Many of you already saw my photos and reflections from Bridge Pedal on Sunday. While out there I was also working on a brand new thing: interviews by bike. It’s a thing I’ve been wanting to do for years, but has taken some time to get the headspace and gear to the point where it could actually happen. So without further delay…
Welcome to the first Biked & Mic’d! Think Carpool Karaoke without the singing or the car, and with random strangers I see biking around. After testing it out last week on North Willamette Blvd, I took my setup out to Bridge Pedal. It was so much fun! I think this format has some exciting potential and I can’t wait to keep making it better. (By the way, if any City Hall staff see this and are down for me to interview your boss, just drop a line!)
It’s always fun how many people I see at events that I already know. In this episode you’ll see a mix of new faces and folks you might recognize including: Tina Ricks who I recently featured in a video out in Washington County, veteran bike advocate Ted Buehler, Beaverton City Councilor-elect Kevin Teater, Pedalpalooza Super-Volunteer William Hsu, and I even bumped into PBOT City Traffic Engineer Wendy Cawley (don’t worry PBOT communications team, I didn’t ask her any tough questions!).
Give it a watch and please let me know what you think. I’m open to feedback and keep in mind this is my first attempt at a new format (and frankly, I have no idea if anyone will actually like this because I’ve only showed it to my family.)
And I also want to thank Tern Bicycles for the HSD e-bike loaner. It makes this interviewing-by-bike thing so much easier (especially when I’m going up hill as you’ll see in the video). If folks are interested, I will do a separate post with a detailed breakdown of my bike and camera gear set-up.
Alexis Vazquez and Nanette Beyale. (Photo: Carter Silago)
Event poster.
Portland’s first Native & Indigenous bike ride is coming up on August 27th. Organizers have been working hard to make this an event to remember, and they have an action-packed agenda. The day will start with a 9-mile, party-pace ride (for Native and Indigenous folks only) from the downtown waterfront area to Laurelhurst Park and end with an event open to everyone at the Native American Student and Community Center at Portland State University. The post-ride gathering will start at 5:00 pm, and there will be fry bread, vendors and music to enjoy, as well as free paletas (popsicles) from Ice Queen for the first 50 people.
Alexis Vazquez is organizing the ride and event with their partner Nanette Beyale. Vazquez identifies as both Puerto Rican and Taíno, and moved to Portland from Brooklyn, New York about five years ago. Beyale has been in Portland for about a year, moving from Navajo Nation in New Mexico. They created this event for Native Americans and people like Vazquez who identify as Indigenous to places outside the U.S.
For people who want to join the ride but don’t own a bike, or who want to ride an electric bike, can access a $50 Biketown credit by filling out a waiver here. Portland bike group Chingonas Outside will provide helmets to those in need and Vazquez recommends reaching out to them via Instagram for more information.
Vazquez shared more details about the event with me via email.
“It’s great when you have a bunch of people that come together not only because you share the same interest in biking, but because you share the same interest in building a community and space for one another.”
– Alexis Vazquez
What inspired you to organize this ride?
[Beyale and I] have been inseparable since last October, and we’ve come to love cycling together. We grew to find a sense of community through the amazing work Will Cortez, Chingonas Outside, and the whole family at BikePOCPNW have brought to Portland. We found a space that we felt at home at due to the fact that [these groups] were created for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), and it made us want to be part of that and bring that feeling to our specific communities as well.
It’s great when you have a bunch of people that come together not only because you share the same interest in biking, but because you share the same interest in building a community and space for one another.
What has the organizing process been like?
It was grueling but paid off big time. We chose our venue, vendors and entertainment very carefully. We are ending the ride and hosting the end event at PSU’s Native American Student and Community Center, our food vendor is Native-owned Sisters Fry Bread, and our DJ is Indigenous as well. Even our photographer is Navajo!
We wanted donations and sponsorships to come from outside our Native and Indigenous communities, which is why we partnered up with people like Biketown/Lyft, Pedalpalooza, Trek Bikes, Fat Tire Farm, and CyclePath. We wanted to have all of the allies of our community help us put this on for our people that will be riding with us.
The funding will provide payment for the venue first as a priority. Any additional donations will be given to the Native and Indigenous vendors/affiliates.
What would a successful ride look like? Will it be an annual tradition?
A successful ride to us is even if only five people showed up, that they felt they had a space, made some friends and enjoyed the sense of community we are attempting to create. Depending on how it goes, we might announce at the ending event if this will be annual or not!
