2022 Archives

A closer look at the Waterhouse Trail gap on Bethany Blvd (video)

A parent should be able to send their 12-year-old to a day at summer camp or to run an errand by bike without worrying about them getting hurt (or worse) in a traffic crash. Especially if those destinations are along a regional path managed by agencies who say they care about climate change.

That’s what Tina Ricks thinks. It seems like a simple thing, but after months sloshing around in the bureaucratic mud, she has found out it’s anything but.

Ricks (@tinaintheburbs on Twitter) is on a mission to make the Waterhouse Trail a safe and feasible option for bicycle riders of all ages, and a key part of making that happen is to close a dangerous gap in the path where it crosses Highway 26 on NW Bethany Blvd between Bethany Court and Bronson Road. It’s just ¾ of a mile but it’s a deal-breaker for all but the most confident and patient riders.

I met up with Ricks recently to learn more about what she’s been working on and see for myself how bad current conditions are.

The Context

The Waterhouse Trail is a 10-mile paved path that follows a powerline corridor between housing developments from the 158th/Merlo MAX light rail station in Beaverton north to Bethany (unincorporated Washington County). It’s typical of the many paths in this area in that it’s a very mixed bag when it comes to bikeway quality.

Some spots are sublime, but in other places the path is either too narrow, full of bumps, has way too many turns, has awkward and unsafe street crossings, or some combination of all of these.

The section Tina is most concerned with is where the path ends into an industrial park near the busy intersection of NW Bethany and Cornell Road. From there, people are taken from the quiet and carfree path and dumped onto a stressful street shared with drivers where path users are barely an afterthought.

Adding salt to the wound is that the industrial area where the trail ends is full of kid-oriented destinations. There’s a pediatric care office, a martial arts studio, a gymnastics school, indoor soccer facility, and a daycare center.

About a mile east, Metro, Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District, and other agencies plan to build a new carfree bridge to connect the Westside Trail over Highway 26, but that won’t help this gap and likely won’t be built for several more years at least.

Riding The Gap

On Bethany Court, at the path’s southern terminus, parking is allowed on both sides of the street despite parking lots in every direction. “I counted 459 spots on Google Maps,” Tina said as we rode, “But people still want to park on the street.”

A current plan from the City of Beaverton would limit on-street parking to just one side. But Tina is pushing to remove all of it. (At least one Beaverton City Council member seems to support her. “I like your thinking around no parking,” Councilor Nadia Hasan shared in an email to Tina last month.)

If not for a very small sign high up on a traffic pole, we wouldn’t know that the bike route is on a sidewalk going against traffic. (Tina said she’d biked this route for two years and had never noticed the signs until a County staff person pointed them out to her.) As we crested the Highway 26 overpass it was hard to hear each other over the roar of car traffic adjacent and below us.

Putting full trust of our lives into “Walk” signals, and after hitting six beg buttons and crossing four major intersections in the course of just a few blocks, we finally re-connected with the Waterhouse trail and could breathe easy again.

At Bethany and Cornell, Tina points out that crossing is prohibited for non-drivers at the southeast corner so we have to reposition our bikes and use painted crosswalks to get across the ten lanes of traffic, plus a slip lane. Cornell has a 40 mph speed limit and we feel like fish-out-of-water as we navigate our way across.

The Red Tape

Trail gaps are notoriously difficult to close for a variety of reasons, mostly because they’re often seen by governments as recreational facilities and not serious transportation infrastructure. In this case, Tina’s challenge is even tougher because of a nightmare of overlapping jurisdictional boundaries.

In just 3,800 linear feet between the two Waterhouse Trail access points the roads and intersections are owned and managed by three different government bodies: City of Beaverton, Washington County, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

There has been some collaboration in the recent past, like when the County widened Bethany Blvd a decade ago, they got ODOT to sign off on (but not fund) the wider sidewalks we biked on. But as you can see in the video, even if the County granted Tina her smallest ask — pavement markings to help guide folks through the gap — County staff have told her they could only paint the sidewalk up to the overpass where ODOT’s authority takes over.

What Tina Wants

At the most basic level, Tina doesn’t want her 12-year-old to be hurt or killed while biking here. As she says in the video, she thinks at the absolute minimum there should be much better signage and markings along the existing route.

