2017 Archives

Job: Bookkeeper – Community Cycling Center

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title *
Bookkeeper

Company/Organization *
Community Cycling Center

Job Description *
The Bookkeeper, supervised by the Finance and Administrative Director, is responsible for overall bookkeeping for the Community Cycling Center. The Cycling Center has a unique mix of financial transactions including retail sales from our bike shop and general nonprofit accounting (including grants, donations, and government contracts.)

Successful candidates will have mastery of bookkeeping skills and use of QuickBooks. The Bookkeeper will be personable, collaborative, organized and solution-oriented.

How to Apply *
Please submit a cover letter and resume by email with “Bookkeeper” as the subject line to jobs@communitycyclingcenter.org. No phone calls, please.

As part of your cover letter, please define social equity in your own words and then provide an example of how you have fostered it within the workplace and/or community.

This position will remain open until filled. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, beginning September 20th.

Thieves snatch four bikes from Metropolis Cycle Repair on N Williams

Metropolis Cycle Repair owner Nathan Roll says thieves broke into his shop last night and took three mountain bikes — two of which belonged to customers. UPDATE: Roll says he just realized thieves took an additional bike — his own. See description and photo below.

Here’s more from Roll about how it happened along with a description of the bikes.

The thieves broke a pane in a window in the back of the shop and were able to unlatch the window. This situation will be remedied shortly. Interestingly, they were only interested in mountain bikes. They passed over numerous other bikes to select these 3. They also took a small amount of merchandise, including an Ortlieb backpack and a couple of sets of lights.

Here are pics of the 3 bikes.

Read more

Two reports of tripwires this week including one at Gateway Green bike park

Photo of rope tied across trail at Gateway Green today.
(Photo: Source not yet known)

We’re trying to find out more information about two incidents of tripwires placed across public right-of-way in Portland this week.

The first one was on Monday at NE 16th and Irving. The @pdxalerts Twitter account reported, “Police to NE 16/Irving, someone strung fishing line across the street, caller was clothes-lined by it.”

And the second one was reported by a bicycle rider at Gateway Green this morning. Brent Wick posted the image above to a local email list with the message, “Just a friendly reminder/heads up. there have been some trip wires spotted at the Gateway Green recently. Please be careful over there, Recommend a slow pass thru there before you hit the shred button.”

The Green Loop, one of the the city’s “Big Ideas” in the Central City 2035 plan, has been singled out by a coalition of activists who say it’s yet another sign east Portland is being left behind.

In a letter (PDF) sent to Mayor Ted Wheeler and city council members on September 6th as testimony on the Central City plan, the Climate Justice Collaborative (CJC) said they are, “disappointed in the City’s numerous efforts to elevate the Green Loop concept while failing to elevate similar efforts in areas outside the city core.”

Join the Kidical Massive ride on Saturday.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

There’s a lot of rain in the forecast for next week so you better get in some rides before everything gets wet and muddy (not that you’ll stop riding when it does of course).

Thankfully the air quality has improved over much of Oregon in the past week. Speaking of which, word on the street is that Crater Lake is nice right now, so if you missed the Rim Ride last week, there’s another chance to enjoy it carfree on Saturday.

Take a look at our event suggestions below and have fun out there!

Hawthorne Bridge traffic observations-5.jpg

Auto congestion is one problem that isn’t able to solve itself.
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland)

It’s not your imagination: auto traffic got worse in Portland last year.

One of the main reasons: it looks like almost none of the additional commutes that originated in Portland in 2016 happened on bikes, foot or public transit. Instead, of the 12,000 additional commutes Portland added in 2016, 11,000 happened in cars.

That’s according to the latest commuting estimates from the Census Bureau, at least. The citywide bike commuting rate slipped from an estimated 7 percent of commuters to 6.3 percent, the same biking rate estimated in 2011.

A serious injury collision Tuesday evening has resulted in a citation for the bicycle rider. Police say the rider was under the influence of alcohol when the collision occurred.

It happened around 6:15 pm on North Vancouver and Tillamook. We first saw it reported via Twitter and then got an email from a reader who lives and rides nearby.

“I was getting off the bus when it happened,” the reader shared with us. “The guy was not moving at all although he seemed to be alive… I heard the driver saying she didn’t see him. It’s possible the bus blocked his view of traffic and he tried to dart across Vancouver.”

Tillamook is an east-west neighborhood greenway that is a busy feeder route onto Vancouver — especially during peak commute hours. There is no traffic signal at the intersection. Users of Tillamook have a stop sign and people going south on Vancouver (a one-way street) have the right-of-way. Vancouver also has yellow “Bikes XING” caution signs on both sides of the street at this location.

