2023 Archives

Nearly half of Portlanders would bike more if it was safer and cheaper, citywide survey says

Portland’s future, if we want it. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

There’s strong potential for biking and transit use in Portland if people felt it was safe and affordable, most Portlanders want more armed police officers to enforce traffic laws, and fighting climate change isn’t even a top three priority given the other crises our city faces — those are just three takeaways from a major new survey completed by the City of Portland.

The 2022 Portland Insights Survey was a collab between the City Budget Office and a research institute at Portland State University. It’s based on 5,290 completed surveys that gleaned both quantitative and qualitative responses on six subjects. Many of the findings are relevant to transportation issues. And with the responses broken down by geography and race/ethnicity, we now have a new set of data to understand how Portlanders feel about a variety of issues.

Below are what I felt are the key takeaways…

Tremendous potential for biking and transit

Just make transit and cycling safe, and Portland could be well on its way to meeting lofty transportation goals. One of the survey questions asked, “Which of the following ways of getting around the city would you like to do more, if it is affordable and safe to do so?” (Respondents could choose more than one answer.)

Citywide, 60.2% of respondents said they’d ride public transit more often. And second place was “bike” with 45.4%. “Drive” finished in third at 35%, followed by “walk or roll” at 31%.

That bike number is likely much higher, because (for some strange reason), the survey put “e-bike” in a combined category with “e-scooter.” Given what we know about the popularity of e-bikes and relatively small amount of e-scooter fans in Portland, I would wager the combined “bike” and “e-bike” response to this question would put cycling well over 50%.

These responses were similar across all sections of the city, except for east Portland. That is the only sextant where people ranked “drive” as the top mode they’d like to do more of if they felt like it was safer and cheaper. In east Portland, 55.2% of respondents picked “drive,” followed by transit at 49.3% and bike at just 30.6%. Also notable is that the percentage of respondents who said they’d bike more was nearly twice as high in southeast (58.3%) as in east (30.6%).

There are a lot of cycling skeptics in Portland right now

I’ve alluded to this problem before, but we must understand and grapple with the fact that a perfect storm of factors is leading a large number of Portlanders to express negative views of cycling infrastructure. Regardless of the accuracy or true feelings behind these sentiments, they are loud and increasingly being heard at City Hall, PBOT, and by the local media.

Even the report’s own summary states, “… car traffic patterns that cater to bikes and bike traffic (when bikes are not seen very often), have, at times, increased the difficulty in accessing businesses and decreased sidewalk safety.”

And the report shares dozens of “representative quotes” from Portlanders, with a striking number of them saying bad things about bike-related infrastructure:

“To pay all that [in taxes] and roads are terrible with costly, fancy bike lanes everywhere…”

“Recent ‘improvements’ to this neighborhood’s roads are a total waste of money. We need sidewalks because there are tons of walkers especially with dogs … we don’t need designated bike lanes as many are elderly. And now we have an area with shared lanes to accommodate bikes, which are few and far between. You have eliminated parking for some homes and the lines are confusing.”

“PBOT needs to stop converting streets to bicycle only avenues.”

On the flip side, the report also had quotes about transportation that express the need to make biking and walking better:

“As a senior who grew up in Portland and has many times used Max to join up with friends all over the city, as a person who has rode my bike from home to many activities in city parks, as a person who has many times walked to do my grocery shopping, I am saddened to not feel as comfortable doing these activities. I know that not all homeless use drugs, but I can’t tell who is so I keep my distance with them all.”

“I approve of the improvements to Division and Powell, but [where] I live – I cannot walk to our closest convenience store without having to walk in the street because we don’t have sidewalks”

“Cars have no front license plate, run red lights, drive in bike lanes, don’t stop for pedestrians and speed like crazy. State transportation is focused on expanding highways in town with support of the city while state owned highways like Powell, etc. remain incredibly dangerous.”

“As a bicyclist, I am grateful for and thoroughly enjoy all of the bike lanes & paths, however the number of vehicles that do not have license plates/current tags or even valid trip permits, is terrifying, especially when the driving is often aggressive and erratic.”

“Insufficient crosswalks throughout the city.”