But that should be just the start. “I would love to see fully protected, Dutch-style bike paths so that a responsible parent would feel safe sending their middle schoolers to bike it,” Tina wrote in an email to one of the many government staffers she’s contacted about this. “So that all ages and abilities could ride the whole Waterhouse Trail, not just part of it. So that this could become a true transportation link as well as a recreational path.”

Tina, like so many other people in our region, is doing this on her own. She’s not connected to any advocacy group, she’s not being paid. She just wants to make .

“My experience with this whole project is that about every week or two of barking up trees, someone sends me a puzzle piece in the mail,” she shared in a recent email to me. “And I have to figure out where it fits.”

Watch our ride-along video below for a closer look at Tina’s project.

Betsy Johnson’s distracted driving ad, car crash revelation, and more

Back in April, before Oregon primary voters decided who would be up for the general gubernatorial election in November, we reported on a concerning comment from from one of the candidates. Former Oregon state senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) told radio host Lars Larson she didn’t want any transit, bike or pedestrian facilities on a new I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver — an extreme position that is a political non-starter.

Johnson is running for governor as an Independent, marketing herself as someone with a “get ‘er done” attitude who can bypass the Democratic and Republican party establishment. This is appealing to some Oregonians who think our state’s current leadership is taking us in the wrong direction. Though Oregon has had Democratic governors for more than three decades, Johnson is showing she might be able to shake things up – polls now show Johnson and Democratic candidate Tina Kotek are locked in a tight two-way race.

Since then, more has come to light about Johnson’s transportation perspective. A recent series of questionable decisions and revelations is worth noting…

The 2013 car crash and aftermath

In a Willamette Week article published last week, Rachel Monahan reported that Johnson rear-ended another driver at a red light in Scappoose in 2013, when she was serving in the Oregon senate.

Both Johnson and the person in the other car, a 42-year-old woman named Melissa Gallentine, suffered serious injuries due to the crash. But when Gallentine filed a lawsuit against her to recover money for her medical expenses, Johnson tried to shirk responsibility by claiming legislative immunity. (In a statement to Willamette Week, Johnson said she was ‘thinking about a bill’ she was on her way to Salem to introduce, and ‘didn’t notice that the intersection light had just changed.’)

In the article, Monahan writes Johnson and her lawyers were “attempting to create a sort of Catch-22 that would have allowed Johnson and her insurance company to escape all responsibility.” Johnson also attempted to put the financial onus for Gallantine’s injuries on Oregon taxpayers, claiming the state should be responsible for footing the bill since she was serving legislative duty at the time of the crash.

“Johnson may not have overstepped the law. But her effort to exempt herself may prove embarrassing for a candidate who has made accountability and transparency bywords of her gubernatorial campaign,” Monahan wrote.

Distracted driving in a campaign ad

Even after the 2013 crash, it seems like Johnson hasn’t learned her lesson about distracted driving.

Last month, Johnson’s team posted a new campaign ad showing her driving past homeless encampments in downtown Portland and talking about her strategy for the city’s homelessness crisis. In the video, she’s shown taking her eyes off the road to directly address a camera in the passenger seat as she’s operating the moving car. That’s a concern, especially in downtown Portland where there are a lot of people riding bikes and walking. It’s troubling that Johnson’s team would make this decision without considering the irresponsible driving behavior it promotes.

‘City of roaches’

As is evident from the aforementioned advertisement, Johnson’s campaign has arguably targeted homelessness in Portland as the primary statewide concern, and in doing so, she has made disparaging comments about the state of this city some residents haven’t taken kindly to.

In at least two recent interviews, Johnson referred to Portland as ‘the city of roaches’ (as opposed to Portland’s official nickname, ‘the City of Roses’). An article in the Oregonian summarized the situation, stating “Portland does not actually have a cockroach problem. Instead, Johnson’s roach comment appeared to be her summary of how unsanitary, unsightly and unsafe she feels Oregon’s largest city has become.”

Johnson has denied accusations that she was referring to homeless people – she says she was talking about trash, not using a dehumanizing term for people who live on the streets – but the quippy comment didn’t land well and struck some as needlessly divisive.

In addition to these three examples, which have specifically created ire among transportation and homeless advocates (groups of people who often overlap in this city), Johnson has also received backlash for her controversial opinions about gun control recently platformed on TedxPortland. It was another moment when she made it clear calling yourself an independent isn’t necessarily enough to push past the political fighting happening across the state and around the entire country.

