The Lumberyard, an indoor bike park on NE 82nd Avenue in Portland, is now open for business. The new, privately-owned riding area swung open its doors to the public earlier this month. It's the first facility of its kind west of the Mississippi and will provide a much-needed riding opportunity for both Portlanders and visitors alike.

Lumberyard co-founders Will Heiberg and Michael Whitesel began renovating a former bowling alley across the street from Madison High School last fall. $3.5 million of redevelopment and countless hours of hard work later, they've transformed the space into a 48,000 square foot cycling Shangri-La. The facility includes jump lines, pump tracks, skill sections, and a "cross-country style" trail loop that winds between it all. Riders of all abilities will find something to love about the place, says Heiberg.

And if you aren't sure how to tackle this type of riding, Heiberg recommends a one of their many how-to clinics or summer camps for the younger ones.

When Bicycling Magazine named Portland the #1 Bike City in America, local mountain bikers bristled due to the lack of places for them to ride. Heiberg hopes The Lumberyard helps fill part of that void. "Portland has an active bike culture," says Heiberg, "but there is nothing for the mountain biker close to town and few options to ride during the rainy season.”

Another reason Heiberg's bullish on his new business? He knows it will be a must-stop destination for the hordes of riders and bike industry types that constantly travel between Southern California and the mountain-biking mecca of Vancouver, B.C.. Watch for The Lumberyard to host lots of industry events, product launches, and magazine photo shoots.

The facility is being built out in three phases. Along with some great riding, phase one (which is completed) includes The Lumberyard's retail shop and event room for hosting parties and meetings. They also offer bikes, helmets, and protective pads for rent. By early July, phase two of the build-out will include a full restaurant, bar, and a riding area just made for kids up to six years old. The final phase will see the addition of a 20,000 square foot "barn" with 40-foot ceilings that will house advanced/expert features like a foam pit (to practice crazy jumps and flips), a downhill trail with rock gardens, drops, ramps, and more.

Here are a few photos from inside...

Bikes for rent...

A wider view showing parts of the pump track and jump area...

Welcome to The Lumberyard!

Help Will, Michael, and the rest of the Lumberyard crew celebrate this exciting opening with a big launch party on June 9th from 3:00 to 9:00 pm. There will be pro rider demos, vendor tents, food and drink, a kids ride, product showcase, prize raffle and more.

— The Lumberyard is located at 2700 NE 82nd Ave. Hours are Monday through Friday 4 - 10 pm and 11 am to to 10 pm on the weekends. Learn more at LumberyardMTB.com or like them on Facebook.

"This counter will raise awareness among all travelers of the significant role bicycles play in Portland's transportation system."
— PBOT spokesman Dan Anderson

As we shared on Monday, the Portland Bureau of Transportation is all set to install the city's first automated bicycle counter on the Hawthorne Bridge. The new counter, purchased from a Canadian company thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Cycle Oregon Fund, will provide a daily and ongoing tally of the number of bicycles that pass by it.

After our post, many of you wondered where exactly the counter would go. We followed-up with PBOT and this morning we heard more details from bureau spokesman Dan Anderson and PBOT bike coordinator Roger Geller.

Anderson says the counter — or in PBOT's words, the "bicycle barometer" (which is coincidentally the same term citizen Michael Downes used when he talked about bringing one to Portland back in 2007) — will be installed at the west end of the north side of the bridge. Specifically, it will go where the path splits off to Waterfront Park/Naito Blvd and SW Main Street. PBOT provided this graphic of the location and the counter:

As you can tell, this location looks good because it won't get in anyone's way on the already busy pathway. NOTE: PBOT says this was an early mock-up and they do not plan on having the bike symbol on top.

And here's a closer look at the counter itself:

(Hmmm... might have to ask if they'll consider not using "cyclists".)

PBOT also shared this overview of where the loops will be placed:

PBOT says they plan to have it installed by early August.

I asked PBOT what their main motivation was in doing this project. Here's what they said (the second part isn't something I had considered yet):

"The main reason PBOT is installing a bike counter is that it contributes to making bicycling — and the impact of bicycling — more visible. There is significant number of people riding bicycles across the Hawthorne Bridge and this counter will raise awareness among all travelers of the significant role bicycles play in Portland's transportation system.

Also, the counter will provide high-quality data. We’ll better understand bicycle counts relevant to time-of-day and temperature. Having data collected every hour of the year will help us better understand how different elements affect ridership and also give us a better sense of the seasonal variation in bicycling."

