🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
Early this morning, Better Block PDX took the wraps off its largest project yet: They’ve transformed three blocks of 3rd Ave from Davis (in Old Town) to Ash (near Voodoo Doughnut) from a bloated, auto-centric thoroughfare into a a more humane street with a protected bike lane, on-street bike parking, a new crosswalk and ample plaza space for sitting and enjoying a doughnut or three.
Because its role in shaping transportation happens mostly behind the scenes, it’s sometimes easy to think that Metro is dedicated entirely to the distribution of nostrums.
But the truth is that Metro, the only directly elected regional government in the country, is a major force behind Portland’s success as a city. In much of the United States, the metropolitan planning organization — Metro’s peer — is the belly of the beast. These are the bodies that generate the obviously ridiculous traffic projections that are used to justify freeway construction and spend their federal Clean Air Act allowances on new turn lanes that supposedly reduce congestion but actually accelerate sprawl.
This Monday, October 6th, Multnomah county will remove the speed humps (a.k.a. rumble strips) in the bike lane of the westbound Hawthorne Bridge viaduct (technically SE Madison Ave).
If you haven’t grabbed your tickets for Blazers Bike Night on November 2nd yet, now is the time to do it.
If you buy tickets through our special link — using promo code “bike” — through this Monday (10/6) you’ll be guaranteed to sit in one of the Bike Night sections. That is, our friends at the Trail Blazers have set aside a few sections of seats so we can sit together; but only if you get tickets by Monday.
Since our first announcement last week, we’ve made a few updates and some clarifications about what to expect the night of the event.
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber has appointed Kenji Sugahara to a seat on the Oregon Tourism Commission. The nine-member commission, better known by its business name of Travel Oregon, manages the state’s $9.6 billion tourism industry.
Sugahara, 41, lives in West Salem and became the executive director of the 5,000 member Oregon Bicycle Racing Association in 2008. Sugahara is also a member of the Oregon Scenic Bikeway Committee and is a board member of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.
According to Travel Oregon CEO Todd Davidson, Sugahara was picked specifically because of his experience with cycling in Oregon (OBRA promotes and sanctions around 400 events annually in every corner of the state). “We are pleased to welcome Kenji to the Oregon Tourism Commission,” Davidson said in an official statement, “the Governor has selected someone who brings not only a cycling perspective to the commission, but experience with rural Oregon, international media and transportation issues.”
Travel Oregon takes cycling seriously in part because a recent study they commissioned showed bicycle-related travel accounts for $400 million in annual economic impacts to the state of Oregon.
Welcome to your menu of weekend rides and events, lovingly brought to you by our friends at Hopworks Urban Brewery.
This is one of those weekends that will take some serious planning to make sure you don’t miss anything awesome. We’ve got such a diverse selection — from mountain biking and cyclocross, to an art show and a big gear sale.
And adding to the excitement is what looks to be some seriously nice weather.
Have fun out there!
A new traffic diverter at North Michigan Avenue and Rosa Parks Way seems to be successfully preventing north-south car traffic from spilling onto Michigan from Interstate 5, recent city bike counts show.
That was the city’s intent when it agreed last year to install the diverter in order to hold down traffic on the neighborhood greenway there.
“From I guess Holman to Rosa Parks it has gotten a lot better,” said Noah Brimhall, a Piedmont neighborhood resident and an advocate for the diverter, in an interview Tuesday.
Residential and office space is running short in Portland for a reason: the central city, not its more auto-oriented suburbs, has been leading the region’s charge out of the recession.
On one measure after another — job growth, median incomes for full-time workers, housing starts, working-age population growth — the City of Portland and Multnomah County have roared past Washington County over the last year as the site of most new economic activity in the metro area.
That’s the overarching finding of a statistical digest prepared by state workforce analyst Christian Kaylor and distributed Tuesday night.
“I’ve had it up to here with the stolen bike parts in Portland… This is just another notch in the belt of biker discrimination and injustice.”
— Reader email, 9/24/14
As we reported back in July, bike theft in Portland is out of control. The problem shows no sign of going away and in fact, if my judgment of web chatter and other intelligence-gathering channels I monitor daily is correct, it’s getting worse.
We are working to help in various ways (a major update to our Stolen Bike Listings is coming online soon and we’re sitting down with the PPB next week to talk about various strategies), but in the meantime I wanted to do something with the constant stream of emails we receive on this topic.
Artcrank is one of our favorite events. For the past five years, this one-night gallery show and party has brought a refreshing mix of art and community to Portland. With the show returning this Saturday night (10/4), we thought it’d be fun to share a special sneak peek of what you’ll see.
As per usual, all the posters displayed at this weekend’s show were produced by local artists in limited quantities. 29 artists will be featured this year and their creative, provocative, bike-inspired works of art are available for just $50 each. This is an excellent opportunity to decorate your house, apartment, locker, cubicle, cargo bike box, or whatever. One of the posters, commissioned by event sponsor Clif Bar, will benefit national bike advocacy group People for Bikes.
The big change this year is that the venue has moved from downtown to the east side with Velo Cult (1969 NE 42nd Ave) taking on hosting duties. It’s free to get and the show runs from 4:00 to 10:00 pm.
As promised, here’s your sneak peek…
Working every evening for two weeks in a warren of unfinished rooms three stories above Old Town, more than a dozen enthusiastic volunteers have almost finished building the street features that will remake 3rd Avenue for one weekend, starting Friday morning.
Spectating at the cyclocross races is entertaining, educational, and usually results in fewer stitches than racing yourself. I recommend it for anyone who’s feeling cross-curious.