2022 Archives

What a Eugene City Council recall says about hopes for transportation reform in Oregon

An existing EmX bus station in Springfield, Oregon (Photo: MovingAhead)

— Before joining BikePortland, author Taylor Griggs lived in Eugene for six years and covered the city for Eugene Weekly.

Eugene, Oregon: 100 miles south of Portland by way of the Willamette River; famous for its population of college students, track and football jocks, pot-smoking hippies, and… NIMBYs intent on overthrowing the city’s democracy because of a public transportation project they don’t like?

Based on recent politics, local progressive advocates fear that’s where the city’s headed.

Last month, about 2,300 voters in one of Eugene’s eight wards voted to oust Claire Syrett from city council less than six months after she voted with the majority to support a new bus rapid transit (BRT) project in the city. Recall organizers say Syrett misled the public about the project and failed to engage with her constituents who were concerned about the impact this project would have on their ability to get around the city by car.

Eugene transportation advocates look at what transpired not only as a warning sign for their city’s future, but also as an indication of a problem playing out far beyond the south Willamette Valley. And in order to turn the tide, leaders need to change their strategy – or clever naysayers are likely tosabotage transformative and broadly appealing policies.

MovingAhead…

The transit project in question is MovingAhead designed by the local transit agency, Lane Transit District (LTD), in collaboration with the City of Eugene. At the center of the Syrett recall is the plan to remove two general travel lanes and build out dedicated bus infrastructure on a busy, five-lane arterial.

Eugene has successfully implemented BRT lines (which they call EmX) in the past on three different corridors. This time, the project is planned to run on River Road, a street in Syrett’s ward that follows the Willamette River from Eugene’s urban core to the rural community of Junction City about 15 miles northwest.

In addition to being a direct route from the city center to the surrounding countryside, River Road is close to some of Eugene’s most industrial, working-class neighborhoods, and the street itself is lined with homes and businesses. It’s also an area of rapid growth, characterized by large affordable housing developments. As Eugene’s population increases, more and more people will need to commute to and from the farthest reaches of this corridor.

But the MovingAhead plan would not only create BRT infrastructure – it would also be a complete streets project that local transportation advocates say is urgently needed. The City of Eugene identifies the street as one of the most dangerous for people walking and biking and includes it on their Vision Zero High Crash Corridor network.

The EmX plan for River Road includes new pedestrian crossings and protected bike lanes that project leaders say would make it safer for all people (a similar approach to TriMet’s Division Transit Project).

River Road in Eugene. A person was struck and killed while walking across this intersection in March.

Members of Better Eugene Springfield Transportation (BEST), a local transportation advocacy non-profit (Eugene’s version of The Street Trust), say they aren’t entirely sold on EmX as the best treatment for River Road. But something has to be done to make the street safer for people walking, biking and taking transit, and the MovingAhead plan has presented solutions they’re on board with.

Moreover, project leaders from the City of Eugene and LTD are adamant that this project isn’t set in stone – which makes the intense recall effort all the more perplexing. Planning for MovingAhead has been underway since 2015, and though Eugene City Council did agree in March to move forward with the EmX proposal as it was, planners said they were nowhere near complete with the process. BEST trusted they, and other members of the community, would get another chance to share their input.

“BEST continues to question whether EmX bus rapid transit is the most cost-effective approach for making River Road safe and practical for everyone,” reads their recent newsletter. “We need better answers about impacts before final decisions are made.”

…or moving back?

Maxwell says people simply don’t want to ride the bus, and the city shouldn’t make residents foot the $72 million bill for a new EmX line that nobody’s going to use.

While the recall campaign against Syrett got off the ground this past summer, there has been a group loudly dissatisfied with the MovingAhead plan since its inception. One of the main project opponents is a woman named Meta Maxwell, a Eugene resident whose family settled in the city in 1862, less than two decades after its founding. When I called the number listed on the Syrett Recall Campaign website, Maxwell picked up the phone.

Maxwell owns some commercial property on another Eugene corridor that was previously under consideration for an EmX line of its own, but that project was tabled when council chose the River Road route. She doesn’t reside in Syrett’s ward – the recall campaign was largely led and funded from out of district – but she saw an injustice taking place along River Road and had to do something about it.

The argument from recall proponents against MovingAhead has two main components.

The first is the stance from Maxwell and her peers that mass transit agencies, in Eugene and beyond, are inherently corrupt and want to push pro-bus ideology onto the masses.

This philosophy is summarized in an article linked on the Syrett recall campaign website titled ‘The Transit-Industrial Complex.’ The author of this article believes there is a well-funded, pro-transit propaganda machine running the United States consisting of organizations like Smart Growth America and Streetsblog. (For the record, this is not true.) Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“All of these groups provide the illusion that there is strong grassroots support for transit subsidies when in fact the groups get most of their funding from a few foundations and public agencies… they promote the idea that transit subsidies exist for noble causes, such as protecting the environment and helping the poor, when in fact those subsidies are mainly to transfer wealth from taxpayers to selected special interest groups.”

Maxwell and her co-organizers used this approach to frame transit projects as anti-populist. Maxwell says people simply don’t want to ride the bus, and the city shouldn’t make residents foot the $72 million bill for a new EmX line that nobody’s going to use.

“I’ve ridden a bus on rare occasions, but my day would never allow me to just use the bus in Eugene. There’s no way I could do what I do in a day on the bus,” Maxwell told me. “These plans have not taken into consideration any of the new technology for electric vehicles and the alternative means of transportation people can take that are eco-friendly, and that meet their needs better.”

The second component, which Maxwell says was the real problem, is the perceived lack of public engagement around the project.

“The number-one thing is there was no engagement. They claimed that there was real outreach and engagement, and that’s a complete farce,” Maxwell said, adding she and her team of canvassers went door-to-door on River Road asking people if they’d heard of the plan, and none of them did. “Reaching out and saying ‘we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do on River Road, and if you want to know what, come to a meeting,’ is not outreach.”

Broken engagement and weak leadership

“If I worked for the city, I would next time be so in the face of businesses about the projects that are happening that they couldn’t deny it.”
– Claire Roth, BEST

On that last note, even the most progressive transportation advocate may concede Maxwell’s point. Attempts to engage the public on city policies – especially people with lower incomes and people of color – have been scrutinized nationwide, especially by progressive activists. (And Syrett herself has acknowledged this issue in the past on at least one occasion.)

