“The fact is, Portland has largely built its bicycling infrastructure on non-controversial, inexpensive projects that squeeze bike facilities into current right-of-ways without inconveniencing drivers.”
–Scott Cohen, PSU adjunct professor and member of the Multnomah County Bike/Ped Citizen’s Advisory Committee
The other day I came across an interesting post on Scott Cohen’s Transportation History blog, and it got me thinking about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going in terms of Portland’s bicycle movement.
Cohen, who teaches courses on bicycles and transportation issues at Portland State University and is a member of the Multnomah County Bicycle and Pedestrian Citizen’s Advisory Committee, was on a ride recently and reflected on the past and future of Portland’s bikeway network,
“We undoubtedly have come a long way in building a comprehensive bike network since 1990 (see below), but we have a long, long way to go. For example, our bikeway network includes miles of bike lanes along Highway 30 from NE 11th to NE 178th and many more miles on the west side, from Northwest Portland to Linnton and beyond.
Unfortunately, these are not useful or realistic bikeways; they are dangerous, inaccessbile, and completely marginalized…when the city was getting the bike program and master plan developed they looked to streets that could easily accommodate bike lanes without significantly impacting automobile traffic…now we need to revisit those decisions in light of what we know about what really gets people on bikes (safe bikeways).The fact is, Portland has largely built its bicycling infrastructure on non-controversial, inexpensive projects that squeeze bike facilities into current right-of-ways without inconveniencing drivers.
Portland often looks to Amsterdam as both a goal and an example for biking…If Portland really wants to grow beyond that 5% mode share mark, we’re going to have to make tough decisions about our bicycling facilities.”
Scott brings up some good points.
Throughout the 1990s, Portland’s bike program (which used to be a separate bureaucratic entity, but has since been dismantled and absorbed into other departments) was in its heyday. This was due to several factors;
- a new bike lobby group called the Bicycle Transportation Alliance was formed in 1990 and got off to a blazing start by suing the city in 1993 over their bicycle funding foot-dragging,
- ample funding from The Bicycle Bill and Gas Tax Revenues,
- “low-hanging fruit” bike improvements and projects that were no-brainers to complete (for more on this, see the comment by former PDOT bike coordinator Mia Birk.),
- they had the country’s most ambitious Bicycle Master Plan (adopted in 1995),
- and most importantly, the city had the political capital it takes to aggressively add bikeway miles.
And although I’m sure there were battles won and lost along the way, the decade was pure bliss for bicycles and the result was a major increase in both bikeway miles and ridership.
To demonstrate the success of the 90s, check out the animation below. I put it together by combining slides from a presentation by current City Bike Coordinator Roger Geller.
Slides taken From a presentation by City of Portland Bike Coordinator Roger Geller.
But in recent years, even though ridership continues to increase exponentially, spending (and the addition of new bikeway miles) has leveled off*:
*(It’s important to note that PDOT has made recent investments in things like the new signal at 41st and Burnside that don’t add to the bikeway miles total.)
What accounts for this lull?
Some point to the low-hanging fruit phenomenon. Also, given our success and reputation for being so bike-friendly, there’s always a danger of becoming complacent. This can lead to dangerous assumptions; Do we just assume that bikes will be taken care of in big transportation projects? Do we just assume we have loads of political support? Do we just assume that related bureaus in city government (primarily police, maintenance, and traffic engineering) will put the needs of bicycles on level footing with other modes?
It’s clear we can’t just sit back and assume bicycles will be respected at every level of decision-making and planning.
Another factor is a lack of cold, hard, cash. Funding for bike projects is always competitive, but perhaps part of the lull is a perception among state-level bureaucrats (ODOT) and some politicians that Portland has had more than its fair-share in the past, and now it’s time to spread the money around.
Another thing at work might be the reality that PDOT (which will soon be known as PBOT for “Bureau of Transportation”) has used nearly all the tools in the American bicycle facility toolbox. Even if city bike planners want to try new treatments and innovative, Euro-like facilities, they are limited by what’s currently available to them in the various code books for accepted engineering practices.
All this being said, let’s not forget that we are in the midst of a very exciting effort to update the Bicycle Master Plan for the first time in over a decade. In that time PDOT has learned a lot about what works, what doesn’t, and what they’d like to try. The man behind that plan is Roger Geller and I’ve never seen him more energized, focused, and determined.
He’s leading monthly rides, he went to the National Bike Summit for the first time, he’s calling meetings, sending long emails full of ideas to colleagues, researching innovative funding options, and generally leaving no stone unturned and no idea off the table.
I’ve heard Geller mention several times recently that he feels Portland is right near the “tipping point” for bicycling.
But no matter what ends up in Geller’s Master Plan, it’s just a plan, not a binding policy. To do it justice and to reach the potential it will lay out for us, we must come to table and put our collective weight behind it.
Amsterdam or not, there’s no doubt we’re peering over on an exciting precipice. On the other side, is an opportunity to become America’s first world-class bicycling city. We can get there, but we must remain vigilant and not let assumptions, complacency or lack of focus cloud our vision.
In a neat coincidence, as I prepared this story, Joseph Rose wrote a piece in Sunday’s Oregonian which deals with some of these same issues and ideas.
Thanks for reading.
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First let me say that I want more bikeway miles added, especially a trail connecting Bybee/Smith lakes, Kelley Point, Pier Park, and Saint Johns Bridge together. But isn’t that graph misleading? It’s comparing something like velocity (bike ridership) to something more like acceleration (bikeway miles added). To be more accurate the blue bars should be stacked on top of each other. It looks to me like we’re doubling our bikeway miles available every year where our bike ridership is not even coming close to doubling every year. This is pretty good! I’d be celebrating this fact.
A greater acceleration of adding miles would make me pretty happy, but I don’t want to start making false assumptions based on a graph that seems skewed towards making people think we’re not doing as well as we really are.
npGREENWAY is working to achieve those specific goals you mentioned, Mike. We had a great time on our “Tax Break!” ride Saturday, April 14th where we toured and discussed those areas you mentioned.
We’d love to have your help as we gather community support for building these additional bikeway miles! Drop us an e-mail at info@npgreenway.org and we can talk about ways we can get these vital parts of our infrastructure built!
Scott Mizée
Communications Director
npGREENWAY.org
The bar chart shows total bikeways, not bikeways added…and it is flat.
The growth of bicycling in Portland is as much due to geography and demographics as to PDOT’s efforts over the last 15 years.
I have to shake my head when everyone, but the mayor’s office, puts their bets on Bikeways (hardly Boulevards), and then the police stake them out and dish out $242 tickets to bicyclists. Hardly bike friendly.
It will take a real battle to get more funds and more asphalt for bikes in Portland, despite all the talk.
Jonathan, thanks for a provocative and well-laid out piece.
I want to point out that what we did in the 90s could not in any way be considered “no brainer.” We had far fewer cyclists and zero proof that striping bike lanes would do anything to increase use or improve safety. Many of the projects could be considered low-hanging fruit because they primarily involved roadway restriping, but many of those were extremely controversial. We narrowed any street’s travel lanes to 10′ – this was really pushing it back then. We removed parking & travel lanes and redistributed the space to bike lanes. This was hugely controversial on some streets, less on others, and required leadership and courage to make them happen. Oy – the stories I could tell you…
I also want to point out that there have been some costly investments made along the way – including $1.2 million to widen the Hawthorne Bridge sidewalks, several million on the Springwater Corridor, some $20 million+ on the Esplanade and Steel Bridge Riverwalk. We had a grant to spend $250k on the first version of Bike Central (centralized bike parking/showers/changing facilities). Peninsula Crossing Trail in North Portland. We spent several hundred thou on SE Clinton, the 40s, NE Tillamook, blue bike lanes, etc… Low cost isn’t a bad thing anyway…what we’ve shown is that we are a great deal!
