About 70 Portlanders took part in the Ride of Silence last night.
After a brief speech by BTA executive director Scott Bricker, the crowd rode from the North Park Blocks, made a loop through downtown, went over the Broadway Bridge, then up MLK Jr. Blvd., and ended at N. Interstate and Greeley.
“The most original, spirited, and spectacle-laden boutique bike show in the nation.”
That’s the vision of an ad-hoc coalition of Portland framebuilders, bike lovers, and creative professionals that have come together to create Oregon Manifest — a new event coming to Portland this fall that just might re-define the traditional bike show.
The City of Portland is moving forward with their plans to build a new bike and pedestrian bridge over I-5 that will connect the Lair Hill neighborhood with the South Waterfront district near the Aerial Tram.
For more information contact:
Jeanette Kloos
President
FHCRH@comcast.net
503-227-5638
Second Annual Gorge Ride
Friends of the Historic Columbia River Highway announce the second annual fundraising Gorge Ride to be held on June 14, 2008. Registration is now open through www.hcrh.org/GorgeRide08.html .
Bicyclists will again ride on the Historic Columbia River Highway from the Gorge Discovery Center to the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail in Mosier and continue on to the Senator Mark O. Hatfield West Trailhead east of Hood River and return. This 38.5-mile trip includes the vista at Rowena Crest, travel through the Mosier Twin Tunnels and a rest stop at Historic Mayerdale.
Photos and information about last year’s ride are available at www.hcrh.org/GorgeRide07.html . Over 375 people participated in the 2007 Gorge Ride. One participant wrote after the ride:
“We enjoyed our ride today along the Columbia River Highway, and we hope you make this an annual event. You had fine support from your volunteers, rest stops were well organized, the route was well marked, and the scenery was (as anticipated) spectacular!” Carol Fredlund
The Friends of the Historic Columbia River Highway support the restoration and reconnection of the historic highway through the Columbia River Gorge. Our Vision is to restore and preserve the existing drivable portions of the historic highway to their 1920s appearance and link drivable portions with pedestrian and bicycle accessible connections, creating a continuous route through the Columbia River Gorge.
Sponsors of the 2008 Gorge Ride include: Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum, Cycle Oregon, Columbia View Orchards, Gorge Delights, Marc Berry (Mayor of Mosier), The Bike Gallery, Gateway Bicycles, Salmon Cyclery, REI, Resource Revival and plummerdesign.com.
Job Title
Professional Part Time Bicycle Mechanic
Company/Organization
Veloce Bicycles
Job Description
Part time position available in SE Portland. Professional, high quality, road bike store looking for a bicycle mechanic with outstanding customer service skills. High volume store. Excellent wages. Willing to have fun and work hard? Please apply!
Position Starts June 1st, 20 plus hours a week
How to Apply
e-mail info [at] velocebicycles dot] com
[Note: This article was written by Marion Rice. See the other articles in her Carfree Families column.]
My son is five (turning six in August) and has had his own “big boy bike” for about a year now. It mostly sits in the garage. He’s just not ready.
As much as I would like him to be, he just isn’t.
Every once in a while, I check in and see if he wants to ride around the block on his bike, and I walk/run along beside him. Even though he can ride by himself and gets a lot of positive reinforcement from his parents, it hasn’t been a very good experience. He gets frustrated easily, drops his bike, kicks it, declares he would like it if it were yellow and storms home.
“Moreso than any other project I can think of, this project has had the most divergent set of opinions within the BTA in a long time… We are still having a hard time stating our positions.”
— BTA executive director Scott Bricker
After a year of working in good faith with the staff of the Columbia River Crossing project, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance finds themselves at a crossroads.
Despite the project’s contentious details, its potential ramifications for regional environmental impacts and massive funding implications, the BTA has remained on the sidelines of growing concerns about the project. Instead of opposing it, they have remained a supportive part of the massive planning effort that has been likened to “a train that no one wants to step in front of”.
When the BTA held a forum on the CRC last month they featured presentations from supporters of the project (one was a CRC project staffer and the other was BTA co-founder and Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder — who’s support of the project is the focus of a cover story in the Willamette Week).
