2022 Archives

Time to weigh in on Oregon Transportation Plan update

The Oregon Department of Transportation is currently in the process of updating the Oregon Transportation Plan, which will map out our state’s transportation system through the year 2050. ODOT wants to take a more hands-on approach to getting Oregonians involved this time around — so they’ve made a quiz to test your knowledge of the plan. (It’s pretty easy to get all the answers right, just in case you need a little win today.)

ODOT embarked on the majority of its public feedback process for the OTP update last year, using the input they received to come up with six goal areas for the plan. These goals are as follows:

Economic and Community Vitality – Improve prosperity, opportunity, and livability for all people who live, work, and recreate in Oregon.
Social equity – Improve access to safe and affordable transportation for all, recognizing the unmet mobility needs of people who have systemically excluded and underserved. Create an equitable and transparent engagement and communications decision-making structure that builds public trust.
Mobility – Create a resilient multimodal transportation system that enables the diverse range of community members and businesses with different needs to get where’re they need to go safely, reliably, and affordably, and with minimal environmental impact.
Stewardship of Public Resources – Guided by open, data-driven decision-making processes, secure sufficient and reliable revenue for transportation funding and invest public resources to achieve a resilient and sustainable multimodal transportation system.
Safety – Enable safe travel for al people, regardless of their age, ability, race, income, or mode of transportation.
Sustainability and climate action – Minimize transportation’s negative role in climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for all sectors of transportation, while also reducing air toxics, noise pollution, water toxics, and habitat loss.

Now, ODOT is looking for feedback about which funding scenario they should follow to best meet these goals. They provide four different possibilities with space for public comment. These funding scenarios are:

Scenario 1: Focus on Equity and Climate Change
Scenario one prioritizes investments for walking and biking, transit, and fleet electrification with a focus on providing low-cost transportation options, especially in urban areas. The goal of this scenario is to reduce negative climate impacts of transportation and reduce costs for transportation.
Scenario 2: State of Good Repair
Scenario two prioritizes investment in our existing infrastructure to make it more resilient and effective. Our roadways, rail, and transportation infrastructure are being improved with more bridges, are being seismically retrofitted, and are less likely to be closed due to storm events. Culverts are being replaced, reducing the likelihood of washouts, and innovative infrastructure helps get the most out of the infrastructure we have today.
Scenario 3: Travel Options
Scenario three maximizes non-auto options through increasing investments in more frequent and convenient transit both with inter- and intra-city travel as well as biking, walking, and electrification of infrastructure.
Scenario 4: Balanced
Scenario four would balance the many different priorities equally, resulting in improvements in many modes.

But wait — there’s more! If you want to learn even more about the OTP, there are more than a dozen videos on ODOT’s YouTube channel where you a range of Oregonians will break it down for you and explain how it connects to their personal lives. BikePortland readers may recognize a familiar face in one of these videos which features The Street Trust’s André Lightsey-Walker.

You can take the quiz and give ODOT your thoughts on funding scenarios by going to the Explore OTP webpage. There will also be a chance to submit public comment before the next ODOT Policy Coordinating Committee meeting on December 14th — find out more here.

Activists work to take advantage of I-5 Rose Quarter comment period

“The more comments submitted… the more that elected officials will feel empowered to join us.”
– Aaron Brown, No More Freeways

When the Oregon Department of Transportation opened up their public comment period for the Supplemented Environmental Assessment of the I-5 Rose Quarter project, critics were ready to seize the moment.

Members of No More Freeways (NMF), one of the primary anti-I-5 expansion groups in Portland, have been mobilizing advocates against the project for years. Now they want to demonstrate widespread opposition to the project in the form of comments that will go directly to ODOT.

In order to simplify the process for people who want to comment, NMF created a public comment generator site that feeds directly into ODOT’s records. On the site, they ask people writing comments to share personal stories about how the proposed freeway expansion would harm them and/or their community.

They encourage creativity from commenters, but want to hammer home three main points:

Lids, not lanes.

NMF says ODOT can fulfill their promise to reconnect the lower Albina neighborhood (once a thriving community of Black Portlanders) by capping the freeway without expanding it.

“We strongly support continued investment in the Albina neighborhood including the freeway lids, affordable housing and safer streets without also adding additional cars and air pollution into the neighborhood brought about by the significant freeway expansion below the surface level streets,” NMF states.