And my favorite comment by far:

“Portland needs to upgrade its public transit system and stop inducing traffic by widening roads. Widening roads also has the side effect of increasing pollution, increasing noise pollution, and making the city less walkable and bikeable. As long as public transit is slow as molasses, people will continue to choose to drive. Full stop. This is why we need modern high-speed public transit, not half-measures that waste tax dollars and do nothing to attract drivers onto public transit. Our MAX lines are based on ancient technology and it takes forever to travel across town. There are so many possibilities available to us. If we want to, we could create underground railways that connect key areas of Portland via modern trains that reach 150+ MPH. Why are we not doing this?”

Police enforcement policy doesn’t match community desires

When Portland passed its Vision Zero plan in 2015, one of the (sort of controversial) decisions was that it did not place a priority on police enforcement of traffic laws. An advisory committee recommended the policy due to fears of racial profiling and over-policing of neighborhoods where a larger amount of BIPOC and lower-income Portlanders live. That sentiment was embraced by PBOT during the 2020 protest era as they ended an enforcement partnership with the Portland Police Bureau and the agency chose to dissolve its Traffic Division five months later.

But now, given the dire state of our street culture and record deaths, this survey reveals that many Portlanders want more armed police involved in traffic enforcement.

Citywide, only 6.3% of respondents said they do not want police to enforce traffic laws around high-crash streets and intersections. 68.6% of all respondents to this question (“In addition to responding to 911 calls, how should armed police officers prioritize their response to the following situations? Traffic enforcement in high-crash streets and intersections (use photo/radar van and police missions to reduce speeding and red-light running, etc.”) said it should be a high priority (33.6%) or medium priority (35%). For context, the number of people who said police involvement in traffic enforcement should be a high priority was about half as high as the number of people who want police to respond to reports of crimes (60.7%).

Interestingly, the responses to the traffic enforcement priority question from Black and white people were very similar (see below). While white people said “Do not want police to do this” at a rate twice as high as Black people (6.7% and 3.3%, respectively), overall their responses were nearly identical.

Too many people don’t feel safe walking in their own neighborhood

In some ways, walking is the most form of travel where a person is most vulnerable. According to this survey, only one in five east Portland residents feel safe walking in their neighborhood at night. That is a very low number that we should all care about. And only two of the sextants had a number that was over 50% (southeast and southwest/south).

When it comes to whether people feel safe walking in their neighborhood during the day, we see another vast discrepancy between east and southeast — 55% versus 84%. Broken down by race/ethnicity, again we see that white (77.8%) and Black (70.7%) Portlanders had similar perceptions about safety. But for Asian respondents, that number was only 58.1%.

How people feel about walking in their neighborhood is one of the most important measures of how successful a city is. It encompasses so many factors around livability, transportation, and general safety. I’m eager to see how this number changes in future years.

Climate change crowded out by other crises

When asked, “What is the greatest challenge facing Portland?” just 3.4% of respondents chose “Preventing/Preparing for Climate Change.” Given the existential threat and very real consequences of the climate crisis, this seemed like an extremely low number. But when up against other very real, daily threats people feel from homelessness, the cost of living, and community safety (the top three answers), it is understandable.

This response is a good illustration of how Portland’s inability to tackle those Big Three problems (homelessness, affordability, and crime), means that we have very little personal or political capacity left over to deal with anything else.

One last little tidbit that caught my eye was that only about 10% of respondents said they think it’s easy to contact city government about important issues. That is abysmal. We can only hope that the massive change coming to our government structure in 2025 will change that.

The City of Portland plans to conduct this survey once every two years. And most of the questions will remain the same so we can see changes over time. City Council is discussing the report at their meeting today. See the full report here.

Opinion: Khanh Pham on why she’s optimistic about Oregon’s transportation future

This recap of the 2023 Oregon Legislative session is the opinion of Khanh Pham, a Portlander who serves as Oregon House Representative for outer southeast Portland (District 46).

This was my first full session as a sitting member of the Joint Committee on Transportation, and I continue to be moved by my constituents’ enthusiasm for tackling transportation reform. From the radical joy that accompanies citywide Pedalpalooza rides, the hopefulness expressed by last year’s Youth vs ODOT climate strikes, or the grief and fury we collectively share as traffic fatalities continue to mount — transportation advocates deeply care about our streets because we deeply care about each other and want to see a world in which everyone moves through our community safely, affordably, sustainably and joyfully.

