A potential new baseball stadium isn’t the only hot topic in the Lents neighborhood these days.
Residents have teamed up with community organizations and the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation to start identifying a network of low-traffic bike boulevard streets.
It all started when PBOT traffic/bike safety specialist Greg Raisman spoke at a health conference at Oregon Health Sciences University. That talk sparked conversations with the non-profit Community Health Partnership and then Healthy Active Lents, who has since taken the lead role.
This Sunday (6/14), Raisman and PBOT bike planner Denver Igarta will lead the Lents Bike Boulevard Ride to kick off the effort. Jess Laventall is a board member of the Lents Neighborhood Association. He says riding in Lents is, “Often forgotten about, but it shouldn’t be.”
Laventall said the key barrier to riding in Lents is (not surprisingly) getting across SE 82nd Ave. In addition to a safe and efficient crossing of 82nd, Laventall hopes to identify better bike connections to the Eastport Plaza Shopping Center (to the north) and to fix the very dangerous intersection at SE Foster and Holgate.
Laventall is excited about new bike lanes that are slated to be installed on SE Holgate and the upcoming improvements to the I-205 bike path (what he calls the “critical north-south route”). Laventall says this Sunday’s bike boulevard ride as “one of those rare, positive bike events in outer southeast”.
The ride is free and will feature bike repairs by Bike Gallery, a helmet fitting station (with some free helmets, courtesy of the BTA), and a kids ride and safety class. Before ending at the Lents Farmers Market, Raisman will lead a tour of existing and potential bike infrastructure. The ride will happen this Sunday, 6/14. It starts at 9:30am from Kelly Elementary (9030 SE Cooper).
More info on the ride at ILoveLents.com.