The need for a full Environmental Impact Statement to study alternatives to expansion.

NMF has pursued legal action against ODOT on the grounds they are neglecting their due diligence by failing to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement looking at other ways to solve traffic congestion, like tolling.

“ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children’s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit,” NMF says.

Concerns about ODOT’s transparency.

Rose Quarter project critics are concerned about several instances where ODOT has not been straightforward about their intentions and findings in order to make a case for the necessity of the lane expansion.

“ODOT has a terrible record with accountability and transparency to the public with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion,” NMF states.

They point to how the agency handled public records requests about project impacts, which Portland attorney Alan Kessler successfully took them to court for earlier this year. The judge who ruled against ODOT in this case determined the transportation department had acted with negligence, eroding public faith in government.

Since they launched their public comment generator last week, Brown said they’ve received over 100 responses drawing on these arguments. NMF has been sharing some highlights on Twitter. Here are a few of note:

“I have lived next to the freeway for 19 years! my whole life I have suffered from the pollution, the noise, and the gash down the middle of my neighborhood that left it unwalkable. freeway expansions have been proven over and over again to be ineffective in reducing traffic and lead to an increase in emissions. So what exactly are you spending all this money for?? Who benefits? Certainly not the people of Portland. Not the planet. Not the kids like me whose future is scarred by the fear of climate change. Invest in public transportation, clean energy, and PEOPLE!! Or if you insist on continuing this project out of greed and unwillingness to consider creative options, at least be honest about it.”

“I bicycle through the Rose Quarter area on my commute between downtown and NE Portland. I’m very concerned about the impact of ODOT’s Rose Quarter proposals on bicycle commuting, in particular the addition of a new off-ramp to N Williams that will make it even riskier to bike there than it is today. More broadly, it is essential that ODOT prepare a detailed Environmental Impact Statement that compares the costs and benefits of congestion tolling on the existing lanes with the costs and benefits of building additional freeway lanes and changing ramps. If congestion tolling can produce comparable or better congestion relief in a shorter timeframe at a substantially lower cost than widening the freeway, that needs to be placed side-by-side with freeway expansion for comparison.”

“In this time of extreme weather events brought about by unprecedented global warming, it is deeply irresponsible – and immoral, frankly – to continue spending billions of public funding dollars developing transportation infrastructure centered around driving. Your single highest priority for every single project in your portfolio should be reducing vehicle miles traveled. Spending vast amounts of money to widen freeways is literally madness, especially when you look at the data which shows that you can’t “solve” congestion by adding more capacity (you just move the bottlenecks to other places). You must do the full environmental impact study which will support everything in the above paragraph. This is for OUR future as Oregonians, get out of your ODOT bubble and do the right thing.”

NMF members know they’re fighting Goliath. But they say a demonstration of mass protest against the project in the form of public comments will set a standard for how people, including mainstream news outlets and elected officials, talk about it.

“The more comments submitted from everyday Portlanders demanding ODOT conduct an EIS, the more that elected officials will feel empowered to join us in demanding ODOT meaningfully study alternatives to expansion that don’t cost over a billion dollars and creat more traffic and air pollution,” Aaron Brown, a leader of NMF, told me.

“ODOT has such a powerful, well-funded PR machine…they’re going to do all kinds of things to manufacture consent for this project by downplaying dissent and hiding the truth about the congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions this expansion invariably will bring to the neighborhood. The more that we can demonstrate Portland supports restoring Albina by adding freeway caps without adding the air pollution inherent in more lanes, the less legitimacy ODOT will have insisting the projects must be linked.”

In addition to the public comment period, ODOT plans to host a Rose Quarter virtual public hearing on December 14. Brown told me NMF is planning a separate forum for people to share their thoughts in person, hopefully with elected officials present. The details are still being worked out, but stay tuned for more information.

You can find NMF’s public comment generator here. The public comment period will be open until January 4th.

Join us at the BikePortland Pitch & Bitch event

Believe it or not it has been over six years since we hosted a social gathering. Wait, is that right? That cannot be true!

Regardless, it’s been too long. So let’s get together and talk and learn from each other. Please join us for the BikePortland Pitch & Bitch next Wednesday, December 7th from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Migration Brewing (3947 N Williams).

