“Some roses are red,
Some bike lanes are green,
Thank you for driving,
In ways that make me feel seen.”
That’s one of the messages on a series of cards and stickers local nonprofit Bike Loud PDX is handing out on the streets of Portland this month as part of their Love campaign (#BikeLove and #25x30PDX on social media). They have over 1,000 Velo-tines to pass out to strangers as they bike around town. The designs were created by Portland-based graphic designer Emily Guise.
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(Photo: Bike Loud)
“Showing this love and expressing empathy to other Portlanders is one small way we can exemplify good behavior and magnify the feelings of joy biking can provide,” the group says.
Bike Loud has surged with recent growth, new leadership, and the recent launch of neighborhood chapters. They’re focused on building Portland’s bike usage rate to 25% of all trips by 2030 — the goal adopted by City Council when they passed Portland’s Bicycle Master Plan in 2010.
If you want to get your hands on these cards or stickers and help distribute them, join one of the Bike Loud rides this month like their weekly Farmer’s Market Ride on Saturdays, their upcoming general meeting, or on one of their chapter meet-ups on the 12th, 19th, 20th, 25th or 27th. Find details on all these events on our calendar. You can also email bikeloudpdx@gmail.com to order them.
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Join the #BikeLove train!
Thanks, Jonathan and Bike Portland.
#BikeLove #BikeLoud!
The designs look terrific. Love it!
Bikeloud signed the ridiculous Street Trust statement about the homeless camps.
They have explaining to do if you ask me.
They don’t owe you one.
I’ll bandwagon with DWK, if they joined with Street Trust in essentially shifting to an interesectional theory of advocacy that gives social issues preeminence over infrastructure and physical safety in the context of non-motorized transport–I disagree fundamentally.
These days everyone is an armchair expert but in looking at their website I see a “month of Love” and some stuff about a ride through downtown and about the interstate bridge and the burnside bridge.
If their goal is to bring modal share up to 25% “love” just ain’t gonna cut it. We’ve had alot of this love stuff in Portland over the last decade and I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not feelin the love on the streets of Portland these days–especially when getting around outside of a car.
Time to shift focus. IMO what would help is clearing our MUP’s, building safe bike lanes (not going to wade in there, but we all know theres room for improvement here) and a drastic change in driver behavior.
Many proven or at least very viable solutions are out there. “Love” is, at this point, disproven.
Bike Loud and all the groups that signed the crazy opposition letter to the plan to keep the homeless safe need to be ignored. For me, they have lost all credibility. Here is the list:
Oregon Walks
The Street Trust
Verde
OPAL Environmental Justice
Portland Forward
Getting There Together Coalition
Human Solutions Inc.
Imagine Black
No More Freeways Coalition
Street Roots Advocacy
Our Portland PAC
Portland: Neighbors Welcome
Northwest Pilot Project
Impact NW
Sunrise PDX
BikeLoud PDX
1000 Friends of Oregon
Right 2 Survive
Outside In
Urban League of Portland
Portland Jobs with Justice
Central City Concern
Sisters of the Road
Transition Projects, Inc.
Hygiene for All
I don’t think they should be ignored. This is a big and complicated issue and I think we need as many ideas as possible and having groups like this as a bulwark against potential overreach is really important. I also think we need to stop being so willing to throw people or orgs away just because we disagree w them on one thing.
Except Bikeloud and Street trust are supposedly advocates for Walking, Biking and other forms of non-car use.
The Homeless issue has zero to do with them except the camps are all over the bike trails.
So instead of spending time advocating and working to get bike and pedestrian trails useful again for the people who support these groups, they apparently think they are now Homeless advocates.
The biggest problem with proposing ideas like closing all our major streets as the leading solution to the problem of campers being struck by cars is that it completely derails the conversation, removing the focus from the real problem (people being killed) and putting it on “why would a supposedly responsible organization sign onto such a daft demand?”
As a consequence, the rest of the letter is forgotten, and any ideas therein are not part of the conversation.
So while I agree that we need as many ideas as possible, it really undermines a group’s credibility to request something so over-the-top and whacky as this.
Imagine a universe in which these organizations signed onto a letter which compared Wheeler’s effort to remove camps in dangerous locations to the ridiculous notion of closing major streets, as a way of underscoring the futility of such an effort. Such a letter would have likely been well received, would have made the point much more effectively, and would keep the focus on the matter at hand.
Maybe that’s what they were going for, but they missed the mark, widely.
Thanks for posting that list. I’m with you!
They need to retract their signature from the *** protest letter they just signed.
***[Moderator: I deleted most of this post, much outrage, not much content.]***
Only allow outrage from the far left. More bias and intolerance from Bike Portland censors.
Nope. That’s not at all what is happening here. FWIW I probably get criticized more from the “far left” for what I allow I own this space. I’m just removing what I think doesn’t belong. Write productive comments that don’t harp on the same tired (and often mean and unhelpful) narratives and all your comments will get through. In other words, try again.