lake Oswego to Portland., At this workshop, you’ll learn about design alternatives and their potential impact and discuss about next steps for making changes in the corridor. Links: Project overview and BTA
blurb here.
Tuesday, October 25th
SW Arterials Sidewalk Open House
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Multnomah Center, Room 30 (7688 SW Capitol Highway)
Come see the plans that PBOT has to add sidewalks to arterial streets in SW Portland. Sidewalk plans include: SW Vermont, SW Spring Garden Road, SW Huber Road and others. Come support this important step to bringing SW Portland’s walkability levels up to a higher standard. Figure on about 30-60 minutes to review the posters, ask questions, and leave comments. Link.
Clark County Bike/Ped Committee Meeting
6:00 – 8:00 pm
1601 E Fourth Plain Blvd., Vancouver, WA
The committee will review the final version of the County’s biking and walking plan and other items. Expect about a dozen committee members, Clark County staffer Laurie Lebowsky, and a handful of members of the public. The last 15 minutes of the meeting is reserved for public comment. Link
Wednesday, October 26th
W Burnside Crosswalk Enforcement
Crosswalk enforcement comes to SW Burnside. Come and see the Portland Police in action stopping motorists and bicyclists who fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians. And if you support this type of enforcement, be sure to let your elected officials know. Law abiding motorists make the streets safer for everyone. Link.
Metro Quarterly Trails Forum
1:00 – 3:15 pm
Metro Regional Center (600 NE Grand Ave.)
If you’re interested in shared-use paths and trails, this is a great way to learn more about what’s happening regionally, and to meet people from various cities that work in the field. More info here.
NE Coalition of Neighborhoods Land Use and Transportation Meeting
7:00 – 8:00 pm
NECN Offices at King School (NE 7th between Going and Alberta)
Expect about 20 members, a handful of visitors, and an agenda about specific items in individual neighborhoods that have implications to other neighborhoods. Link.
Friday, October 28th
Breakfast on the Bridges
7:00 – 9:00 am
2 locations – Westbound bike lane at the Hawthorne Bridge, and the Lower Deck of the Steel Bridge, on the East side of the river
The “Bike Fun” group Shift to Bikes sponsors breakfast for bicycle commuters on the last Friday of each month. If you’re riding, stop for pancakes and coffee. If you want to be involved in this low key, yet effective support of bicycle commuting, come down and help out. Folks mix and mingle, talk shop or just chitchat. Expect about a dozen Shifties at each bridge, and a dozen bicyclists stopped at any given time. Bring food to share, or just bring yourself. Forecast 50 and overcast. Link
Metro TPAC Meeting
9:30 am – 12:00
Metro Building (600 SE Grand Ave)
Metro’s “Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee’s” monthly meeting. The 21-member committee makes recommendations to Metro on proposed changes to policy. This month’s agenda includes:
* Proposed revisions to the Oregon Transportation Plan
* Proposed amendments to the Transportation Planning Rule
* Review scenarios to reduce state greenhouse gas emissions
Expect a handful of ordinary citizens, you can come and go at any time. Links: committee description, meeting announcement, and Agenda (PDF).
Seminar on Understanding Sight Distance
12:00 – 1:00pm
PSU Urban Center (SW 6th and Mill, Distance Learning Wing, Room 204)
PSU’s weekly transportation seminar is on how students can understand “sight Distance” and “Stopping Sight Distance.” These terms refer to how fast a vehicle can stop after they see something like a bike in the road, a stop sign, or a red light. Drivers need to have a fair bit of time and distance, otherwise they’ll crash into things. These are important elements to designing bike/ped infrastructure to ensure safe passage of bicycles across busy streets and safe travel of bicycles on busy streets.
Apparently this is a difficult concept for engineers to grasp. And this lack of comprehension is manifest in the designs of roads that put vulnerable users at risk of being turned into roadkill. This seminar will discuss not only the concepts themselves, but also they can be more effectively taught to engineering students. Come and learn with the engineers, then put your knowledge to work in asking for better engineering of your streets.
If you can’t attend in person, you can watch it on your computer from the podcast. Link.