It's worth noting that while the counter itself will be placed on only one side of the bridge, PBOT will have pneumatic hose counters placed on both sides of the bridge and data will be sent wirelessly to the display.

Right now, PBOT is working out some technical elements of the installation, and they're hoping to have everything ironed out by the time the counter arrives in July.

After 16 months and countless meetings, PBOT has revealed how they plan to improve bicycle access and traffic safety on N Williams Avenue. And much to the surprise of Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) members, part of those plans include maintaining two full lanes for auto traffic in the busiest portion of the road.

At the "final" open house for their North Williams Traffic Operations Safety Project, held Saturday at a church on Williams, PBOT rolled out new posterboards explaining the project, a 3-D simulation of the proposed changes, and they had project staff, SAC members, and traffic engineers on hand to answer questions.

Mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith
talks with SAC Chair Debora Hutchins.

The event was well-attended, with a mix of people showing up to learn more and to leave feedback. In a nod to how political and important this project has become (Mayor Adams has been involved as have both former and current Oregon state representatives), mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith showed up. I noticed that he sat down and had conversations with SAC member Michelle DePass and SAC Chair Debora Hutchins.

As many of you know, the 26-member stakeholder advisory committee (SAC) for this project has played a major role in shaping the plans. After some neighborhood residents and activists spoke out with concerns of racial insensitivity, a lack of respect from PBOT for the neighborhood's African American history, and an SAC that was not diverse enough; the City paused the project and added nine new faces to the committee.

Last month, the SAC made their final recommendation to PBOT. That recommendation included a left-side, buffered bike lane and one standard vehicle lane between Broadway and Killingsworth — except for one section between Fremont and Skidmore. In that busy commercial area*, the SAC recommended a "shared left‐turn lane/bikeway." (*Note that removal of on-street auto parking to create more space for moving traffic was never really considered during this process.)

On Saturday, some members of the SAC were alarmed to find that PBOT had changed their recommendation and the designs they saw at the open house were not what they had agreed to. I'll share more about that below. For now, let's take a closer look at the proposed designs (thanks to Fat Pencil Studio for the simulations)...

PBOT will begin to merge the bikeway over to the left just north of Weidler. As Williams approaches Broadway, a new, bike-only lane will between two standard lanes. The lane on the right of the bike lane will be for through traffic and the lane to the left will be for traffic entering I-5...

Just near the freeway entrance PBOT will include a passing lane in the bikeway that will merge into a seven-foot wide bike lane buffered from parked cars on the left (by a two-foot buffer) and moving traffic on the right (by a three-foot buffer)...

Please note: That blue thing is just the cursor.

Here's the cross-section showing the left-side buffered bike lane that will run from Broadway to just north of Fargo (except for around N Graham, which I've shared below this image)...

The buffered lane ends briefly at the intersection with Graham where the road splits between a median. At that point, we're left with a standard bike lane (on the left of left-turning cars no less):

With much of the bike traffic on Williams Ave heading east (turning right), some folks have wondered how they will go from the left side of the street, across a lane of auto traffic, to turn right. There's always the simple merge; but for folks that want help, PBOT has a design at intersections to facilitate crossing to the right. Here's how it looks at Tillamook...

Leading up to Fargo, the design begins to transition away from the buffered bike lane configuration and into the shared environment. The markings to communicate this transition would include left-turn arrows and triangular yield strips just ahead of sharrows. Here's an up-close look at it...

Then something interesting happened (and this is where things got a bit testy at the open house).

The SAC recommended that, after a transition area, the design should be a shared left turn lane/bikeway beginning at Fremont. But that's not what PBOT brought to the open house. Instead, they showed a two standard lane configuration next to a standard (non-buffered) bike lane (essentially, exactly what we have now, just with bikes on the left side).

According to PBOT traffic engineer Rob Burchfield, they "refined" their previous traffic analysis (which showed one standard lane for the entirety of the project would be feasible) and came to the conclusion that two full standard lanes would be required between Cook and Fremont. Here's how that block would look (Note: This is the block where the new New Seasons Market will be built):

Suffice it to say, some folks — including SAC members — were not happy to see this design. And they were even less happy to see it revealed at the open house without any prior warning. Note the feedback via post-it notes in the photo below...

Segment between Cook and Fremont.

Here's a closer look at the cross-section in the plans between Cook and Fremont (in addition to a half-block leading up to and after that section):

PBOT's Rob Burchfield said the city feels two standard lanes are needed in this area to avoid auto congestion due of the volume of car traffic coming off the I-5 freeway onto Williams via Cook combined with all the new trips and auto circulation that is expected to come with the New Seasons Market on that block. Without two two lanes, the city feels, there won't be enough green time in the traffic signals to "service the traffic" to the extent they feel comfortable with.

"I think we need to recognize, that with New Seasons coming, you're going to get people circulating in and out of that intersection," said Burchfield.

SAC members Susan Peithman (of the BTA)
and Deborah Hutchins express concerns to
PBOT project manager Rich Newlands.

At the open house, PBOT project staff got an earful from SAC members and others. They wanted to know why PBOT decided to show this two standard lane configuration. "It doesn't match up with our adopted stated outcomes for the project... This is not what we agreed to," one of them pointed out to PBOT.

"Neither congestion nor parking is on the list of outcomes," said another person looking at the plans, "and yet we have two lanes and parking on both sides of the street at the expense of having a safe bike facility throughout."

It's true. Of the top 10 outcomes adopted by the SAC for this project, none of them include maintaining a specific amount of capacity for autos (although, before the SAC even began to meet, the question of removing parking in this dense commercial area seemed to be, for some reason, off the table):

While some SAC members were flummoxed after seeing these designs, PBOT was open to their input and they are already planning to meet to iron out changes that need to be made. We'll keep you posted on how/if the design changes.

Beyond Fremont, the idea is to make it clear that the left lane is only for through bike traffic and left-turning auto traffic. To help drive that point home, PBOT will place a small median with a sign attached to it at the start of each block. Here's an example (at Beech) where the shared left lane crosses a street...

And a close-up of the entry to the block...

This shared environment will continue all the way up to N. Alberta, where the left-side buffered bike lane will return...

I hope that makes the plans a bit more clear. Of course, the devil is in the details on this one.

Since much of these plans rely on a buffered bike lane, a design that PBOT has acknowledged is not working as planned on SW Stark Street downtown, some people wonder how PBOT will make sure cars stay out of it here on Williams. Others are concerned about the shared-lane concept, and whether or not it will feel comfortable.

Open house attendee Emily Guise said she already avoids the busy commercial section of Williams because it's "so stressful." Her friend Erik Soltan said he doesn't like the shared lane idea. "I don't like the idea of being in a shared lane," he said. In particular, he's "nervous" about cars accessing the on-street parking on the left side of the shared lane. "They need to eliminate the left-hand parking, because cars will be cutting over the bike lane to get to it."

Then there are the funding issues. PBOT currently has just $250,000 for this entire project. They could get to work on much of the lane reconfiguring with that budget, or they could add just one of the three signals asked for by the SAC. Hanging over that decision is that the request for signals is strongest among the area's older residents and the lane reconfigurations would likely be seen as the thing most wanted by people who bike.

In other words, it could be politically risky if PBOT were to reconfigure the lanes first, and put off — once again — adding the new traffic signals that many in the community have been clamoring for for decades. On the other hand, PBOT and City Hall are feeling pressure from some corners to do something soon to improve traffic safety and better handle the crowded bike lane (after all, this project began 16 months ago).

Given the design details that still need to be worked out, the funding issues, and the politics around the project, unless more money can be identified (and the City now says they'll apply for a federal Transportation Enhancement grant to help pay for it), I could see us waiting quite some time before anything moves forward. I hope I'm wrong.

If you missed the open house, please consider commenting on these designs to PBOT project manager Rich Newlands at rich.newlands@portlandoregon.gov. Stay tuned for updates.

28-year old Jessie Belter suffered a broken leg when she was struck by someone driving a car as she rode in the bike lane on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway this morning.

According to the Portland Police Bureau, the collision happened at about 7:50 am at the intersection of Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and SW Bertha Blvd (map). The person driving the car was 33-year-old Nicole Poor. The police say that Poor was driving northbound on SW Bertha and attempted to turn westbound (left) on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Belter was headed eastbound in the bike lane. Poor stopped at the stop sign, but then, "failed to yield to the bicycle rider," police say. Luckily, the car was only traveling about 5 mph.

Poor has been issued a citation for, "Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device." (Asked why that was the citation if the woman stopped at the stop sign, the PPB told me, "She stopped, but should have remained stopped longer... she didn't look and see the rider.")

Prior to hearing about this collision from the PPB, reader and SW Portland resident Barbara Stedman got in touch with us. She said her husband came upon the aftermath of this collision. And it got her thinking...

"I'm sending you this email," Barbara wrote, "because this intersection is the most dangerous on our bike commute between Hillsdale and OHSU/Portland State University."