The Multnomah County Circuit Court has ruled against the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) challenge to a voting and governance measure slated for November’s ballot. The PBA had argued that the broad package of changes referred to the ballot by the Charter Review Commission violated the state constitution’s single-subject requirement.
In today’s ruling, Judge Stephen K. Bushong concluded that the measure does not violate that requirement.
This is the second charter reform defeat this summer for the PBA. In July, the City Auditor’s office declined a PBA request to conduct a constitutional review of the proposed reforms, responding that the Auditor only reviews “initiatives”—measures brought to the ballot via signatures—not “referrals” to the ballot made by governing entities. Despite that setback, the PBA unsuccessfully pressed forward with this same argument to the Circuit Court.
In response to the ruling the co-chair of the Charter Review Commission, Melanie Billings-Yun, told BikePortland that:
The court has agreed that the Portland Charter Commission has developed an indivisible and comprehensive plan for bringing meaningful change to our city government. As Judge Bushong so rightly said in his ruling, “All the provisions in this package of reforms are properly connected to the unifying principle of reforming the structure and operation of city government.” That unifying principle is creating a governing system that is accountable, responsive and representative of all the people of Portland. Now Portland voters will have the power to choose a better future for our city.
Today’s decision brings to a close a strange interlude in which the City Council has been in the awkward position of watching the City Auditor’s and Attorney’s offices defend the legality of recommendations made by the council-appointed Charter Review Commission, even as council members’ reaction to the full package of those recommendations ranges from tepid to testy.
The Charter Review Commission (CRC) is an independent body of 20 volunteers called together by the Portland City Council every ten years to review and recommend changes to Portland’s city charter, the constitution of the city. Each Council member is allowed to nominate four charter commissioners who are then subject to Council confirmation. A super-majority of 15 out of 20 CRC commissioners can refer their recommended changes directly to the voters. By a comfortable 17 to 3 vote this past June, the current CRC referred its package of amendments to the November ballot.
Mayor Wheeler summed up the relation between the City Council and the Charter Review Commission in the June 29 Council meeting in which the CRC informed the Council of their recommendations:
You have voted with your super-majority to refer this directly to the residents of the City of Portland. Obviously, you are their body, not our body, and our comments here are truly for informational purposes only, as opposed to policy making.
As of today’s Circuit Court ruling, the fate of changes to Portland’s form of governance and method of electing city officials will be in the hands of November’s voters.
Between now and November, however, the charter reform measure will face organized opposition. Both Commissioner Mingus Mapps and former Council candidate Vadim Mozyrsky have political action committees which will oppose the full suite of changes proposed in the measure. As BikePortland previously reported, Mapps’s Ulysses PAC will host forums on alternatives to the current measure, and Mapps himself plans to put forward a draft alternative proposal for the Spring 2023 ballot.
Mozyrsky has teamed up with Chuck Duffy and Steven Moskowitz, former staffers of late Mayor Bud Clark, to form Partnership for Common Sense Government which brashly opposes the ballot measure.
But the measure also has a growing number of proponents, including the City Club of Portland, the League of Women Voters and the Urban League. And a recently formed group, Portland United for Change, is a coalition of organizations working to support the CRC measure.
Cassie Wilson (left) leads out the ride. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
“I had never really looked into attending group rides. I never thought those rides were accessible to me.”
– Cassie Wilson
“Bike fun” is a colloquialism often used here in Portland to describe that thing where people get together to socialize and ride bikes, often with a theme in mind. Pedalpalooza (now in its third spectacular month with hundreds of rides logged) is a cornucopia bike fun. If you see people dressed up in various costumes or in matching colors riding around together with a mobile sound system or two leading the way, that’s bike fun.
What we had never seen, was a group ride led by someone who relies on an adaptive bicycle. That is, until this past Friday when Boring, Oregon resident Cassie Wilson led a Harry Styles-themed ride along the Willamette Riverfront in southeast Portland. It had all the trappings of any other Pedalpalooza ride, except several of the bikes looked a bit different. It was also the first ride I’ve ever been on where one of the participants rode a wheelchair.
Adaptive bikes is a catch-all term for bikes that have special designs and/or components that make them possible to ride for people unable to pilot a standard, two-wheeled rig. They can run the gamut — from the highly customized one that armless, aspiring politician Michael Trimble rides daily around Portland; to having just one extra wheel for balance. Even a tandem is an adaptive bike. It’s similar to “cargo bikes” in that we create a special label for it, but just like every bike is a cargo bike if it’s carrying something, any bike that has an adaptation that makes it easier to ride could be called an adaptive bike.
