Click to enlarge detour map.
The Eastbank Esplanade will be closed for three days starting this Thursday night.
Year: 2015
Big upgrade to commercial stretch of Barbur looks likelier as Metro rejects OHSU tunnel
Metro staffer Anthony Buczek walks Barbur’s
current auto-oriented commercial strip in February.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
current auto-oriented commercial strip in February.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
Long-term plans are falling into place for a federally-subsidized biking and walking upgrade to one of Southwest Portland’s most important main streets.
And oh, it might come with a rapid bus or rail system, too.
Staff at the regional agency Metro announced last week that they weren’t going to recommend a $900 million light-rail tunnel beneath OHSU, instead sending the proposed Southwest Corridor high-capacity transit line on the surface of SW Naito and Barbur as it passes through Southwest Portland toward Tualatin and Tigard.
What could a better Burnside Bridge look like? Three possibilities
See below for other ways to do it.
(Images via Streetmix.net – mix your own)
(Images via Streetmix.net – mix your own)
Anyone who’s ever been close to the Burnside Bridge’s eastbound lanes out of downtown has heard it: the roar of car engines as people see three mostly empty lanes of roadway ahead of them and hit the gas.
Thirty seconds later, of course, they’ll likely as not be sitting at the stoplight on the east landing of the bridge, along with everyone who didn’t jam the gas pedal.
City to adopt Vision Zero goal, embark on 12-month ‘action plan’ process
City Council Ordinance Number 615, to be adopted Wednesday.
On Wednesday Portland City Council is poised to take two steps on the road toward a full embrace of Vision Zero. They’ll formally adopt a goal that “no loss of life is acceptable on our city streets” then they’ll accept a $150,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop a plan to help them reach it.
Enough is enough: Another death must spur real action
Aftermath of man who lost control and drove his car up onto the sidewalk.
(Photo: Portland Police Bureau)
(Photo: Portland Police Bureau)
Enough is enough.
A man lost control of his Subaru Forester SUV while driving eastbound on the Burnside Bridge Sunday afternoon. He swerved across the lanes and hit two people who were walking on the sidewalk.
The Monday Roundup: Ultrasound passing enforcement, Portland’s housing shortage and more
Gotta give space.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
This week’s Monday Roundup is brought to you Mountain Shop (NE 37th and Sandy), where you can learn about, buy, and rent excellent gear for your next bike adventure.
Three-foot rule: Chattanooga bike patrol officers are using custom ultrasound devices to measure cars’ passing distances.
Housing shortage: “None of us, not a single damn one of us, is entitled to live where we want to live for as long as we want to live at a price we can easily afford,” writes Tyler Hurst in Willamette Week. “It’s not fair at all. Nor is it fair to love a city and not want to share it.”
Comment of the Week: Biking, fitness and weight loss are three different things
Just a good time.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
There are lots of reasons to have a great time on a bike. Weight loss can sometimes be one of them, but shouldn’t have to be.
So how is it that so many messages about biking get caught up in messages about body type?
That’s the argument from BikePortland reader Anne Hawley, responding to a conversation started by Vancouver, B.C., writer Cecily Walker about whether active transportation advocacy groups should avoid “the ‘obesity’ scare word” when talking up biking and walking.
In $21 million lawsuit, hit-and-run victim calls out dangerous stretch of N Interstate
Mike Cooley, shown here ready to head out on his
daily bike commute before his 2013 collision.
(Photos courtesy Lisa Cooley)
daily bike commute before his 2013 collision.
(Photos courtesy Lisa Cooley)
A man whose legs were paralyzed in an unsolved 2013 hit-and-run on Interstate Avenue has sued the city, state and regional transit agency for $21 million.
Mike Cooley’s wife Lori, who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told us in a May interview that she’s motivated in part by the lack of changes to Interstate Avenue’s bike lanes despite years of serious collisions on the street.
“Something has to be done to make that road safer or just shut it down for bikes,” Lori Cooley said. “There’s just too many injuries there.”
City engaged in battle against speeding epidemic
PBOT has asked the state for a trial of new speed limit zones they say would reduce collisions.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
Of all the ingredients that make up a dangerous roadway environment, most pundits and policymakers agree that speeding is one of the biggest threats. At a meeting of transportation advocates hosted by Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Steve Novick earlier this month, the scourge of speed was a constant thread through the discussion.
Portland bike counts up in eastside grid, down in east and southwest
Green dots are locations where the 2013-2014 average bike count was more than 10 bikes higher than the 2011-2012 bike count. Red dots are locations with a drop in 10 or more bikes. Yellow dots showed relatively little change.
(Data from Portland Bureau of Transportation, geocoded by SteveLeathers and mapped using Google Fusion Tables)
(Data from Portland Bureau of Transportation, geocoded by SteveLeathers and mapped using Google Fusion Tables)
If the last two years of city bike counts tell any coherent story about biking in Portland, it’s this: Biking keeps rising in Portland’s bike-friendliest neighborhoods, but not fast enough to make up for declines in the parts of Portland where biking is often unpleasant.
State seems ‘very receptive’ to a raised bike lane on outer Powell, advocates say
A low mountable curb like the one on NE Cully
is among designs being seriously debated for
SE Powell east of I-205.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
is among designs being seriously debated for
SE Powell east of I-205.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
It’s looking as if the Oregon Department of Transportation might become one of the first state transportation agencies in the country to build a raised bike lane into an urban highway project.
It’s just a possibility and it’s still years away, but it’s the upshot of a meeting Monday in which several biking advocates urged the state to consider the design as part of its Outer Powell Safety Project.
David Hampsten of the East Portland Action Plan bike committee and the Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee said in an email this week that he attended to urge ODOT “to consider modifying the planned 8-foot bike lanes into either raised cycle-tracks or adding barriers between the roadway and the bikeway users (bikes and mobility devices).”
Industry Ticker: PUBLIC Bikes opens Portland showroom
PUBLIC Bikes, a San Francisco-based brand launched in 2010 by Rob Forbes (of Design Within Reach fame), will open a showroom in Portland tomorrow. Their new space (shared with an apparel company) is tucked inside an old commercially-zoned Victorian on the hot retail strip of NW 23rd street.
This is the company’s first retail space to open outside of the Bay Area and it’s another example that — despite our stagnation on the political and infrastructure front — Portland remains an epicenter of bicycle industry talent and bike-related economic development.
Check out PUBLIC’s announcement below for more info on the space and what to expect: