🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
I don’t usually re-post stories that are flying around the Internet, but two recent stories deserve attention for the level of indifference and callousness they show toward people on bikes.
The first story comes from Tucson Arizona. The snip below is from a story posted on CNN.com yesterday:
“A judge sentenced a woman to nearly the maximum prison term for negligent homicide after hearing a recorded jail conversation in which she made light of the bicyclist she killed…
At a meeting in Portland’s downtown library earlier this week, the Oregon Bicycle Tourism Partnership came together to strategize about how to make Oregon the premier bicycling destination in the country.
The group is a joint venture spearheaded by Oregon State Parks, Travel Oregon, Cycle Oregon, and others.
Critical Mass — that enigmatic, fun, controversial, “defiant celebration” of bikes as traffic — has been all but missing from Portland’s bike scene lately.
The theories about its demise vary, but in the last year or so it seems to have lost its mojo here in “Bike City USA”.
I never got a chance to write about this, so below is a pasted announcement from the City of Eugene about their Walking and Biking Summit.
*Come Get Involved!*
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In a rare move for an aspiring politician, City Council hopeful Jim Middaugh is telling supporters to stop giving him money.
In a statement released late Thursday night, he claimed they are “over the top” with $5 contributions. “In fact,” the statement said,
“We’re over the top so far that I need to ask you to please stop gathering new contributions. We can’t keep up.”
Middaugh, a daily bike rider who I met with last week, had to submit 1,000 $5 contributions by January 31st to qualify for public financing.
kinda beat up blue mountain bike with a duct tape seat and lights front and back. also bolted to the frame are a water bottle holder, and a mini bike pump. the front tire is a mountain bike tire and the back tire is a street tire.
More Info on Finetoothcog
Whew. A lot has transpired with the Safe, Sound, and Green Streets Proposal in recent weeks.
First, some background…
The monumental proposal will look to raise over $400 million for transportation system maintenance and safety projects by way of a new fee charged to city residents and businesses. Some of the funding in the proposal would go toward creation of a network of streets that are safe and convenient for bikes (more info here).
Just before noon today, police responded to tips about a blue Hummer H2 parked on the corner of SW Salmon and Broadway. The vehicle fit the description of the SUV that was involved in a road rage attack in Northwest Portland.
Just a quick note to introduce the latest bike I’m test-riding in my ongoing quest to find my perfect city bike.
Behold the Batavus Socorro:
A new group known as the PDX Bike Militia has launched a service that will look to improve safety for bike riders in the city by pairing them up with “bike escorts”.
In a message to the Shift email list announcing the new service, they described several examples of when the service might be used:
– You get out of work late and don’t feel comfortable biking home alone in the night when your powers of light are not bolstered by the beautiful sun.
The City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) issued a statement today that work on a sewer project will impact a popular bike route in the Sellwood area of Southeast Portland.
Their Sellwood Reliever Sewer project will take place along several points of SE Umatilla Street (from 19th westward), which is a key connector across a gap in the Springwater Corridor Trail.