In addition to the usual socializing and merry-making, I have some specific things I’d like to do. It’s not like me to go for cute names of things, but I couldn’t resist this one when it popped into my head. And it gets at what I’d like to do at the event.

“Pitch” in this context is an idea for a story or a project. Since BikePortland is here to serve you, we want to hear your ideas:

What stories should we cover?
Is there an issue in your neighborhood/on your bike route that deserves attention?
Need help for your advocacy idea? Give us your 30-second elevator pitch.
Are you or someone you know doing something cool or controversial?

“Bitch” in this context is us saying, “We want to hear your feedback about our work, or about anything else that’s on your mind.”

Did we get a story wrong? Let us hear about it
If you were boss of BikePortland, what would you change?
Is there an issue you’d like to get off your chest? Venting is healthy! (But don’t worry, we will moderate the conversation so things stay productive.)

Sarah Iannarone and Timur Ender at a BikePortland Wonk Night in 2016.

If you remember our Get Togethers (2011) or our Wonk Nights (2015 – 2019), you’ll know what to expect at a BP event. Pitch & Bitch will be an informal, group discussion moderated by yours truly where the goal will be to make our community stronger through building connections to each other, exposing ourselves to new perspectives, and increasing awareness of important projects, policies, and people.

We might even have a special guest or two!

The event will also include:

Fire! We’ll meet at Migration’s covered back patio where they’ve got warm heaters and even a fireplace (if it’s dry).
Working activists will get 30 seconds to share their elevator pitch and recruit volunteers to their cause.
An AMA (Ask Me Anything) session where I’ll try to answer your questions about anything bike-related in Portland. Anyone who can stump me will win a prize.
Support of a local business and community space (places like Migration need our love these days!).
Prize giveaway featuring bike lights and cargo nets from Portland Design Works and chain lube from Portland-based, Dumonde Tech Bicycle USA.
Free drinks for the first 20 people who show up and limited amount of free appetizers (thanks to Mike Perham/Perham Family Foundation).

We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday, December 7th at 5:00 pm! (Please stay home if you are sick. The patio is well-ventilated and please feel free to wear a mask.)

Business News Roundup: North St. Bags, Portland Design Works, Gracie’s Wrench

When most people think of Portland’s bike industry they think of bike shops. But those are only a small part of the local bicycle industrial complex. Here are some updates from just a few of the many bike businesses based in Portland…

North St. Bags

We’ve been big supporters of North St. since the very beginning. When founder Curtis Williams showed up at our BikeCraft event in 2009, it was clear he had the right mix of ambition and passion to make his business fly. These days North St.’s panniers are so ubiquitous they’ve become a signature Portland accessory.

Earlier this month the company launched a new line of upcycled bags with a neat origin story. North St.’s new Upcycled Collection is made from tents and banners used at major endurance events. Using fabric and materials donated by event organizer Life Time and component maker SRAM, they’ve added four new products to their lineup: a hip pack, daypack, grocery pannier and a “micro” pannier. North St. says the new bags will save over half a ton of waste from the landfill this year. And like all North St. products, they’re made right here in Portland! — NorthStBags.com (Learn more about North St. Bags in our archives.)

Portland Design Works

Another local company I’ve loved watching grow since its founder Erik Olson moved to Portland to set up shop in 2008 is Portland Design Works. PDW has set itself apart in the crowded bike accessory market by coming up with a consistent string of hits. Their Portland-inspired product designs are backed up by an attractive mix of quality, value, form and function — and I’d say this even if they weren’t a BikePortland advertiser!

Somehow the bright minds at PDW always come up with new twists on products that make me think, “Woah, that’s an awesome idea!” Cases in point are their two newest products: the Loot Bag ($95) and the BYOB Light ($79.99). The Loot Bag is made to fit two of the most popular front cargo racks from Wald (if you know, you know) and it comes with all the design details you’d want. The BYOB Light is ingenious in that it’s in between a typical battery-powered headlight and a fully-wired generator light. It can mount to your fork for that rechargeable light look, and it comes with a integrated USB cord you can plug into any powerbank. — RidePDW.com (Learn more about PDW in our archives.)

