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6/20: Hello readers and friends. I am having my second (of two) total knee replacement surgeries today so I'll be out of commission for a bit while I recover. Please be patient while I get back to full health. I hope to be back to posting as soon as I can. I look forward to getting back out there. 🙏. - Jonathan Maus, BikePortland Publisher and Editor
Eighth grade is not an easy time for many young girls. As a father of one of them, I can vouch for that. Getting them to challenge themselves, try something new, and make themselves vulnerable is often like harder than pulling teeth.
The ‘Frog Ferry’ has taken a major leap forward this week. The passenger ferry concept is making its first major public debut with media coverage and a spot on the agenda at today’s meeting of the Oregon Transportation Commission (the governor-appointed body that sets transportation policy for the State of Oregon).
Spearheading the effort is Susan Bladholm, a former director of Cycle Oregon and corporate marketing professional who spent 10 years each with Business Oregon and the Port of Portland. Bladholm has spent two years researching and building support for her plan to establish a ferry service on the Willamette River that would shuttle customers between Lake Oswego and Vancouver.
Flanked by Portland Spirit Owner Dan Yates and Metro Project Manager Chris Ford (fresh of his win as project manager for the SW Corridor, which was approved by Metro Council last night), Bladholm said, “It’s time for a new mode of transportation to be introduced.”
It’s time for Portland to build more efficient streets downtown where walkers and bicycle riders can get around without fearing for their life. And to make it happen, we need to move forward with the Central City in Motion plan and more people need to stop driving cars.
That was the message newly-appointed Transportation Commissioner Chloe Eudaly shared at Thursday’s city council hearing. Commissioner Eudaly made activist hearts flutter when she opened the meeting with a speech that set a strong tone that helped pass the plan with flying colors in a vote of 3-0 (two commissioners were absent). Eudaly’s tone throughout was “Blumenauer-like” one source told me after the meeting, referring to U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who served as PBOT commissioner in the 1990s when our city put itself on the map as a leader in bicycling, walking, and transit.
Recounting her experience being stuck in Hawthorne Bridge traffic next to a TriMet bus, in her opening speech Eudaly said Portland needs to encourage incentives and disincentives so people, “Change their deeply engrained behaviors and their cherished traditions — namely to not drive their single occupancy vehicles [into downtown].” She also promised that no public funds would be spent on auto parking garages and that the city is current “over-investing” in east Portland, pushing back against any claims that central city investment is not equitable (an issue that has plagued bikeway investments in the past).
The Oregon Timber Trail – a new, 669-mile backcountry singletrack route that a rider can follow from the California border to the Columbia River – is a gem of an idea poised to become the definitive off-road cycling experience in Oregon.
And as a new trail that’s only two seasons old (it launched in 2017), it’s a gem that’s still a little rough around the edges.
“The Oregon Timber Trail is a new, unrefined route.” notes the OTT website helpfully, “and this guide is likely to be incorrect or lacking in some sections.”
Heartened by these encouraging words, four women from the West Coast Women’s Cycling team (Deann Garcia, Aliza Richman, Karey Miles, and Heather Van Valkenburg, along with Bill Garcia) set out to ride the trail from its southernmost terminus in Lakeview up to Oakridge, a 305-mile stretch that covered all of the Fremont section and about half of the Willamette section (the trail is conveniently separated into four “tiers” to make trip-planning easier).
This is crossposted from the Sightline Institute. Michael Andersen is a former BikePortland news editor.
The proposal going before Portland City Council at 2 pm today would be the city’s most important biking infrastructure investment in 20 years, and its most important bus infrastructure investment in 40.
Just as importantly, it’d also make our streets work better, permanently.
The Central City in Motion plan avoids the false promise of bigger roads: 39 percent of the central city is already dedicated to street space, it notes. So, as Jonathan reported last month, it’s planning to dedicate an additional 1 percent of those central streets to bike lanes and another 1 percent to bus lanes.
That little shift in urban space, which would take the form of 18 street projects over the next 10 years, would boost the people-moving capacity of the affected streets by an average of 60 percent.
Two of the three men arrested last week for stretching string across the I-205 bike path are set to make their first appearance in court today.
On Friday, November 9th, Portlander Carlene Ostedegaard was riding home from work on the path just south of the Division Street MAX station when she pedaled into what Portland Police described as a “booby trap.” She suffered laceration injuries on her face.
Police responded and were able to apprehend three men suspected of committing the crime: 23-year-old Justin J. Jones, 27-year-old Justin R. Tolman-Duran, and 21-year-old Dakota E. Murphy. On Tuesday (11/13) the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the case.
DA’s Office Communications Director Brent Weisberg says following the investigation one of the men, Dakota Murphy, was issued a “no complaint”. The other two, Jones and Tolman-Duran, have been re-booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center and are now charged with one count each of felony assault in the third degree. Their initial booking was for misdemeanor assault.
Puddle season is right around the corner, are you ready?
Officially, I believe one should always avoid puddles because you never know what’s hidden under the water. Unofficially, they’re really fun to ride through!
