Month: March 2009

Sprockettes rally as fellow bike dancer clings to life

Sprockettes_at_Cyclecide_SF-6.jpg

Hollis Hawthorne (furthest to the left)
at a performance in San Francisco last
summer
(Photos © J. Maus)

Hollis Hawthorne, one of the founders of The Bay Area Derailleurs bike dance troupe, is clinging to life in India today.

The Derailleurs were formed in 2007 by former Portlander and Sprockette Eliza Strack and they performed last summer in Portland at the Sprockettes Bicycle Bash.

Last week, Hawthorne was riding on the back of a motorcycle in the streets of Pondicherry, India and collided with a bus. Hawthorne was wearing a helmet, but still sustained a major injury to her head. Her boyfriend performed CPR on her for over a half-hour before she eventually ended up in a hospital.

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Heading down to the L.A. Bike Summit

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Reporting by Brompton in
Baltimore last month
(Photo: Patrick McMahon)

I’m headed out tomorrow afternoon to Los Angeles for the first-ever L.A. Bike Summit on Saturday, March 7th.

L.A., iconic land of freeways, may seem like an unlikely place for bicycling to flourish, but that seems to be what is happening. In an op-ed for the L.A. Times last June, summit organizing team member Robert Gottlieb discussed the history of L.A.’s recent surge of interest in bicycling, and the formation of many new bike-oriented groups running the gamut from large, spontaneous midnight rides to advocacy organizations to bike repair co-ops.

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CRC rally planned for April; Commissioner Fritz will attend

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Joe Kurmaskie-2.jpg

Joe Kurmaskie, seen here at the
“We are All Traffic” rally held in
November 2007 after two
bike fatalities.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Mayor Sam Adams’ support of a proposal that would authorize the construction of a new I-5 bridge that could “be built to accomodate up to 12 lanes” has sparked a new level of opposition to the current direction of the Columbia River Crossing project.

Adams’ decision to compromise with Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard on this issue has provided a spark for citizen activists to organize and rally in opposition to the project.

A loose coalition of activists has come together and is planning a rally at 12:00 noon on April 5th in Waterfront Park (which is, fittingly, the site where the Harbor Drive Freeway was once located before it was removed, thus sparking Portland’s green transportation planning legacy).

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Group responds to ODOT/OTC stimulus decision: “What went wrong?”

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

“What went wrong?… The Transportation Commission got heavy pressure from pro-highway legislators, road builders, and Washington County and other local governments looking for road-building money.”
— excerpt from a statement set to go out to supporters of Transportation for Oregon’s Future

Transportation for Oregon’s Future — a “network of organizations and businesses supporting transportation choices for the 21st Century” — is not happy with the decisions made by ODOT’s Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) on how to spend Oregon’s initial, $122 million chunk of federal stimulus funds.

As we reported this morning, the OTC decided last week to fund just one bike/ped project (valued at $2.5 million) out of 30 total projects and they did not fund a single transit project.

Bob Stacey is the executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon and he’s working on the Transportation for Oregon’s Future effort. He is disappointed in the OTC’s decision and he’s already planning a course of action. He gave me a sneak peek at the email he plans to send out to supporters (1,300 of them wrote to Governor Kulongoski about this issue in just a few days).

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Oregon chooses just one bike/ped project with stimulus funds

Riders will no longer be in
the dark on the I-205 bike path.
(Photo © J. Maus)

On Friday, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC, a body appointed by Governor Kulongoski) made their final decisions on how to spend $122,592,742 in federal stimulus funds. And, if you remember our report from last week, it seems like their “cautious willingness” to consider non-highway projects turned out to be more cautious than willingness.

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Editorial: Conservative columnist speaks out against highways

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

“The US has big economic problems. But they have been made worse, and harder to resolve, by a half-century in which, at federal urging, the country was misbuilt.”
— Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard

Reflecting on Obama’s address to congress last week (in which he said that America “cannot walk away from” the automobile), columnist Christopher Caldwell penned a rebuttal in the Financial Times against the President’s plans for massive government spending — on the nation’s highways.

Caldwell, a senior editor for conservative news publication The Weekly Standard, spends the bulk of the column casting President Eisenhower’s Federal Highway Act in an unfavorable light (the Highway Act passed with strong support in 1956 and created our interstate highway system).

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The Monday Roundup

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

The joys of walking, breastfeeding while driving, overcrowded bike parking, the case against homeownership, school choice in Japan, and more…

– The Oregonian profiles a Vancouver woman who switched from driving to taking the bus when gas prices went up last year — and kept riding even when they dropped again, even though the bus doubles her commute time. Service changes may push her back into her SUV, however.

– A woman has been arrested in Ohio for breastfeeding her infant while talking on her cell phone and driving her other kids to school. “If my child’s hungry, I’m going to feed it,” she was reported to say.

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Major injury right-hook crash at 9th and Lovejoy

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

This is the northeast corner of
NW 9th and Lovejoy.
(Photos by Marion Rice)

This morning around 8:45 a woman riding her bike in the bike lane down NW Lovejoy was right-hooked as she attempted to cross NW 9th.

According to Marion Rice, who was on the scene just minutes after the collision took place, the woman was pinned under the car and dragged across the intersection. The car and the bike came to rest near the northwest corner of the intersection (in front of Subway).

Police and ambulance responded to the scene and the woman was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. An officer on the scene told Rice that the woman was conscious (but unable to speak) and has likely suffered a broken leg and pelvis, a broken jaw, and has suffered serious facial lacerations.

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Vintage customized Schwinn

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

I had my vintage Schwinn customized bicycle stolen sometime between Mon Feb 24th and 6am Tues Feb 25 from the front of my apart bldg on SE 12th(they cut the thick link chain). I turned it into a pedicab of sorts, attaching a chair and foot-guard, and upholstering it myself. They may unbolt the rear part of the frame (which the chair is welded on) and try to sell it that way. Its the only material object important to me, and now its gone. If you see or hear anything about my beloved bike, I am offering a reward for information leading to its return and/or person who stole it.

I am devastated.

Thank you,
Donna

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