Gracie’s Wrench

The only constant in our local bike industry is change. As some companies grow, others go. That’s sadly the case with Gracie’s Wrench, the bike education business started by Portlander Tori Bortman in 2007. Tori’s welcoming approach to riding and maintenance lessons helped hundreds of people become more confident around bikes (including me!). She also filled a major need in our community by teaching adults how to ride a bike. She also shared her secrets in the Optimize Your Ride column she wrote for us back in 2011.

Now Tori is moving on. In an email last week she told her fans she’ll close up shop at the end of this year.

“Gracie’s Wrench has had the impact on my own life and the community beyond what I could have imagined when I started,” Tori wrote. “At least three of my students have opened their own bicycle shops, many more have been empowered to take cycling adventures of a lifetime, I’ve had the opportunity to get my first book published to help beginner riders, and there are now hundreds of more new riders on two wheels that I’ve had the honor and pure joy of teaching to ride bicycles for the first time.”

Join us in wishing Tori luck in her new endeavor — nursing school at OHSU!

Got local bike business news to share? Drop us a line and we’ll include it in an upcoming roundup.

First look at Oregon’s new e-bike rebate legislation

Rebate recipients will be granted up to $1,200 to purchase a non-cargo e-bike or up to $1,700 to purchase a cargo e-bike

Outgoing Oregon State Representative Karin Power (D-41 Milwaukie) has made her affinity for electric bicycles known. She’s also made it clear she thinks the state should offer financial incentives to other Oregonians who want to take advantage of this convenient, fun, environmentally-friendly transportation option.

Power has delivered on her promise: In the 2023 legislative session, Oregon will have the opportunity to enact a government-funding e-bike purchase incentive program.

Legislative Concept (LC) 1994 (PDF), “directs [the Oregon] Department of Environmental Quality to establish program for providing rebates to qualifying individuals who purchase electric assisted bicycles or cargo electric bicycles and qualifying equipment.” Qualifying equipment can include a helmet, “safety vest,” light, or lock.

LC 1994 was prepared by Power and her staff and has since been handed off to Representative Dacia Grayber (D- 35 Tigard), who will sponsor the bill this coming session.

Carrie Leonard, a former Power staffer who helped write this draft, said the proposal is based on Benton County’s e-bike rebate program implemented in 2020. This program was led by the Corvallis Benton County Economic Development Office in partnership with Pacific Power and the Oregon Clean Fuels Program, and offered up to $1,200 for selected people living on low-incomes to buy electric bikes from local businesses. Like other e-bike rebate programs across the country have been, this initiative was a success, proving there is a serious demand for e-bikes — especially when they’re available at a discount.

“We felt, after speaking with the utility company and the project managers at the City of Corvallis, that they had successfully beta tested a robust incentive program that could be used as a model for a state-wide program,” Leonard told BikePortland in a recent email.

According to the e-bike subsidy tracker compiled by researchers at the Portland State University Transportation Research and Education Center, two other cities around the state have embarked on rebate programs in recent years. Eugene’s water and electricity provider began offering a $300 electric bike credit earlier this year, and a program in City of Ashland offers a $200 credit. Grayber’s bill would be the first to make the subsidy available statewide.

LC 1994 would be led by the state Department of Environmental Quality, which would be granted $6 million from the state general fund starting July 1, 2023 to distribute the rebates. Assuming some of the $6 million budget would go toward administrative costs, there should be enough left for several thousand Oregonians to receive subsidies, but it will probably be a competitive program.

Rebate recipients will be granted up to $1,200 to purchase a non-cargo e-bike or up to $1,700 to purchase a cargo e-bike, plus qualifying equipment. The bikes must have a minimum retail sales price of $950.

Even though this proposal was drafted with the Benton County program in mind, the text currently distinguishes itself in that it doesn’t include income requirements to qualify for the rebate: the only requirement is that recipients are Oregon residents and over the age of 16.

One of the rules included in the draft text is that recipients must maintain ownership of the bike for at least a year after receiving the rebate, presumably to discourage people reselling the bike they bought with state funds.

E-bike subsidy proposals have come and gone before — advocates will recall the disappointing death of Portland’s U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer’s E-BIKE ACT — but with all local e-bike buzz, there’s a case for optimism here. (We won’t fault you for window shopping, but protect your hearts!)

The 2023 session of the Oregon Legislature begins January 17th. Stay tuned for developments as the bill works its way through the process.