Barbara lives just a few blocks from this intersection. She says the most dangerous thing about it is that people in cars turn right onto Bertha (from B-H Highway), despite warning signs and green-colored pavement in the bike lane.

Here's more from Barbara about why this intersection is unpleasant and unsafe for people who choose to ride a bike:

"B-H splits here, the left lane goes straight ahead towards Capitol Hwy, the right lane turns right in a wide curve onto Bertha Blvd and ultimately I-5. So in morning rush-hour cars routinely go above the posted speed limit of 30 and because the right turn is a gentle curve they don't have to slow down to turn right. When I go through this intersection I always make sure that cars see me and stop for me, before going through this intersection.

We have had several close calls here. I never saw the cars coming from Bertha as the big threat, as they have a stop sign and have to wait for a gap in traffic, but I do notice that they often don't come to a full stop when they see a gap in traffic. Or they come to a stop in the bike lane.

There are plans for the Red Electric Trail that would enable us to avoid that intersection, but until it is in place, it is a very dangerous intersection for bikes."

Sounds like the Red Electric project — which will provide a path from the southwest hills down to the Willamette River along B-H Highway — can't happen soon enough (last we heard, funding and construction of the project are to start this year).

UPDATE: KOIN-TV reports that Ms. Belter is pregnant.

65-year old Camas, Washington resident Steven Dayley was bicycling along the same route as the Reach the Beach ride on Saturday when he was struck from behind by a man driving a pickup. Dayley died from his injuries later that night at Salem Memorial Hospital.

The collision occurred on Highway 18, a few miles east of Grande Ronde, just outside the Fort Hill Restaurant (Google Map link).

While there were hundreds of people on the road in that area due to the Reach the Beach ride, both ride organizers and the Oregon State Police report that Dayley was not an official registrant.

The collision occurred at around 2:30 pm on Saturday. The OSP say that Dayley was riding westbound on the shoulder of the highway, "in a congested area" when the pickup, driven by 24-year-old Fred Moore from Battleground, Washington, "veered right to avoid traffic ahead and struck the bicycle."

Reach the Beach is a large annual fundraising ride with an estimated 3,000 participants. There are four different starting points: Portland, Amity, Newberg, and Grande Ronde.

Commenters on a local news website are speaking out about the riding conditions on Highway 18; which in this location is one standard vehicle lane and one wide shoulder. "Hwy 18 is not a very good place for a cycle event... They need to rethink these things," one person said. Another commenter pointed out that, "In no way was this the cyclist at fault.The car driver went on the the shoulder and hit the cyclist... Remember he is a real person, not just a statistic. And look out for me (and everyone else) because I am out there on my bike."

Dayley had been diagnosed with brain cancer and, according to reports, loved cycling as therapy. A friend of Dayley's WillB left a comment below:

"Steve was a good man and a dear friend. It broke my heart to hear of his passing. I think it would be worthwhile to note here that he did not die of brain cancer like everyone who knew him thought he would. Rather, he was able to prepare for his end of life well in advance and enjoy what precious time he had left out on his bike. Not everyone can be so lucky. He knew his time was limited. His family knew it too. He loved riding. Rest in peace Steve."

Dayley is the 99th person to die on Oregon roads so far this year.

At long last, Portland is set to install an electronic bicycle counter. The new tool, which will be placed on the Hawthorne Bridge, will provide a daily and annual, ongoing count of the number of people who pass by on a bicycle..

The new counter will be an Eco-Totem made by Eco-Counter, a Montreal-based company. Funding for the project was supplied via a $20,000 grant from Cycle Oregon. The City of Portland, Bureau of Transportation applied for the grant last fall and Cycle Oregon ride director Jerry Norquist says it was approved in February.

According to Norquist, the grants committee of the Cycle Oregon board was "intrigued" by the idea. "It's like when McDonalds put out signs saying they sold 1 million hamburgers," Norquist said via phone this morning, "Except this is a much bigger deal, because it will show people they're making a difference in transportation."

We were first intrigued by bicycle counters back in March 2007 when we posted a story about a bike counter over a path in Italy. A few weeks later we reported on the effort by Michael Downes, a local citizen activist who had launched an effort to bring one to Portland. Downes eventually go too busy with work to make the project happen; but it turns out that PBOT bike coordinator Roger Geller never forgot about the idea.

Geller is the one who has spearheaded the project and it was his interest in the counter that led to the Cycle Oregon grant.

As for the Eco-Totem itself, Eco-Counter's North American Sales Manager Jean-Francois Rheault, says (via email) that automatic counters are crucial to helping cities, "understand, decide on, and justify" cycling infrastructure. While the City of Portland's bike counts (which are put together by Geller and his staff) are very well-known and respected around the world, Rheault says using an automated counter is, "taking data collection to the next level."

Rheault says there are two key reasons why cities are installing counters:

First, it clearly shows to cyclists and all other modes that bicycle traffic represents a significant amount of traffic. As cycling takes very little space and is very quiet, it is always under estimated.

Secondly, when a city decide to install a bike counter with a public display, they basically send the following message to cyclists: "You count for us!" This becomes a powerful marketing tool."

Rheault shared more about how the counter works:

"The display is connected to one or more sensors that send the information in real time. Sensors can be both a ZELT Inductive Loop or a Pneumatic Tubes both specifically designed to count bikes. The Hawthorne bridge currently has two Eco-Counter TUBES installed on both side of the bridge. The data are also sent, once a day, to a web-based display so anyone can see them."

According to its specs, the counter uses LEDs which are highly visible at night and date, time and temperature displays are also an option.

Cycle Oregon's Norquist says he hopes after this first counter is installed on the Hawthorne Bridge, other private partners will step up to fund more of them on busy cycle routes across the city.

Last week, the Seattle Times reported that the Cascade Bicycle Club has also received a grant for an Eco-Totem. Copenhagen, the city many consider the most bike-friendly in the world, has had bicycle counters installed since 2009.

I haven't confirmed the exact date for installation of Portland's counter, but sources say it will likely be up and running by August. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: For more info on automated bicycle counting in Portland, see this post by PBOT Signals Division Manager Peter Koonce.

Bicycling Magazine has just released their 2012 Bike-Friendly Cities rankings and Portland sits atop the heap once again.

Portland was ranked #2 in 2010, which was the last time the rankings came out. Prior to that Portland had earned the top spot every year since 1995. Our defeat to Minneapolis at the hands of Bicycling Magazine's editors stung a bit; but it was clear that the decision was made more because of how our lead had begun to shrink, not that we were actually #2 (and I'm sure the attention and PR generated by making us #2 figured into the decision as well).

Minneapolis drops to the second spot this time around, with Boulder, Washington D.C., and Chicago rounding out the top five. Here's the full top ten list (with 2010 rankings in parentheses):

1. Portland (2)
2. Minneapolis (1)
3. Boulder (3)
4. Washington D.C.
5. Chicago (10)
6. Madison, WI (7)
7. New York City (8)
8. San Francisco (6)
9. Eugene (5)
10. Seattle (4)

Like them or not, of all the bike-friendly city rankings published each year, Bicycling's list carries the most weight. It might be because they've been doing them since 1995, or perhaps because it's the most widely-read bike magazine on the planet.

To determine their top 50 rankings for 2012, Bicycling says they evaluated cities with populations of 95,000 or more, used data provided by the Alliance for Biking and Walking and the League of American Bicyclists, and they used input from local advocates and city bike staff. "To make the list, a city must possess both a robust cycling infrastructure and a vibrant bike culture."

It's worth noting that Bicycling seems to have put a lot more rigor into their analysis this year. In a press release about the rankings, Bicycling said, "Portland cyclists are 'the vanguard of American cycling.'"

Bill Donahue, a Bicycling contributor who lives in Northeast Portland, wrote an entertaining paean about his hometown which explains why we deserve the #1 spot (emphases mine):

...Those of us who ride daily in Portland, we know. We know we are the vanguard of American cycling. No other city in the United States has more cyclists per capita, and no other town has a coffee shop like Fresh Pot, which boasts 25 chairs and parking for 26 bicycles. We have trains of elementary-school bike commuters, and we have Move By Bike, a relocation-company that trundles couches across town on overstacked bike trailers. Even our city’s noncycling Lotharios know it is a deal-killer to ask, at the end of a sprightly first date, “Can I throw your bike in my car and give you a lift home?”

Minneapolis? Please. Let’s ride—along the Willamette now, on the paved Springwater Corridor, where, off to the east, great blue herons and snowy egrets pick about in the reeds and the mud of Oaks Bottom. Three miles on, amid the grain silos and rail yards of north Portland, you can feel the industrial heft of the city, built a hundred-odd years ago on shipping and logging. In Forest Park—which, at 5,000 acres, is the nation’s largest urban preserve—there is a growing network of singletrack on the slopes of Portland’s west hills. But me, I like to take my road bike higher in those same hills, past gracious manses built by long-ago timber barons, until I am up on Skyline Boulevard with its horse pastures and country-road dips and turns. It is cooler up there—sometimes in winter snow whitens the bows of the evergreens.

