Traffic Division Captain Larry O'Dea.(Photo © J. Maus)

The City of Portland's campaign to remake several intersections with colored bike boxes and bike lanes is made up of much more than just markings on the pavement. Along with the new markings comes a significant change to the law; at all intersections slated to receive a [...]

Lawyer Chris Heaps was not satisfied with the Police response to a bike/car crash, so he pursued justice himself...and got it.(Photo © J. Maus)

Christopher Heaps, the Portland lawyer who mounted a "citizen initiated" campaign last December to bring the driver who hit Siobhan Doyle to justice, says we can "chalk one up for the good [...]

Traffic Division Captain Larry O'Dea(Photo © J. Maus)

In an executive order issued on Monday (2/11), Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer made official what I reported on one month ago -- new language has been added to the list of crash investigation criteria that will have a major impact on bike-involved collisions.
At last night's Portland Bicycle [...]

A few minutes ago, I posted a story about a potentially new directive within the Police Bureau that would call for all bike-involved collisions to be investigated.
Now I have confirmed with the PPB's Public Information Officer Brian Schmautz that yes, there will be a modification of their policy, but it is a bit different than [...]

According to an experience this morning by a reader, a potentially significant and positive change has been made at the Portland Police Bureau: a new directive that says all bike-related collisions will be investigated.
I share his story below (more analysis follows):
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A little after 8:00 am this morning, Jasun Wurster was riding his bike [...]

KATU, Portland's ABC affiliate, ran a special "On Your Side" report last night on the fixed-gear bicycle brake issue.
The story was given the headline of "Are brakeless bikes safe to ride?". Of course "brakeless" bikes are not safe. But are fixed-geared bikes technically brakeless? That depends on your definition of brake [...]

Karl Rohde(Photo © Jonathan Maus)

Karl Rohde, the BTA's head of public affairs and governmental relations, reports on the BTA blog that he had a "productive meeting" with Captain Vince Jarmer of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division yesterday.
They met to discuss the many enforcement-related issues that the BTA (and many in the community) are concerned [...]

The "Enforcement" slide from a presentation by PDOT at last night's bike safety forum.View entire presentation here

Last night in the Portland Building, Commissioner Adams and his Bike Safety Committee heard public testimony on bike safety issues and gave a presentation titled "Bike Safety in Portland" (view presentation).
From all reports (I was not able to attend [...]

Press conference Friday, 12:30 at City Hall. Rally Saturday, 12 noon at Salmon Street Fountain. More info here.

In the wake of a tragic October that revealed chinks in Portland's bike-friendly armor, community members have come together and planned a press conference and rally under the banner of "We are all traffic".
On Friday there [...]

Last Friday at City Hall, Commissioner Sam Adams hosted a meeting to discuss the enforcement issues that have caused frustration and outrage in the bike community and a public relations crisis for the Police Bureau.
At the table were representatives from the Police Bureau including both Chief Sizer and Assistant Chief Lynnae Berg, along with Traffic [...]

[Updated: 11:28am]

"The driver said the civilian investigation seems like a ‘vigilante’ move that won’t fix anything."--From a story on KGW

The Oregonian and KGW have picked up the story about an effort by a local lawyer to work toward a citation against the driver in Tuesday's collision.
Today's Oregonian also features a forceful opinion [...]

Scott Bricker, the Executive Director of the BTA, has posted an update on what he has been doing in light of ongoing community discussion surrounding enforcement issues.
Here are excerpts from his post:
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"There just has to be some consequences for drivers who plow into cyclists."--Julie Rawls, a witness to yesterday's collision.

The frustration of many people in the community has reached a boiling point. The well over one-hundred comments on this site (and others), emails and phone calls I've received, and messages on local email lists leave [...]

A large crowd in City Hall.Slideshow below(Photos © Jonathan Maus)

Just four days after the second fatal bicycle crash in as many weeks, City Commissioner Sam Adams called together an "emergency meeting" to discuss the issues and brainstorm solutions to improve bike safety in our city. Following the meeting was a press conference that [...]

One of the major questions the community is grappling with after the deaths of both Tracey Sparling and Brett Jarolimek is; why were the truck drivers not given a citation for failure to yield to a bicycle in a bike lane?
The law (ORS 811.050) seems clear:
"A person commits the offense of failure of a motor [...]

With all the discussion going on about how to make bike travel safer on crowded downtown streets, I thought we should take a closer look at some of the options on the table.
The first one has to do with signage and how legislation, enforcement, and engineering deal with non-motorized vehicle travel lanes (previously known as [...]

On SE Caruthers.(File photo)

An article in the Daily Journal of Commerce (DJC) today reports that the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) will seek $300,000 in grant funds to continue their enhanced enforcement activities at the MLK Viaduct construction site.
The work zone (near OMSI, east of the Esplanade) has been the source of headaches for many cyclists [...]

This morning I asked Traffic Division Commander Mark Kruger if he had any information he could share about the police presence at the Midnight Mystery Ride (MMR) and the Zoobomb ride over the weekend.
Here are his thoughts on the MMR:
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Bus mall construction.(File photo)

The Traffic Division of the Portland Police Bureau are warning of increased presence in the downtown bus mall construction zones.
Commander Mark Kruger says he was contacted by a PDOT engineer in charge of the project who said they've seen,
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Over the weekend, the discussion over enforcement against bicycles in North Plains continued both in the comments of my post from Friday and on the OBRA email list.
Among the reactions was a comment by North Plains Police Chief Scott Whitehead. Whitehead wrote in to clarify his position on the situation:
"It seems that several people [...]