You can read the LC draft bill text below. We’ll have more details for you as soon as they’re available.

LC1994_DRAFT_2023_Regular_Session Download

PBOT wants to talk about advisory bike lanes

Drivers navigate advisory bike lanes on NE 53rd Avenue. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The City of Portland wants advisory bike lanes to play a larger role in our roadway design mix. This Thursday (12/1) they’ll host an online open house to answer questions and share information about recent and future installations. It’s a relatively sudden push to make the treatment more prominent after they’ve languished in design guidelines for several years.

Advisory bike lanes were first called for in the Portland Bike Plan for 2030 that was drafted in 2009. PBOT uses the treatment on streets with low to moderate car volumes where they want to create safer space for cycling, but don’t want to take the width required for standard bike lanes. The big difference between “advisory” and standard bike lanes is that people drive over the former, whereas it’s illegal to cross into the latter. The way they work is simple: When no bicycle riders are present, drivers can use the full width of the road (driving into the advisory bike lanes). When bicycle riders are present, drivers must yield to other drivers and only pass the bicycle rider when it is safe to do so.

It’s easy to understand why PBOT likes advisory bike lanes: They are very cheap and easy to install, studies show they improve safety outcomes, and they are a way to create space for biking and walking without asking drivers to give up anything in terms of access or parking. Imagine a relatively narrow, low-speed, low-volume residential street without sidewalks in east or southwest Portland. There’s not enough room to stripe bike lanes and two general purpose lanes, so PBOT can stripe advisory bike lanes that are only in effect if/when a walker or bike rider is present.

While the advantages seem obvious, it’s easy to see why some people don’t like them.

Graphic of PBOT presentation to Russell Neighborhood Association showing location of advisory bike lanes.

Since this is a new treatment that requires people to think and to share the road, they come with hefty skepticism.

In October, PBOT ran into opposition to a project on NE San Rafael Street in the Russell neighborhood of east Portland. The plan was to install advisory bike lanes as part of a repaving project between NE 111th and NE 148th. But that was before some residents pushed back. According to a project update email from PBOT sent October 20th, “PBOT staff heard concerns from residents, particularly around how the advisory bike lanes would work on NE San Rafael Street between NE 132nd and NE 148th avenues.” As a result of those concerns, PBOT has decided to back off plans for that particular stretch of road.

PBOT has told the Russell Neighborhood Association that they’ll do more evaluations of existing advisory bike lane project and then return in 2023 to re-open the conversation about NE San Rafael Street.

The city should have a lot of data to analyze since they installed advisory lanes in three locations this year. In addition to two sections of San Rafael, there are now advisory bike lanes on NE 43rd between Sandy and Tillamook and NE 53rd over I-84. We shared a closer look at both of those installations back in August.

To further air out concerns and questions about this nascent striping treatment, PBOT will host an online open house this Thursday from 6:00 to 7:00 pm. Check out our calendar for the Zoom registration link and more details.

Monday Roundup: Bus blame, American carnage, and more

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Welcome to the week. We hope you had a nice holiday.

This week’s Monday Roundup is made possible by Showers Pass, makers of quality waterproof rainwear and gear that’s proudly designed and tested right here in Portland!

Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers came across in the past seven days…

Who’s the victim?: You know we live in a dysfunctional, car-soaked culture when a magazine decides to publish a sympathetic profile of a woman whose reckless driving killed two innocent people — and of course it comes out just before her trial starts. (LA Magazine)

Blame the buses: A story about a bus lane project in Hillsdale features only complaints from business owners and drivers who say the lack of car access is too much to bear. (Portland Tribune)

Bike the vote: The recent election included around $3.6 billion in successful funding measures nationwide that could lead to bicycling infrastructure. (People for Bikes)

Same ol’ same ol’: America’s roads and transportation system is exceptionally deadly and dysfunctional, and until we end car abuse and its enablers nothing will change. (NY Times)

Record ride: A 45-year-old woman broke the record for longest solo bike ride when she conquered headwinds and freezing temperatures to tally nearly 4,000 km of pedaling across India. (The Indian Express)

Bike lanes and the ADA: Disability rights orgs have filed suit in Washington DC over what they say are bike lane projects that run afoul of the Americans with Disabilities law. (WTOP)

Video of the Week: Don’t miss Amit Zinman’s video recap of last week’s World Day of Remembrance for Roadway Traffic Victims event:

Thanks to everyone who shared links this week.