The race for City Council Seat #1 has gotten even closer as the final ballots trickle in.
Amanda Fritz is the clear winner, but with only 43% of the votes, she’ll face a runoff contest in November with the second-place vote getter (candidates need 50% plus one to win outright).
Late last night, a very close battle for that spot was taking place between Charles Lewis, John Branam, and Jeff Bissonnette. But, as ballots continued to be tallied into this morning, Bissonnette — who is clearly the most bike-friendly of the three — leap-frogged Branam and moved withing strking distance of Lewis.
With an impressive first meeting of their Blue Ribbon Committee for Trails and a new video (watch it below) for their Connecting Green initiative, Metro’s ambitious effort to “create the best parks and trails system in the world” has hit the ground running.
Earlier this month, Metro President David Bragdon called together a diverse group of regional leaders to introduce the effort.
The Board of Directors for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance is getting an extreme makeover. According to a post on the BTA Blog yesterday, they’re looking for eight new board members…
Do you want to make a difference in Oregon and Southwest Washington by fundraising, friend-raising, and advocating for cyclists?
The BTA is seeking eight people who are passionate about cycling to serve a two-year term as a volunteer on the BTA board starting in October 2008.
Check out more details and how to apply here.
[Updated throughout the night. Refresh for latest.]
It’s election night and the campaign parties are going strong all over the City.
The big news is that Sam Adams has won the race for mayor with a decisive 52-34 victory over Sho Dozono.
During his concession speech, Dozono said he “just didn’t have enough time to get his message out.”
Judging from TV coverage I’m watching, Adams is relieved and celebratory at his campaign party at the Jupiter Hotel on E. Burnside tonight. After a brutal campaign that saw two of his major projects (the Safe, Sound and Green Initiative and the Sauvie Island Bridge) get dragged through the political muck, I’m sure Adams (and all his staffers) will savor this victory.
About seven miles east of downtown Portland, lies 35 acres of unused land between two interstate freeways.
Today, it’s just another anonymous, ODOT-owned parcel, but that’s about to change due to the unlikely partnership of an East Portland developer and a volunteer parks advocate. If their ambitious plans materialize, the parcel could become a hub of biking activity, a connection to nature for neighboring communities, and a catalyst for a long-awaited revitalization of East Portland.
For the past two years, Gateway area developer Ted Gilbert and parks advocate Linda Robinson have quietly worked on a project known as “Gateway Green”. The idea is turn a parcel of land between I-84 and I-205 (just north of the Gateway Transit Center) into an eco-sensitive, urban oasis that would provide recreational opportunities and make a statement about Portland and Oregon’s commitment to sustainability.
Now, with the completion this week of the Gateway Green Vision Plan, the project is gaining momentum.
Bike trails (in many forms) have been a part the vision for this space since Day One, so I have been keeping tabs on this project for over a year. Yesterday, I finally got a sneak peek at the Vision Plan and I met with Gilbert and Robinson to get an update.
After many meetings with stakeholders and neighborhood groups in the past months, Gilbert said he heard plenty of great ideas about what could be done with the project. “I know it could be a lot of things. But rather than be all things to all people, I thought, let’s do just a few things very well.”
Gilbert told me he has decided to zero in on two key elements — sustainability and biking.
In addition to extensive stormwater treatment, solar panels and wind turbines, Gilbert envisions Gateway Green as a mecca for bikes.
On page 11 of the Vision Plan (which was created by David Evans & Associates and won’t be made public until next week), “Bicycling” is listed first in a chapter on design. The copy mentions that “there is currently a shortage of suitable urban venues” for the “burgeoning sports of mountain biking, cyclocross, and free-riding.”
Authors of the plan write that Gateway Green would include “a critical link in the bicycle commute network”. Gilbert adds that plans call for a new bike access ramp from NE 102nd into the site and a proposed land bridge over I-205 that would eventually connect with the (not yet built) Sullivan’s Gulch Trail.
Once the Sullivan’s Gulch Trail is built, the Vision Plan states that, “Gateway Green becomes the nexus of north-south and east-west bicycle commuting in the region.”
But the real excitement about this project is not how you can ride through it on your way to work, but the new trails inside it for the knobby-tired set.