Next week Portland State University will officially re-open their business school after a major renovation of the Karl Miller Center on SW Montgomery between Broadway and 6th. The small street adjacent to it has been closed for nearly a year during construction and there’s an idea swirling around to keep it that way. Forever.

The blocks of Montgomery on both ends of this section adjacent to PSU’s business school are already carfree. To the west is the PSU Park Blocks — a designated “Clean air corridor” and “Pedestrian zone” that PSU proudly proclaims (via signs attached to bollards) as a “Space free of smoke, pollution, and emissions.” To the east is the PSU Urban Plaza, a legendary petri-dish of carfree urbanism bisected by the streetcar.

To Tim Davis, a Portland civic booster (his Facebook page is “PDXFan”) and author behind PlacesforEveryone.com, this is a golden opportunity to create more carfree space downtown. Last week he posted the idea to the Bike Loud PDX Facebook page.

Written by Steph Routh, this is the first in our Women’s Bike Month interview series sponsored by the Community Cycling Center and Gladys Bikes.

Every day we travel past, on, or under structures and streets named for the people who had some relationship to its construction. Ladd’s Circle. Flanders Street. Naito Parkway. The Glenn Jackson Bridge.

Meeky Blizzard’s name is not attributed to a structure, because she made her mark on transportation and land use planning with the structure that was never constructed — the Western Bypass. Instead, the planned Western Bypass corridor from Tualatin to Hillsboro remains largely agricultural land, thanks to Meeky and other activists who started the group Sensible Transportation Options for People, also known by its apt acronym STOP. Meeky and other STOP members opposed the project and instead proposed alternate solutions that were eventually codified in the Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality (LUTRAQ) study.

After the demise of the Western Bypass in 1996 (which briefly re-emerged in the recent legislative session), Meeky went on to serve as Livable Communities Advisor to U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer until her retirement in 2012. Now living in rural Washington County, she still advocates for livable communities. Meeky testified against a freeway proposal in April, telling legislators that building freeways is “simply a waste of money.”

I recently sat down with Meeky in Portland City Hall to learn more about that fateful freeway fight and what lessons it might hold for today’s activists…

Detail of SW Main paving project striping plan.
(Images: PBOT)

Last night at the Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, the Portland Bureau of Transportation shared an update on their SW Main paving project.

A nonprofit based in Guatemala that builds pedal-powered machines for farm laborers is making a supply run in Portland this weekend. Maya Pedal builds a variety of “bicimaquinas” (bicycle machines) that can do everything from pump water, thresh corn, shell nuts and blend soaps and shampoos.

The Central American farming villages served by Maya Pedal have no electricity and they typically earn less than $6 per day. These families rely on bikes and parts from the United States and Canada to keep their programs running. This Saturday (9/16), volunteers with Maya Pedal USA (a support group based stateside) will be at Velo Cult (1969 NE 42nd Ave) from 6:00 to 8:00 pm accepting donations.

This is BP subscriber John Liu’s second article. The first one was about right-hooks.

This series of posts is meant to share riding skills for people who want to take extra precautions against drivers who are distracted, careless, aggressive, inexperienced, or simply fallible humans and for drivers who don’t ever want to hurt or kill a cyclist through poor driving.

Don’t read this post if you want to know a cyclist’s or driver’s “legal responsibility” or you want to know what cycling “should be” like in an ideal world. As bicycle operators, we can ignore everything I write about here, and we may still be legally “in the right”. And dead.

About me: 40+ years of riding bikes in cities, 30+ years of driving in cities, 10 years year-round bike commuting in Portland, licensed driver with motorcycle endorsement, zero bicycle-car collisions as either a cyclist or a driver.

Job: Bookkeeper – Community Cycling Center

Thieves snatch four bikes from Metropolis Cycle Repair on N Williams

Two reports of tripwires this week including one at Gateway Green bike park

East Portland advocates raise equity concerns over ‘Green Loop’ project

Weekend Event Guide: Kidical Massive, Zaaldercross, Maya Pedal, Ripplebrook, and more

Bike commuting growth slips and Portland adds 11,000 more commutes by car

Bicycle rider issued citation for DUII from hospital bed following collision in north Portland

A carfree opportunity for SW Montgomery near PSU

An interview with Meeky Blizzard, one of Portland’s original freeway fighters

Bike box, green lane and smooth pavement coming to SW Main

‘Maya Pedal’ bike drive coming to Portland Saturday

Subscriber Post: The Defensive Rider and dooring

Latest Headlines

Your guide to finding the ‘Wildwood’ crows by bike

My journey to that ‘Hard Rock glow’

Off-Road Cycling Master Plan: A decade later, what has changed?

A rad Plaid Century

From the Archives

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland