(Photo © J. Maus)
Moms, dads, and kid-lovers throughout the state have gotten fired up over the family biking legislation that’s made headlines this week. Many of them plan to join the monthly Kidical Mass ride which will be held this Saturday in Sellwood. Joining them will be Oregon House Representative Jules Bailey.
Kidical Mass organizer Katie Proctor personally invited Bailey, along with his fellow Representative — and the man who introduced HB 2228 — Mitch Greenlick. Katie reports that Greenlick has a prior obligation and is unable to make it; but that he’ll consider attending next month.
Bailey, who represents Southeast Portland, is well-known for his support of bicycling. He was in opposition to HB 2228 and has been working with Greenlick to broker an amendment that would remove the law provision from the bill and instead call for a study of bike safety (if/when it even comes up for debate in committee).
If you’ve yet to join one of the Kidical Mass rides, consider rolling over to Sellwood this weekend to show your support of family biking, to meet other folks who bike with kids, or just to enjoy a friendly group ride.
The ride leaves from Oaks Pioneer Church (455 SE Spokane) at 1:45 pm. The route will take the Spokane neighborhood greenway, head over to Blue Kangaroo for coffee and hot chocolate, make a stop at Eastmoreland Park and then roll back via Sellwood Blvd with views of downtown and the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. The ride will end at Sellwood Park.
Learn more at KidicalMassPDX.org.
Yep. Killer app for protesting anti-trailer law: a whole lotta cute kids on their really bad helmet hair days!
70% chance of rain and 90% chance we’ll be there with rain gear.
Thanks for attending, Jules. I’ll call or send an invite to Carolyn Tomei who represents this district.
I’m guessing Greelick’s previous engagement is a date to clear out all his in-boxes of rants against his hair-brained bill.
Might have to go to this one with the Madsen bucket bike. Thanks for the story, Jonathan.
Thank you, Rep Bailey, for the show of sanity. Hopefully you can convince Rep Greenlick not to run for re-election.
Yes, thanks Jules (my representative) for standing up and working with Greenlick to bring the bill to a level of sanity.
We would attend KM ourselves tomorrow — with our own under-6-year-old either on his trailerbike or in the Madsen — if we didn’t have to go up to Seattle for a funeral. Sounds like a great time, though, and we will try to attend future KMs. Have fun, kids!
Thank You 🙂
Sounds like it would have been the perfect chance to “initate a further discussion about child saftey”. Guess it was just not rep. Greenlicks perfect oppertunity, to many voters with children(future bicyclists). His loss, one can only hope.