As a legislator and transportation advocate I wanted to share with BikePortland’s readers (thanks Jonathan!) my reflections on the session as well as four key takeaways about where we go next.

1) Community-led leadership delivers community supported results – we are more powerful than we know.

I’m deeply hopeful about our collective potential to shape the future of Oregon’s transportation system. Our collective efforts to build power and awareness for the need for an overhaul of transportation policy are showing signs of success. Perhaps nothing embodies this success more than HB 3014, which provides greater flexibility for school districts to spend funding on programming for students to bike, walk and take transit to school. In many ways this bill’s passage represents the best of our community, our government and our democratic process. I’m so grateful for the leadership from Oregon Walks, Community Cycling Center, Coach Sam Balto, Representatives Hoa Nguyen and Courtney Neron and their staff, and for policymakers at Metro, MESD and Eugene 4J. I’m also grateful for the dozens of individuals and organizations who engaged with the Just Crossing Alliance – I’ll never forget the remarkable turnout on the JCA lobby day and the month of powerful testimony demanding a right sized bridge.

Similarly, the concern my colleagues and I heard from constituents about tolling ultimately helped spur Governor Kotek’s swift action to impose a tolling moratorium until 2026. While I believe congestion pricing should serve as a key tool in managing our transportation system, ODOT’s tolling proposal was an inequitable new taxing mechanism that significantly raised taxes on commuters only to direct the new revenue towards ODOT’s expensive freeway-building addiction. This moratorium simply wouldn’t have happened without community members and Clackamas County legislators, whose combined advocacy caught the Governor’s attention. I will continue to watchdog congestion pricing policy to ensure we don’t further prioritize funding freeway expansion over investments in congestion relief, safer streets, or climate action.

2) We need similar coordination of community and elected leadership to prevent the state from driving off a fiscal cliff.

Last month, the Urban Mobility Office released the finance report requested by Governor Tina Kotek. For the first time in memory, ODOT fully admitted that the agency had no forseesable plan to pay for their multiple costly freeway expansions.

While this report is a cause for validation and celebration for advocates who have sounded the alarm on ODOT’s finances for years, the report’s overarching findings remain grim. ODOT’s own forecasts predict a precipitous drop in revenue in the years ahead as motorists switch to cars that use less (or no) gasoline, and this lack of funding coincides with an alarming need to invest in an aging system suffering from decades of disinvestment and inertia. I don’t have to tell you about the soaring traffic fatalities, the growing potholes, the lack of sidewalks, or the 700 bridges across the state in need of seismic retrofit – much of which could be addressed by redirecting the billions we’re spending on widening roads. The Highway Trust Fund is about to be bankrupt at exactly the moment the bill for maintenance and safety is due – and yet ODOT still intends to use the state credit card to spend billions on more freeway lanes.

Unfortunately, the legislature yawned at the chance to grapple with these structural problems this session. A bill I sponsored to increase funding for fixing dangerous state-owned highways was whittled down to a mere $1 million despite over $300 million in need, even after heart-wrenching testimony from elected officials and bereaved family members. Two bills to ask ODOT to study passenger rail service died before receiving floor votes. Bills to encourage ODOT to prioritize maintaining existing roads over building new ones and to add new voices to the Oregon Transportation Commission never received hearings. Legislation to subsidize electric bicycles and to extend the wildly popular electric car rebate program both died as well. The signature accomplishment of the Joint Committee on Transportation – allocating funding for the sorely needed replacement of the Interstate Bridge – avoided facing these dire fiscal circumstances by raiding the General Fund for revenue, siphoning money away from affordable housing and education and breaking the decades-long precedent that transportation projects must be paid by transportation revenue.

I share these anecdotes with trepidation. To be clear, I don’t believe these outcomes are reason for discouragement, nor do I wish to suggest my colleagues aren’t interested in addressing these looming problems. While this inaction is cause for alarm, I’m heartened by the growing consensus I’m hearing from legislators and Oregonians alike across the state that this status quo is untenable, and it’s time to prioritize addressing these problems for the health and well-being of both our communities and the economy.

Fortunately, an opportunity looms.

“We can meet the moment the climate emergency demands… by recognizing our uncertain future requires an unapologetic commitment to building a transportation system that rapidly phases out fossil fuels.”

3) The stars are aligning for a unique opportunity for transportation reform. We must seize it.

The upcoming long legislative session marks a crucial opportunity in our larger movement for transportation justice and reform. All signs suggest that legislators will be prioritizing a generational investment in transportation in the 2025 legislative session. With the right leadership from both elected officials and community members, we have eighteen months until a legislative session that promises to face our problems head-on. The end of the gas tax is the end of an era, and it’s time we prepare for the future.

Oregon can invest in transportation that prioritizes public health in every community across the state with cleaner air and water, encouraging more walking and biking while dramatically reducing traffic fatalities. We can get congestion pricing right and ensure motorists are never again stuck in freeway traffic while minimizing the burden to low-income commuters and also maximizing the availability of healthier alternatives to driving. Oregon can prepare for a just transition in which every Oregonian receives rebates for buying both electric cars and electric bikes. We can dramatically increase transit service locally and regionally, running irresistibly frequent and reliable buses and trains across our region and the state. We can prioritize maintenance of existing roads over expansion of new ones, saving money while simultaneously preparing our community for future climate and seismic events. We can make good on our commitment to replace the existing Interstate Bridge with a new crossing that includes excellent transit and does so without overspending on unnecessary and devastatingly expensive freeway components. We can meet the moment the climate emergency demands and govern as though 40% of Oregon’s carbon emissions come from transportation, recognizing that our uncertain future requires an unapologetic commitment to building a transportation system that rapidly phases out fossil fuels. We can propose a Green New Deal by ensuring the construction of new bridges, bus lines and sidewalks provides economic opportunity, stability and investment for tens of thousands of Oregonians with family-wage jobs and Project Labor Agreements. These reforms stand to bring prosperity and health to every Oregonian across the state.

This isn’t hypothetical rhetoric – each of these ideas represent planks of a policy platform I’m eager to bring to community as we approach the 2025 legislative session. Designing and enacting this platform will require more of the type of policy and advocacy collaboration that powered Just Crossing Alliance and the Bike Bill – which, fortunately, we’ve already demonstrated is effective and well within our grasp.

4) For Community Led Solutions to Work, we have to fight for democracy — and anti-democratic obstructionism is a rapidly growing problem.

For the seventh time in four years, Republican Senators chose to shut down our state government instead of showing up to vote. While I and my House colleagues passed hundreds of bills, legislation stacked up in the Senate, waiting for Republican Senators to return to work. This ultimately led to the death of numerous bills and to our office undertaking what would otherwise enjoy months of legislative review and budgetary consideration in just over a week. This is an ineffective, broken and antidemocratic way to govern. 46 states and the US Congress have a Simple Majority requirement; Oregon should align its rules with the rest of the country. I introduced legislation last month that would allow us to operate under Simple Majority rule. Without passing reforms we appear doomed to remain hostage to repeated shutdowns; with these changes, Oregon’s legislature could operate like Minnesota’s, which this spring passed what national advocates are calling the country’s best transportation package. We’re also seeing attempts to dilute democracy locally in Portland as well; I recently signed a letter opposing an initiative to weaken the charter proposal approved by 58% of voters last fall.

If you believe that the majority of Oregonians would like the state to pursue cost-effective solutions to tackling congestion, air pollution, climate change, and traffic safety — as I do — I need your help standing up for the democratic institutions and practices that empower constituents to express these views. Without truly democratic processes, community engagement is heavily manipulated by the entrenched and powerful, and we’ll continue to see the highway lobby use their resources to manufacture support for more of the status quo, at a time when it’s abundantly clear that’s an unacceptable outcome.

I look forward to seeing you in the streets!

I’m feeling a mixture of hope, determination and gratitude for what we collectively can achieve for our community and for our state. I firmly believe we have the opportunity in the years ahead to remake and reinvest our streets in line with our values – it’s up to us to work together to seize it.

I’m under no illusion these are easy fixes, but I didn’t run for office to enact easy fixes, nor did my constituents elect me to shy away from fights to make our community healthier and safer. There is too much at stake to shy away from demanding our streets be a safer, healthier place to walk, bike, drive, or catch a bus. We have a narrow window to make these transformative changes, and with your help in the months ahead, we can chart a better future. In the meantime, I hope you and your community are staying cool during the hottest summer on planet Earth. I hope to see you at the Sunrise PDX celebration of No More Freeways’ Sixth Birthday or a future BikePortland Happy Hour!

BikePortland strives to present opinions from a wide range of perspectives. If you have something you’d like to share, please contact us.

Comment of the Week: bike parking is about the future

There were a lot of excellent comments in response to our coverage of last week’s City Council Work Session on housing affordability. The whole thread is worth reading.

Bike parking regulations, in particular, have been targeted for potential code changes after being identified as a key impediment to quick housing production in a survey of development professionals earlier this year. At last Tuesday’s session, an economic consulting group working for the city put a price tag of $11,000 per unit as the cost of bike parking regulations, making their cost comparable to System Development Charges.

Many people have had a reaction to the $11,000/per unit figure, including our readers. The most interesting discussions I’ve seen this week have honed in on “opportunity cost.” The consultants arrived at the $11,000 amount by figuring how much income a developer was losing by not being able to rent that ground floor space to a retailer, so the “opportunity” of having bike parking costs the developer the loss of retail income. Several commenters disagreed with including opportunity cost in the calculation, some of them pretty colorfully.

But ED had even a more fundamental criticism which zeroed in on what the policy discussion should be. Policy has an eye toward the future, not just current day needs and desires. Here is what ED wrote in reply to qqq:

Yeah, we’ve been focused here on whether or not the bike parking regulations are onerous but you make great points about the ground floor active use requirements. I think what they have in common is that both are items that may not immediately translate into profits for developers – because of existing financing terms, market preferences etc – but may have long-term value that we collectively do not yet know how to value. Ground-floor retail that may be hard to rent today could be an amazing community space or vibrant business in 10-20 years; but if it’s not built today, there’s no chance for it to grow into that value. Bike parking and ground-floor retail can’t be easily retrofitted into existing apartment buildings. Hence, the role of city regulations is to try to balance long-term needs against immediate needs/desires. Does the current city code get it right prioritizing ground-floor retail and bike parking as a bet on the future we collectively want to see? Maybe! But that’s the really interesting policy discussion that should be had, in my opinion, rather than whether bike parking adds xx% to current construction costs or what the current utilization rates/trends are.

There are also other critiques of the consultant’s analysis that are worth reading, take a peek! Thank you ED, and all the other commenters, for this strong thread.

Job: Director of Finance and Administration – Community Cycling Center

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

*Note: This job has been deleted by request of poster.*

Thoughts from vacay and important notes about Bike Happy Hour

The lake below Grinnell Glacier. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Hi everyone.

I had a very nice time away. Spent three wonderful days at Glacier National Park with my wife and three kids and took a clean break from news and social media and work. Now I’m eager to dive back into things here at BikePortland, but it will take at least a few more hours for my brain to kick back into gear.

While I wait for that to happen, I wanted to check in on an important issue that has come up around Bike Happy Hour. But before that, allow me to share just one thought from my trip to Glacier that is very BikePortland-related…

On our second day in the park we tackled the Grinnell Glacier Trail; a really tough, out-and-back hike up to the aforementioned glacier that sits at about 6,500 feet in a saddle between Mt. Grinnell (8,813 feet) and Mt. Gould (9,551 feet). It was the first time since I was a kid (and too young to understand) that I stood so close to a glacier.

Everyone there seemed to be having a great, even celebratory time. There were lots of selfies and a group of strong, daring young men were even jumping in the lake to stand on small icebergs. But as I think back, I can’t shake the feeling that that beautiful glacier is ground zero for the climate change crisis we are facing right now.

I didn’t talk too much about it during our trip because I don’t want to overwhelm my family (especially my kids) with a doomsday tone, but it has definitely shaken me up. The glaciers in this park have been melting rapidly in the past century due to rising temperatures. There were over 100 large glaciers in the park a century ago. Now there’s a good chance that there would be only tiny fragments left — or maybe even no glaciers at all — if my children ever returned to that trail with their children.

Seeing that glacier and dipping my feet in its icy, freshly-melted water — then breathing smoke and seeing a wildfire in the Gorge on our way home — has further radicalized me and has renewed my sense of urgency around fighting climate change. I have little doubt that my kids’ lives will be dramatically different than mine — and not in a good way. We don’t have time to wait!

… Deep breath … OK, allow me to shift gears to Bike Happy Hour…

Can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow (Weds., 8/2)! We can talk about how to use our transportation advocacy to fight climate change, or anything else that’s on your mind. I also want to mention two other important issues that have come up since last week.

Circled area is the zone of concern that is now off-limits to Happy Hour attendees.

First, we need to be more respectful of Work & Co., the business next door to Gorges Beer Co. They are cool with Happy Hour, but they are not cool with folks leaning bikes against their doors, making it hard for employees to come and go, standing on their tables, and then acting rude when called out for it.

So here’s the deal: Please don’t park or hang out on their tables. And do not block their door with your body or your bike. We’ll put up signs and erect stanchions to cordon off that area and I’ll have a Happy Hour regular there to monitor the situation during the event. There are other places to park and hang out. I recommend folks use the Rainbow Road plaza. Remember: We can spread out the Happy Hour love from the patio to the sidewalk and into the street!

On a related note, the popular Holman’s Bar & Grill on SE 28th just reopened. That’s great news on many levels, but since it’s right around the corner from the Bike Happy Hour patio and parking lot, it means we could see a lot more car traffic. Unfortunately, it appears the bar owners (and/or PBOT?) have made SE 28th entry-only and all patrons are being told to exit onto SE Ankeny. This is a big deal because, as you know, that block of Ankeny is the Rainbow Road which is supposed to be a carfree plaza.

If Bike Happy Hour crowds are moved from Work & Co., it means even more folks are likely to be enjoying the event on the street near the two driveways that will be much more active with drivers leaving Holman’s. I’m not sure how this will play out yet, but I wanted this to be on your radar. I have forwarded this concern to the owner of Gorges Beer and the PBOT staffer in charge of the plaza.

On a lighter note… Our new Regulars Club/name tag cards are here! Come find me if you need one.

See you tomorrow!

Bike Happy Hour
Everyone Welcome, Every Wednesday, All Year Long
3:00 – 6:00 pm
$2 off all drinks at Gorges Beer Co., Ankeny Tap & Table, Crema Coffee
All-ages and Family Friendly
Questions & Concerns: Jonathan Maus, 503-706-8804, @bikeportland on Social Media

BikePortland is taking a few days off

Last night’s crowd on the Gorges Beer Co patio.

Hi friends,

Thanks to everyone who came out to Bike Happy Hour last night. We had another stellar crowd and it was such a joy to meet so many new folks and chat up the regulars.

Just want to let you know that I’m taking a break and the site will be on vacation mode from now through Monday.

We’ll be back at it Tuesday morning.

Thanks for understanding.

A revealing exchange about funding from city council work session

Bike parking was the focus of our coverage Tuesday about the Portland City Council work session on housing production. But to me, the bigger transportation issue is how we pay for public infrastructure, things like bike lanes, sidewalks and sewers.

Commissioner Mingus Mapps initiated an exchange on this topic at the work session that deserves attention because it touches upon important issues Portland currently faces: how to pay for upgrading the backlog of inadequate transportation infrastructure in neighborhoods across the city — and how to stop adding to it.

Mapps began by asking about city incentives for building affordable housing. In response, consultant Matt Fairris from BAE Urban Economics brought up allowing more exemptions from System Development Charges (SDC) as one incentive to build.

Mapps responded:

I’m your infrastructure guy on council, so I build water, sewer, roads, sidewalks, which we largely fund with SDCs. So there is this kind of puzzle, we can build a house but if that house doesn’t have a toilet that’s gonna be a problem. But I did notice in your data that Seattle didn’t have SDCs, although it was more expensive to build there.

Can you tell us how Seattle pays for roads, sidewalks and sewers?

Fairris replied:

The way that Seattle does SDCs and impact fees is they, instead of just charging the development community [a fee] … The City of Seattle pegs it to the development community and says, “we need a new street light, you have to build a new street light, developer.” We need new sewer infrastructure on this road, you developer have to do this as part of your cost … The cost to build, the “hard costs” are higher … because you are having to do some of this other infrastructure that, in the City of Portland, we charge SDCs and have the city tackle that.

And then Christina Ghan, who is the Policy Director on Commissioner Rubio’s staff and was facilitating the work session, stepped into the conversation:

Can I add one extra fine point on that—I came down to Portland from Seattle. Those improvements that Matt spoke to are all directly adjacent to the site, they are not located in the general vicinity, or elsewhere across town. They are hyper-localized costs that the developer pays for.

Mapps followed up:

Do they have an equity strategy? One of the things we try to do in Portland—historically Portland let’s say east of 82nd has been neglected in terms of investments of infrastructure, although it’s become much less true today. But one of the reasons it is much less true is that we use some of our SDC fees to build in underdeveloped parts of the city. Does Seattle have a strategy …

Ghan responded that Seattle relies on other financing tools.

Findings from a four-city cost comparison done by BAE Urban Economics.

Ghan’s point that Seattle’s developer improvements are adjacent to the site — i.e. “hyperlocal”— touches upon what has long been a sore point in Portland for both neighbors and developers.

Portland’s Transportation SDCs (TSDCs) do not have to be spent near the development. PBOT uses them as a revenue stream for projects across the city. This leads to a typical southwest Portland interaction in which a neighborhood association demands a sidewalk; the developer responds that they have paid tens of thousands of dollars in SDCs, and PBOT’s development review desk tells neighbors that the road doesn’t have the stormwater capacity needed to support a sidewalk — so pedestrian facilities go unbuilt.

A truism among southwest transportation advocates is that all SDC monies flow east. I have never repeated that in my three years at BikePortland, I’m not a forensic accountant and would never be able to verify it. But it was noteworthy that a city commissioner publicly mentioned SDC distribution. The rub is that southwest also has a stack of unmet infrastructure needs, in particular an absence of stormwater facilities and the resulting lack of sidewalks and sparse bicycle network.

[UPDATE 7/27/2023 – 11:15 AM: A reader brought to our attention the 2021 TSDC Annual Report which contains information about TSDC revenues and expenditures, and segregates the money flow by district. It appears that the inner east districts have the biggest gap between TSDC collected and spent, as of 2020-21 for the current cycle beginning in 2017.]

The exchange between Mapps, Fairris and Ghan suggests that there might be a more efficient way of meeting equity and transportation goals. The uncertainties, conflict and suspicions created with project-by-project charges might cost the city more than it realizes.

The comparable cities analysis between Portland, Denver, Seattle and Sacramento can be found in the study BAE Urban Economics did for the City of Portland.

Video of the work session is here.

Reports referenced in the session are available at Commissioner Rubio’s website.

Job: Service and Repair Specialist (Bike Mechanic) – Nomad Cycles PDX

Job Title

Service and Repair Specialist (Bike Mechanic)

Company / Organization

Nomad Cycles PDX

Job Description

We offer bicycle electric assist solutions for everyone in hopes of revolutionizing the way people think about transportation. Electric assist doesn’t see race, age, or gender, making it a human scale solution for a global transformation. In the ever-changing landscape of cycling, electric assist is the wave of opportunity we’ve all been waiting for, as we strive to create a healthier and more sustainable world.

Nomad Cycles strength is found in the individuals and businesses we serve. Our goal is to provide customer service that exceeds expectations, putting the needs of our customers first and carrying only quality products. We work to fulfill the personal and professional goals of anyone who chooses to electrify their ride.

One size doesn’t fit all and we strive to provide solutions for individuals. We offer a variety of electric assist options and strive to sustainably and locally source as many of our components as possible. We believe in supporting the local economy and doing business with real people.
https://www.nomadcyclespdx.com/

Qualifications
A kind person with a desire to help people in our community
Comfortable engaging with customers to ensure a welcoming environment for all
Knowledgeable and passionate about bicycles and cycling culture, specifically electric bikes
Work well in a team atmosphere and be self-motivated to deliver quality work
Desire to continuously improve service and product knowledge
Excellent attention to detail
Minimum 1 year experience with working on bicycles, preferably e-bikes or other relevant experience
Ability to successfully service bikes, document all repairs, and keep track of all parts ordered and used
Effective time management skills
Ability to manage multiple assignments and meet deadlines
Effective communication skills, both verbal and written
Proficiency in common technological business tools such as smartphone and apps
Ability to utilize POS system
Must have the ability to bend, stoop and stand for long periods of time
Must be able to lift 75 pounds
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with Lightspeed Retail is a plus
ASL proficiency is a plus