But it is the locals’ bike zeal that is most dear. Once, when I called the city’s Transportation Options office to ask about airport bike parking, a guy there responded 45 minutes later via e-mail, with a 500-word personal treatise. (“There is a specific bike parking area,” he began, before discussing option B, the bike lockers, and riffing on the bike-guarding aplomb of Homeland Security.) Another time, when I found myself stooped by the roadside, muttering cuss words over a broken chain, a random savior materialized to offer assistance gratis. “I’m a professional bike mechanic,” he proclaimed, superhero-like. “What can I do?”

A mass ride in Portland is a Dionysian rite. Witness the Naked Bike Ride, through downtown, or the Cross Crusade Series, an autumn-long mud bath that last fall drew more than 1,500 competitors, including one whip-lean, bearded maestro who wore pigtails and a pink jersey reading “Keep Cyclocross Weird.” The Worst Day of the Year Ride, meanwhile, is a 17-miler which brings some 4,000 hardcores out into the gray gloom each February, to celebrate misery and self-flagellation. The route ends, of course, at a brewpub.

The party is on every single day. I know this because I happen to live on a designated bicycle street, and on summer evenings sometimes I sit out on my porch and listen as the bikes roll by, singly and in groups. There is a certain delight in the air then—the warm, dry days of summer are a sweet reprieve in Portland—and the riders’ voices seem silky somehow: soft and murmurous. I’m able to catch only a word or two at a time. I hear, “so anyway,” “and then he…” But always the larger story sings out in the dusk and the dark: We dreamed ourselves a strange and lovely city out here on the green edge of the continent, and we shook free."

May has been a roller-coaster of emotions here in Portland. We've celebrated unseasonable warmth and sunshine and we pulled out all the stops for Bike to Work Month. Then tragedy struck last week and we had a vigil for Bike to Work Day in instead of a party. And now this.

Let's hope the good news continues. And who knows, maybe returning to #1 will help Portland get its cycling swagger back.

— Read more about all the cities in the list here.

Tuesday night's elections were full of good news for Portland's re-energized Bike Walk Vote political action committee.

After being founded in 2004, then lying dormant for several years following the 2008 elections, Bike Walk Vote came roaring back last winter. Boasting some seriously smart and plugged-in new leaders (Evan Manvel, Peter Welte, Mike O' Leary just to name a few), they threw a highly successful launch party in December. When the likes of U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer and a packed crowd showed up, it was a clear sign that Portland's huge population of low-car advocates were just waiting to organize and make their voices heard.

With the votes counted from the May 15th primary, candidates supported by Bike Walk Vote did extremely well. In fact, five of the seven candidates they endorsed won outright and the remaining two — Jefferson Smith for mayor and Mary Nolan for City Council — finished very close seconds and will sail into runoffs in November.

Mike O'Leary.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The other candidates they endorsed were: Steve Novick for Portland City Council, Bob Stacey, Sam Chase and Craig Dirksen for Metro Council, Dick Schouten for Washington County Commission, and Jeff Reardon and Alissa Keny-Guyer for Oregon State Representative.

So, how did this scrappy, all-volunteer organization manage to choose so wisely and help push these campaigns to victory? From what I can tell, it was equal parts political savvy, passion, and hard work. In a message to supporters, Bike Walk Vote volunteer Mike O'Leary, shared a few more specifics.

At that party back in December, they began to poll members and supporters about their priorities. The results went into building their candidate quesionnaire's, which served as the backbone of their endorsement decisions. (If you're curious, opposition to the Columbia River Crossing project and promoting equity in transportation planning/funding polled at the top.)

For the next four months, they collected and reviewed all the candidate responses, conducted face-to-face interviews, and researched each candidate's public record. For their mayoral endorsement, Bike Walk Vote volunteers even did ride-along interviews with each of the top three candidates.

Once the election heated up, Bike Walk Vote's work really began. They gave over 2,000 hours of time, raised and spent $8,600 for their chosen candidates, and approached over 4,000 biking, walking, and transit-centric voters with endorsement pamphlets.

The biggest success story for all this work is probably Jefferson Smith. Not only did Smith come from way behind in the mayoral race to finish just four percentage points behind Charlie Hales, but a centerpiece of his campaign turned out to be his clear opposition to the CRC project.

