separation for people walking and biking
along their waterfront. We should do the same.
(Photos © J. Maus)
Tonight, Portland is set to get schooled once again by the highly engaging and sharp Gordon Price from Vancouver B.C. Price is the director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University and he’s a noted thought leader on urban planning and transportation.
Vancouver’s transportation network and urban form is something to admire. They’ve done a lot that we should pay attention to.
For starters, according to the flyer for his talk — which is titled, The Vancouver Recipe: How to increase density and reduce fat — Mr. Price is going to share how Vancouver has added residential development to their inner City while the number of cars has gone down and biking and walking have jumped.
I also recall riding around Vancouver back in 2007. They not only already had bike boxes (although they’re not bright green like ours), but they had well-developed bike boulevards (which we are only now building).
What I loved about Vancouver’s bike boulevards was the little things. They were marketed with catchy names (not just the name of the street) like “The Mosaic”. The theme of that one was mosaic tile, which you’d see in roundabouts and on diverters and median islands. The theme made the street marketable and added a powerful sense of identity. Another thing Vancouver’s bike boulevards had were signs on the major crossings that let motor vehicle and other traffic know that they were crossing a bikeway.
Another area where Vancouver has advice to offer is with bridges. The Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce published a detailed article yesterday about the differences in how Vancouver dealt with congestion on their Lion’s Gate bridge and our struggles with the same issue with our Interstate bridge project debacle (of course, Vancouver doesn’t have a separate state and DOT to deal with either).
Here are the details on tonight’s event:
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Gordon Price Presentation
Thursday, November 19, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Portland Building, 1120 SW 5th Ave, 2nd Floor Auditorium
Free and open to the public
Elly Blue is posting live updates from the presentation on our Twitter account.
Thanks for reading.
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My wife and I will be in Vancouver next week. She’s never been and I was there just for an overnight 11 years ago. Maybe we should take our bikes!!!!!
The presentation is not at Portland State but at the Portland Building, 1120 SW 5th Ave. 2nd Floor Auditorium.
In reference to the picture caption, it boggles my mind that Portland has not yet created a seperate bike path on the waterfront. Seems a simple solution to put it on the West side along Naito. In addition to Vancouver, Bordeaux France has done this (of all places).
I spent a couple of years in Vancouver when I was in grad school. I came away from my time there very impressed. No real freeways running through the heart of the city. “Neighborhood islands” (think Belmont, Hawthorne or Alberta) everywhere, a very engaged citizenry, electric buses that come very 5-10 mintes during rush hour (and every 20-30 minutes until late at night).
Wish I could go to this talk.
Vancouver is indeed a great town to bike around in. Bike infrastructure is thoughtful and efficient, motorists are very courteous, and there’s also a minimum of stupid cyclist behavior. Nick, I recommend taking your bikes, or at least look into rentals there – there are a lot of rental shops on the path around False Creek.
Jonathon. Is there any way you could get information like this out sooner? as in the case of this guy speaking; you posted this at 2 and he’s speaking a mere 4.5 hours later. Is there somewhere you check that has this info that we can check too? this is not the first time this has happened. not totally griping, and i know you’re a busy dude. it’s just i would have been very into going if i’d known about this like a couple days ago, or heck, even yesterday.
Sadly, Vancouver is not all sunshine and light when it comes to bridges. The provincial government has been building new bridges across the Fraser like mad, including the new tolled Golden Ears bridge and the suggested Port Mann bridge. Much like Portland’s struggles with their state DOT(s), the higher governments are firmly stuck in 50’s la-la land when it comes to transportation infrastructure.
I’ve seen Gordon’s presentation (actually, presentations, because he morphs it constantly) probably a half dozen times over the last 15 years and it’s always fascinating. If you missed it tonight, he’ll be back again next fall for the PSU class.
Cold Worker, I hear you about events. There’s no global bike event calendar in Portland and that’s a huge need — unfortunately it’s also a huge technical challenge and at least one full time job.
The Shift calendar (http://shift2bikes.org/cal) is great for free events (though this one wasn’t on there for some reason). Events are also often prometed on the Shift listserv, and occasionally promoted on our forums.
I did include tonight’s talk in our weekend event guide which was published this morning at 10am, so arguably you had more than 2 hours’ notice, though I agree that’s hardly enough. The BTA also promoted this event farther in advance on their blog and in their newsletter. But yeah, we do need a central clearinghouse for events. That’s a job I surely don’t want, but maybe someone reading this does?
“he’s a noted thought leader on urban planning and transportation.”
He gets paid to think? How does one land a gig like that. LOL!
Corey #7, The city of Vancouver itself doesn’t have much pull when it comes to those bridges you cited as it is the provincial government responding primarily to the constituents in the cities surrounding Vancouver.
When the city does have a say in bridges, they are able to give a lane to cyclists like the Burrard Bridge http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/vancouver-burrard-bridge-bike-bicycle-lane-trial.php.
Imagine if Portland city leaders had the same ability to do that to one of the bridges that spans the willamette?
ferralcow (#3) & JM’s caption to the first photo — So what you’re both suggesting is that we need more pavement and less grass/trees in Waterfront Park? Or are you suggesting somehow separating what is now a multi-use path into two paths, one for walking, one for cycling?
I’m not sure I like either idea.
Thanks Elly. I always forget to check Shift. I wrote that site off some time ago as I always thought it was full of stuff I had little to no interest in. I have probably wrongly associated it with stuff like wacky rides. I’ll stop hating on everything and check Shift from time to time.
Yeah, I’m suggesting a seperate path, and given the beating that the grass currently gets, I’m not sure more concrete would be a bad idea. Something like this:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/98363636_230e6497b2_o.jpg
The separate path system doesn’t totally work. If you take the waterfront route you generally accept that there will be oblivious people with dogs on stretched out leashes blocking your path. For some reason the ubiquitous bike logo painted every 20 metres doesn’t register with a lot of people.
Whenever I ride in Portland I wish our city was more like it.. and you guys feel the same. I guess the grass is always greener.