Mayor Adams headed to Brussels for Velo-city Conference
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on May 5th, 2009 at 8:14 am

brings me back a T-shirt.
Portland Mayor Sam Adams, his Chief of Staff Tom Miller, and Bureau of Transportation traffic safety specialist Greg Raisman will visit Brussels, Belgium next week for the 29th annual Velo-city Conference.
Widely regarded as the premier bicycle transportation conference in the world (the 2007 edition in Munich had 950 participants from 50 countries), this year’s Velo-city will take on added significance. The four-day conference will be held in the European Parliament building and on the final day, several cities — including Portland — will sign the Charter of Brussels.
The charter will be adopted by the European Parliament and all cities that sign it will commit themselves to a number of bike-centric policy goals. The most specific commitment is a 15% bicycle mode share by 2020 (Portland’s yet-to-be-adopted Climate Action Plan calls for a 20% bike mode share by 2030).

safety and then take a study
tour to learn more about it.
(Photo © J. Maus)
Mayor Adams will speak as part of the opening plenary session. After opening remarks by EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani and European Cyclists Federation President Manfred Neun, and following a presentation by the Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam, Tjeerd Herrema, Adams will share a presentation about Portland.
Adams’ will present alongside the Mayor of Bordeaux and Former Prime Minister of Rance, Alain Juppé. Bordeaux and Portland are both what Velo-city organizers categorize as “Climber” cities, meaning they show promise, but have a long way to go before being a “Forerunner” city like Amsterdam.
On Thursday, May 14th, PBOT’s Greg Raisman will be part of a panel focusing on bicycle use and safety (the panel will be chaired by the national bicycle coordinator for France). After the conference, Raisman will embark on a study tour of Brussels and several other cities in Germany and The Netherlands.
Raisman’s focus will be to learn more about residential traffic calming treatments and policies with an eye toward implementing them on Portland’s upcoming bike boulevards. He’ll also meet with police officials to learn more about how they manage bike-related enforcement policies. We’ll be publishing reports and photos from Raisman throughout his visit.
— Learn more about the conference at Velo-city2009.com.
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