Bike Walk Vote's work is far from over. They'll continue to work hard for their candidates and more events and actions are planned.

"But right now," says O'Leary, "we're gonna' turn off our phones, enjoy a nice bike ride and then go take a nap in the shade."

— Find out more at BikeWalkVote.org and get involved via their Facebook page.

Last night the City of Portland and representatives from the Lloyd Transportation Management Association hosted an open house for their NE Multnomah Street Transportation Pilot Project. It was the first time the public was shown the proposals for this project.

If you recall, back in October a citizen committee ended a 10 month public process with a 12-1 vote in favor of moving forward in making NE Holladay the main east-west spine for safe and convenient bicycling through the Lloyd District. That lone dissenting vote was held by the most powerful man in the room (or perhaps just the most feared) — Wade Lange of commercial real estate firm Ashforth Pacific. Lange — who was also representing a San Diego real estate firm that had just purchased $92 million worth of Ashforth property (the majority of which is on Multnomah Street) — never made it clear exactly why he opposed the project on Holladay; but despite being outvoted 12-1, he convinced the City of Portland to turn their attention away from Holladay and toward Multnomah instead.

By March, Lange found himself on a 25 person task force charged with putting Multnomah on a road diet. The task force was made up of PBOT staff, TriMet, the Portland Development Commission, property owners, and other stakeholders. Since then, they've met three times to come up with a plan to make significant changes to the street.

At the open house last night, the poster boards explaining the genesis of this project made no mention of Holladay. Instead, this is how the project was introduced:

"NE Multnomah Street was suggested as the prime east-west retail corridor as part of the N/NE Quadrant project. In its existing form NE Multnomah leaves little space for on-street parking, and active transportation that would invite shoppers, visitors, pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders to one of Portland's premier districts."

In order to turn the "outdated" street into one that will "energize the Lloyd District and create a vibrant east-west retail spine" on NE Multnomah, the first phase of the project will:

• add around 70 new on-street car parking spaces between NE 1st Avenue and NE 16th (19 of which are being added in one stretch along Holladay Park);
• add a wider, seven-foot bike lane in both directions (more details below);
• add green coloring at several of the intersections where TriMet buses have to pull over and access corner stops;
• reconfigure the number of standard vehicle lanes from five to three.

The lead graphic on one of the posters created by PBOT showed elements of the project — like on-street bike parking and a "parklet" — that are not yet funded or planned for in the first phase. Instead, PBOT says they've "set aside space" for what they are calling "future streetscape enhancements" (also important to note is that the cars in this scenario would be moving, not parked):

For reference, below are the proposed cross sections (Note: Currently the street has standard, four-foot bike lanes and five standard vehicle lanes):

The proposed designs for the bikeways alternate between three types of facilities.

On a few of the block faces, bikes will be directed onto a curbside bike lane physically separated from other traffic by a large (eight foot wide) buffer that will alternate between striped pavement markings and large concrete planters. The drawings aren't online yet, but I snapped a few photos to give you an idea of what it would look like.

Here's the drawing for the section just east of SE Grand Ave:

And PBOT was showing this image from Vancouver, BC as an example of the planted buffer:

On many other block faces, where curbside, on-street parking has been added, bikes will travel in a seven-foot bike lane with a one-foot, painted buffer in the door zone. You can see how the curbside bike lane with planted buffer transitions into the more traditional bike lane in the image below (which is the section just east of NE 9th Ave):

And here's how it appoaches MLK JR Blvd...

Here's another section (not sure where, sorry):

And here's what they've proposed between MLK and Grand:

In just one of the block faces, the bike facility will be similar to the cycle track on SW Broadway, where the car parking is "floating" in the road and it acts as a buffer between bikes and cars. Why is only one section a parking-protected bike lane (which provides more separation and is considered a higher-quality bikeway) while all the other new car parking is directly at the curb? PBOT traffic analyst Wendy Cawley explained that business owners requested the curbside parking. Here's how it looks outside the 700 Lloyd building east of NE 7th (and it's worth noting that there's a massive, 780 unit, $250 million housing and retail project coming to the parking lot just east of that building):

Much like we observed with the opposition to parking removal by the Portland Development Commission and other stakeholders on the Holladay project, parking rules in the Lloyd District. PBOT Director Tom Miller helped explain this for us back in December when he said, "on-street parking is crucial to the success of major, at-grade retail... Retailers need those [parking] stalls. Whether people like it or not, we're not going to put retail out of business. It's just not what we do."

Not to mention that real estate professionals and property owners fight for the spots because it makes their buildings much more valuable when it comes time to sell.

