[Updated: 8/15, 2:51pm]
Blues Festival in 2005.
(File photo)
If you tried to park your bike at the recent Waterfront Blues Festival or the Bite of Oregon (after Bridge Pedal), you might have expected the BTA to be there, providing free valet bike parking like they have in years past.
But many people have been surprised to not find the BTA at these events. Here’s what one commenter had to say about their experience with the (lack of) secure bike parking at the Bite of Oregon last weekend:
“My one gripe: the “secure” bike parking wasn’t. The last couple of years, the BTA staffed the bike parking nearest the Salmon Street Fountain… This year, no staff. Just a roped-off area with the traffic barricades set up to lock bikes to. Not many people utilized this area… Oh well.”
Earlier this summer, the BTA pulled out of their agreement to park bikes at the Waterfront Blues Festival (a benefit for the Oregon Food Bank) just 10 days before the event. They typically charged $400 for the service, but when they asked for $4,000, event organizers said no thanks. Luckily, Dragon Boat team members stepped up to do it for $100 a day.
To find out what’s going on, I asked the BTA’s events and outreach coordinator, Michelle Poyourow.
Michelle said they’ve decided to put their bike parking services on hold until they figure out a more effective and financially viable approach:
“Bike parking has always been a really expensive program for us. It probably costs us about $30 hour to put on and, depending on the event, we were getting paid about $8-$10. It used to be justified because it was a service we provided our members but last year we did an informal survey of the folks who came and parked and very few were BTA members.”
She also said there were concerns about security:
“It wasn’t very secure. I felt pretty nervous about it last year. Having people go in and out of the lot to park and unpark their bikes does not make it a very secure lot!”
Besides the financial and security concerns, Poyourow says that she feels their current service isn’t up to snuff:
(File photo)
“If I thought the service were creating more bicyclists I’d be very happy to do it at a loss — our members pay us to make them safer, and a great way to do that is to get more bicyclists on the roads — but a snowfenced area of scratchy A-frame barricades not far from other vertical structures (such as the Waterfront Park seawall) is not creating very many more cyclists.”
Instead of doing away with the program entirely, Poyourow would rather revamp and improve the service. That change would cost events more than they’ve paid the BTA in the past, but Poyourow says it would be well worth it:
“I do understand that the better service, since it will be more expensive, might be a shock to events who have gotten our underpriced service in the past. But I am confident we’ll be providing something of sufficient value that, if they try it, they’ll conclude it was worth the price! Event organizers in San Francisco have certainly come to that conclusion.”
The system in San Francisco she refers to is run by the SF Bike Coalition. Poyourow says they’ve researched that service and hope to do something similar:
“SFBC has a super-secure full valet service that do at around 70+ events in San Francisco every year, including film festivals, farmers markets, music festivals, etc. People can leave their bags, lights, helmets, all of it on their bikes and just hand them over and walk away. We’d like to adopt SFBC’s higher quality and higher security program and start offering that level of service, at the appropriate cost, at Portland-area events.”
Poyourow also points out that a San Francisco city ordinance mandates that all events over a certain size are required to have supervised bike parking. No such ordinance exists in Portland.
So for now, bike parking at big events will continue to be spotty. (I see a real opportunity for entrepreneurs here. It’s clear there’s a very high demand for secure, on-site bike parking at events. hint, hint.)
By next summer, hopefully the BTA will be back in business with an improved service, and hopefully event organizers won’t balk at the price.
Thanks for reading.
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while I\’m generally not a fan of more laws and regulations, I think a city ordiance requiring secure bike parking at all public events with attendance over \”X\” number (like SF has) is a good idea. That sends a message to the public that they can ride to the event instead of drive, which is what we all want anyway.
ps – I\’m a BTA member and have missed their presence, but totally understand the reasoning. I agree that this is an opportunity for someone – maybe BTA or maybe not – to step in.
Thanks, Jonathan, for finding the answer to my question/comment! I figured it was something like that.
The thing is, even if the BTA didn\’t think it was safe, I felt like my bike was safer parked there because there was someone at the lot at all times, and I had to fill out the little tag that they matched up when I came back to get my bike.
That said, if they decide to charge for parking, or for valet parking, I\’d gladly pay.
Thanks again!
I think charging for parking is not at all unreasonable. A dollar or so for the peace of mind of a secure place to leave your bike and gear isn\’t too much to ask considering someone has to set up the site and staff it.
My 2 cents
I was always glad to have somewhere to lock my bike, but I agree that the former system left a lot to be desired. It seems appropriate that now, as Portland is growing up so much as a bike city, we are moving towards bike parking at events that is similarly grown-up.
I want riding your bike in Portland to an event to be the only way to go. Let\’s demand and support bike parking that is:
– Visible
– Prominent (on prime real estate, right by the entrance)
– Well-staffed
– High-security
– Easy to find and use
– Promoted by the event organizer
– At every event (so you never have to wonder what the situation will be)
It sounds like the BTA is on the right track, and I wish them luck. Now we, the people who attend (and pay our fair share for) so many events during the year, need to start pressuring event organizers to step it up.
Sounds like San Frans\’ leaving us in the dust on some important bike related concepts. Good time to step up and be heard with all the publicity that bicycling has been getting here lately…Come on BTA…let\’s hear ya\’!
Quoting DK: \”Come on BTA…let\’s hear ya\’!\”
You mean like you just heard them, in this interview? Or what exactly were you thinking the BTA should be doing to create world-class event bike parking?
Sounds like San Frans\’ leaving us in the dust on some important bike related concepts.