Upcoming
Tuesday Nov 1
Clackamas County Ped/Bike Committee Meeting (unconfirmed) link
Wed Nov 2
KBOO Bike Show Link
Sat Nov 5
Portland By-Cycle Bike Shop Ride Link
Tues Nov 8
Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee Link.
Tuesdays Nov 8, 15, 29
Hearings for the Portland Plan in N, E, and downtown.
Nov 30
Deadline for comments on The Portland Plan
Safe Routes to School events
PBOT has events scheduled throughout the winter months, beginning with a “How to start a Bike Train” workshop sometime in November. See the full roster here.
Comments, corrections, additions?
What are in your plans this week?
I love this weekly article and I hope that you keep it up Ted. I’m looking forward to the By Cycle Bike Shop ride.
Just emailed my public comment on the CRC.
What I wrote:
You want my feedback on the CRC, as a citizen of Portland? My feedback is that I understand how excited you must be about this project–indeed, that bridge would be gigantic and to some people that is the basis for considering something to be impressive–but you need to look around you: this project’s legitimacy is nonexistent these days. Important non-profits, news organizations, and citizens groups have all joined to form an overwhelmingly loud voice that unitedly asks you to stop moving forward. Why continue the farce of soliciting feedback when it is blatantly obvious that you won’t actually take it into consideration? What exactly do you want feedback on this far in the process? Are you just asking for feedback so that when you plunge this city into debt and a further decrease in infrastructure we actually want, you can point to the fact that you solicited feedback and claim that the CRC was built through an inclusive process? You still have a chance to take the difficult but undeniably ethical path and admit fault, slowing the process down and revisiting the legitimate concerns that have ALREADY been voiced. Don’t go through with something because you’ve already come so far– the real costs are yet to be felt by this city, and only you have the ability to prevent them. You asked for my feedback, and I took the time to give you my thoughts. Please show me that same level of respect by legitimately considering what I (and, I anticipate, many others) have said to you, either by slowing down the process to include important stakeholders and their concerns, or by replying to my feedback with why you will not do so.
P.S. Every city planner in the world knows that if you want to cut down on auto use, you have to stop accommodating it through high-speed multi-lane infrastructure. How this city can simultaneously market itself as a leader in the bicycle movement while funding a megahighway is completely beyond me.
More on Sight Distance and Stopping Sight Distance —
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/geometric/pubs/mitigationstrategies/chapter3/3_stopdistance.htm
Ted Buehler
Excited to see all the SW activity. Thanks for sharing, I live on one of the roads listed, very cool.
Actually quote in the house tonight, “Bikeportland.org, I love that fucking site”. We’ve been notifying all the neighbors about the sidewalk coming to the neighborhood thanks to our discover after following your blog. Love this site, thanks!
I’ve long ago figured out that my elected representatives don’t really want to hear my opinion on the CRC. Guess the only option is to “throw the bums out!”
Alternatively, it may be that your opinion was heard but found to be the minority opinion. Remember, the problem with democracy is that idiots far outnumber the rest of us.
From Steve B via the AROW blog
There is a I/5 Rose Quarter N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday. Info & meeting materials here: http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=53257
This is the upcoming meeting schedule:
N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee Meeting 10/27/2011
N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee Meeting 11/17/2011
N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee Meeting 12/08/2011
From Nick F via the AROW listserv
Also happening Wednesday is Meto’s quartly trails forum. If you’re interested in Trails, this is a great way to learn more about what’s happening regionally, and to meet people from various cities that work in the field:
http://calendar.oregonmetro.gov/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=5478
Wednesday, Oct 26
1:00 pm – 3:15 pm
Metro Regional Center
600 NE Grand Ave.
Portland, OR 97232
2 more items on the N Williams Ave project from Michelle Poyurow:
1) North Williams Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting, on Tuesday, November 1st, from noon to 2:00 pm in the Board Room of the Red Cross (3131 N Vancouver). At this meeting the Committee will work on developing its own decision-making process, for making later decisions about the project’s scope, outcomes and alternative designs.
2) North Williams Community Forum, on Monday, November 28th, from 6:00 to 8:30 pm at Immaculate Heart Church (2910 N Williams). Please mark your calendars today, and we’ll send you more detail about the event’s agenda soon.