Though transportation advocates think the recall organizers are misrepresenting what happened – MovingAhead project leaders did request public input on multiple occasions – they say the city and LTD should take this as a lesson about the value of extensive community engagement for projects like these.

“If I worked for the city, I would next time be so in the face of businesses about the projects that are happening that they couldn’t deny it,” Claire Roth, BEST’s Safe Streets Coordinator, told me. “But at the same time I wonder, would that have been enough?”

Of course, the challenging nature of public engagement isn’t specific to Eugene. Portland policymakers, planners and advocates are well-aware of the tightrope they must walk when attempting to come to community consensus on a project (the failed attempt by Metro to pass a transportation funding measure being just one of many examples).

The auto industry has spent over a century convincing Americans cars are an intrinsic and necessary part of a functioning society – and that the more of them we can fit in our streets, the better. It’s easy, then, to circulate misguided talking points against alternative transportation projects with little data to back them up.

An April article by CityLab illustrates how this conundrum is holding back transportation projects across the country: “In city after city…plans to build safer streets sit on shelves, get mired in endless red tape, or are reversed after backlashes — often led by business owners and drivers who fear traffic impacts or object to parking disruptions.”

To move past this, transportation advocates aren’t pointing the finger at people living in Syrett’s ward who voted for the recall. They concede that Maxwell and her allies led an effective – if nefarious – campaign, and the rebuttal tactics were lackluster at best. They say city leaders should be doing a better job of selling projects to people who would benefit from them and proactively working to combat misinformation.

Letters submitted to local news outlet Eugene Weekly show mass opposition to the recall campaign. One letter penned by Eugene resident Lynn Porter – who supported Syrett and the MovingAhead project – offered a criticism of the former councilor that speaks to the need for stronger tactics from leadership.

Porter wrote that Syrett and the entire MovingAhead team took the wrong approach to publicizing a good policy that working-class people in Syrett’s ward should have every reason to support. The people running the recall campaign, on the other hand, used very effective tactics to convince people this project would harm them. From Porter’s letter:

“I haven’t owned a car since the mid 1990s, because I can’t afford one. I’m also too old to drive. I’ve spent years riding buses in Portland and Eugene. Most of them are very inconvenient because they run every half hour, which discourages people from using them, especially in the winter cold and rain. EmX is much better because it runs so much more often and gets you there faster. Working-class people like me have every reason to support it. People in local government need to understand that they have to defend their policies in local news media, through letters and columns, and they need to focus on what we really care about.”

Porter’s testimony stands in the face of the anti-EmX argument Syrett recall organizers used to justify their campaign. Yet Syrett’s team didn’t use this to their advantage, and they lost in the end.

Roth said she thinks policymakers and planners need to get serious about their approach if they want to implement the bold transportation projects needed to prevent traffic fatalities and curb carbon emissions.

“I think it’s going to be important for there to be closer working relationships between advocates, leadership and city staff for more transparency,” she said.

What’s next?

“In the face of the reactionary disinformation campaign that led to Claire Syrett’s recall, it’s critical that Council doubles down on the progressive policies their constituents support.”
– Dylan Plummer, Sierra Club

As of now, Eugene’s MovingAhead plan is still, well, moving ahead. But now that other councilors see the potential repercussions for getting on the Syrett recaller’s bad side, advocates think it’s very possible it will get watered down. And there are whispers that the people who ousted Syrett have already started efforts against other councilors who voted to support this plan and other progressive policies, like zoning changes, housing reform and building electrification.

Local environmental advocates are concerned they lost their best ally on Council, and are urging the other councilors not to back down.

“In the face of the reactionary disinformation campaign that led to Claire Syrett’s recall, it’s critical that Council doubles down on the progressive policies their constituents support, including greater access to public transit, affordable housing, renter protections and climate policy,” Dylan Plummer, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Representative and Eugene resident, told me.

Syrett’s old seat is currently vacant, and advocates are working to fill it with someone even farther to the political left. But the seeds of distrust –in democracy and public transit projects – have been sown.

“If no one trusts the experts with public dollars, I’m worried that this is going to just keep on compounding and becoming more and more of a NIMBY monster,” Roth said. “If people say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re a senior transportation planner, but I just don’t trust you. I just don’t think that you have my best interests in mind’ – what do we do?”

Lessons for Portland

“This is a useful example of the danger of small, single-member districts.”
– Michael Andersen, Sightline Institute

Michael Andersen, an affordable housing advocate, journalist, Portland-based researcher for the Sightline Institute, followed the politics in Eugene and thinks transportation advocates everywhere should take heed.

Andersen pointed out that Eugene’s district-divided City Council made this recall easier to carry out. Only residents of Ward 7 were polled on whether Syrett should stay in office, so people like Maxwell were able to carry out a very targeted campaign against her. This is a form of government similar to the one Portland Commissioner Mingus Mapps hopes will sway people to vote against charter reform in November.

“This is a useful example of the danger of small, single-member districts. They were able to leverage this hyper-local issue in a way that is still going to shape citywide policy,” Andersen said. “The fact that it was so easy for people to do a super-targeted recall on this issue is a good example of the ways that it could be dangerous.”

Andersen agreed with those who suggest a messaging shift in Portland and elsewhere can push through the limitations of their local government.

“Transportation reformers always have a challenge to locate our agenda within other people’s agenda,” he said. “The winning formula is to show how reducing our dependence on the car is good for all the other things people care about, like a prosperous economy, affordable housing, pleasant neighborhoods and connected communities.”

CORRECTION, 10/14 at 8:05 am: This story initially claimed the recall campaign received a sizable donation from Paul Conte. That was a mistake. Conte was reimbursed by the recall campaign as a volunteer. We regret the error.

Portland’s bike bus featured on NBC Nightly News

After years of terrible national headlines that (inaccurately and unfairly in my opinion) portrayed Portland as a dysfunctional war-zone wasteland, last night there was a story that will help shift that narrative.

The mighty Alameda Elementary School bike bus that Portlander Sam Balto launched back in April, was featured on NBC Nightly News, one of the top news shows in America.