I\’ve only lived in SF a few days now, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but from what I\’ve seen Portland is still leaps and bounds above SF in overall bike friendliness. And I\’m not just talking about the hills. Maybe my opinion will change once I figure out the city more, but I dunno.
a San Francisco city ordinance mandates that all events over a certain size are required to have supervised bike parking
That\’s great, but they certainly don\’t seem to have a requirement for bike parking on new construction like Portland does. Finding bike parking here is impossible. Sure, there\’s always a parking meter or pole somewhere, but there are next to no actual bike racks in the neighborhoods I\’ve been in so far…
And nothing even remotely similar to bikeportland.org 🙁
And I overheard one friend-of-a-friend last night laughing about \”so-and-so is so funny, she actually rides her bike out to bars!\”
I love this city so far, but Portland leaves this place in the dust in bike friendliness, regardless of the fun things pointed out in recent BikePortland posts.
Perhaps DK meant it\’s time to get a similar ordinance passed in Portland – hey, San Fran has done the hard part (writing & passing it). Portland loves to compete, especially with cities like San Fran for sustainability & bike friendliness – it should be an easy win with the current Council, if the BTA can start the lobbying. We know they can generate the phone calls & emails from all of us if need be!
Word on the street was BTA wanted 4 grand for an event like this.
If I remember right, when I lived in Eugene. Valet bike parking was organized by the folks putting on the events. Concerts in the park, festivals etc. Sometimes it was a dollar, sometimes donations based. Seemed to work. Now how to encourage event sponsors to take initiative on bike parking when planning events.
I\’d have to agree that valet/secured parking should be the responsibility of the event organizer. An ordinance to require bike parking at events held on city property is a great idea. Also, it seems that a small fee could easily turn this into a profitable enterprise for the event.
Patrick said:
\”Word on the street was BTA wanted 4 grand for an event like this.\”
I\’ve updated the post to include more information about this (see 3rd. para.).
I regret leaving it out of the initial story.
Right on Hawth.Rider…If S.F. can do that (set up bike friendly ordinances) without even remotely sustaining the bikeability that PDX seems to have over them, why can\’t we do that? O.k. so S.F. doesn\’t have the racks and lanes that we do, but they seem to know a thing or two about pushing paperwork in other places that we don\’t. Not a knock on BTA, just an observation.
Riders paying to park will not work, sorry.
If you have two dollars to pay for everywhere you bike to, then you have alot of $$. Free to riders is the only way to go if you want to reach the masses, and not just the elite. Free, baby.
I bike parked at the Blues Festival, I found it very safe, it was always staffed with 3 or 4 people. I loaned them my bike sign and they lettered a sign that said they were doing this as a fund raiser. They said the sign helped bring in alot more money than without a sign. A little marketing can help, Portlanders are very generous, especially the bike community!
I think the BTA is missing a great opportunity to have a street presence, with the added benefits of talking about what the BTA does. When I did Get Lit 1/2 of my light recepients had lived in Portland less than a year. I also got alot of new volunteers by being in the Publics view.
Thanks for the great article!
As for asking for money to do this, why can\’t the BTA get volunteers to staff the bike valet? That\’s what the dragon boat teams did. It was all VOLUNTEER based… with the TEAM getting $100 a day. $4,000 seems like too much to pay for a service like that.
I\’m certain people would step up and help if it meant keeping a valuable service like this.
Good article Jonathan and good comments, thanks everyone.
I hadn\’t thought about charging parkers for the parking. I\’d rather not, since that would discourage bike attendance, and the whole point (from the BTA\’s perspective) is to encourage people to bike to the event, and (from the event\’s perspective) to reach out to a market that might be less likely to come if not for the bike parking, to keep people from walking their bikes through the event, to get the BTA to promote the event by announcing the bike parking, and to reduce the chances of someone driving home drunk.
But the truth is that Portland events haven\’t been asked to pay the real price of bike parking before, and they might balk at it, at least at first.
I don\’t remember asking Waterfront Blues Fest for $4,000 (I think I asked for about $35 per hour, which would be $2,000 for 57 hours of on-site work plus however many hours of prep and equipment cost, though I confess I don\’t exactly remember; if I asked for $4,000 I\’m going to feel really stupid) but regardless, charging events the real cost of the service is going to be tough for some of them, especially the ones that are non-profits just like us and trying to benefit a good cause. And the ones who have enjoyed our very subsidized rate in the past.
I was afraid that, when the event organizers called me this year expecting to simply renew our super-bargain-basement bike parking contract from last year and I said we couldn\’t do it again the same way, they\’d be mad. But they were understanding, after all they deal with the same realities on their side of the ledger.
I see this as a potentially great market opportunity for other groups. If the BTA fills this niche we won\’t do it at a profit – we\’ll do it at cost. An extra benefit to us is the outreach opportunity, and we\’d certainly take advantage of that. But it would be okay if someone else stepped in. The City of Portland or TriMet could decide that this is going to be one of their transportation functions, and could get the equipment and staff needed to give quality service at cost. Or event rental companies could add it to their suite of services. Or an entrepreneur could take it on. Or events could do it themselves. And we\’d be psyched. But it needs to happen, and it should be really secure and very user-friendly.
So unless we see another group get poised to make it happen next year, we\’re going to do our best to offer it at the lowest price we can justify to our members. Portland is ready for some high-class valet bike parking.
PS – Aha! you are thinking, That BTA girl is so sneaky, she was going to try and get Waterfront Blues to pay $5/hour more than the $30 she told BikePortland.org it would cost.
But no, I just realized later this summer that a great way to fund bike parking and thereby give event organizers a break is getting businesses to sponsor it. Works in Chicago, could work here.
Michelle said,
\”But no, I just realized later this summer that a great way to fund bike parking and thereby give event organizers a break is getting businesses to sponsor it. Works in Chicago, could work here.\”
Yes, but please give LOCAL businesses first shot – don\’t get Kryptonitis!!
Or was that Kryptoseduction??
Roger that, Bill.