Sen. Floyd Prozanski.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Recently passed House Bill 3271 -- a bill that addresses a number of types of harassment -- includes language that establishes the new crime of "Aggravated Driving While Suspended or Revoked".

The bill passed through the Oregon Legislature late Thursday and the language to address aggravated driving was added as an amendment pushed by Senator Floyd Prozanski at the behest of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA). Sen. Prozanski, an avid bike rider, is also the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The House version of this bill passed with no mention of this new crime, but Prozanski got the crime of vehicular homicide added into the Senate version. The Senate passed it with the Prozanski amendment, but then the House refused to concur with the amendments (7 Republican House members voted no).
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After several years of trying, the Oregon Legislature has passed a law that will make the use of cell phones while operating a motor vehicle illegal. House bill 2377, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Tomei (D-Milwaukie), squeaked by the Senate today by a vote of 16-13 (with one excused).

That's just one more vote than required for a bill to pass and it came down to the wire, with Senator Margaret Carter changing her vote from no to yes in the final seconds.

The vote went nearly straight down party lines, with only one Democrat, Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson from Gresham crossing over to vote against it.
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Rep. Carolyn Tomei

Last time we checked in on HB 2377, it was on its way to easy passage on the House floor.

It got through the House at the end of April by a vote of 38-22. Since then, it has had one reading in the Senate, bounced around to committees and work sessions and now it rests in the Senate Rules Committee.

The bill is being pushed by Rep. Carolyn Tomei whose district (41) includes Southeast Portland down through Milwaukie.
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The Oregon State Senate has voted in favor of House Bill 2001 by a margin of 24-6. The bill, which backers say will create 4,600 jobs a year, did not include any changes from the House version that passed on Wednesday.

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) made a last-ditch call to action yesterday hoping that the Senate would strip out the $192 million earmark for the Newberg-Dundee Bypass project and instead add more funding for bike and pedestrian projects.
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The BTA is making a last
ditch effort to fix HB 2001.

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) has sent out an action alert they hope will bring some much-needed change to the Governor's transportation package that passed the House yesterday.

House Bill 2001, which includes an $840 million list of earmarked highway projects, will be voted on by the Oregon State Senate any day now, so there's a very short timeframe for further advocacy.

The BTA will urge their members (and anyone else that sees the alert) to "ask for a better transportation package". They want people to contact their Senate representatives and tell them to:

1. Increase funding for healthy transportation by increasing the minimum funding for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure from 1% to 1.5% of highway and street expenditures and putting money in the new Urban Trails Fund.
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If HB 2001 passes in its current
form, highways in Oregon would
get a major boost.
(Photo © J. Maus)

House Bill 2001 (text) passed through the Oregon House of Representatives today by a vote of 38-22 -- just two votes more than it needed in order to get the required three-fifths majority.

In floor testimony prior to the vote, most lawmakers sang the bill's praises, touting its green features while calling its $840 million in earmarked highway projects a boon for Oregon's ailing economy. Meanwhile, environmental advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon strengthened their opposition to the bill. In a letter distributed to the House floor prior to the vote, they called HB 2001 an "embarrassment" and said it, "Substitutes pork barrel politics for the public interest."

The bill began as Governor Kulongoski's Jobs and Transportation Act of 2009 and it was introduced today by Chair of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Terry Beyer (D-Springfield). (more...)

It's the morning after for Governor Kulongoski's big transportation bill and a coalition of concerned advocates are trying to rally opposition. Last Friday, a special joint committee polished off final amendments and sent House Bill 2001 to the House and Senate Floors for a vote that will likely happen this week.

After seeing those amendments, leaders from statewide advocacy groups including Environment Oregon, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Oregon Environmental Council and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, re-stated their strong opposition to the bill.

The BTA has focused their lobbying efforts on a new Urban Trail Fund. They made some headway in making that fund perform better for bike projects, but that fight pales in importance to the broader implications of the bill. (more...)

The Capitol
(Photo © J. Maus)

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance's executive director and lobbyist Scott Bricker has helped lawmakers improve a new Urban Trail Fund that is part of the Governor's transportation package.

House Bill 2001 is still being worked on down in Salem, and amendments published earlier this week were very bad news for bike funding. The BTA was very disappointed in how the bill was shaping up and they signed onto a letter (download PDF copy) with a host of environmental and land use advocacy groups outlining their concerns. (more...)

Salem lawmakers have published their much-anticipated amendments to Governor Kulongoski's transportation package and the news for bikes is bad. Very bad.

When the bill was first introduced back in November, bike advocates saw some positive signs that funding for bike projects might finally get the increase it deserves. There was talk of an increase to Oregon's Bike Bill to take it from from 1% to 1.5% of highway project funds that would be guaranteed for bike and ped improvements. Advocates also hoped for a new fund specifically dedicated to non-motorized transportation corridors. (more...)

Inside the House Transportation Committee.
(Photos © J. Maus)

As the clock ticks in Salem on the 2009 legislative session, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) and other bike advocates are making last ditch efforts to make Oregon's laws more friendly to bikes.

Today in Salem, work sessions (different from public hearings in that no testimony is heard) will be held for a bill that could increase funding for bike projects and a bill that would get tougher on people whose dangerous and/or illegal behavior results in the death of another person. (more...)

An effort to pass the "Idaho Stop Law" in Oregon has officially ceased all forward motion.

I confirmed this morning from Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) legislative committee chair Doug Parrow that they were not able to convince a key legislator to schedule a work session on HB 2690. As a consequence, the BTA will move onto other bills and shelve the Idaho Stop idea for now. (more...)

The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC) has sent a formal letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC, a Governor-appointed body that advises the Oregon Department of Transportation) urging them to step up their efforts to educate the public about the dangers of distracted driving and to support a ban on the use of cell phones while driving and bicycling.