I think Scott has a good point about the low quality of some of the so-called bikeways like Highway 30. We (Alta) are working on evaluating the quality of current bikeway facilities as part of the Bike Master Plan update.
I fully agree with Roger that we are at a critical point in terms of taking it to the next level. However, it was not a piece of cake back in the 90s. Think of that period as Phase 1 – leading us to the system and cycling community we now have, which is allowing us, compelling us to go as far as we can go in making bicycling an integral part of daily life here in Portland.
Glad to see my post getting debated a little bit. That was part of my rationale for writing and posting it.
But let me say this:
In no way do I mean to diminish or demean the work done by Portlanders in the 1990s. As I’ve written before, that was a kind of golden age for biking here and we should not disparage the giant leaps and bounds our bike network made.
In short, I wanted to say: let’s not rest on our laurels. And I don’t think we are.
I agree with you Scott. ..and I regret if my tone made it seem like it was all easy for folks like Mia in the ’90s…that’s why I wrote the “battles” line.
I too don’t think we’re resting on our laurels, but I do think the danger of assumptions and complacency is something we need to be wary of.
I also think we need to work harder to get bicycles represented more respectfully at the highest levels of transportation planning (like ODOT and the Oreg. Transportation Commission)…but that’s for another post…
And one last thing…without the amazing work of Mia, Roger, Rex Burkholder, Charlie Hales, Earl Blumenauer, etc… back in the day, I wouldn’t even be writing this to begin with!
As someone who’s been pedaling puddletown since the 80s (the silver age?), I totally appreciate all the work that went down in the 90s.
Thanks, everyone for work past, present and future.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going go to expose myself to my Bike To Work with Bud poster.
Jonathan, I think a mark of a good writer is the ability to convey one’s message succinctly without losing the flavor. You did a better job than the Oregonian in less than half the words. Nice work. I really like the animation.
All, as someone who’s been pedaling puddletown since the early 00s, and having pedaled other cities such as Seattle before and since, I can tell that Portland has come a long way and owes a debt to all those who worked so hard. We have it really good compared to other places. But I can also tell that we’re on the verge of something really special here, something that has never been seen before in a US city. It’s pretty exciting to be a (small) part of. Keep up the good work and ride, ride, ride.
We’ve laid a wonderful foundation for making cycling a truly viable alternative to the car here in Portland. I can’t thank enough those people who made that all happen. We all know that we can do more and it’s good to know the planning being done is visionary and aggressive. Now to get the politicians on board!
Obligatory math pedantry: Jonathan, the phrase “addition of bikeway miles” is probably why Mike was confused. If the bars are total bikeway miles, growth is flat; whereas if the bars are new miles added each year, that would represent a drop to “only” linear growth.
And speaking of linear growth, the graph seems to contradict your statement that bicycle ridership in Portland has increased exponentially. I guess if you just look at the data from 2002 to present, there’s an argument for an upswing, but the overall trend of the red line looks pretty linear to me.
The term “exponential” is often misused to represent simply “lots of growth” instead of the parabolic growth the term actually refers to. It’s wrong to say “exponential,” but most people probably got the gist of the post.
Anyways, I think I come from an interesting perspective. I have lived and cycled in Portland my whole life, but my whole life is all of 18 years. It is potentially easy for someone like me to take for granted all the great stuff we have here in PDX, so I’d like to thank anyone here who was involved in the big push of the ’90s I hear so much about.
I think something that might be interesting to look at would be the types of bikes people are buying/riding. For example, the mountain bike trend of the previous decade (something like 80 percent of the bikes sold in the US were mountain bikes) has obviously been supplanted by a road bike trend. You can probably thank the Armstrong phenomenon for this. My question would be how many people buying these bikes are actually using them in a “utilitarian” fashion (instead of a car) or simply for sport? How many Breezers and the like are people riding? Don’t get me wrong, I love nice, sporty bikes. Cycling is both my primary form of recreation and transportation. However, cycling out to Boring to visit my dad once a week or so, the vast majority of cyclists on the Springwater trail do not appear to be anything but recreational. Again, I really don’t think there is anything wrong with this, but if the goal is something like Amsterdam where cycling is a viable form of transportation for a large percentage of the population, we have a long way to go.
