Sunday Parkways North Portland recap and slideshow

I and three of my kids rode from Irvington over to the NoPo Sunday Parkways, and had a terrific time.

We wish the street closures continued until 5:00 instead of wrapping up at 3:00.

When we stopped for lunch options in Arbor Park, we were disappointed by the lack of variety and the small number of food vendors. There were just four food vendors (excluding dessert-only purveyors), and those had extremely few menu options. Where the heck was Burgerville???

On first arrival, once we crossed the the traffic barriers, we pulled over and removed our helmets, and left them off for the duration of our ride on the no-car streets. A question: what is the law enforcement view of kids in the streets without helmets during the Sunday Parkways events? So much else is allowed during these events that would normally generate a citation, or at least a stern warning. I want to use these events to deliberately campaign for the virtues of helmetlessness (I and the kids *always* wear helmets on the streets at all other times).

I highly doubt the police would be ticketing kids (or their parents) for not wearing helmets inside the Sunday Parkways route. They have better things to worry about, plus it would be fairly bad PR. Though I could see them asking people to put them back on.

had such a great time but got sooo sunburned!!! Thanks for the wedding pics; the bride and groom biked by too fast for me to snap my own. 🙂

I thoroughly enjoyed coming across the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement booth.
http://vhemt.org/

This was a pleasant change of pace. Maybe a little to honest for most of use to deal with.

Thank you for not breeding!

I spent the morning at a quiet intersection on Wabash, thinking that the turnout seemed pretty low compared to past years. But once relieved from volunteer duties, I rode part of the route and discovered much bigger crowds. I guess a lot of people don’t ride the whole route; OTOH, at last year’s SE SP I remember being surprised by how many people did scale Mt. Tabor.

Given that lack of resources (money, volunteers) seems increasingly to be an issue, I wonder how adversely these events would be affected if the routes were shorter. If something has to give, I think I’d rather see shorter routes than fewer events or shorter lengths of time.

Meanwhile, favorite bit was a little girl riding a tag-along chastising her father, “Daddy, don’t you EVER go so FAST again!”

@OuterToob #6

Thanks. I’m aware of the law, but wondering whether the PPB will ignore that one during Sunday Parkways like they seem to do with other similar (i.e. peds and skateboards in the roadway, etc.).

I agree about injury risk when riding normally. However, this is such slow-paced riding, I agree with Jack #2 that there’s virtually equal risk for me and my kids on bikes as compared to pedestrians.

@ craig (#1):

The food vendors that sell at Parkways tend to be local, independent vendors. I like to think that the reason for this is to promote local, independent businesses right in the neighborhood — a great reason to enjoy Parkways.

Of course, you can also do what I did yesterday, which was to bring snacks along on the bike.

Either way, I had a GREAT time at Parkways (though I, too, forgot to reapply my sunscreen and ended up getting a little pink…).

My wife, two kids (6 and 8) and I had a great time. The only bad part was the hipster couple flying down the route weaving through traffic and yelling “get out of our way”. I saw them nearly collide with a few other riders and scare the heck out of many others, including young kids. But we didn’t let two knuckle heads ruin the experience of thousands of other peaceful and fun loving folks.

IMO, the Sunday Parkways are one budget item that must be preserved at all costs. Besides just people on bikes, there were tons of folks out walking, pushing strollers, etc. These events are probably the most high-profile way of showing your average non-bike devoted residents how wonderful a car-free neighborhood can be.

{your strofoam hat is going to do very little.}
That is about the stupidist coment I ever read. A helmet can make the difference between being spoon fed for the rest of your life or being normal

@1 Craig….

so was there anything you actually enjoyed? Sheesh.

As for kids not wearing helmets, should that first be enforced by the parents instead of the police? I’m guessing you’d also complain if they DID enforce.

Virtuousness of not wearing a helmet? Sure…and I’ll go around campaigning about the virtuousness of not wearing a seatbelt.

You wear those things because you can’t control the actions of others.

In regards to helmets….once I took the grandchildren out on the bike path at the beach in OC. There were very few people on the path and they didn’t have their helmets so they went without. We rode not more than 200 yards before my granddaughter (7) fell over on her bike onto her forehead. She had such a hugh knot on her head now and was fearful of riding back so we had to ask some campers nearby to help us get her bike back to the beach house. I worried for the rest of the evening about a concussion and the damage I had done to her self-confidence as a rider. I should have had helmets for them all.

A helmet will protect your head if you fall on something hard like pavement or a curb, or if you collide with something solid (like a tree or post) at about 10mph. These impacts could kill or severely injure you.

I think it’s better to always wear a helmet, especially when out with kids. Kids are 10x more likely to have an accident with a bike, whether just falling down, hitting another bike, or ….

Kids are also used to doing protective things without much thinking or worrying.

Studies so far have shown that helmet laws for adults cut cycling by 30-50% and result in a more toxic environment for the remaining cyclists. But helmet laws don’t deter kids, at least the pre-adolescents, and they need them most.

tOM