Sunday Parkways got off to a great start yesterday as throngs of Portlanders enjoyed the warm sun and rolled through eight miles of carfree northeast neighborhoods.
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A locally owned business in Northeast Portland is doing its part to support Sunday Parkways.
As we all know, despite being one of our city's most cherished traditions, Sunday Parkways is in need of funding help. City Council has made it clear that they do not have the appetite to fund it to the extent they have in the past, and so far, individual and corporate donations still don't add up to the $500,000 or so that the Bureau of Transportation needs to hold five events this season.
Given this situation, local parenting and children's store Milagro's Boutique (5433 NE 30th) will donate 25 percent of all sales on May 2nd to Sunday Parkways. (more...)
Sunday Parkways needs our help. Yes, the transformative, widely loved, amazing community event that has endeared itself to our city since it first happened in 2008, is getting less love from the City budget these days. That means PBOT and their presenting sponsor Kaiser Permanente are hitting the streets to ask for donations from folks like you and me.
The new, "Every Dollar Counts!" campaign is looking to raise $18,000 by the first Sunday Parkways of the season on May 13. That's about one dollar for every person expected to attend or about 3.7% of the total budget for all five of this year's events ($484,000).
Even though events like Sunday Parkways really do pay for themselves and are a smart City investment, this isn't the first time PBOT has had to ask for donations to keep this event alive. However, with increased scrutiny on the Sunday Parkways budget, it feels much more urgent this time around. As you might recall, there was a dust-up in City Council over the Parkways budget back in January. City Commissioner Dan Saltzman argued that, while he likes the event, it's not a core mission of PBOT and unless more sponsors step up, "it may need to be scaled back to fewer events."
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Mayor Sam Adams used his State of the City address to announce that he remains committed to five Sunday Parkways events this year. He also announced that, for the first time ever, the popular event will be held in Southwest Portland.
In addition to maps and route details for each of the five events, PBOT also shared today that local bike shop Universal Cycles has stepped up as a major sponsor. Universal does a large online business and back in May they moved to a new retail store adjacent to the SE Ankeny bike boulevard. (more...)
Ciclovias, the global term for what we call Sunday Parkways here in Portland, are nothing short of a revolution. Started in Latin America in the 1960s and made widely known by Bogota, Colombia, the events have spread like wildfire across North America in the last decade.
But with city budgets being very tight these days, programs like Sunday Parkways aren't likely to survive the axe. Now, a new study, Do Health Benefits Outweigh the Costs of Mass Recreational Programs? An Economic Analysis of Four Ciclovía Programs, published in the Journal of Urban Health will help make the case that they're worth the investment. (more...)
Last night I went out on a limb and said the North Portland Sunday Parkways was the largest ever. Well, turns out that it wasn't much of a limb.
According to PBOT's official count, an estimated 31,600 people were at the event yesterday.
Linda Ginenthal, a Program Manager for the Transportation Options Division within PBOT said she did the number twice, just to make sure they weren't mistaken. "But this is the real number," she exclaimed via email a few minutes ago, "This is amazing! Wahoo!" (more...)
PBOT has once again decided to create a loop of streets in East Portland carfree for five hours this Sunday. This crazy scheme to force people out of their cars and into the streets to meet their neighbors and enjoy their community is called "Sunday Parkways". Not satisfied with simply making streets carfree, PBOT has also invited organizations, food vendors, and entertainers to set up in the parks and streets. (more...)
The City of Portland has five Sunday Parkways events starting next month and the routes are now public. PBOT has also launched a fundraising effort on Kickstarter to help bridge some gaps in their budget.
First, the routes.
East - May 22nd (more...)
The other day, a friend of mine who works at PBOT emailed me a link to a video I made way back in June 2008. It was from Portland's first-ever Sunday Parkways.
That first event will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only did it happen right in my North Portland neighborhood, but there was such a sense of pride and excitement that our City could pull it off.
With the hugely successful CicLAvia in Los Angeles and Sunday Streets in San Francisco last weekend, and with Portland's first event of 2011 coming in less than seven weeks, it seemed like a good time to share the video again. (more...)
This year's kickoff event for Sunday Parkways will be in East Portland on May 22nd. Last year, one of the highlights of the East Portland route was supposed to be a freshly repaved Springwater Corridor Trail; but unfortunately, pavement crews weren't quite ready for the traffic and PBOT had to make a last-minute route change.
This year, not only will the Springwater Trail be prominently featured in the route, but PBOT has significantly expanded the East Portland loop — from a dinky 4.5 miles last year to a full 7 miles this time around. (more...)
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has just announced dates and locations for their five Sunday Parkways events. PBOT has also announced that the routes will be longer in length this year.
Sunday Parkways will begin this May with an opening event in East Portland. See the dates and locations below:
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