In the letter, dated March 16 and signed by committee Chair Jerry Norquist, the OBPAC "urges" the ODOT to support the agenda of the National Safety Council, a group calling for governors and legislators in all 50 states to ban cell phone use while driving. The OBPAC also wants ODOT to add information about the dangers of distracted driving to the DMV manual for both commercial and non-commercial road users. (more...)

Bricker on the steps
of the Capitol in 2007.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) is working feverishly to garner more support for the Idaho Stop Law (HB 2690) with legislators in Salem.

According to BTA Executive Director and lobbyist Scott Bricker, the Chair of the House Transportation Committee has given him a significant hurdle -- line up 31 "yes" votes from House members (the number it would need to pass) or the bill will die in committee.

Committee Chair Terry Beyer (D-Springfield) holds the future of the bill in her hands because she is the only one who can schedule the all-important work session the bill needs in order to be voted on by the committee and then forwarded to the full House. The deadline for her to schedule that work session is tomorrow. (more...)

Tim O'Donnell's widow, Mary O'Donnell,
had these buttons made for the hearing.

Last Friday, just two days after he relieved former BTA lobbyist Karl Rohde from his duties, executive director Scott Bricker was down in Salem filling his former role as the organization's chief lobbyist.

Bricker presented the BTA's position on their proposed Vehicular Homicide Law (HB 3399) to the House Judiciary Committee. (Today, he'll return to Salem to testify on behalf of a bill that would create a new pot of funding specifically for non-motorized transportation projects. More on that later.) (more...)

The letter from Eugene's
bike program coordinator in
opposition to the Idaho Stop bill.
(Download PDF)

Last week, when the Idaho Stop Law bill -- which would allow bikes to treat stop signs as yields (adopting a law similar to one already on the books in Idaho) -- was in its first hearing down in Salem, one surprise that emerged was a letter of opposition sent from the City of Eugene to the House Transportation Committee.

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance's government affairs director Karl Rohde said he was "surprised" about Eugene's move. Rohde told me this morning that none of the people the BTA works with in Eugene had warned him that there might be opposition to the bill.

Rohde said Eugene's opposition to the bill also came as a surprise to BTA board member and Eugene resident Paul Adkins (Adkins is also president of Eugene's local bike advovacy group, the Greater Eugene Area Riders (GEARs)).
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[Update, 10:50am: According to a comment from Karl Rohde of the BTA, the work session has been delayed for a few weeks.]

The BTA's Karl Rohde, seen here
on the steps of the capitol
earlier this week.
(Photos © J. Maus)

The House Transportation Committee has scheduled a work session for the Idaho Stop law proposal (HB 2690).

The work session will take place this Wednesday (3/25) and the BTA's government affairs director and lobbyist Karl Rohde says it's very likely a vote will also take place.

I spoke with Rohde about the news this morning. Just yesterday, he expressed major concerns that biased and inaccurate media coverage of the bill was jeopardizing its chances.

Rohde said that scheduling a work session means that committee Chair Terry Beyer feels strongly enough about the bill that she's willing to discuss it further. Work sessions are closed to public testimony but Rohde will be on hand to answer any questions that might arise from committee members. (more...)

It's the BTA's worst nightmare.

They've spent months preparing for the smooth passage of the Idaho Stop Law (the proposed bill, HB 2690, would allow bicycle operators to enter a stop-sign controlled intersection without stopping when safe, and once they've yielded to all other traffic). Members of their legislative committee have traveled to Idaho to speak with transportation planners and law enforcement officials about the law (which has been on the books there since the 1980s without incident). The BTA's legislative team has also spent countless hours working the Salem offices of our state legislators answering their questions and clearing up their confusions about the proposed law.

Then, in one fell swoop, the largest media outlet in the entire state can pen a story that pans the idea -- and it's not even on the editorial page. (more...)

Through those doors, the
laws are made.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Tomorrow I'll make my first trip down to Salem this session -- and what a full day it's shaping up to be.

My day will start with a meeting of the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC). The OTC is the five-person, governor-appointed cabinet that sets transportation policy for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). (I introduced you to them a few weeks ago).

At their meeting tomorrow, the OTC will dole out $102 million for transportation projects -- their second installment of stimulus funds. Their first phase of stimulus funding decisions (made earlier this month) included only one bike project and did not include any transit funding. (more...)

Rep. Wayne Krieger
is one of the bill's sponsors.

Four members of Oregon's House of Representatives have put forward a new bill that would require all bicycles in Oregon to be registered.

House Bill 3008 would establish a "bicycle registration and licensing system." The bill would also create new offenses for altering bicycle serial numbers or licenses and for failure to register your bicycle.

In addition, the bill states that, "bicycle ownership information" would be made available to law enforcement agencies and that registration, renewal and other fees would go into a Bicycle Transportation Improvement Fund that would then be used to fund "bicycle related transportation improvement projects". (more...)

She would have gotten a lower
traffic fine had Bailey's bill
moved forward.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Last week we reported on State Representative Jules Bailey's proposed bill to create a new vehicle weight class that would include bicycles and to base traffic fine amounts on the weight class of offenders' vehicles.

If passed, the law would have meant a dramatic decrease in the amount of fines for most traffic violations by people on bicycles. However, it now looks like that bill is going to have to wait until another legislative session.

In an email to me earlier this week, Bailey wrote that the draft of the bill that came out of the Legislative Counsel (LC, where all bill proposal are written up and become real bills), "simply allowed juries to make judgments about lowering fines for bicycles. This is not at all what I intended. It [the bill he got back from LC] has nothing about vehicle weight."
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