Interestingly, despite proposing to add around 70 new on-street car parking spaces (there are none currently), there are no plans to add new bike parking. Instead of being included in the initial plans, bike corrals are being considered as part of "future streetscape improvements" that "will be encouraged" in the parking zone. Business owners would have to request them before they are installed.

The lanes for cars are direct and straight the entire length of the street; but the bike-only lanes weave between three different types of facilities — moving from curbside, protected zones, then out into a more traditional bike lanes (with no protection from moving cars) and then mixing with buses at intersections. There are even a few intersections where PBOT says they might add a right turn lane.

When I shared my concerns with PBOT traffic engineer Rob Burchfield, he said they've set aside space in this initial proposal for future uses such as the corrals, parklets, and maybe even a bike share station. It was also made clear last night that the buffered bike lanes could be converted to more robust, physically separated facilities as part of a longer term "Phase two" of the project.

PBOT says the project will cost about $175,000, with about $90,000 of that to be paid by the Lloyd TMA. It will be considered a one-year pilot project and it could be completed by late summer/early fall of this year. They are accepting comments online from the public and I'll update this post when I get the link.

Overall, this project as proposed left me very disappointed. Once again, people that choose to bike seem to have taken a back seat to powerful business interests and the need to accomodate automobiles. What do you think?

It's been a very long and winding road for the federal transportation bill. And while it looks like the end is finally in sight, there is still some nail-biting ahead.

The law that dictates how the federal government funds transportation expired over 900 days ago and has survived on extensions ever since. With the Highway Trust Fund facing bankruptcy by fall of 2013, and with idle construction workers waiting to build projects, the House and the Senate finally got their acts together and in over the past few months, both chambers have worked on their own versions of a new bill.

The bill that Republicans attempted to pass out of the House — but failed in doing so — was extremely bad. It scrapped decades of programs and funding for bicycling and walking and it included provisions to pay for new highways with domestic oil drilling. It was even too extreme for some Republicans. Fortunately, the Senate's bill, which they passed, turned out to be much more palatable. While it wasn't a slam dunk for biking, most prominent advocates considered it worth fighting for.

When it became clear to the House that no one wanted to touch their bill and it wasn't going anywhere, they merely OK'd yet another extension of the existing law. Some observers hoped they'd just pick up and vote on the much more popular Senate bill. That didn't exactly happen, so now the two sides are locked into a conference committee to hammer out a version of the Senate bill everyone can agree on — or at least live with.

Just yesterday, The Hill reported that Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) says the talks are getting into, "the meaty issues of disagreement between the two chambers." Boxer is expected to meet face-to-face with her counterpart in the House, John Mica (R-FL) on Thursday.

Meanwhile, national advocates are zeroing in on the Cardin-Cochran amendment — a component of the Senate bill that includes dedicated, set-aside funding for popular programs like Transportation Enhancements (TE) and Safe Routes to School (SR2S). The League of American Bicyclists and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership are urging members to contact their members of Congress and urge them to make sure the Cardin-Cochran amendment survives the conference committee.

"Without this agreement," says Deb Hubsmith of the Safe Routes National Partnership, "states will be able to use bicycling and walking funds towards more highway lanes."

A key to the Cardin-Cochran amendment is that it pushes control of the pot of funds that TE and SR2S are included in (the pot has the unfortunate name of "Additional Activities") down to the state level. Advocates are confident that, given the ability to advocate at the state level, biking and walking projects will continue to be funded at a similar rate as they are today.

To make their case to Congress, advocates are leaning on a recent survey that found 83% of respondents want to maintain and/or increase federal spending on bike lanes and sidewalks (which, ironically came out on the same day as The Oregonian's ridiculous, anti-bike survey).

The other interesting thing to watch in the conference committee is the fate of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. House Republicans have inserted that project — which environmental advocates call, "Big oil's poison pill" — into their negotiations with the Senate and are using it as a political football; hoping to force President Obama to pass it along with the transportation bill. Obama threatened to veto the transportation bill if Keystone is in it but at least one key Senator is confident it will remain, and with veto-proof support.

If that turns your stomach, you might feel better knowing that Oregon House representatives Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio are both members of the conference committee. Hopefully, their thoughtful and passionate support of sensible transportation policy will have an impact on the outcome. Like everything in American politics these days, it seems the transportation bill is headed for a last-minute showdown. Hopefully, with our Oregon champions at the table, sanity will prevail. Stay tuned.

— For more, read this blog post from T4 America.