Job: Bicycle Mechanic – Clever Cycles

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Bicycle Mechanic

Company / Organization

Clever Cycles

Job Description

We’re seeking a skilled and thoughtful individual to fill a position in our service department. Do you want more folks riding bikes everyday to do things that people do? Are you intrigued by bikes that fold or have the ability to carry more than a rider? Are you comfortable working on ebikes? If so, we’d like to talk.

We are seeking a mechanically-inclined individual to assemble bikes, perform repairs, answer phones and emails. This is a 4-5 day a week position. Competitive wage, sick pay, paid vacation, health insurance, retirement & profit sharing plan, employee purchase program.

What you should have:
A strong work ethic
Thirst for knowledge
A drive to ask questions first
The ability to own up to mistakes, and learn from them
Love for people, bicycles and children
Love for order, detail and communication
Willingness to service electric and non-traditional bikes

Experience working in a bike shop is a requirement.

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: $20.00 to $28.00 /hour based on experience

How to Apply

What we want from you (via email):
A resume
A cover letter (tell us why we want you!)
At least 2 current references
Your availability and desired schedule
Email: hr@clevercycles.com

Weekend Event Guide: Dead streets, advisory bike lanes, and more

Take in the last bit of fall this weekend before Christmas is upon us. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving weekend, but there are still a few bike events to join in on if you want to work up an appetite for the big meal or the days of leftovers to follow.

Here’s our hand-picked selection of the best rides and events coming your way. For more suggestions, see the BikePortland Calendar.

Thursday, November 24th

Thanksgiving: Dead Streets Ride – 9:30 – 11:30 am at Blumenauer Bridge south entrance (NE)
Prepare your Thanksgiving appetite with a ride through downtown Portland on a holiday while everyone else is inside stuffing the turkey. The streets will be all yours! More info here.

Four City Loop – 9:30 am – 1:00 pm at Sellwood Park (SE)
Join the Portland Bicycling Club for a jaunt on trails and backstreets on a beautiful, 22 mile tour through four Portland metro cities: Portland, Milwaukie, Oregon City, and Gladstone. It should be a gorgeous day tomorrow with perfect views of Mt Hood in abundance. More info here.

Saturday, November 26th

PDX Coffee Outside – Location TBD
The location always changes for the weekly park gathering of bike and coffee lovers, but it’s consistently a great time. Check the group’s Instagram for location, which will be posted the day before. More info here.

PSU Farmer’s Market ride – 10 am at various locations (SE)
Forget about Black Friday shopping — Saturday’s PSU farmer’s market (and prior bike ride with the BikeLoud crew) is the place to be on the weekend after Thanksgiving. More info here.

BikeLoud PDX NE Chapter Advisory Bike Lane Ride – Cully Green (NE)
Join BikeLoud PDX’s NE chapter to check out some new bike infrastructure, including advisory bike lanes, in outer NE Portland. The group will get lunch at Muchas Gracias afterwards to debrief. More info here.

See all upcoming events here. Promoting an event? Know about something we should boost? Please let us know and we’ll get it on the calendar.

New cycle track in Hillsboro a game-changer for our grateful family

@bikeportland
Our family biking columnist Shannon Johnson is very grateful for the new bikeway on Jackson School Rd in hillsboro. #cyclinglife #cycling #familycycling
♬ Storytelling – Adriel

Have you ever had the joy of using bicycle infrastructure that is better than anything you’d previously seen or imagined? We had this delightful experience this past summer when the City of Hillsboro finished up its major road project on NE Jackson School Road.

Prior to the project, this was a clogged two-lane roadway, with dangerous ditches bordering the road — no sidewalks on sections, and no bike lanes. It’s a road we would never have used for biking or walking and always avoided.

When construction began, I expected a road-widening project to add car lanes. I had no idea the project would give priority to bike riders and walkers and give us a protected cycle track. Flashing beacon crosswalks were also added, along with a traffic-calming roundabout, and improved lighting.

If you have never experienced infrastructure like this: it’s amazing! Cycling (and walking) is comfortable and pleasant, a complete joy to use.

