PBOT Director Tom Miller will join Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez and peers from six other cities at the launch of the Green Lane Project in Chicago tomorrow.
As we shared last month, the Green Lane Project is an initiative backed by the Bikes Belong Foundation that seeks to hasten the development of protected bike lanes and support the development of “world-class bicycling facility networks” in Austin, Chicago, Memphis, Washington D.C., Portland, and San Francisco over the next two years.
So far, details of what exactly the initiative has in store for the selected cities have not been made available. What we do know so far is that Bikes Belong will provide technical support, some PR savvy for participating cities, and a small amount of money to help tee up a project or two. A statement released by Bikes Belong today said that Chicago DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein “will announce initial plans” at tomorrow’s press event. (UPDATE: And BTA Executive Director Rob Sadowsky is also in Chicago and will be reporting back on what he hears.)
In other Green Lane Project news, I recently came across information that project director Martha Roskowski is looking for bike bloggers in each of the six cities. The bloggers would be paid ($400 a month!) to write, photograph, and shoot video about the progress of the project. I have no idea who will get the job here in Portland; but I’ll be looking forward to reading their coverage.
Maybe if we have enough world class bike conferences we will all be able to close our eyes really hard and imagine ourselves in a world class bike city.
They better give you that $400, can we start an online petition?
Memphis? Really? I lived in Memphis for a few years and it sucked to ride a bike in during that time (’93 to ’96) went back to visit friends in ’01 and ’04 and not much had changed. I commuted to the airport daily from Germantown, the commute was so bad I rode on the sidewalks which were covered in broken glass.
On the bright side Memphis has better urban mountain biking than Portland.
i think bikesbelong has been reasonably clear about what is “in store.” they will be providing support for the public relations effort around selected “green lanes” projects, by which they mean separated facilities. in the case of portland, i would fully expect this money to be directed to supporting the proposed cycletrack on southwest 12th.
You left off the 6th city in your post – Washington, D.C.
I was under the impression that “green lane” just referred to more innovative facilities – Buffered Bike Lanes, Colored bike lanes, Bike Boxes, and yes, cycle tracks.
Bikes Belong isn’t really offering any cash for implementation but they want to see the new facilities on the ground fast, so all of the projects are likely to be paint-only installations in areas with “excess” road space.
nevermind… reading through the bike belong page, they are definitely referring to cycle tracks when they talk about “green lanes.”
Hey NF,
I wouldn’t get too caught up on the words they use at this point. My understanding is that it’s just protected bikeways in general and not cycle tracks specifically. Also, it’s worth noting that PBOT uses the term “cycle track” in a very general way and it does not mean the separated grade, physically protected type of facility we see in Europe.
Which is why I terminated my 25+ year membership in LAB when they merged with Bikes Belong…