But seriously, puddles can contain sharp rocks that puncture tires or hide deep potholes that throw you over your handlebars when you enter them. Or if you lose momentum on your way through a big puddle and have to put your foot down: soaking wet foot.
p:ear Bike Works Program Coordinator
p:ear
Required Qualifications & Competencies
• Experience building trusting, healthy relationships with homeless and marginalized youth
• Commitment to advancing equity and creating and maintaining an inclusive environment that is welcoming for all
• Commitment to building strong partnerships/relationships with the Rosewood community
• Excellent interpersonal skills. Must be a positive and strong role model, have a collaborative, team-oriented work style and strong strategic and problem-solving skills
• Commitment to non-violence and compassionate responses
• Experience in bicycle mechanics and staff management. Community bike shop experience a big advantage
• BBI/UBI or similar certification or equivalent work experience
• Excellent customer service and communication skills
• Able to work independently, problem solve and complete tasks with minimal oversight
• Mathematical skills, including how to calculate profit margin and markup, budgeting and projections
• Bilingual preferred
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
• Teacher & Advocate
o Provide direct support in managing and mentoring four to six youth internships annually
o Create a safe, supportive and learning-centered environment
o Helps facilitate, model, teach and develop professional soft skills for youth interns such as: conflict resolution, attention to detail, business awareness, communication, customer service, information technology, numeracy and interpersonal skills
o Exemplifies compassion and understanding around the barriers of homelessness as it pertains to our interns
o Teach advanced bike mechanics, to interns through a 20-hour certification
• Shop Manager & Lead Bike Mechanic
o Serve as head mechanic and manager during all regular open shop hours, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays
o Monitor and maintain an inventory of parts and accessories, submit and receive parts orders
o Maintain an organized and efficient work environment
o Manage budgets and youth time sheets; this includes tracking expenditures, keeping expenditures under/at budget and working with the Bike Works coordinator to generate sufficient revenue streams
o Work with Coordinator of p:ear Works to expand programming and integrate strategies that keep with p:ear Bike Work’s long term strategic plan and vision
o Proficiently execute assembly, repairs and maintenance for all types of bicycles, particularly to used and older bicycles
• p:ear Floor Support
o Required on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for youth engagement
o Develop healthy, mentoring relationships with youth
o Provide direct support, mentoring and assistance to p:ear youth
o Assistance in teaching Bike Mechanic School when in session
o Collaborate with staff to support the general needs of programs or the floor and seek interdisciplinary opportunities for learning
o Maintain appropriate boundaries
• Community Programming Liaison
o Build and sustain relationships with the Rosewood community
o Represent p:ear and its mission positively and professionally
o Identify barriers and recommend solutions to better serve the community
o Work on integrating and developing long term proposed strategies: community outreach, youth and adult classes and bicycle programs
o Participate in Sunday Parkways, Free Bikes 4 Kids, as well as the occasional Community bike ride events (Safe Routes to School, Oregon Walkways etc.)
Physical Demands
• Able to sit or stand and walk throughout the scheduled work shift
• Ability to lift and/or move up to 75 lbs
Cover letters and resumes can be sent to: nathan@pearmentor.org with “p:ear Bike Program Coordinator” in the subject line. The job will remain open until full. Email only, no phone calls please – phone calls will not be returned. Full job listing at pearmentor.org.
“Commenters on BikePortland used this incident as an excuse to take potshots at our unhoused neighbors.”
— Callie Riley
This was written by Callie Riley, an east Portland resident and longtime community organizer. He wrote this to me via email and gave me permission to post it as an opinion. — Jonathan
I’ve been reading the site since 2007. I’m writing as an East Portland resident, as a cyclist, and as someone who lives near several tent camps along I-205.
When the story on the I-205 “booby trap” was published, I was disturbed – but not surprised, to be honest – to see BikePortland commenters immediately blame houseless campers for this assault.
Literally the first comment on the post linked the two:
The Camp Fire that ravaged through the small town of Paradise, California burned through the shop of a former Portland bicycle builder.
Mitch Pryor and his MAP Bicycles burst onto the Oregon building scene in 2008. Less than a year later he took home Best City Bike honors at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
Mitch left Portland for Chico, California in 2012 to be closer to family. He had recently opened a shop nestled in the woods in Paradise. I haven’t heard directly from Mitch yet, but friends say his new home and shop were completely destroyed in the fire. He lost everything — parts, supplies, machines, tools — and escaped with only the clothes on his back.
City Council will get its first chance to debate the Central City in Motion plan this Thursday.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) hopes commissioners will approve their list of 18 projects they say will vastly increase capacity of streets from the Pearl to the Lloyd, and from southwest to the central eastside. PBOT’s argument is that growth of our central city makes squeezing more efficiency out of our existing roads imperative — and we can only do that by making cycling and transit easier and faster.
But if this plan is to get through council it will need support from local transportation advocacy groups. Three in particular have watched this plan closely as it has taken shape over the past several years: Bike Loud PDX, The Street Trust, and Portlanders for Parking Reform.
Below is a taste of the tone you can expect from each group on Thursday…