Singletrack trails are proposed for a wooded area of the site and a “figure 8 bicycle pathway” would take mountain bikes through the entire property, and eventually over a new I-205 bridge that would connect with the existing off-road trails in Rocky Butte Park.
Gilbert enthusiastically shared his hopes that Gateway Green becomes a host site for championship-level cyclocross and free-ride events. Key to the plan is a “pump-track” and mountain bike skills course that would welcome riders of all levels to test their skills over man-made obstacles and technical trails that would take advantage of the natural topography of the site (it slopes from south to north).
NE Halsey Street passes over the site’s southern tip and has a good view of where Gilbert sees the future free-riding course. “My plan,” he says with an excited tone, “is to create viewing platforms off of Halsey so spectators can get a good view of the action.”
The vision, the parcel, and Gilbert’s commitment to the project is exciting to say the least.
According to Linda Robinson — one of Portland’s most dedicated parks advocates who has worked with Gilbert on this project for two years — the Gateway Green site is geographically perfect. She notes that East Portland in general has been labeled “open space deficient” by the Coalition for a Livable Future’s Equity Atlas project.
Robinson and Gilbert also rattle off other stats like the fact that 300,000 people live within five square miles of the site and a whopping 65 million people pass by the site each year.
Metro says that — with two freeways, a MAX line, a Transit Center, commercial centers and the airport nearby — the area around Gateway Green is projected to be the “region’s most accessible location by 2017.”
As a commercial and residential property owner in the nearby Gateway area, Gilbert does not hide the fact that much of his motivation for this project lies in its “catalytic” potential to spark a resurgence in local property values.
“We hope this becomes the branding tool that helps people take a fresh look at East Portland,” he says, “and once people are out here recreating, then they might want to move here…
“There are a lot of details to hammer out, but we’re open to it.”
— ODOT spokesperson Christine Miles
But before any grand plans become reality there are two main issues hanging over the excitement — funding and ODOT.
ODOT currently owns the parcel and has to agree to convey the land or the project is dead in the water.
To even consider handing over their parcel, ODOT has laid out several conditions: they must maintain the right-of-way needed to widen I-205 if/when necessary; they do not want to incur any additional maintenance responsibilities; they do not want any increased legal liability; the plans cannot include any new roads (or alteration of existing roads); and there can be no commercial activity within the parcel.
Gilbert and Robinson met with ODOT yesterday to share the completed Vision Plan. So far, they say, “ODOT has been very supportive” and has essentially signed off on the concepts and ideas presented in the Vision Plan. ODOT has made no commitments to the project yet but Gilbert seems hopeful. “We’ve got several hurdles to jump still…but it should be doable.”
That sentiment is echoed by ODOT spokesperson Christine Miles. She says they’re excited about the project but that, “This is just the first phase. There are a lot of details to hammer out, but we’re open to it.”
The other major step for the project is of course how to pay for it all.
According to the Vision Plan, the “total package” is approximately $20.5 million — but Gilbert is quick to point out that that number includes over $18 million in new bridges and high-tech “green” elements like wind turbines and solar-powered art work.
For much less money, planners have estimated that a “phase one” package — which would include all the site furnishings, tree plantings, signage, and bike paths — could be done for only $2.3 million. Add one new I-205 overpass that would extend the existing pedestrian/bike bridge near Maywood Park and the cost is still only $3.8 million.
The next task for Gilbert is to drum up community support and bend the ear of potential private investors. He says he’s already got one generous commitment; “If we can guarantee a world-class facility, I have a private donor who will give us $1 million.”
Other funding sources might be Metro’s Nature in Neighborhoods program, which was carved out of their $260 million Natural Areas Bond Measure which was passed by voters in 2006.
Gilbert, who has become known for his commitment to “green” development in other projects, says he also hopes Gateway Green will inspire others. “If we can transform this space, there’s a lot of other land like this around the region…it could be an example.”
Community support will be a key factor in both getting ODOT to relinquish the land and to acquiring funding sources. On Thursday, Gilbert and Robinson will present the new Vision Plan to a group of stakeholders and a public bike ride/rally is likely to be planned at the site later in the summer.
Stay tuned for opportunities to get involved.