City leaders met with bike advocates at City Hall on Monday to discuss the strategies and projects they hope will lead to Platinum status (Portland is currently a Gold-level city and Platinum is the highest “Bicycle Friendly Community” designation given by the League of American Bicyclists).
The most interesting thing to come out of the meeting was the announcement of a Portland Bike Summit slated to happen on June 17th, right in the middle of Pedalpalooza. Details on the summit are still emerging, but the emphasis will be to gather Portland’s diverse bike scene (racers, hipsters, MTBers, etc…) together to “tell the Portland bike story”, present workshops and share plans for our bike-friendly future.
Many other ideas and projects were discussed including; focus group studies, opinion poll research, a new bike parking initiative, mode split goals, a Platinum logo, federal funding for bike projects, an economic analysis study, and more. I’ll be touching on some these in more detail in the coming weeks.