Some of you might recall when I rode a handcycle in 2007. But it would be nine years later before adaptive bikes made major headlines. In June 2016, just as the City of Portland was about to launch its long-awaiting bike share system, a disability rights activist posed a very uncomfortable question: Would the new system be accessible for everyone? Would there be adaptive bikes to rent?
Friday’s ride was an amazing display of this continued trajectory of acceptance of adaptive bikes and their riders into Portland’s cycling community.
“Because I need an adaptive bike and I’m not strong enough to go very far,” said Wilson before Friday’s ride. “I had never really looked into attending group rides. I never thought those rides were accessible to me.”
As we shared in a Q & A with Wilson earlier this month, she has a form of dwarfism and stands 3-feet, 7-inches tall. Thanks to Adaptive Biketown she’s able to rent a hand-cycle that fits her to a tee. As she and other riders got settled into their bikes, a supportive crowd of a few dozen — several dressed in their Harry Styles best — milled around the big, red Albertina Kerr building on the Eastbank Esplanade between OMSI and the Hawthorne Bridge.
Oh the fashion!
When it was time to roll, Wilson pumped her arms, rolled to the front and the group headed south to the Springwater Corridor. We rode about 1.5 miles to a lookout point where Wilson led the group into a dirt singletrack trail. All the riders embraced the off-road challenge, and with a little push from supportive friends, everyone made it back onto the smooth Springwater path.
As Harry Styles hits boomed from a massive speaker strapped to the back of a bike trailer, everyone rode together back to the starting point. New perspectives were gained by all.
I was struck by what had happened: It takes a very special cycling and civic ecosystem to create something like this. It filled me with joy as I packed up my gear for the ride home and thought of something Wilson had said to me. What’s with the Harry Styles theme? I asked. “Why not?” she replied. “Music makes everything more fun. I really wanted to show people that group rides can be accessible, include everyone, and still have a fun theme.”
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“Right on red implies auto users should be moving even more rapidly through our streets.”
One reason I love the BikePortland comment section is because it is so educational. Case in point: I learned a new acronym last week: RTOR, or ROR.
It stands for Right Turn on Red (or Right on Red), which was the subject of one of last week’s Monday Roundup articles. The article was about the Washington D.C. Council considering a ban on right turns on a red signal as part of a transportation package aimed at making city streets safer.
Oregon also allows right-on-red, and BikePortland readers and commenters have an opinion about that.
It is not hard to describe the symptoms of the problem— drivers rolling through red lights, heads turned left looking for on-coming car traffic, and crashing into people to their right who are in the bike lane or crosswalk. But Mathew caught the essence of the problem — which is really car-centrism.
Here’s what he wrote:
Right-on-red was and is a terrible idea in relation to transportation safety in a city setting. It encourages unsafe driving habits and favors the supremacy of auto users on our shared roadways.
Right-on-red not only prioritizes auto users — already essentially the fastest and most efficient mode of transportation in a metropolitan, urban setting — but implies that they should be moving even more rapidly through our streets. Right-on-red validates impatience.
It also endorses the idea that the only other road users automobile drivers should really be looking out for are other auto users. Anyone walking, riding, or rolling will have experienced incidents at intersections where an auto user, emboldened by right-on-red, executes a rapid rolling stop, or worse blows right through a red light or stop sign. It’s tedious in its frequency.
I would hope that the Bicycle Advisory Committee would demand that the city implement a right-on-red ban such as D.C’s.
Thank you Matthew! You can read Matthew’s comment and the other informative comments in the thread under the original post (don’t forget to look for the ROR!).
Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers came across in the past seven days…
Process or progress?*:An op-ed from Streetsblog Mass is very relevant to Portland and it touched off a firestorm when its author criticized the approach of northern European cities because they don’t engage enough with marginalized communities. (*Yes, I realize it’s not either/or.)
Freeway fight pioneers: OPB has a must-read piece on transportation activism that chronicles the wonderful work of former Earl Blumenauer police staffer Meeky Blizzard (hi Meeky!) and her work in the 1990s to fight freeway expansion in Washington County.
Car culture consequence: A woman who sped through a Los Angeles intersection and killed five people in a fiery crash had 13 prior wrecks on her record and is now charged with murder.
