Month: February 2009

Oregon builders announce handmade bike show plans

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Oregon-Handmade-Bike-Show07-60.jpg

A scene from the OBCA’s 2007 show.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The Oregon Bicycle Constructors Association (OBCA) has announced preliminary details for their 2009 Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show.

According to Andy Newlands of the OBCA, their show will happen on Halloween weekend, October 31st – November 1st. The two day show will be open to the public and will feature handmade bikes from around Oregon and beyond. Newlands says “selected bicycle businesses will also be displaying their wares.”

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NY Times columnist: Americans prefer sprawl

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

“Amsterdam is a wonderful city, but Americans never seem to want to live there.”
— David Brooks in the New York Times

In his latest piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks opines that, while Americans might appreciate the finer points of Amsterdam’s urban life (like bikes and beer), they really would rather have their suburbs.

Citing the economic downturn and recent momentum of ideas about sustainable transportation and livability, Brooks writes:

The time has finally come, some writers are predicting, when Americans will finally repent. They’ll move back to the urban core. They will ride more bicycles, have smaller homes and tinier fridges and rediscover the joys of dense community — and maybe even superior beer.

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TriMet will host Breakfast on the Bridges to share transit mall changes

Velo-tines on the Bridges

TriMet and Shift will bring
you free breakfast next week.
(Photo © J. Maus)

TriMet, in partnership with bike fun promoting non-profit Shift, will host three Breakfast on the Bridges events at the end of this month.

The purpose of the events is to spread the word about how bikes are expected to navigate safely along with buses, MAX trains, and cars on SW 5th and 6th Avenues along the new Portland Mall. TriMet says they’ll be handing out free breakfast snacks, hot coffee, and “information about the new Portland Mall cycling environment.”

Colin Maher, TriMet’s bike specialist, also passed along a new graphic (below) that shows how bikes are expected to turn right from their left-side travel lane (the right lane is reserved for trains and buses).

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Guest article: Oregon’s first bicycling governor: T.T. Geer, 1899-1903

[Editor’s note: Eric Lundgren is Oregon’s preeminent bicycle historian. He is working on a book about Portland’s “golden age of cycling,” and has provided his historical perspective to this site in the past. He provided this article about our first bicycling governor in honor of the state’s Sesquicentennial this week.]

Governor T.T. Geer
(Image courtesy of the
Oregon State Library)

When the problems of road repair and good transportation seem most intractable, most stuck in the mud, there is often a temptation to move forward with fancy new gadgets. Today, Governor Kulongkoski leads the charge for electric cars and batteries. A century ago Governor Geer led the way for another kind of high-tech ground transportation.

In 1899 at his inauguration, Oregon Governor Theodore Thurston Geer said:

Few questions demand more serious consideration at your hands than the enactment of some system that will give our people better roads…

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The Portland that might have been

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

I recently came across this image again — it’s the map that might have sealed our fate, developed by Portland city planners in 1966 in response to freeway guru Robert Moses’ vision for the city.

Robert Moses’ freeway plan for the City of Portland

Moses was known for saying “Cities are for traffic,” and he dedicated his career to creating freeway networks inside cities, many of which cut across existing neighborhoods — often the poorest ones.

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The Monday Roundup

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Happy President’s Day to you all. Here’s the roundup for this week:

After the jump: Scientists call for fewer roads; pimp your ride; environmental racism; transit news; and the masked rider speaks!

– President Obama is creating a panel, rather than appointing a single “car czar” to oversee the auto industry bailout and reform process.

– Streetfilms interviewed bike-friendly US Rep Earl Blumenauer of Portland, and the Oregonian picked it up. In the video, Blumenauer urges bicycle activists to “keep the pressure on” Obama about federal transportation spending decisions this year. Meanwhile, at least one voice in the media is calling for stimulus dollars to be put into bike boulevards.

– The Portland Tribune calls Alta Planning principal and former Portland bike coordinator Mia Birk the “Bike Queen” of Portland, and talks about her work, through Alta, on trying to turn Dallas, Texas into a bicycle city.

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In honor of the Hamster Ball

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

The Ben Hurt Chariot Wars left their mark on Zoobomb’s Mini Bike Winter 2009 yesterday. I wasn’t there (I’m still in Guadalajara), but I just came across an amazing short video from my friend Felix. I knew I was missing something special by not being at MBW this year, but I did not expect this…

Behold, the Hamster Ball:
2013 Multnomah County Bike Fair-44
Awesome.

See more photos from the chariot war action at Felix’s photoset. Learn more about Mini Bike Winter at Zoobomb.net

Updated: KBOO Bike Show will keep its hour

Bike show hosts celebrate
outside KBOO after recording
the New Year show this January,
with special guests Blind Pilot
(Photo © J. Maus)

KBOO community radio is as much an institution in Portland as, well, bikes. The KBOO Bike Show been an essential component of bike-related media since its inception in October of 2001, airing interviews with major players in Portland’s bike evolution, and giving voice to all sides of the major issues of the day.

The Bike Show team was just told that the show is being cut back from a full hour to half an hour, effective immediately with their next show on March 4th*.

[According to a rep from KBOO, they were considering splitting the show into two, half-hour chunks, so there would still technically be an hour each month].

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Weekend Open Thread: Share your bike fun

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MiniBikeWinter-Chariot Wars-48.jpg

A scene from the Mini Bike Winter
Chariot Wars in 2008.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Greetings from Guadalajara! I am having an amazing time down here and I can’t wait to share more about my trip (I return to Portland on Monday afternoon).

On Sunday, I will join some new friends on the “Via Recreativa”. This is an event where 25 km of Guadalajara’s city streets are closed to motorized vehicles. It is what Sunday Parkways wants to be when it grows up.

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Latest Headlines

Walking school buses poised for growth thanks to PCEF grant

Oregonians struggle to comment on Interstate Bridge project due to ‘make believe’ traffic data

Weekend Event Guide: Springwater clean-up, rain celebration, and more

Fatal crash site visit: NE Glisan & 130th

From the Archives

Truck driver does ‘rolling coal’ on riders, and one of them is a bike cop