(Photo © J. Maus)
Regrettably I won’t be inside the Barack Obama rally this morning. However, I did stop by the Coliseum on my way into the office to check out the bike parking situation.
While there are definitely a lot of bikes parked illegally (a technicality, since there is not an adequate number of legal spaces), the situation seems to be under control. I didn’t see any signs of security guards removing bikes (yet).
It was good to see hundreds of bikes parked outside the entrance!
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If you weren’t able to attend but are still interested in what goes down, your best bets are to tune in to KGW’s live stream of the event, and definitely check out the Portland Mercury’s coverage. They’ve got several reporters on the scene and they’re posting live updates (including an MP3 of the speech just made by Congressman Earl Blumenauer).
Thanks for reading.
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That KATU feed stinks.
Try kgw\’s. Seems better.
http://www.kgw.com/video/?nvid=57406&live=yes
Bike jams.
The bane of a civilized society.
At last.
Maybe I posted too late (previous article). I mentioned the recent article here about a guy starting a bike rack rental business. This seems like a good first customer…
Donald: good post! At long last!
Keep in mind that if you find your bike removed, report it to PPB. If they do not have a form properly sworn out by the security guards in advance of removing the vehicle, they are guilty of vehicular theft under Oregon Law, a Class B felony. Prosecute!
The bikes parked on the stairway banisters qualify as Not Cool. While parking a bike illegally may be viewed as a \”technicality\” because there is not adequate bike parking space (and I agree with this view to a point), there are reasons for certain rules, both legal rules and simple common sense rules.
Senior citizens, the injured and the disabled need those railings for both climbing and descending stairs. The banisters exist for reasons that should be respected by all. I view parkign a bike this way just the same as I view an able bodied driver parking in a handicapped parking spot. At best, poor judgment.
I am glad Obama has drawn a large crowd, regardless of their chosen mode of transport!
I bussed in to the rally this morning. I have been a fan of Barack\’s since the first I heard him speak, but he wasn\’t always my first choice for president. Barack has earned my vote… and… well, the Obama family would be beautiful in the White House, politically, socially and physically beautiful.
Blumenauer got a standing O from me. He stood up with a neon bike pin glowing on his lapel and remembered pinning a bike on Barack before he was a State senator.
Really an exciting morning.
We rode over there this morning and found some uninhabited bike racks in the parking garage– lucky find! We also met another cyclist who followed us a good long way there and back because she wasn\’t sure where the event was or how to get to her office afterward. You can\’t have that kind of impromptu connection with a stranger in a car unless you run into them, but on a bike it\’s a daily occurrence.
As we were leaving the parking garage after the event was over, the three of us rode together amidst a line of cars waiting to pull onto NE Interstate. One woman merging in from another lane clearly saw me but continued to pull her car directly into me, bullying me out of the way. Why? Because she was in a car? Because she was going so much faster in this line of cars moving at 10MPH? I imagine it\’s because she simply didn\’t consider me, or the other two cyclists with me, a vehicle worthy of the same respect she\’d show another driver.
It\’s time for this to stop. We deserve to get where we\’re going safely. We deserve the same rights as everyone else on the road. We deserve to be seen.
Have to agree with Spanky at #5. Locking up on handrails is impacting pedestrian users like a car parking in a bike lane, because enough parking was not provided. Someone could really get hurt.
History repeats itself…lots of bikes at progressive political events…little bike parking by event organizers…same as 8 years ago at the first Nader rally at the Rose Quarter…perhaps by 2020 it will be addressed?
Some photos from 2000
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15235675@N07/
Oops bad link: use this one
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bike%20parking%20nader&w=all
I posted pics too, of Obama 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanjewett/2351534390/
Sorry Folks…my photos of the event are locked out…trying to fix it tomorrow.
Send the link when you get it fixed. I\’ld like to see the photos.
In case some of you may want to be
cavaliear toward stairway and fire
exit safety, I would like to please
invite you to this Wikipedial article
on a very famous nightclub fire that had
started governments onto the path to
fire safety rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire
I would also like to point out that many bicycle advocates love to complain if cars park in such a way as to block bicycle infrastructure.
What if someone who really needed those railings wanted to go to the rally for their presidential candidate?
Do we just tell them \”Tough luck, too bad – we need bike parking…\”?
That doesn\’t seem to fair to those in the community who need railings to hold on to when navigating stairs.
Remember, the knife can cut both ways. Envision all those bikes as cars parked in bikeways and across sidewalks. How would you feel?
But aside from that – Bike Jams are a great \”problem\” to have!
Good for us!
#6, Ha ha. Black family in the White House. The irony is UN-bearable! I don\’t get the sense Obama is even aware of bike issues. But, then again, who is, except maybe for a few bike Nazis in politics like Blumenauer?
A major downside Obama downside for me? He\’s a heavy smoker.
No wonder there wasn\’t enough bike parking given that wave bike racks are being used. I would have thought that wave racks wouldn\’t be allowed in Portland. Aren\’t inverted U racks the standard? I would bet that the manufacturer\’s listed capacity for the racks pictured above is twice the actual capacity. Wave racks should be banned.
I agree with Bruce. Inverted U racks all the way.
# 6 – physically beautiful? as a mixed person of color, I\’m not sure I appreciate your comment on aesthetics the way you had intended. We mixed folk have been fetishized and objectified and oftentimes ostracized because of our looks. Perhaps you meant something else and I have missed the point…but I get the sense that obama would be, as has been the case many times in the past with mixed folk, some sort of litmus test for how america doesn\’t have a problem with racism anymore. If that was the case, would he have been *forced* to \”explain\” a speech given by a preacher who was obviously drawing upon statements already made by malcolm X?
I know that bikeportland.org is not meant to be a venue for this sort of discussion, but…for what it\’s worth, the irony to me is that the discussion over \”race\” (versus) feminist politics is never brought up to address the total neglect of Cynthia McKinney as a viable candidate within a 2 party system. I don\’t see the irony so much as the hypocrisy.
Actually, I\’m kind of glad that McKinney has not been made into a token of progress towards \”racial equality\” in this country, but I guess this is a sore spot for me (obama\’s skin color) because, increasingly in the progress of this campaign, I have noticed the tension behind these demographics and I almost get the feeling that I am choosing my alliance based upon my affiliation as either a person of color or a radical feminist (which hilary most certainly is not) — but, as I said, I should respect bikeportland\’s space and not vent too much on that here. Just wanted to respond to a comment that I\’m sure was not meant to offend but was just a statement of exhilaration that I would not want to dampen.
oh, yeah. and, in this area, they SO need more bike parking! =)