But Johnson has some big name support – and the money to prove it – so whatever your political affiliations, her campaign is one to pay attention to.

Job: Planners – Transportation and/or Land Use – City of Springfield

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Planners – Transportation and/or Land Use

Company / Organization

City of Springfield

Job Description

The City of Springfield is seeking multiple planners to join our team to enhance Springfield’s hometown feel while focusing on livability and environmental quality, improving our infrastructure, and fostering an environment that values diversity and inclusion. In particular, we have opportunities for senior planners (Planner III) skilled in transportation and/or land use, as well as Planner I/II options for those earlier in their planning career. We are looking for planners who enjoy serving the community, develop positive relationships with stakeholders and bring shared visions to reality. Viable candidates for senior planner positions will demonstrate success in managing projects and/or processing complex development applications within a team environment.

With the passage of the state’s rules for climate friendly and equitable communities, the City is staffing up to be able to take on this important work which includes designating climate friendly areas, shaping the City’s approach to parking management, and updating our Transportation System Plan. We also need a Senior Planner to take some comprehensive planning projects to the finish line: the Comprehensive Plan Map Clarification Project and Natural Resource Inventories & Protections for Springfield’s UGB Expansion Areas. Within the transportation realm, we are seeking someone to represent the City in regional funding and coordination discussions at the Metropolitan Planning Organization; identify, seek funding for, and plan for capital transportation projects; and expand multi-modal opportunities which includes staffing the City’s Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Finally, we need a senior planner to focus on current planning and to staff the Historic Commission.

Consider joining our Community Development staff team anchored by an open and inclusive environment that supports and values the contributions of forward-thinking professionals and provides interesting, meaningful, and challenging opportunities to serve our community. City Hall is located in Springfield’s dynamically evolving Downtown and the City as an organization emphasizes employee health and wellness.

Salary: $27.32 – $44.21 / Hour*
Location: Springfield, OR**
Closing: 7/31/2022

*Relocation reimbursement for actual costs up to $5,000 may be available if relocating greater than 100 miles.
**The City will consider remote work options, alternative schedules, and less than full time hours.

How to Apply

To apply and learn more, go to: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/springfieldor/jobs/3626354/planners

Take me to the river (by bike)!

A dip in a cool river on a hot day feels so much more refreshing after a bike ride. Thanks to Portland transportation advocacy groups The Street Trust and Bike Loud PDX, those inclined to bike to the river for The Big Float could arrive in style and show fellow floaters that biking to the river is the best way to get there.

I tagged along with The Street Trust Sunday on their ride from the hot Lents Town Center to the refreshing Willamette River for the event. We rode about six miles, with The Street Trust’s Madi Carlson (who was lugging a cargo bike full of life vests) leading the way, before meeting with a group of cyclists from Bike Loud, who had their leader Kiel Johnson carrying another impressive bundle of life vests on his cargo bike. Together we created a bike parade across the Hawthorne Bridge, waving to the beachgoers below who were preparing to hop on their floats for the 10th and final Big Float.

The Street Trust chose the Lents Town Center as their meeting spot because it’s one of the places in Portland where residents suffer the most during heat events. A lack of tree canopy coverage and a wealth of asphalt turn this area into an urban heat island (read more about this here). Juxtaposed with the cold Willamette, the heat in Lents becomes even more apparent.

The Street Trust’s André Lightsey-Walker matching his orange life vest with an orange Biketown bike.

The Big Float is an event the Human Access Project (HAP) has put on annually for the last 10 years to promote their mission of making the Willamette a swimming space open to all and “helping people embrace, cherish, and preserve our river.” This was the HAP’s final Big Float, though their river advocacy will continue.

For a city with limited outdoor swimming pools, Portlanders sure have some excellent floatation devices, so see if you can find your favorite and get inspired to appreciate our beautiful river.

Yacht Rock Ride photo gallery and recap

Rolling down Esplanade Ramps to the end spot.

A few years ago, Portlander Keith Jones (who happens be executive director of Friends of Green Loop and operator of The Cart Blocks) was feeling nostalgic for the ’70s and “went down a Yacht Rock rabbit hole.” Next thing you know he was captain of the Yacht Rock Pedalpalooza Ride.

What is Yacht Rock? It’s a sub-genre of soft rock Wikipedia describes as having, “high-quality production, clean vocals, and a focus on light, catchy melodies.” It’s the type of music that makes you want to sing and dance while on a boat in a beautiful harbor — or ride a bike along a beautiful riverfront.

That’s what myself and many dozen others did on Friday night, with Keith and his co-captain Tonya Oyala leading the way.

A few years ago the two friends were making a playlist and realized they were both obsessed with the music of Yacht Rock icon Christopher Cross. “We spent an afternoon listening to that playlist and she was like, ‘This is fantastic! I want play this loud enough for everyone to hear it!’ We’re both bike people and we started talking about a Pedalpalooza ride,” Keith said.

With “Do That To Me One More Time” blaring from mobile speakers as we rolled en masse through downtown, onlookers ran out of bars to clap, smile and film us. After a loop through the Pearl District and then down to the Tilikum Crossing, the ride ended on Duckworth Dock where we watched the sunset and enjoyed fizzy drinks as we dipped our toes in the river and enjoyed the company of great tunes and great people.

Check out the official playlist and the full photo gallery below…

Met at Cart Blocks on W Burnside & Ankeny.

Check our Pedalpalooza 2022 Hub for more coverage.

Comment of the Week: A southwest resident’s lament

“Southwest is the DIY part of Portland… there’s almost no bus service and no cycling or walking infrastructure.”

Welcome to the Comment of the Week, where we highlight good comments in order to inspire more of them. You can help us choose our next one by replying with “comment of the week” to any comment you think deserves recognition.

Sometimes I wish I could pick an entire comment thread for the Comment of the Week. Our article last week about the hapless BikePortland reader who followed an Apple Maps walking route onto a busy and unwalkable southwest collector street inspired some very fine comments. Maybe the archetypal Babe in the Woods narrative brought out the best in people.

I focused on warning about map apps, and plugging the SW Trails PDX organization, but many southwest readers might have been feeling something more visceral. Fred, in a comment which has a “just chatting with a neighbor over the fence” quality, captures these feelings.

Here’s what Fred wrote:

Thanks, Lisa, for pointing out the paucity of walking and cycling infrastructure in Southwest. Every time I hear people from East Portland complaining about their lack of … everything, I have to laugh. Southwest is the DIY part of Portland: maintain your own streets and get yourself places b/c there’s almost no bus service and no cycling or walking infrastructure. No wonder almost everyone drives everywhere and just a few intrepid souls walk and cycle.

Thank you Fred! You can read Fred’s Comment, and the other excellent comments too, under the original article.

Pedalpalooza Picks: July 11 ~ 15

Summer has arrived for real and the Pedalpalooza vibes have never been stronger. If you’re having trouble deciding which rides to do, or just need a nudge to get out there, keep reading.

To help guide you through the fun options, every Monday we choose one ride from each day that looks interesting and worthy of your attention. As always, check out our upcoming Weekend Event Guide and Calendar for more of our ride selections (remember you can filter our calendar to only show the Pedalpalooza category).

Here are our selections for today through Friday:

Monday, July 11th

Old Library Branches Ride – 5:30 at TBA (register for location)
Learn interesting Portland history on a tour of old library locations. This ride will be led by local urban historian and long-time bike fun purveyor (and artist) Shawn Granton. More info here.

Tuesday, July 12th

Taco Ride – 5:00 pm at Peninsula Park (N)
Who’s hungry? Let ride leader and north Portland resident Aaron Brown lead you on a taco tasting tour unlike any other… along with a hardy crowd of fun people. This ride has become an annual tradition and it’s way less chaotic than you might assume because Aaron has forewarned all the taco places that you’ll be coming. More info here.

Wednesday, July 13th

Know Your Greenways – 6:15 at Glenhaven Park (NE)
We’ve heard great reviews for this series of rides led by Tom Howe. He is a route expert who will teach you how to connect up the 70s and 80s greenways to your favorite destinations. These greenways are so helpful to avoiding large arterials and when are more confident using them you’ll unlock the potential of our bike-friendly city. More info here.

Thursday, July 14th

The Simpsons Ride – 3:00 pm at Lincoln High (SW)
Learn how this iconic TV show was inspired by Portland and join fellow fans on a romp through all the streets that characters were named after. More info here.

Friday, July 15th

Corker Appreciation Ride – 6:30 pm at Ladd Circle Park (SE)
If you’ve been on a Portland group ride, you’ve been helped by corkers, those valiant velocipedists who More info here.

