(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
Residents of Portland’s most kid-heavy quadrant turned out by the thousands on Sunday for what’s become an East Portland Mother’s Day tradition: the first Sunday Parkways open-streets festival of the year.
It’s the first of five monthly events in the Kaiser Permanente-sponsored, city-organized series, and lots of familiar faces were around. Among many others, I ran into Mayor Charlie Hales:
East Portland bike advocate Jim Chasse:
Ayleen Crotty of the Filmed By Bike festival and ORbike.com:
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance had a booth that invited people put name tags on their bikes:
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The more Portland-focused advocacy group BikeLoudPDX had a booth too:
There, BikeLoud volunteer Gerald Fittipaldi was gathering signatures for BikeLoud’s postcard campaigns in support of traffic diverters on Clinton Street and Rodney Avenue:
And Terry Dublinski-Milton was showing off a thick binder of BikeLoud’s recommendations for various city plans and projects:
“It’s hard to be loud if people don’t know who you are,” said BikeLoud volunteer Jessica Engelman, who is leading a visioning ride down Clinton Street next Sunday. “We need to do more of this.”
Outside Earl Boyles School, the Portland Recorder Society showed off its members’ impressive collection of simple woodwinds:
All in all, it was a perfect morning to be out on the streets having fun, and everybody who made it out to the event seemed to be doing so.
Well, almost everybody.
The season continues with North Portland Sunday Parkways on June 21. See you there.
Is that a shot of Bill Murray (third pix down)? He does pop up in odd places unexpectedly.
It was another great Sunday Parkways, but this one felt really cut back. I was really disappointed only half the road on SE Bush was open. It seemed pretty silly to have half of it restricted for motor traffic when Powell is right there, totally open for cars. I wish Sunday Parkways would push beyond our neighborhood greenways. The greenways are great, but in an ideal world they should be safe for families without any additional police presence. With all the effort going to the event it seems to make sense to have Parkways on a bigger street, somewhere people don’t normally get to ride.
Thanks for the comment. This route has hundreds and hundreds of homes and apartments that can’t be accessed except by driving (or walking or riding) on the route. That is why we put in a couple slip lanes on Bush and on 128th. The rest of the Sunday Parkways routes have much more connected streets. Hope that helps. Thanks.
I had a great time today! What a great day for a Sunday Parkways in East Portland.
Only thing that was odd was we had a motorcycle cop racing through on the Springwater trail around all the kiddos. Love the help of PPB at Sunday Parkways, but i have seen them drive their motorcycles innapropriately fast and close to kids and other folks almost every Parkways. This was just first time I had seen them passing folks so quick and with little space on a Mulit Use Path like the Springwater. The city might consider using bike cops for some of these responsibilities or at least have the motorbike cops slow down and give appropriate passing space around kids and folks enjoying Sunday Parkways
>>Portland’s most kid-heavy quadrant
why do you say that ? references ?
To pick a few spots at somewhat random:
Census tract 85 in Powellhurst-Gilbert that the route went through – 16% is 5-14
Census tract 60.02 in Hillsdale – 10%
Census tract 38.01 in Kenton – 9%
Census tract 12.02 just east of Ladd’s Addition – 7%
Just mentioned it because of Mother’s Day.
I think Sunday Parkways should avoid the Springwater going forward. I was involved in a crash when a woman riding way too fast and clipped in, smacked into my handlebars, sending her to the ground (I did not fall, but I received a bit of a cut on my hand). She was clearly not coming from the Sunday Parkways route because she was coming from the west and we were right before the point where the Sunday Parkways left the Springwater. She had apparently decided to go for a Sunday training ride during the event. Everyone was fine, but it’s lucky she crashed into me and not some kid!
I tweeted to PBOT asking why Greenways are choked off to allow for car usage? That seems backwards. Many areas were not wide enough for the heavy bike traffic, reported at 16,000+! Of course the springwater was a mess as well. I saw many disgruntled Freds coming back from Boring. Had a great time with the Dropout crew playing family favorites ranging from Madonna and Fleetwood Mac to drone Metal