Bike share is a runaway success
in Washington D.C.

We knew this was coming.

With bike share finally moving forward in Portland, we could count on The Oregonian to do their best undermine it before it even hits the street. Why? Because it's about bikes, it's new — and most importantly — because it is something championed by Mayor Sam Adams.

Before sharing some snippets of The O piece, let's do a reality check: Bike share is becoming like bus service in cities across America. It's a reliable, affordable, popular, easily-accessible system that opens up bicycling to new audiences in new places. Even before trying a modern system out for myself in Washington D.C. last week, I was generally positive about bike share. After trying it out, I'm convinced. It's a game-changer and the early wrinkles have been ironed out. Sure, D.C. is not Portland, but we will have a right-sized system and I'm confident the people who put ours together will be the best and brightest in the field. (more...)

Give me a break.

Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. The Oregonian's strange, anti-bike editorial last week, seems to have laid the groundwork for Sunday's front page story that unfairly and inaccurately blames bikes for PBOT's budget problems.

As you can see from the front page image, under massive font that reads, "Portland's Roads to Ruin" is the sub-headline, "What's a priority? Bike routes, conferences, and staff. What's not? Repaving and cleaning your crumbling roads." (more...)

BBC journalist interviews Zoobomber
and PPB spokesman downtown.

The esteemed British Broadcast Corporation has turned its lens on Zoobombing. The beloved Portland institution is the focus of a recent BBC "Close-up" segment.

The short piece offers classic footage that is hilarious (in a good way). It features a serious journalist interviewing Zoobomb's "Handsome" Dave and Portland Police Bureau spokesman Peter Simpson in front of the Zoobomb Pyle.
(more...)

Screen shot from The
Oregonian's "Hard Drive" blog.

A new blog post by Joseph Rose, the commuting columnist for The Oregonian, takes a look at one of the most unpopular aspects of bicycling behavior: red light running. In, Portland bicyclists who run red lights: Is it worth it? Rose asks, "Is it really worth blowing through a red light on your bicycle on the streets of Portland?... Does it really cut much time off your commute?"

Rose also took the opportunity to include a helmet-cam video of a man running several red lights on N. Williams Avenue...
(more...)

A question we get a lot here at BikePortland is "Where do you get all your story ideas?".

Most of our sources are top secret and will stay that way (just kidding, sort of), but here's a rundown of a few of the places I go to gather tips for our weekly Monday Roundup post and to generally stay in the loop on transportation news and culture. (more...)

A tragic road rage story has been making international headlines. On Monday evening in Ontario, Canada, a bike messenger has died after a road rage altercation with a prominent political figure.

Witnesses describe seeing a black convertible going 90 kilometers an hour the wrong way down a street in an upscale Toronto shopping district with 33 year old Darcy Allan Shepard hanging off the driver's side window as the driver steered the car repeatedly onto the sidewalk, driving as close as possible to signposts and light poles on the side of the road. (more...)

A shot of NW Lovejoy from the film.

Tonight at 8:00, on PBS stations across the country, a new one-hour documentary film will give Americans a history lesson and, hopefully, an inspiration to learn from it.

In the film, correspondent Miles O'Brien (formerly of CNN) travels to three American cities that have taken very different paths to dealing with transportation infrastructure and policies. From the outset he makes the focus clear: With shots of stressed out commuters in bumper-to-bumper traffic, O'Brien says, "As a nation we've arrived at a station called gridlock... We can't pave our way out of his mess. We've got too many people, too many cars... too much pollution." (more...)