As always, check the official calendar for details on every single ride. And be sure to check official event pages for latest updates and cancellations before you roll out. Have fun out there!

The Monday Roundup: Behavior change, SUV haters, drunk driving, and more

Welcome to another wonderful week. Hope you’ve been able to enjoy the great sunny weather and all the fun rides that have been going on.

Below are the most notable items our writers and readers came across in the past seven days. But before getting to that, I want to make sure you know that this week’s roundup is sponsored by Freeya, the new app (based in Portland!) that makes giving and getting free stuff simple. Support them because they support us (and because it’s a seriously cool idea).

Behavior change: Never gets old to read about how gas prices and the general state of things are leading regular folks to drive less and bike more — especially when the story is from our close northern neighbors.

E-bikes are EVs too: Great to see North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA) make a clear statement that when it comes to EV charging infrastructure, bikes and other micromobility vehicles must be included.

Bike delivery FTW: A new report from the Institute for Local Self Reliance shows how national delivery companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats are terrible for our community economy and local services — like ones that use bicycles! — are much better for everyone (except Wall Street investors).

Amazon e-cargo bikes: I am not a fan of Amazon, but if they get serious about using small(ish) e-cargo bikes and push innovations like these “micromobility hubs” being tested in London, I might dislike them a bit less.

Roller-coaster ahead: Bike industry expert Rick Vosper lays out three reasons he thinks the bike biz is in for a wild ride in the coming year.

The answer is yes: The Guardian asking ‘Should cars be banned from cities?’ is just the latest sign of how the Overton window has shifted in the past few years.

SUVigilantes: A group of environmentalists are tired of waiting for government to regulate huge cars so they are going around and deflating tires as an act of protest.

Killer support: A novel approach to drunk driving legislation in New York would require people who kill a guardian of a child while driving drunk to pay child support until the child is 18 years old.

Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week!

Bicycle rider killed in north Portland collision – UPDATED

Update, 7/14: The victim was 70-year-old Martin Crommie. See more updates below

The Portland Police Bureau says someone riding a bicycle was killed late Sunday night in the Portsmouth neighborhood.

Not much information has been released thus far, but a PPB statement says they responded to a crash at around 10:15 pm last night after a report of a crash between a car and bicycle user at the intersection of N Juneau Street and N Chautauqua Blvd. The bicycle rider died at the scene and the driver remained at the scene for questioning.

The crash is being investigated. If you saw or heard anything about what happened please let us know and contact the PPB Traffic Investigations Unit at crimetips@portlandoregon.gov or (503) 823-2103. This is case number 22-184939.

Crash Context

The location of this crash was just one block south of Columbia Boulevard, a major arterial with a 40 mph speed limit. From a screengrab of a a KGW-TV story sent to us by a reader (right), we can see that the victim’s bicycle came to rest in the middle of the intersection. We don’t yet know what direction the two parties were going prior to the collision, but it’s worth noting that there’s a significant elevation rise on Chautauqua between Columbia and Juneau. If you are going south from Columbia, the uphill makes visibility poor as you approach Juneau.

Chautauqua is a neighborhood collector street with a 25 mph speed limit. It does not have a bike lane but due to its low traffic volume it’s listed on the Metro Bike There map as a “Bike Friendly Street”. Chautauqua is an important street in the bike network because it connects directly to a bike path along Columbia Blvd, churches, Charles Jordan Community Center, Columbia Pool, and so on. It also connects to the major bikeway on Willamette Blvd at its southern end.

There is a lot of advocacy going right now on to make this part of Portland better for bicycling. The Portland Bureau of Transportation’s North Portland in Motion plan released its first report back in December and project staff will lead a bike ride of the area on July 30th.

This is the second bicycle fatality and the 31st traffic death overall in Portland this year.

UPDATE, 4:55 pm on 7/14: Here’s the latest update from PPB:

The bicyclist involved in this crash has been identified as 70-year-old Martin Crommie. His family has been notified of his death.
The Major Crash Team investigation found the cyclist was riding an e-bike northbound in traffic. Once the cyclist moved to the side of the road, the driver of the vehicle involved, a 2021 Toyota Tacoma, began to pass the cyclist. The cyclist then made a sudden left turn for an unknown reason, colliding with the left side of the vehicle.