I’ve got a suggestion: connect all of the eastside bicycle routes to the Eastbank Esplanade via actual bicycle lanes protected from cars. Right now, most of the routes end and you get to do the mad scramble across MLK, Grand, the railroad tracks, etc.
In several cases, like Clinton to OMSI, you either have a pain in the ass route, or you get to ride against traffic or on the sidewalk. This doesn’t encourage people to bicycle.
Nor does inadequate bike parking downtown or at PSU (which honestly needs at LEAST 1,000+ additional bike racks).
Mia, we still have zero proof that striping bike lanes does anything to increase use or to improve safety. Look at the chart. There have been some times when ridership increased and bike lane miles didn’t. There have been some times when ridership stayed level or fell and bike lane miles increased. Even if there is a correlation between ridership and bike lane miles, there is no proof of a causal relationship. If there is a causal relationship, maybe it’s the increased ridership that caused the increase in bike lane miles.
There have been no credible studies showing that bike lanes increase safety. Either the sampling of crashes is too low because there aren’t many bicycle crashes, or the before and after conditions have more differences than the addition of bike lanes.
“We still have zero proof that striping bike lanes does anything to increase use or to improve safety.”
I couldn’t disagree more! I love bike lanes. They make me feel safe and visible. I definitely wouldn’t ride in the city if it weren’t for them. So, there’s proof right there that striping bike lanes resulted in one more bike on the road.
Kat,
You’re right, we’re not showing causation. However, we are showing a strong correlation between increases in bikeway miles* and ridership, and a corresponding decrease in crash rate. What the development of Portland’s bikeway miles have done is encourage more people to ride more often. More people riding more often results in safer conditions. That has been documented through research published in the Journal of Injury Prevention (Injury Prevention 2003;9:205-09).
To demonstrate, here’s a personal anecdote. I’m an expeienced rider, comfortable in most cycling conditions. My commute takes me down NE Broadway. Before the bicycle lanes were striped I rode a speedy road bike, wearing lycra, and carrying my work clothes on my back. I’d run red lights (zounds!) because I wanted to put as much distance between me and the platoon of following cars. I rode as fast as I could so as to not promote poor behavior by frustrated motorists…
Once the bike lanes were striped I ditched the road bike for a clunky, more upright commuter. I put away the lycra and just wear my work clothing. I ride at a relaxed, no-sweat pace and the ride is much more pleasurable. I was going to ride either way, but I believe that creating conditions that are more conducive to more riders (relaxed pace, dedicated space on the roadway, no competition with motorists) results in more riders.
While personal anecdote isn’t scientific causation, it is the sum total of everybody’s personal experience that contributed to increased ridership. To the extent that we can make cycling more comfortable for more people, ridership will continue to increase.
I have some excellent charts that correlate ridership across the Willamette River Bridges in response to development of the facilities feeding those bridges. I’ll email them to Jonathan and perhaps he can post them (please forgive my web-unsaviness–working on it).
So, I don’t mind that we have no “proof” in a scholarly sense. I’ll settle for the data we have–that shows dramatic increases in ridership throughout the city over the past 15 years–and will keep doing, and working to improve upon what we’ve been doing so that the number of people who feel comfortable riding in Portland continue to climb.
Roger Geller
*Keep in mind that it’s not just bicycle lane miles–though that’s the majority; some of those miles are boulevards and off-street paths.
Nice post Jonathan!
Re/the usefulness of bike lanes: Regardless of their actual utility and safety, they are a powerful symbol of the presence of bikes on the roadway, and of our officially-sanctioned, socially normal right to be there at all. They embolden timid and would-be cyclists, and they remind motorists to watch out for all of us.