Get your money: Two veteran safe streets advocates (Melissa Balmer and Leah Shahum) shares insights on Streetsblog about how to tap into a new $1 billion federal grant program that can fund vision zero and complete streets projects.
Broader laws are better: The International Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) researched cellphone laws and found that states with laws that cover a broader range of behaviors had fewer rear-end crashes.
I did Bridge Pedal again this morning for the first time in 12 years. And it was dreamy.
I used to do this massive event every year, but I got tired of the bottlenecks and the chaos. Or maybe I just became jaded. But I’ve felt a renewed sense of wonder and excitement about Portland’s cycling culture lately, and I just felt an urge to be out there again.
Bridge Pedal is like Sunday Parkways with guts. What makes it great is the thing Parkways is missing — an unadulterated cycling takeover of major roads and interstate freeways. I’m just as disappointed as many of you about the lack of progress we’ve made in getting more people to drive less, and the lack of big wins we’ve had fighting the freeway industrial complex. But my cynicism was no match for riding on these thoroughfares in relative silence, high above the Portland skyline and Willamette River on a perfect sunny morning alongside thousands of other people doing the same.
Today we rode on the bicycle highways we deserve! Routes that would slash hours off our weekly travel times and put cycling on a level playing field with driving. Since I last did this ride in 2010, suggesting such a radical shift seems much less bold given the crises we face if we maintain the status quo.
I ran into an activist who I’ve known for years on the ride, Ted Buehler. I was doing video interviews by bike (stay tuned!) and Ted talked about how Bridge Pedal embodies much of what he, I, and many other activists going back decades have always dreamed of. A city criss-crossed with bicycle highways full of a diverse slice of humanity — and without the loud toxic din of cars everywhere — wasn’t just what we dreamed about, it was what some of us actually thought would have happened by now. Whether we were naive, too idealistic, and/or bad at activism didn’t really matter for a few hours this morning. We had what we wanted. And it was wonderful!
A Portland that more closely reflects Bridge Pedal everyday is still my dream. And today’s ride has stoked my longing to achieve it.
Enjoy the rest of the gallery below, and stay tuned for a video of on-the-bike interviews!
As e-bike purchase incentive programs grow, having data to justify their impact could be key.
“I think we have an opportunity to harness what’s happening with e-bikes and make it much more impactful.”
– William Henderson, Ride App
Ride App, a smartphone application started in Portland that automatically tracks bike rides, has relaunched after going dark for three years. And while every bike user is welcome to use it, Ride App’s relaunch was precipitated by the national electric bike boom that took place during the pandemic. The new version of the app will encourage more electric bike usage and use the data it collects to promote e-bike incentive programs.
Portland-based tech entrepreneur and bike advocate William Henderson started Ride App to complement his company Ride Report, a platform that aims to help cities with shared micro mobility programs. In 2019, he decided – with a heavy heart – to take the app down and focus on other aspects of Ride Report. But Henderson took a look at the e-bike adoption happening nationwide and saw a new need for this kind of ride tracking app.
“I think we have an opportunity to really harness what’s happening with people naturally buying the e-bikes and make it much more impactful,” Henderson told me on a recent phone call.
William Henderson, Ride Report CEO (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
According to the Ride App team, much of the new interface is the same. The main difference is that users are asked to report whether they’re riding an electric or regular bicycle when they set up their account, which is included in the data the app collects and reports to cities and other governments.
E-bike incentives are popping up throughout the country and Henderson thinks app data can serve to boost the efficacy of these programs. The Ride Report team first relaunched the new app in Denver, where a new e-bike rebate program is encouraging an unprecedented number of people to buy electric bikes.
“As people inevitably start to scrutinize these programs, somebody somewhere is going to be angry or worried about what’s going to happen. Cities need to be able to have data that proves that this is impactful,” he said.
The fact that this app tracks rides automatically is crucial for gathering data. People won’t always go out of their way to begin a trip on an app if it doesn’t do it for them, and then the app will just get lost in their smartphone’s proverbial junk drawer. This means people aren’t tracking every ride they take, which limits what analysts can glean from the app.
“We know that the trips that are going to be most interesting to bike planners are the kinds of sort of short errands and commutes, not epic 80 mile rides,” Henderson said. “I think that’s one of the things that makes the app unique. We know these e-bike trips are pretty short – a lot of them are not recreational. You have to have that automatic ride tracking technology.”
