(Photo: Craig Harlow)
Both Jonathan and I are out of town until tonight, so your regularly scheduled news roundup will be published on Tuesday this week.
For now, take a moment to celebrate a gift workers at the Doubletree Hotel gave the city last Thursday. It’s a beautiful celebration of Portlanders’ love of physical activity.
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BikePortland readers may remember the Doubletree as the Lloyd District establishment that volunteered to host one of the biggest off-street public bike parking areas in the city, and the one that once dumped an event vendor that illegally parked a truck in the Multnomah Street protected bike lane.
Now, reader Craig Harlow writes to note that the hotel added this mural to its windows on the south side if Multnomah along the protected lane, “giving a little life to what’s been a mostly dead wall for years.”
That’s work we can believe in. Happy holiday, Portland, and see you tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.
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“It’s a lovely celebration of Portlanders’ love of physical activity.”
It is. And from what I can tell from the photos it captures well the spirit of, say, the Esplanade. But with this mural being on Multnomah I would have chosen a less sporty, more transportational theme if I’d been on the design committee.
I look forward to the day when we’ve transcended the biking-as-exercise trope. Biking is of course exercise, and many of us enjoy that dimension, but it is so much more, and we urgently need to come to grips with how much more it is & can be.
Nice! The mural needs a giant Godzilla to the right of it though.
I agree in general with your sentiment, but looking at the photo of the mural, I see a couple of upright, city bikes in there with baskets, and one dog-walker. As a not-primarily-for-exercise bike-rider (who regularly uses Multnomah), I feel pretty adequately represented.
Fair enough, Anne.
It must have distracted all the SUVs that were parked in the “protected” lane on the WB side of the street today…
A nice mural for sure, but just yesterday I observed that every single car parked on the north side of that same block was infringing on the the bike lane’s buffer — with one car even straddling the buffer and parked 50% within the bike lane itself.
So hooray for celebrating bikes and pedestrians (and I do mean that sincerely), but we’ll need more than that to keep everyone safe.
If anybody from Doubletree’s reading, thanks for the nod and the contribution!
Our pleasure! We are very happy with the results and are looking forward to all the changes slated for the district in the next couple years.
Instead of a lame mural, how about activating the streetscape by returning the storefronts that were there years ago? Move the hotel coffee shop or restaurant into that space and create some activity on the street. Having more eyes on the street and neighboring park might reduce crime in the area as well. LAME!
I cycled along Multnomah this evening, and while I disagree that the mural is lame, I do think the street would be much improved by more active uses fronting the street. At least there’s good news on this front – it’s already obvious how much Hassalo on 8th will improve the urban environment of the Lloyd district.
I’m optimistic for the future of the Lloyd District once the new residential units go up. Little things like this mural go a long way towards making an area feel more human.
I’m also one of the apparently few fans of the Multnomah buffered lanes. They make for a much more pleasant crossing of I-84.
They put a MTB on the Mural, yet continue to try and close trails or stop legal trails from being built in the municipality.
Forest Park needs an MTB single track!
+ 1 for Forest Park Singletrack + MTB’s
this is the first I’ve heard about the Doubletree Hotel trying to close down MTB trails in Forest Park…
The DoubleTree is certainly not trying to close down trails in Forest Park. We love the bike lanes here in the Lloyd District and are glad there are so many wonderful places to bike all over the city.
The DoubleTree isn’t trying to close trails anywhere and we are certainly happy to see any new trails built in the city.