I hope what they said about the bike bus broke through to the 7 million viewers of this show. Here’s the text of the segment:

“Remember being in a bike gang you were a kid? Well, every Wednesday morning in the Portland Public School District, a small trickle of bikes forms around 8:00 am. They call it the bike bus and as it begins to flow through the neighborhood it gathers strength. Teacher Sam Balto is out front. Soon, a massive river of riders has formed. And that is when the feelings begin to overflow. On Wednesdays, the normal bus is mostly empty.
How do you convince parents that it’s possible to go from one bus to a bike? [he asks Sam]
We underestimate how much children love being social. Rain or shine. They’re motivated to see their buddies.
The effect on them is clear.
I could tell you here about the emissions saved by the bike bus, that it takes hundreds of cars off the road, and that it is very Portland. But the thing that sticks after so much stress and sorrow and loneliness the last few years, is watching all these kids floating to school on a vast ocean of joy.”

I hope this reminds folks that Portland isn’t “dying.” In these past few years we’ve embraced challenges, evolved, matured, and most importantly, planted seeds. We shouldn’t ignore what has happened and what we are still going through. But we should also acknowledge that the Sam Baltos of Portland and these bike bus riders have always been there. Some of us just chose to stop seeing them.

Portland’s “vast ocean of joy” is big enough for everyone. All you have to do is open your eyes.

Thanks Coach Balto and NBC News for helping us see again!

And this is just one of many national news stories about the bike bus. The Washington Post also featured the ride this week!

Human-protected bike lane protest draws attention to deadly intersection

The line of protestors on SE 26th Avenue south of Powell Blvd. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

— Taylor Griggs contributed to this story.

Showing a remarkable mix of courage, anger, and hope, nearly 200 people stood in the lanes of SE 26th on both sides of Powell Blvd Wednesday afternoon during rush-hour. They formed a human-protected bike lane as part of a protest organized by Bike Loud PDX, The Street Trust, and Oregon Walks meant to keep pressure on the Oregon Department of Transportation to make the intersection safer and to remember the deadly collision that cut Sarah Pliner’s life short just nine days ago.

Wearing bright green vests and shirts, these volunteers brought humanity to a car-centric streetscape and held the space for 30 minutes mostly in silence. Their mere presence made more noise than yelling ever could.

Outgoing Oregon Walks Executive Director and incoming Metro Councilor Ashton Simpson stood just feet from where Pliner’s body came to rest. When the signal on the southeast corner of the intersection turned red, he moved in front of car drivers, stared directly through their windshield and held a large sign that read, “Human Bike Box.”

Estelle Morley came to the protest with her friends Jean and Dave Gray. Morley was critically injured after being hit by a drunk driver while she was biking in Portland last summer. She said coming to this event was nerve-wracking considering what she’s been through, but she wants to see change on our streets.

“There’s not enough urgency,” Morley said, as she stood in the street using a cane for balance.

Dave Gray said the experience of waiting to see if Morley would survive the crash was horrifying. He thinks Portland has become a more dangerous place to ride a bike in recent years.

“It’s supposedly a very good bike city,” he told me. “But I think road rage has become a lot worse during the pandemic.”

@bikeportland
Direct action protest just happened at SE 26th & Powell where Sarah Pliner was hit and killed last Tuesday. Bike Loud PDX, Oregon Walks, and The Street Trust organized this human protected bike lane. Brave folks stood in the street to stand up for safety! #portland #directaction #protest #bicycling #visionzero
♬ original sound – bikeportland

One attendee, Meg Niemi, was wearing an eye-grabbing shirt that read ‘my kid got hit by a car on Powell Blvd.’ In August, her 15-year-old son was hit while biking on SE 45th and Powell and suffered life-threatening injuries. He is recovering and just went back to school. Niemi said they’re lucky he survived, and hopes Pliner’s tragic death will result in something tangible.

“It’s so unfortunate that there’s been this death. But I think we’re at a moment where some change could happen.”

The trauma of Pliner’s death has reverberated throughout the community. One group of people immediately impacted were those who witnessed the crash, which included hundreds of Cleveland High School students on their lunch break, employees of the nearby Burgerville and people who live in the surrounding neighborhood.

Jacob Scaia lives on 26th Ave right next to the scene of the crash. He was one of the first people on the scene when Pliner was killed. “Every time an 18-wheeler or a bicyclist comes down here and I see them, I relive it,” Scaia told me. “If I hear a loud noise, I’ll jump off the couch and look out the window.”

Scaia has some ideas for what ODOT could do to make this intersection safer, especially considering its proximity to Cleveland High School. “Remove trucks from 26th Ave,” Scaia said. He also suggested turning the block of 26th in front of Powell into a carfree zone.

At one point during the protest the driver of a large, 53-foot semi-truck pulling a trailer — almost identical to the one that killed Pliner — rumbled north on 26th past the long line of protestors. Heads turned and tracked its movement as it made the same type of sweeping right turn onto Powell Blvd that we think led to last Tuesday’s tragedy It was a sobering reminder of the dangers still present at this intersection. (Note: Watch the truck take the turn in the video above.)

Related: ODOT says US DOT Sec Pete Buttigieg will be Oregon’s ‘new best friend’

Another reminder of what we’re up against came in the form of a few people who yelled mean things out of their car windows or threateningly revved their car engines as they passed. But given the mood of many these days and the in-your-face nature of the protest, I was actually relieved there weren’t more, and more serious, altercations.

That might have something to do with the sheer number of people that turned out. There’s always strength in numbers. Those at the protest felt it, and those in their cars did too.

Now comes the part of waiting to see if those numbers translate into real, substantive change. This is the third protest we’ve covered at this intersection since 2015. If our leaders’ actions speak louder than their words, it should be our last.

Full gallery below:

— If you want to stay engaged and help make a difference, attend the Community Forum at Cleveland High School next Thursday, October 20th. The Street Trust is also hosting a community information session on October 19th where they’ll help you with the policy and political background you need to prep for the forum.

Three new neighborhood greenways coming near Hawthorne Blvd

The Portland Bureau of Transportation disappointed a lot of people with their decision to not add bike lanes to Southeast Hawthorne Blvd last year. But if there was a silver lining, it was that they also promised to make the streets around Hawthorne better for bicycling.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee, a city planner shared initial plans to make good on that promise.

One of the key arguments for putting bike lanes on Hawthorne through the popular commercial district was to give everyone — not just car drivers — easy access to all the shops and restaurants. Since PBOT wasn’t willing to take that step, improving the network of neighborhood greenways nearby was the next best thing. At last night’s meeting PBOT Planner Zef Wagner said they’ve set aside $80,000 in funding to tackle this in two separate ways: improve existing greenways, and add a few new ones.

When it comes to existing greenways, PBOT will add diversion and traffic calming features (usually speed bumps) until drivers are going 20 mph or less and there are fewer than 1,000 average car trips a day.

There are already several well-used neighborhood greenways that serve Hawthorne. Salmon/Taylor (to the north) and Lincoln/Harrison (to the south) are old standbys that run parallel to it. Wagner said driving speeds on Salmon/Taylor remain higher than they prefer, so more speed bumps will be coming soon. And for Lincoln/Harrison, PBOT is currently evaluating some recent additions to decrease driving volumes and speeds.

The current north-south greenway streets of 29th and 52nd already meet speed and volume guidelines, so those won’t get any new investment. But PBOT will add speed bumps to slow drivers down on the 41st Ave greenway.

The big news from the meeting is that PBOT will establish three new north-south greenways: on SE 23rd, 34th and 45th (see above).

Wagner shared traffic data showing that 23rd already meets the guidelines and fills a gap in bike-friendly streets between SE 16th and 29th. “This is a pretty big gap and there’s a lot there’s a cluster of commercial activity happening at 23rd Ave,” he said. “So we thought that would be a good connection between Harrison and Salmon.” Since 23rd already meets their speed and volume thresholds, and since PBOT striped a new crosswalk there as part of the Pave & Paint project, all it takes to make this new greenway official will be sharrow pavement markings and wayfinding signs.

34th is already a very popular bike route and PBOT wants to fortify it as an official greenway. Wagner said at over 2,000 cars per day it’s got too much car traffic, so they’ll do some diversion to bring that down. They haven’t decided if the diverters will be placed on Hawthorne or on 34th.

To make SE 45th a greenway, PBOT says it should only take the addition of speed bumps.

With these traffic calming and diversion features going in, Wagner said PBOT will study how traffic flows change in the neighborhood in order to limit impacts of cut-through drivers on nearby streets.

In a report PBOT released last year ahead of there Hawthorne decision, they hinted at the goal of these neighborhood greenway upgrades. “Once this expanded network is fully established, all destinations along Hawthorne will be within roughly a three-block walk from a designated bikeway,” it read.

If all goes according to plan, these projects will be in place in late 2023 or early 2024. Stay tuned for opportunities to share feedback as things develop. View PBOT’s presentation here (PDF).

Jury awards $1.05 million to bike rider hit by bus driver in Tigard

On Monday, a Multnomah County jury awarded $1.05 million to a Tigard resident who was hit by a bus operator while riding his bicycle on Highway 99.

It’s a victory, but a reminder that bicycle riders and their advocates still face an uphill battle when it comes to establishing a legal right to the road.

The collision happened on October 7th just before 9:00 am. 62-year-old Tigard resident Michael Kruss was riding his bike southbound in the bike lane of Highway 99. As he passed SW Versailles Road and saw a bridge over the Tualatin River (Google Map) coming up, Kruss had a choice to make — because the bike lane on this State of Oregon-owned facility abruptly ended about 100 feet in front of him.

Kruss’s bike in slide from Forum Law Group presentation.

We all know the feeling: Do you stay in the main roadway and risk being closer to other traffic? Or do you take a gamble on a sidewalk behind the guardrail that is full of debris, vegetation, and who knows what else? In this case, Kruss, a former All-American swimmer, chose to stay in the lane.

While Kruss continued south, the driver of a Yamhill County Transit bus, Kelly Bigelow, drove up behind him. According to a driver statement showed during the six-day trial, Bigelow saw Kruss in the bike lane. But the driver claimed that Kruss was “wobbling” in the bike lane and was riding “on or near” the white stripe of paint that separates the lanes.

“The driver stated he slowed because of the rider’s behaviors,” reads the driver statement recorded by First Transit, the private company that runs Yamhill’s transit system. “[Bigelow] looked up to check traffic in front of him and his distance from the bridge. While his attention was diverted from the bike rider, he heard a thud on the side of the bus.”

That “thud” was Kruss being hit and then slammed to the ground. The impact resulted in major injuries including a broken clavicle and scapula that required immediate surgery. Kruss also suffered a sternal fracture, nine broken ribs, and several serious contusions. He spent 17 days in the hospital, had three surgeries, and racked up over $318,000 in medical bills.

Adding insult to injury was the fact that lawyers for First Transit denied that it even happened and blamed Kruss for the collision. If not for Kruss’s legal team, led by Scott Kocher of Forum Law Group (a BikePortland financial supporter and contributor), we might never know the truth.

Forum Law Group filed suit against Bigelow and First Transit. Their complaint claimed that the driver’s actions led to Kruss’s injuries and that First Transit failed to adequately train and supervise their employee.

First Transit denied the allegations. The injuries and damages to Kruss, “Were caused by his own negligence,” stated a filing by First Transit’s lawyers, Bullivant Houser Bailey. They claimed it was Kruss who lost balance on his own, failed to see the bus (which was behind him), didn’t stay in the bike lane, and so on.

First Transit hired an expert witness, a retired leader of the Portland Police Bureau traffic crash reconstruction team, to back up their claims that Kruss wasn’t struck by Bigelow’s bus.

A key piece of evidence in the case was a black smear mark on the bus. Even though the mark was consistent with the height and composition of the rubber on Kruss’s handlebar grip, First Transit’s expert witness tried to deny it. It was only from Kocher’s cross-examination of the retired PPB officer that the truth came out.

Kocher and his team were also able to demonstrate to the jury that First Transit’s training requires bus operators give four feet of space to bicycle riders when they pass. Throughout the trial, First Transit acknowledged zero responsibility for what happened.

The design of the roadway was also a factor (the official Tigard Bike Map lists this section of the highway as a “difficult connection”) in the collision. Not only is this a 45 mph speed limit state highway with an unprotected bike lane, but as you can see in the images, the bike lane striping narrows from the standard eight-inch width to just four inches prior to the bridge (the legal width of a shoulder). This is a frustratingly common ODOT treatment that disrespects the rights and safety of bicycle riders and forces them into a precarious position. ODOT also failed to maintain a potential alternate route on the other side of the guardrail.

Even with the clear negligence of ODOT’s infrastructure, Kocher didn’t make them part of this case given the presence of strong “discretionary immunity” laws and other complications. Kocher felt his case was strong enough to win without getting mired in the mud with the State of Oregon.

Kocher felt it was entirely reasonable for Kruss to establish his presence on the white line prior to the bridge because he had made up his mind to share the lane. It was safer for Kruss to begin to move to the left of the shoulder well before the bridge so that he wouldn’t make a last second swerve where the road narrows at the guardrail.

Scott Kocher (middle) and Michael Kruss (green shirt) after the verdict with other members of the legal team. (Photo: Forum Law Group)

Given the width of the roadway and the requirement of a four-foot passing distance, the safe move for the bus operator would have been to slow and wait behind Kruss until the road widened again after the bridge. But the bus operator (who died from Covid before he could be deposed or participate in the trial), chose to make the unsafe pass.

After hearing the facts of the case and listening to arguments from both sides, the jury sided with Kruss. But while they awarded him $1.295 million for economic damages and $318,000 for medical costs, they also said Kruss shared 35% of the fault. That dropped his award to $1.05 million.

Kruss had a rear taillight and was riding in a legal position on a road in dry, daylight conditions. The fact that he was found to share any fault in this collision is very unfortunate.

“This case proves two things,” Kocher told me. “First, the justice system is not broken. This is a success. Is the system perfect? No, but for everyone that says there’s no justice, that’s not true.”

“And second,” he continued. “Even in 2022 we still have a long way to go to fight for our right to the road.”

Portland Vision Zero speed study shows limited results

Vision Zero and speed limit reduction were the topics of presentations at a Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) Friday Transportation Seminar at Portland State University last week.

Clay Veka, Portland Bureau of Transportation Vision Zero program coordinator introduced the bureau’s “Safe Systems” approach to speed management, and Portland State University Research Associate and Adjunct Professor Jason Anderson presented the results of two studies he conducted to determine the effectiveness of PBOT’s speed reduction efforts. (PBOT commissioned the studies.)

Anderson studied travel speeds before and after PBOT’s 20 is Plenty program swapped out 25 mph signs for 20 mph signs on small local streets and found that it successfully lowered traffic speeds, with statistical significance. Two years ago, PBOT touted that result as supporting the program’s efficacy, and it was covered by area media.

Presentation slides from PBOT/PSU. The “Modeling Results” are from the “25 to 20” study, the “Summary and Conclusions” from the Arterials and Collectors study.

On Friday, Anderson presented data from an unpublished companion study, Speed Limit Reduction on Arterials and Collectors. PBOT did not have a high-profile program for the larger roads similar to the “20 is Plenty” campaign for smaller, residential streets.

The bureau used historical speed readings as “before” baselines, and collected post-speed-reduction “after” data in 2020 and 2021—during the middle of the pandemic. Anderson pointed out that the pandemic introduced confounding factors for which there were no experimental controls, such as riskier driving behavior and less traffic.

Despite pandemic complications, the study reported that reducing the speed limit by 5 mph resulted in a modestly decreased average observed speed of 2.0% for arterials and 2.7% for collectors. To save the reader doing the math, 2% of 25 mph is 0.5 mph.

Friday’s audience was underwhelmed by those results. A couple of questioners skirted the issue, but eventually someone got direct: What should policymakers with “limited resources” make of the “small gains”?

PBOT’s Veka fielded that question,

“Setting the speed limit is setting expectation, what is the appropriate speed to travel? And…that’s not enough, you can’t just do that. But it can be relatively quick compared to major redesign projects, and it can be effective. In partnership—adding those street-calming elements is really important. But I would say don’t wait. Do what you can now.“

In the face of possibly inconclusive study results, Veka might be too readily retreating from the efficacy of reducing speed. Reading “after” results in the midst of a traffic-altering pandemic could be like surveying the land in the middle of an earthquake. The methods could all be sound, but gosh, the earth is shaking.

Experiments ideally test one change at a time. Either you can try to determine the effects of a pandemic on observed speed, or you can test the effect of posting lower speed limits. When the world conspires to make both happen at the same time, it is difficult to tease apart the causality of your observations.

Trucks, turns, and the tragedy on Powell Blvd

View from northbound SE 26th approaching Powell Blvd. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“That truck and that trailer really is not made for 26th at all.”
– Keith Wilson, TITAN Freight Systems

Note: Not all the details of this tragedy are yet known. I am only confident in the truck operator’s movement prior to the collision; but there are still unknowns about Sarah’s final moments.

Let’s talk about truck traffic at Southeast 26th and Powell Blvd and how it relates to the death of Sarah Pliner.

Last Tuesday, Sarah was biking toward the southeast corner of that intersection just before 12 noon. It was a school day and dozens of Cleveland High School students milled around — in the crosswalks and at Powell Park, which is catty-corner from the school and a popular place to hang out during lunch period.

As Sarah made her way to the corner (she approached it from the east, but we don’t know where exactly she came from), a man driving a 53-foot semi-truck with a trailer attached was traveling northbound on SE 26th Avenue. The truck operator made a right turn to continue eastbound on Powell (a state highway). Because of the limited space available, and based on where his truck ultimately came to rest (the left of two lanes facing eastbound on Powell), it’s likely that the truck driver swung out wide to the left and then turned back sharply to the right in order to complete the turn. Sometime during this movement, Sarah came in contact with the truck and was killed.

This type of turn, sometimes called a jug handle, is inherently dangerous because it can fool other road users into thinking the truck is headed left or straight, when it’s really just prepping to turn hard to the right. When that hard turn to the right happens, the rear of the trailer does what’s known as “off-tracking” where the wheels cut into the corner. A similar turning movement contributed to the death of Kathryn Rickson on SW Madison in 2012 and a serious injury collision on the downtown transit mall in 2010.

The swerve of a jug handle turn is a well-known risk among truck drivers. In driver forums there’s a lot of discussion about how to perform these turns and the consequences when things go wrong.

We still don’t know exactly what happened on Tuesday, but I think there’s a chance Sarah rolled into a space she thought was safe initially, only to run out of time once that window of safety quickly closed.

Either way, the presence of the truck is what killed Sarah Pliner. So why was the truck there? Is it even possible to make that turn safely? Did the design of that corner contribute to this outcome?

Gregg Dal Ponte (left) and Keith Wilson.

To get a handle on these questions, I reached out to Gregg Dal Ponte and Keith Wilson, who have 70 years of combined experience in the trucking industry. Dal Ponte is director of regulatory compliance with Oregon Trucking Associations Inc., an influential trade organization. Before the OTA, Dal Ponte spent time as a truck driver and sales rep for a trucking company. The majority of his career, 27 years, was spent at the Oregon Department of Transportation where he was administrator of the Motor Carrier Transportation Division in charge of vehicle regulation, truck and driver safety, size and weight enforcement, and so on. Keith Wilson is the president and CEO of TITAN Freight Systems, a company he has been at the helm of for over 24 years. He is also a member of the City of Portland Freight Advisory Committee and ran for a position on Portland City Council in 2020.

Both of these experts told me the infrastructure is inherently problematic.

Trucks on 26th

There are a lot of truck drivers that use 26th Avenue and Powell Blvd. The reasons are obvious once you zoom out on the map. The main office and a distribution center for the Fred Meyer supermarket chain is just 600 feet away. Union Pacific’s 110-acre Brooklyn Intermodal Rail Yard is just a half-mile away. Powell offers direct connections to the Interstate Freeway system to the west and east.

Despite its industrial proximity, 26th Ave is not an official freight route. ODOT says it’s a “major collector”, not a freight route, and the City of Portland’s Transportation System Plan routes freight trucks to Holgate Blvd and McLoughlin — not 26th.

Even so, truckers continue to use 26th and make these turns to-and-from Powell.

That’s a big problem, according to both Dal Ponte and Wilson.

Turning the corner

Southeast corner of 26th and Powell where Sarah Pliner died.

Dal Ponte explained that truck turning radii are a function of the distance between the king pin (where the trailer attaches to the rear of the truck body) to the rear axle (or king pin to rear axle, KPRA). “The shorter that measurement is, the easier the vehicle makes turns common to an urban setting. The bigger the KPRA, the less likely it’s going to make good turning movements,” he said.

Many 53-foot trucks have sliding dual axles, which means the operator can move the axle fore or aft depending on the weight of the load. This can effectively shorten or lengthen the KPRA, thus changing a truck operators’ possible turning radius. The position of the axles also impacts the weight capacity of the trailer. A longer KPRA measurement, which leads to more dangerous turns, allows truckers to carry heavier (more profitable) loads. Dal Ponte said this sets up “competing interests” because if freight companies used safer trucks, they’d have to make more trips.

“An urban driver is going to have a hard time making corners with the axles all the way back… the danger is when you’re making that right-hand turn in certain geometries, your rear trailer and tandem [rear] axles are going to jump the curb cut across the sidewalk,” he added. “That’s just geometry, but it’s also not safe.”

Wilson, whose company operates trucks out of seven terminals across Oregon and Washington, said their policy would not allow a truck like the one that killed Sarah Pliner to be operated on 26th. “That driver had a 53-foot box,” Wilson said, “there is no physical way he could have made that corner without going into the oncoming lane to prep… That truck and that trailer really is not made for 26th at all.”

In 2015, ODOT realized this corner was unsafe and they spent part of the $4.6 million Powell Blvd Safety Project budget to address it. ODOT felt the corner didn’t have enough space to safely accommodate the large groups of students. They also knew that truck operators would routinely turn right from 26th Avenue to Powell and their rear wheels would mount the curb and roll up onto the sidewalk. To address these concerns, they cut back vegetation and made a larger concrete waiting area. ODOT also cut out the existing curb and replaced it with a “truck apron” and much wider turn radius.

ODOT said this would, “Increase safety by allowing large vehicles to turn without entering the pedestrian zone or encroaching on vehicle lanes.” Not only do truck operators still encroach on other lanes to make these turns, it’s not clear if the new corner design is actually any safer. ODOT has removed an obstacle (the tight corner and curb) and now truck and car drivers are able to take the turn at higher speeds with less consequence.

Prior to our conversation, Wilson visited the corner. When I asked him about the changes ODOT made in 2018 he said, “On balance, I don’t see it as a real positive… I don’t see it as an improvement.” Wilson pointed to the new curb ramps and added that, “Kids or people are standing right there with no protection. Those dual axles are very dangerous. There’s no doubt about it.”

If 26th is so problematic, why not ban trucks?

Photo of the scene looking west on SE Powell toward SE 26th intersection.

Wilson thinks any attempt to prohibit trucks from accessing Powell from 26th will just create other problems. “You’d simply push the traffic to an adjacent street,” he said. “Freight needs to play in that sandbox with those other vehicles because it’s a quasi-industrial area,” Wilson added, listing off the rail yard and the Fred Meyer headquarters.

Dal Ponte was more open to the idea of a possible ban on trucks. He said if he was still working at ODOT, he’d consider routing them off of 26th, or at least limiting the length and/or size of trucks allowed to use it. “I’d pinpoint the shippers and receivers in the area and see if an alternate truck route was viable.” Dal Ponte said any new freight truck regulation would be strongly resisted by business interests, but it would be worth it. “Shippers won’t like it because the costs would go up… but what value would somebody place on a life like this person that died?” he said.

Portland Bureau of Transportation Director Chris Warner talked about this on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud radio program today. He said he’d, “Look at ways to move that [freight traffic] back to Holgate and not use 26th as a throughput.”

Focus on the infrastructure, not the trucks

Wilson and Dal Ponte had different ideas about where our focus on solutions should be placed.

Let’s start with Wilson. He thinks we’d be smartest to change the infrastructure so that truck operators can make safer turns.

Currently, there are two travel lanes on northbound 26th at Powell and one striped shoulder. (There used to be a narrow bike lane that led to a bike box at this corner. In 2018, ODOT removed the bike box and reclassified the bike lane as a “safety shoulder” in their effort to discourage bike riders from using 26th.)

Wilson thinks ODOT should make the lanes safer for bike riders and everyone else. To do that, he recommends removing the left turn lane in order to give more separation between users and give truck drivers the space to make right turns without having to do the jug handle maneuver. “The left turn lane shouldn’t be there,” Wilson said. “You can’t have a built environment with pedestrians, bikes and trucks sharing that same unprotected area. It’s just a recipe for disaster.”

“With just one lane [in each direction] it may impede the traffic flow a little bit, but then you’re able to have a lot larger bike lane.” “You have to look at what is your priority,” Wilson continued. “And if it’s only congested during that one hour in the morning, then our focus should be protecting pedestrians and protecting bikes.”

Focus on the trucks, not the infrastructure

Dal Ponte thinks, “There’s a insufficient land and inadequate financing to change the infrastructure,” so he’d focus on better regulation of existing truck traffic.

Unlike California, Oregon doesn’t use the KPRA ratio to regulate trucks on highways. Instead, they use only overall length. Dal Ponte thinks that’s a mistake because it doesn’t allow for “nuance” in policymaking. Dal Ponte said if ODOT used that ratio they could create a new policy that only trucks with a certain maximum KPRA measurement are allowed to use inner Powell.

While he studied a potential size restriction, Dal Ponte said he’d take immediate action to ban trucks with the longer trailers from using 26th altogether. “I think more trucks that can safely make the turn are better than fewer trucks that can’t. Right?” he said.

In the week since Sarah’s death, we’ve been able to direct tremendous scrutiny onto ODOT and this terrible intersection. The comments made by ODOT Director Kris Strickler Monday are a positive sign that there might be an opportunity for significant change (“To keep our community safe, no change is off the table,” he said).

While there’s a lot of work and big decisions ahead, it feels like almost everyone agrees the current infrastructure is broken and it must be fixed as soon as possible.

“The root of this problem is that the infrastructure is old,” Dal Ponte shared with me. “And it was never designed optimally for the mix of uses it sees today. Something’s got to give.”

Our calendar now lists key regional transportation committees

people sitting in chairs around a table in a conference room — What committee meetings looked like back in the pre-Zoom days – now you can usually watch them from home. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

There are a lot of government advisory committees in the Portland area (too many, some might say) that are open to the public, several of which are extremely relevant to transportation issues. And while they don’t always sound thrilling to attend, a lot can go down at these meetings and they often have a big impact on transportation outcomes in the area.

Due to the pandemic and subsequent mass Zoom adoption, participating in these meetings is now more accessible than ever – you can usually watch them from the comfort of your own couch. But that’s only if you know they’re happening – which you may not, since there hasn’t been a central calendar to keep track of them all.

Until now!

Screengrab of our calendar with only Advocacy Meeting category visible. Check it out here

We’ve just added some of the most important regional transportation advisory committee meetings to the BP Calendar. You can find all the meetings below listed each month:

Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC)
Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee (PAC)
Portland Freight Advisory Committee (PFAC)
Metro Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT)
Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC)
Oregon Mobility Advisory Committee (MAC)
Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC)
Multnomah County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (MCBPAC)

If you search the calendar by category for “Advocacy Meetings” you can limit your view to just these listings.

To take your activism one step further, sign up to receive email updates for these meetings, which will allow you to see the meeting agenda in advance and be notified about any date, time or meeting location changes. Sign up for email notifications for: Portland Bureau of Transportation, Oregon Department of Transportation, Metro and Multnomah County.

It’s important to show up for these meetings! They allow public testimony and are very welcoming of guests.

Of course we know you’re busy and that’s why we track the agendas and attend all these meetings whenever necessary as part of our service to you; but we figured some of you might like to get a bit more engaged. Let us know if this is helpful, and feel free to suggest other committees we should list.

Top bicycle builders coming to Portland for ‘Open House’ Saturday

(Photos from 2018 Chris King Open House by Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

If you’re the type of person who can lose yourself in the beauty of a bicycle, or if you’re in the market for your dream bike, then you don’t want to miss the Chris King Open House this Saturday. The seventh annual event will be a gathering of 15 of America’s top bicycle makers (and one from Spain), all of whom have created custom machines specifically for this show.

Our friends at Chris King Precision Components have shared the list of this years builders:

Moots (Steamboat Springs, CO)
Mosaic (Boulder, CO)
Alliance (Hailey, ID)
Simple Bicycle Co. (Portland, OR)
SyCip (Santa Rosa, CA)
DeSalvo (Ashland, OR)
Pursuit (Bozeman, MT)
Retrotec (Napa, CA)
Breadwinner (Portland, OR)
Speedvagen (Portland, OR)
No.22 (Johnstown, NY)
Chumba (Austin, TX)
English (Eugene, OR)
Rizzo (Madrid, Spain)
Horse (Brooklyn, NY)
Sage (Beaverton, OR)

Chris King Precision Components started in Santa Barbara, California in 1976 and quickly became known for its bombproof headsets. They moved to a large factory in Portland’s Northwest Industrial District in 2004. Now approaching their 50th year in business, the company has expanded their component offerings to hubs and wheels and is respected around the globe for quality products and sustainable business practices.

At the open house they’ll offer guided shop tours and a new component color will be revealed. In addition to custom bikes, there will be exhibits from brands like Simworks, Cervelo, Santa Cruz, Robert Axle Project/Old Man Mtn, Super-Pacific (with guest Snow Peak and LoLo Bike Racks) and Biciclista Clothing. Also at the event will be students from the Benson Tech High School Bicycle Frame Building program.

Doors open at 11:00 am and the event will run until 4:00 pm at 2801 NW Nela St. It’s free to attend! See our calendar for more info.

Have bike questions? Get yourself a bike buddy

“We all love biking and we all love to be asked questions that we know the answers to. It feels like an easy win-win.”
-Vivek Jeevan, Bike Loud PDX

It can feel daunting to start biking in Portland if you’re not accustomed to it. Luckily, thanks to all the knowledgeable and passionate advocates we have here, there’s no need to go it alone. Rumors of the stereotypical, intimidating Portland cyclist have been greatly exaggerated: there are hundreds of people who want nothing more than to show you the ropes and will welcome you with open arms.

If you want to find one of those people, bike advocacy non-profit Bike Loud PDX has you covered with their newly-launched ‘Bike Buddy’ program. All you have to do is fill out a form with a bit of information about yourself and Bike Loud volunteers will match you with a buddy to bike around with you and answer any questions that might come up along the way.

Bike Loud member and road safety instructor Vivek Jeevan has been leading the charge to get this program up and running. The non-profit has been working hard to advocate for their goal of getting Portland to a 25% bike mode share by 2030, especially with their weekly rides to the Portland State University farmer’s market, where they sometimes set up tables to chat with people passing by. Jeevan said he had the ‘aha!’ moment while he was working one of these outreach events: even with all the work they do, there was still a more direct component missing.

Vivek Jeevan. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“People say they want to bike, but they have concerns – maybe they have a flat tire they don’t know how to fix, or they don’t know the best routes to take or what to wear,” Jeevan told me. “We have solutions.”

The days of bicycle gatekeeping are long behind us: we are now in the era of bike buddies. Ask anything you want – there are no stupid questions within the pursuit of creating a safer city for everyone and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Fill out Bike Loud’s form, which you can find here, to get the process started. And remember that every seasoned Portland bike rider was once a newbie, so there’s nothing to fear! I promise that your bike buddy will love to help you.

“We all love biking and we all love to be asked questions that we know the answers to,” Jeevan said. “It feels like an easy win-win.”

ODOT Director wants to ‘quickly transform Powell into safer roadway’

ODOT Director Kris Strickler (Photo: ODOT)

“The design of the facility is so focused on traffic movement that more changes are needed. If changes result in slowing traffic down, I believe that is an acceptable tradeoff.”
– Kris Strickler

ODOT has just released a statement from Director Kris Strickler following last week’s death of Sarah Pliner at on SE Powell Blvd (State Highway 26).

Here’s the full statement:

“Powell Boulevard (U.S. 26) was originally established and designed as a highway to move freight and people through Portland quickly and efficiently. Recent incidents on Powell, including a tragic death on Oct. 4, are evidence that this road cannot, and should not, function as a traditional highway anymore. It’s time to make changes to ensure the safety of all users.
I have directed our team to evaluate possible options to quickly transform Powell into a safer roadway.
Recognizing that travel speeds dramatically affect the likelihood and severity of crashes, last year we reduced the speed limit on Inner Powell to 30. We also built pedestrian islands and signalized crosswalks that help make the currently-designed road function more safely by making bicyclists and pedestrians more visible. But the truth is that the design of the facility is so focused on traffic movement that more changes are needed.

In recent years, we’ve slowed traffic speeds, added protected crosswalks, installed wider bike lanes, and reduced travel lanes on our urban highways in Portland. We’ve even transferred ownership of an ODOT road to local control. To keep our community safe, no change is off the table.
To connect Oregon communities and connect Oregon to the rest of the region and the world, ODOT spent the last century building highways. These highways are and will remain essential as they continue to carry millions of Oregonians and billions of dollars of commerce every day. Our communities, businesses, and state need freight access in order to continue to thrive, but we know that we can increase safety for all users and still serve the needs of our communities and our state.
If changes result in slowing traffic down, I believe that is an acceptable tradeoff. My hope is that most people would make the same choice.
There will be a community forum on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. at Cleveland High School. Representatives from the Portland Bureau of Transportation, ODOT, Portland Public Schools and TriMet will be there. I will be there as well. ODOT will be prepared to discuss ways we can make swift and meaningful changes to Powell Boulevard at this event. I encourage you to attend and bring your suggestions.”
Kris Strickler,
Director of the Oregon Department of Transportation

This is an amazing statement for an ODOT director to make so soon after a collision like this. Especially since his own agency spokesperson said just last week that it was “premature” to blame ODOT for what happened. It makes me think ODOT is feeling very exposed in terms of their responsibility for what happened. After all, in 2018 the agency made an intentional choice to remove bicycle infrastructure from the exact corner where Sarah Pliner was hit and killed just a few days ago. Those changes made the intersection less safe for bicycle riders, while doing nothing to prevent bicycle riders from using the intersection.

This could be a golden opportunity to make substantive change on Powell Blvd. Or it could be a savvy PR move from ODOT to try and cover up a bad news cycle. Time will tell. Stay tuned for more coverage.

Human protected bike lane, safety forum planned as response to SE Powell Blvd tragedy

Portland-based nonprofit Bike Loud PDX is not taking the death of Sarah Pliner lightly. The group has been working nonstop since last Tuesday’s tragic collision to make sure something is done to make the intersection where she died safer.

On Wednesday, they are asking everyone to join them for a demonstration on SE 26th and Powell Blvd. The plan, hatched by Bike Loud along with fellow nonprofits The Street Trust and Oregon Walks is for event attendees to stand in the street to make a point about the vulnerability of bicycle riders and the need for more safe space. They also want to increase pressure on the Oregon Department of Transportation to add back cycling infrastructure they removed in 2018.

“Gather in solidarity with us to demand that ODOT restore the bicycle facilities on SE 26th to the state they were (or better) prior to their forced removal in 2018,” a Bike Loud statement sent out this afternoon reads. “We need hundreds of you to come together and stand arm in arm to reclaim this street space for its most vulnerable users. In solidarity, we will demand that ODOT immediately restore the safety infrastructure they forced out.”

Human protected bike lane on Naito Parkway in 2017. (Photo: Michael Andersen/BikePortland)

This won’t be the first human-protected bike lane Portlanders have seen. In September 2017 over 100 people showed up on Naito Parkway as part of a protest against the removal of a protected bike lane that was first only a seasonal installation. It was made permanent three years later.

Wednesday’s event will start at 3:30. Interested participants are being asked to sign up ahead of time.

In related news, two Oregon State Representatives and one State Senator have organized a forum on Powell Blvd October 20th. Representatives Rob Nosse and Karin Power, along with Senator Kathleen Taylor will host the Community Safety Forum at the Cleveland High School Auditorium at 6:00 pm. According to an event flyer that’s been shared with neighborhood groups, the event will be a, “a community discussion with state and local agencies focusing on solutions for improving safety.”

Representatives from ODOT, PBOT, TriMet and Portland Public Schools are slated to attend. See more information on our calendar.