Another reason the Ride App team is excited about the relaunch is because they think it can provide another incentive for people to ride their bikes – which will hopefully result in a positive cycle of more e-bike ridership encouraging more e-bike rebates (and so on).
“Folks have already taken advantage of the financial incentive to get them over the fence. What are those folks doing now that they have this bike in their garage or their apartment?” said Nelle Pierson, a bike share and nonprofit advocacy veteran who now heads marketing at Ride Report. “We want to be there facilitating that transition to using that e-bike for the majority of their trips.”
These in-app incentives include trophies and rewards for riding certain places or in rough weather. This might seem small, but to someone who isn’t naturally inclined to hop on a bike to get somewhere, something like this could be the push they need to get on their bike that day.
“It’s just built to be fun. It’s not built to be competitive in a way where you’re trying to be the fastest or anything like that,” Henderson said. “I think everybody can have something that they can be proud of and feel really good about.”
We recently looked into a new Portland State University study that explored the importance of using different types of data to count how many people are biking in an area so agencies can use that information to make policy decisions. This relaunched app is yet another type of data collection service to add to the mix.
The Ride App team says the easiest way to download the relaunched app is by going to their website on your phone. It’s still early days, so they’re seeking feedback from all bike users about how to make it better, either via Twitter or the feedback feature in the app.
“Hopefully, folks will find that the app is just the same old app that they used and loved, whether they’re riding an e-bike or not,” Henderson said.
The two installations of this rare treatment show the city’s willingness to innovate — and to trust everyone will play nice.
Photos and video by Jonathan Maus
What are city planners to do when they want to give cycling more priority on a street but don’t want to take the space needed for high quality, dedicated bike lanes?
The easiest solution is to do nothing, or maybe just add a sign or two that says “Bike Route”. The next easiest thing is to just plop down some sharrows, those “shared lane markings” that are widely loathed and really only work well as wayfinding devices (which is thankfully, how the Portland Bureau of Transportation most often uses them). But in a city like Portland we expect more. That’s where advisory bike lanes come in.
They’re sort of like traditional bike lanes; but drivers are allowed to encroach into them if no one is present. They’re an efficient way to use right-of-way and they do something Americans need more practice at: making judgments and sharing the road instead of always feeling entitled to a specific place on the road.
Passed as a top priority treatment in the 2009 Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030, PBOT is just now starting to get serious about them. Until recently there were only two examples — on SE Caruthers and NW Marshall — but neither of those are a textbook implementation. Caruthers is a dead-end with very little traffic and NW Marshall is an anomaly where PBOT striped a smooth bike lane on an old street that still has bumpy cobblestones.
As we first reported back in May, two new examples have emerged that are Portland’s best-ever attempts at true advisory bike lanes. They are located on NE 43rd north of Sandy and on NE 53rd over I-84.
As you can see in the video and photos (below), the design is relatively straightforward. These are bike lanes, but they have skip-striping to make it clear people can drive in them. The other key element is that there is no centerline (both of these streets carry two-way traffic). The idea is that bike riders will use these like traditional bike lanes and drivers are supposed to drive in the middle of the street when a bike lane is being used. If two drivers come toward each other and no bike rider is present, they can pass by each other while driving in the advisory bike lanes. If one bike rider is present, the drivers can shift to one side to pass. If two bike riders are present, the drivers will have to slow down and wait to pass each other.
Below is PBOT’s user-guide graphic followed by specific thoughts on the two new installations:
NE 43rd between Sandy and Tillamook
This is a very busy block, so kudos to PBOT for trying this treatment here! There’s a Whole Foods on one corner and very high parking turnover on both sides. When I observed a few days ago, everything seemed to work fine. Drivers drove in the middle when bike riders were present, and then took the full street width otherwise. Bike riders used the lanes as if they were standard lanes — and a potential added benefit of the broken paint stripe is that it encourages bikers to get further from the door zone. To further establish this block as a cycling space, PBOT has striped a traditional bike lane and added a bike symbol at the start of each block. They’ve also added intersection treatments (a sharrow/mixing zone and a bike box) to help riders transition beyond this one block.
NE 53rd between Hoyt and Irving (over I-84)
This is a key link in the bike network as a low-traffic and direct way to get across the freeway. In my observations, the advisory bike lanes worked well here too. I didn’t see any red flags in the half-hour or so that I watched. PBOT has strengthened the treatment by placing a concrete diverter and “15 MPH Shared Street” signage at the north side to further calm traffic and to make it clear this is a neighborhood greenway. The vibe on 53rd is much more relaxed and low-volume than 43rd. In some ways that creates less stress, but since the street is more wide open, drivers might behave worse more often (which is why the aforementioned diverter is so key).
Watch the video above or over on our (growing!) YouTube channel and check out the photos for a closer look. If you’ve ridden these spots, we’d love to know what you think.
Choose your fighter. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The bill isn’t a complete loss for bike advocates, and there’s an expectation they’ll have another swing at the ball before the end of this year.
The much-ballyhooed, $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that’s on its way to President Biden’s desk as I write this, is an unprecedented win on the front of the climate change battle. But there’s a big group of folks who are feeling like losers: People who understand the transformative power of electric bikes and the role they could play in curing Americans’ addiction to cars and fossil fuels.
Despite intense lobbying from national bike advocacy groups, the electric vehicle provisions in the IRA apply to only one type of electric vehicles — cars. Once again, bicycles were left at the side of the road.
So what happened? Why couldn’t Oregon senators and representatives bring home the bacon on this one — especially with Oregon’s bike-loving House Representative Earl Blumenauer and the Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on our side? Advocates got an answer to that question from a political insider at a meeting at the E-Bikes for All Working Group Thursday.
E-Bikes for All is an informal group of advocates from across Oregon who’ve been meeting since 2019. Each month they come together via Zoom to plot strategies aimed at pushing e-bikes into the political mainstream. E-bike purchase incentives — either at the state and/or federal level — are their top priority. At their meeting this week an Oregon-based congressional aide (who I’ve chosen to keep anonymous at their request) stopped in to explain what happened.
“There was not the same level of advocacy among senators for the bike provisions as there was for the electric vehicle credit. The squeakiest wheel gets the grease. “
– Congressional aide
As political aides are known to do, the aide first played to the crowd by pointing out that the IRA isn’t a complete loss for e-bikes. Current federal law provides a tax credit that applies only to four-wheeled vehicles and states those vehicles must be operated only on streets, roads and highways. Portland’s Earl Blumenauer authored a small but potentially significant that will change the language surrounding that credit.
“Rep. Blumenauer authored a small tweak,” the congressional aide pointed out, “so that there’s a provision now that makes the credit available for two and three wheeled vehicles that operate on streets, roads or highways.” It’s a small provision, but it leaves the door open for the private sector to build charging stations with e-bikes and even e-scooters in mind — and still get the 30% tax credit.
The language starts on page 407 of the 730 page bill (PDF). It effectively expands the definition of “motor vehicle” to anything that has two or three wheels and is “propelled by electricity”. (Sorry electric unicycle riders!)
Another potential boon for bike lovers tucked into the bill (but not related to electricity) is the “Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program” laid out on page 704. It’s a $1.9 billion (with a “b”) grant program to be administered by the FHWA for projects that , “improve walkability, safety, and affordable transportation access.” Specifically, the grants can be used to, “build or improve complete streets, multi-use trails, regional greenways, or active transportation networks and spines; or to provide affordable access to essential destinations, public spaces, or transportation links and hubs.”
Any time federal law includes the words “complete streets” “multi-use trails” and “active transportation networks” it’s a very good thing.
Those little wins are nice, but many folks at the E Bikes For All meeting wanted to know why bikes were left out of the biggest prize of all — purchase incentives. People who want to buy an EV car can get a tax credit worth up to $7,500. But there is zilch for bikes in the bill.
Turns out the language in the bill that included Blumenauer’s E-BIKE Act and tax benefits for bicycle commuters, were both dropped during last-minute negotiations aimed at getting West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s vote. The congressional staffer at the meeting said when Sen. Manchin demanded to cut the size of the bill down from its initial $550 billion, cuts had to be made. “As Mr. Manchin started to look at where the spending was, and started to look at what he supported and what he didn’t support, unfortunately, the E-BIKE Act and the bicycle commuter benefits, both fell off and fell onto the cutting room floor.”
And then, choosing his words carefully to not hurt the feelings of the crestfallen e-bike advocates, the aide added, “There was not the same level of advocacy among senators for the bike provisions as there was for the electric vehicle credit. And often the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. I think that there were just more senators that were pushing for electric vehicles than there were electric bikes.”
