Month: April 2009

Powellhurst Neighborhood Get Together

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

BikePortland Neighborhood Get Together: Powellhurst

When: Monday, April 20th, 5pm – 7:30pm

Where: The Rumpus Room, 10555 SE Division

Details:

Anyone who lives, works, commutes, or otherwise spends time in outer Southeast Portland is invited to join us.

This is an informal social event for people invested in biking to meet each other, talk shop, compare notes, and generally have a fun evening. Come discuss bike routes, connections, and pavement maintenance, the new MAX light rail line under construction in the neighborhood, and more.

These monthly get togethers are in a different neighborhood each month. So far we’ve visited St. Johns in February and Multnomah Village (with 50 attendees!) in March. Both were great chances to meet people we generally only interact with online, and to learn firsthand about issues in parts of Portland we don’t regularly visit.

Join us for our next Get Together in Powellhurst

A tour of East Portland-3.jpg

A group merge during a Bicycle Advisory
Committee tour of east Portland last July.
(Photo © J. Maus)

You’re invited to our next BikePortland Neighborhood Get Together in the Powellhurst neighborhood of outer Southeast Portland — that’s right, we’re going east of I-205.

Anyone who lives, works, commutes, or otherwise spends time in outer Southeast Portland is invited to join us.

This is an informal social event to meet each other, talk shop, compare notes, and generally have a fun evening. Come discuss bike routes, connections, and pavement maintenance, the new MAX light rail line under construction in the neighborhood, and more.

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City refutes pedicab owner’s allegations

Pedicab company
operator Ryan Hashagen.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Last week, we published an interview with Portland Cascadia Pedicabs owner Ryan Hashagen. In it, Hashagen shared serious concerns about new policies being crafted by the City of Portland’s Revenue Bureau that would bring pedicabs under regulation for the first time.

Hashagen told BikePortland, and many other local media outlets, that if the regulations went forward as currently proposed he (and other pedicab company owners and pedicab operators) would “cease to operate”*. Hashagen feels that they have not had enough time to digest proposed changes and influence the policy-making process.

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A look at Portland’s future bikeways

Bicycle Master Plan meeting

More fun with the city’s Bicycle Master Plan.

As part of our ongoing look at the City of Portland’s Bicycle Master Plan update process, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the new bicycle infrastructure ideas being considered for use in Portland.

The City has published a draft of their “Suggested/recommended Bikeway Facility Types”. Many of them won’t be news to most of you — stuff like bike boulevards, sharrows, and bike lanes are old hat. But what’s neat about the Bike Master Plan Update project is that it’s an opportunity to get some new types of facilities into the city’s toolbox.

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The Monday Roundup

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

The economics of stop signs; the toll of riding drunk; “blue gold;” job sprawl; free bikes for all; friendly robots

Time for the news.

– New U.S. research findings quantify the impact of air pollution on life expectancy. Another recent study found that low birth weight is linked to exposure to pollution.

– Mayor Adams and Governor Kulongoski take a test drive in one of Nissan’s new electric cars. This uncritically enthusiastic promotional movie shows both men tooling around in the car and giving big thumbs up to its speed, silence, efficiency, and prospects for bringing jobs to the region.

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Weekend Guide and Open Thread

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Bunny on a Bike Ride-15.jpg

Bunnies on bikes
(Photo © J. Maus)

Thanks to BikePortland intern J.R., we have a bunch of new events posted.

And just in time, as the seasonal event explosion is beginning.

Here are some of the weekend’s highlights. Grease up your chain and get out there!

– There used to be a pub crawl every year or so that stopped at many of the non-smoking bars in town. Now that every bar is smoke-free, organizers are planning a “SMUG Crawl” on Friday the tenth (tonight!) — which, in an attempt to cover the entire town, has eight distinct starting points all over town. See the Shift calendar for meetup locations and the acronym spelled out.

– After hours on Friday is the monthly Midnight Mystery Ride. Meet at 11, ride at midnight. This one meets way out at SE 81st and Stark at a place called The Observatory (or you can drink at Roscoe’s next door). Rumor has it that many of the SMUG rides will converge on this point.

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“A love story on two wheels”: ‘The Bicyclists’ premieres tonight

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Conrad Miller (Jayme S. Hall) and
Steve Jones (Elle Poindexter) in
a screenshot from the film.
-Watch the trailer below-

The Bicyclists, a new movie based on The Bicyclist webisode series, premieres tonight at the Hollywood Theater.

The entire film was shot in Portland and is steeped in local bike culture. The story revolves around Conrad Miller (played by actor Jayme S. Hall), a small-town guy from Wisconsin who moves to Portland for two months of fun before he has to return home to run the family cheese factory.

Here’s a bit more from the film’s website:

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County decides it won’t suspend citizen bike/ped committee

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

[Note: I reported this news yesterday as an update to a previous story. This post is being done to clarify the latest development.]

“I am pleased to inform you that…we will be able to continue staffing the Bicycle/Pedestrian CAC in the near term.”
— Jane McFarland, Senior Transportation Planner for Multnomah County

After they initially planned to suspend their Bicycle and Pedestrian Citizen Advisory Committee due to declining transportation revenues, Multnomah County has now announced that the committee will not be suspended and that it will continue to meet.

Senior Transportation Planner Jane McFarland sent out an email to committee members Wednesday stating that, “through a partnership with the Office of Citizen Involvement, we will be able to continue staffing the Bicycle/Pedestrian CAC in the near term.”

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Latest Headlines

City puts price tag on transportation revenue ideas

Portlanders will join national day of rides for Alex Pretti on Saturday

‘Bikeable Portland’ is a novel plan to rekindle our city’s love of cycling

Mayor Wilson: ‘We have to be the biggest bike mode city in the nation’

From the Archives

With six kids and no car, this mom does it all by bike