If you’ve ridden your bike around this city long enough, you’ve probably come in contact with Portland’s bike lane people.
Customized bike lane markings were started in 1999 by a former city employee named Todd Roberts and is a tradition that has carried on ever since. One of my faithful readers turned up this great article (PDF) on them from the September 2003 issue of VeloVision Magazine (a really great UK bike mag). It’s a great read. Turns out Todd doesn’t even like bikes (“It’s boring as hell”). In fact, he’s the last guy you think would be behind these markings. He is, as the author puts it, “an unlikely cycling hero.”
I’ve been given permission by the city to share some photos of these markings from their archives. So far, I’ve got 19 of them in the BikePortland photostream. I have no idea how many are out there but if you come across one and remember to snap a photo, please consider sharing it with me!