But all is not lost and there’s still hope for a federal e-bike purchase incentive to be passed (“I don’t think we’re back to square one, it’s more like square two or three” is how the aide put it). All eyes are on an upcoming tax bill that Capitol Hill lawmakers are already laying the groundwork for. It’s likely to be passed before the end of this year and the aide said, “I think represents our our best chance moving forward.”
About to embark. (Photo: Shawne Martinez/@rescuewe)
In the year that I’ve been living and biking in Portland, my understanding of what a person can do with a bike has grown exponentially. I’ve taken my bike on big grocery runs, changed my perspective on how to accomplish scenic day trips and I never, ever want for a car. I know now bikes are the perfect tool to carry around a gaggle of kids or a couple of dogs, and that you can stay cool biking on a blazing hot day if you plan your route around tree canopy coverage.
But there was still one thing I wasn’t totally sure about. Can a person really move by bike? I knew other people had done it, but come on, me?With only a back rack and two panniers to my name? As you can see, I was brainwashed by the Portlandia depiction of two senseless bike movers ruining some woman’s precious belongings. In fact, moving by bike is easy and fun. And now that I’ve successfully done it, it seems like the only sensible way to handle the notoriously dreaded task of schlepping everything you own from one place to another – at least it certainly is when you have an skilled and willing crew of cargo bike owners to help you.
My transformation from a bike move skeptic to a full-throated advocate happened quickly. Last week, I signed a lease for a new house in Piedmont, a neighborhood in north Portland pretty far from the place in southeast’s Richmond neighborhood where I lived before. After telling people about my move, I immediately received offers from people who wanted to help haul my stuff on their bike trailers. (I think this kind of reaction has never happened to anyone moving in a U-Haul.)
So, okay! I was moving by bike. This meant I’d have to get organized: no more relying mostly on overflowing tote bags or loosely tossing my stuff on the passenger seat. I was pretty confident about my smaller stuff, but since I had no idea how many people would show up, I accepted the potential fate of leaving behind my big area rug or table.
I chuckle now to think of my ignorance.
When the time came to hit the road, I had so many helpers at my disposal that we ran out of stuff to carry. People tried to haggle with my housemate who’s staying put, practically begging him to hand over more furniture for us to add to the load. (Understandably, he didn’t want us to do that.)
Our motley crew consisted of almost 20 people and a diverse range of hauling devices, including several lengthy trailers, a couple dog carriers and a pedicab (operated by newly-certified pedicab operator Kiel Johnson, who not only carried all my books but also saved the day by picking up the pizza at the end.) Our youngest team member was Shawn Martinez’s six-year-old daughter, who had the special task of carrying the essential Portland cyclist-authored How to Move By Bike book in her backpack. I felt a little guilty that my panniers were bearing the tiniest load, but nobody gave me a hard time about it. All in all, I can honestly say it was the least stressful move I’ve ever experienced.
It’s no big deal to see a huge box moving truck taking up space on neighborhood streets, so why should a caravan of people hauling stuff on bikes make people bat an eyelash?
The bike ride itself was easy. Turns out, a group of cyclists carrying this much stuff is pretty visible to people driving cars, and except for a couple minor trailer mishaps, it was a breeze. I was very pleased we had the chance to anoint the new Blumenauer Bridge with what I believe to be its first bike move experience. Once we got to my new place, I was sure this would be the best housewarming party I’d ever have.
One thing I was slightly surprised by was the lack of attention we received from passersby, most of whom didn’t seem particularly impressed. But actually, I think this might be a good thing. While I do believe everyone who participates in bike moves should be given kudos and plenty of pizza and beer or LaCroix, it should also be said that moving by bike isn’t that hard. It’s no big deal to see a huge box moving truck taking up space on neighborhood streets, so why should a caravan of people hauling stuff on bikes make people bat an eyelash? I was also shocked to find out the majority of the participants were bike moving newbies – that should be even more of a testament to how feasible this is for just about anyone.
So, why move by bike? It’s not because I think the fossil fuel emissions I would generate from one U-Haul trip would be so egregious I’d have to spend the rest of my life feeling ashamed, and it’s only slightly for the novelty and to prove a point. Honestly, it’s because it’s fun, and I think if more people knew how fun it was, they might start to rethink their relationship to cars and to the people around them.
Thank you to everyone who participated in my first bike move! I hope I won’t move houses again for a while, but I will absolutely be there to help whoever needs it next – and I guarantee there will be others excitedly behind me.