Ideally we wouldn’t need to have bike lanes because all road users would be alert, polite, and moving at safe speeds (and, even better, would all be on bikes and buses and foot). This is what should be in our long-term master plan, for sure. But lanes are one step we need so long as we’re sharing busy streets with people driving vehicles so crazily incompatible with ours. It levels the playing field in a way that counts for way more than statistics. Maybe I’m wrong but I think that’s something most vehicular cycling advocates could probably accept — that cultural change has to go along with behavior change.
“…the overall trend of the red line looks pretty linear to me.”
So maybe expontial is a bit of a stretch, but linear is fine as long as the trend has a good slope on it!
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Bike lanes make me feel invisible. A motorist approaching from behind can ignore me because Iâm in a different lane from his. A motorist approaching from the right may not see me because I blend in with the street furniture, trees, and signs; or because Iâm hidden by the parked cars. A motorist approaching from the front or left may not see me because Iâm hidden by other traffic.
If you want to be anecdotal, try this one: Of the right hook collisions and near collisions I have heard about or witnessed, all but one took place on bike laned roads.
Bike lanes marginalize cyclists, both figuratively and literally. Anyone who rides on NE Broadway, should ride at a ârelaxed, no-sweat pace.â About 5mph is the maximum safe speed. One should be prepared to stop on a dime or risk stopping in a door. I find that kind of riding nerve-wracking, not pleasurable.
Bike lanes do not symbolize our right to the road. They reduce our right to the road by restricting us to the edges. By supporting bike lanes, you are supporting motoristsâ desire for a less delayed tripâyou are ceding at least Ÿ of the road to motorists.
The only people emboldened by bike lanes are ignorant cyclists who think that bike lanes are some magically protected space that motorists canât enter. These cyclists donât realize the dangerous position in which bike lanes frequently put them. And by riding in bike lanes they delay learning proper riding techniques. Bike lanes are permanent training wheels that donât actually teach anything and are never removed.
Bike lanes donât reduce competition with motorists. Driving is not a competition. If anything, it is a well choreographed dance. If everyone, including cyclists, drives properly and predictably, no one hits anyone. If bikes were truly âcrazily incompatibleâ with cars, then Minis are incompatible with semis. Yet Mini drivers seem to have no fear of sharing the roads with semis, Hummers, dump trucks, and other large vehicles. Motorists donât like to bump into things. If they can see you and figure out where youâre going, they wonât hit you. The only danger is from the drunks and the distracted; being in a bike lane, your front yard, or even your house wonât save you from them. Segregation is not the solution.
Another anecdote: When I arrived in Portland I was dismayed by the number of bike lanes. I had never seen so many before and had not acquired the skills to ride in them. I was particularly uncomfortable in a bike lane between through and right turn lanes. Every intersection and driveway was worrisome, too. I was afraid of getting right hooked. On regular roads I could relax, look at the road ahead and scan the sides. On a bike laned road I worried about being hit especially by someone behind me. I have since learned how to ride in bike lanesâanticipate motorists who canât see me, hug the left edge or even leave the bike lane where there are parked cars, look behind me whenever I approach a major intersection or driveway where a motorist might turn right, ride slowly and watch for right-turning cars when passing slow traffic, and ride slowly and hug the right edge when passing stopped cars. In the early years I would go far out of my way or take a nearby neighborhood road with a stop sign at every intersection to avoid bike laned roads. I still avoid them if a good alternate isnât too far out of my way. Unfortunately, their proliferation makes them harder to avoid every year.
Look at that bikeway virus spread throughout downtown, slowly killing away our rights to the road.
In some places I really like the bike lanes- the Broadway Bridge is a great example. Downtown less so because I always seem to be needing to take a left off Broadway and the bike lane has stuck me on the right side… And downtown I can usually keep up with the flow of traffic.
The difference between a mini and a bike Elly is ability to accelerate. Where the traffic is going over 30 MPH I prefer a bike lane because then I don\’t have to worry about getting run down from behind. Where traffic is under 25 I prefer to take the lane.