This newly improved road has quickly become a favorite place for us to ride. It also appears to be popular with the community. Perhaps the most telling metric for the success of the improvements is that property owners along the road had trick-or-treaters for the very first time: kids were finally safe enough to walk from house to house!

As we’ve enjoyed this infrastructure, I wonder how it came to be here, and who made it happen. Whom can I thank? I know it didn’t just fall out of the sky, but surely took years of behind-the-scenes work. What responsibility do I have to participate in those processes, to make, preserve, and improve such facilities for my children and future generations?

With these questions in mind, I had the pleasure of talking with Pat Ribellia, who was the planning director for the city of Hillsboro from 2006 to 2012, and Don Odermott who has served the city Hillsboro for 28 years, including about 15 years as the head of Transportation Planning and Policy. They confirmed that the Jackson School Road project has been many years in the making.

“Sometimes it takes a champion”

Rob Dixon, former Hillsboro city manager.

My biggest question was: how did the awesome bike infrastructure get included in this project? Odermott explained that over the past three decades, “the nature of the bike solution has evolved.” In his career of 35+ years in engineering design, the norm started with no bike lanes, then four foot bike lanes, then five and six foot wide bike lanes, and then buffered bike lanes.

Now it’s six foot lanes plus a two-foot buffer and elevated/separated cycle tracks. A real evolution in cycling infrastructure. “Sometimes it takes a champion,” Odermott said. And in Hillsboro, “the largest credit for that goes to our retired assistant city manager, Rob Dixon, who really led the vision for all of us that we all rallied around that has now made what we call cycle tracks, our city standard for bike treatment.”

Odermott speculated that Hillsboro has “probably built more cycle tracks now than…any jurisdiction in the Portland region over the last 10 years.” Wherever cycle tracks are a good fit, that’s now the “go to” cycling solution in Hillsboro.

For me, it’s a revelation of how great cycling infrastructure can be, and how a cycling advocate in city leadership can make cycling infrastructure dreams a reality. Previously, I wouldn’t have had the vision or the guts to suggest infrastructure like this. Looking at the road prior to construction, I would have thought, “there isn’t room,” “property owners will be angry,” “it would be way too expensive.”

Now, after riding this, I look at every other road in my community differently. I have a vision for what can be, even when it looks challenging or impossible. And I want to get more of that vision (vacation to Amsterdam?) so that I don’t stop short when it comes to future advocacy opportunities. Better cycling infrastructure really is possible.

In this time of thanksgiving, I’m so thankful for all the folks behind-the-scenes that made this project a reality. We’ll be thanking you in our hearts every time we ride.

Fairness in funding is topic of new Metro report

(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland. Graphic: Metro)

Metro is in the process of deciding what will be in the next iteration of its Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), the guiding document that will serve as a 25-year “blueprint to guide investments for all forms of travel” in the Portland area. The plan will include lists of priority transportation projects that are exciting to sift through and daydream about, but the people working on it also must tackle a less glamorous — and often controversial — component: how to pay for them.

A new Metro report delves into how to make sure new funding streams are fair. In the first effort of its kind, the report offers a detailed analysis of key revenue sources and rates them according to an equity score.

Metro hired a team of consultants from Nelson\Nygaard to survey the funding landscape and report back their findings. Out of this process came Metro’s Equitable Transportation Funding Research Report (PDF), which they released last month and have been discussing in meetings and work sessions since.

The research done for this report sought to benefit not only Metro planners, but also policymakers, advocacy groups, and elected officials. It tackles two main questions:

— Who does revenue collection burden and benefit the most?
— How can the revenue collection and disbursement be balanced to address inequities?

History of inequity

“The costs of car ownership comprise a sizeable portion of spending, which suggests that living in areas with less viable transportation options severely impacts financial outlooks, social mobility, jobs access, and other opportunities.”

The report begins with an overview of discriminatory planning in the Portland region. It states that events like the construction of I-5 through the historically Black Albina neighborhood “shaped the context of transportation and land use planning in the region” and that “exclusionary zoning and racial segregation still influence where people live and work today.”

Because of this, it’s more difficult and expensive for people of color and people living on low incomes to get around the city. The report states that in the Portland region, Black commuters living below the federal poverty level have, on average, a 20% longer commute than white commuters do. They’re also more likely to live in areas on the outskirts of town where cars dominate the roads instead of the more expensive walkable, bikeable and transit-dense parts of a city, so they might feel they need to own a car even if they can’t afford to.

“The direct and recurring costs of car ownership comprise a sizeable portion of spending, which suggests that living in areas with less viable transportation options severely impacts financial outlooks, social mobility, jobs access, and other opportunities,” the report states.

Measuring current revenue streams

Considering all of this, the researchers came up with six equity assessment measures for revenue sources, and then gave a rating to each source. Below are the metrics they used to inform the rankings:

— Share: Do lower-income households pay a higher share of their income?
— Burden: Does the source provide subsidies or exemptions to alleviate unfair burdens?
— Tiered: Is the fee or tax graduated based on the value of the item?
— Benefits: Are low-income households and people of color directly benefiting?
— Payment: Are unbanked or underbanked individuals unfairly penalized?
— Penalties: Do unpaid fines, fees, or taxes trigger penalties and legal repercussions?

They used this list to analyze some current revenue streams. One of the funding sources they looked at was the gas tax, which the report says is one that has “compounding and regressive impacts on lower-income communities” because it hits harder on poorer people who are more likely to drive cars with low fuel efficiency.

The report also analyzes other income streams like transportation system development charges and property taxes, which they say are also regressive.

But there are ways to combat this. First, the report states possible revenue streams that can be applied with more discretion, like road use fees, which have “greater flexibility and potential for targeted exemptions that could mitigate outsized burden.”

Other suggestions in the report include: restructuring fines so they don’t impact credit scores or employment eligibility, prorating payments based on income, advocating for more lenient fare enforcement policies, adjusting the gas tax according to inflation, and financial assistance programs like the City of Portland’s Transportation Wallet.

Where the money goes matters

An explanation of equitable revenue disbursement.

In the long-term, transportation agencies should want to use the income they receive to create a more sustainable system where people can get around without the expense of a car. This means investing in alternative transportation options in the communities that need them the most, which would mitigate some of the inequities created in revenue collection.

The report says the best way to do this is to spend money raised on projects that boost safety, transit, and biking and walking infrastructure. Other recommendations include anti-displacement strategies, and cash incentives to encourage lower-income households to reduce their carbon footprint through the purchase of things like EVs, solar panels, or transit passes.

This report is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to understand not just how transportation funding works, but how to make it work better for the people who need it most. Check out a PDF of the report here, and stay tuned for more updates on the RTP process.

Brooklyn residents clean up Powell Blvd overpass

SE 9th Street overpass of Powell Blvd. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

— This is a guest article from Brooklyn neighborhood resident John Karabaic.

On Saturday, November 19, 2022, nine volunteers with the Brooklyn Action Corps removed wet, slippery leaves and trimmed low-hanging branches that narrowed the walkway and interfered with users of the SE 9th Street Overpass at SE Powell Blvd. They also removed dirt and vegetation that was narrowing the sidewalk near the TriMet 19 bus stop in front of the south ramp of the bridge.

Since Brooklyn is surrounded on three sides by major urban highways and on one by railroad tracks, the SE 9th Street overpass is a critical piece of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in and out of the neighborhood. Stephen and Irene Bachhuber, along with other neighbors, have been regularly cleaning the overpass and trimming vegetation for years. They’ve led the effort to keep this bridge safe and usable all year round.

Volunteer and BAC Board member Cheryl Crowe was shocked when she discovered that the sidewalk in front of the south ramp of the bridge didn’t have a grass strip next to the bridge ramp. It just had years of accumulated dirt and leaves that made it look like it was planted and made the sidewalk unnecessarily narrow next to an urban highway and bus stop. Volunteers cleaned some of it up, but have more to do. There are some uneven areas of the sidewalk that need to be fixed and we need to remove more vegetation past the bus stop.

On Saturday, the volunteers even made it safe for tall bikes to pass under the trees!

BAC Board member and volunteer Guy Berliner was leading a BAC neighborhood beautification initiative. After helping to clean up, he seeded the slope with a native Pacific Northwest wildflower blend. Next spring, bridge users will see the colorful results of that effort.

If you live in or around the Brooklyn area and want to get involved with similar efforts in the future, visit Brooklyn-Neighborhood.org.