Responsibilities
Creating a warm and welcoming environment for all individuals to elevate the guest experience and exceed expectations through creative and efficient problem-solving
Assisting customers by answering phone calls and responding to voicemails
Responding to email inquiries and/or directing inquiries to the appropriate staff member
Scheduling conversion and repair jobs based on availability and complexity of task
Updating customers on status of service or repair
Purchasing parts for a wide variety of projects
Assess and quote repair work as it comes in the door and then perform work as workflow dictates
Complete all service work to our quality standard and meet the repair timeframe for the customer
Maintain a clean and safe work area
Vendor relationship building and management
Customer relationship building and management
Learn, understand, and evolve with dynamic store IT systems, programs, and operational procedures
Product inventory

Pay and Schedule
Pay is $21.00 per hour to start, with regular annual wage and cost of living increases
This is a part-time, (3-4, 8-hour days a week) contract position, with opportunity to move to full-time
Schedule is flexible within service hours (Tuesday through Saturday, 10am – 6pm)

How to Apply

Email us with your resume and why this job may be a great fit for you.

Oregon’s cycling and pedestrian advisory committee put on notice for lack of diversity

Some attendees of the OBPAC meeting on Zoom yesterday.

“I’m addressing a system of recurring underrepresentation and the continual exclusion absence of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] communities in decision making bodies across the state of Oregon.”
– André Lightsey-Walker, committee member

A member of the State of Oregon’s bicycling and pedestrian advisory committee says the body has a diversity and inclusion problem.

André Lightsey-Walker (bottom right in photo above), a volunteer member of the governor-appointed Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC), spoke out about the issue at the end of the group’s meeting Tuesday.

“This may be a subject matter that’s not super easy for people, but it’s important to me,” Lightsey-Walker said as he addressed the online meeting, with nothing but white-presenting eyes peering back at him. He made it clear his comments were directed at the system and not individual members of the committee. “I’m addressing a system of recurring underrepresentation and the continual exclusion absence of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] communities in decision making bodies across the state of Oregon.”

Lightsey-Walker in 2021. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

A chief concern of Lightsey-Walker (a transportation planner at Metro who worked for two years as program and policy manager at nonprofit The Street Trust) is that OBPAC (like many advisory committees) purports to hold the well-being of lower-income and Black, Indigenous, and people of color as their top priority — yet the people who make decisions about them are overwhelmingly white. Not only that, but the negative impacts of traffic crashes and many systemic transportation issues, fall disproportionately on BIPOC Oregonians.

“Nothing about us, without us,” Lightsey-Walker explained in his remarks. “If we’re thinking about ourselves as a body who is committed to making Oregon a safer place to walk and bike, I think it would be important for us to have members of that community be foundational and participating in those conversations.”

Lightsey-Walker ended with questions for the committee:

“Is this a place committed to welcoming and elevating the voices of BIPOC communities? What will OBPAC be doing to actively engage BIPOC participation? And what is OBPACs commitment to not only creating but maintaining a diverse committee?”

He then made it clear does not want to continue as a member of the committee unless significant progress is made.

Co-chair Mavis Hartz said diversity and inclusion is a subject OBPAC has, “Wrestled with a lot,” but that the work to make progress on it has been left undone. “André is right, we are kind of dropping the ball,” Hartz said. She added that an ODOT staffer started an initiative to improve the committee’s diversity, but never followed through. Now, Hartz said, “I personally I don’t know how we’re going to shift from from what we know, to making [more diversity] actually a functioning thing.”

The committee shall consist of eight members including an employee of a unit of local government employed in land use planning, a representative of a recognized environmental group, a person engaged in the business of selling or repairing bicycles, a member designated by the Oregon Recreation Trails Advisory Council, and at least one member under the age of 21 at the time of appointment.
– Excerpt from OBPAC bylaws

“We need to continue on this subject because it has been why one of our past chairs stepped down — she didn’t feel like she was being heard,” Hartz acknowledged.

Hartz was referring to former OBPAC Chair Hau Hagedorn, a daughter of immigrants from Vietnam who stepped down from her role with similar misgivings as Lightsey-Walker. “When you are asked to sit on a committee but not given the agency to decide who should represent the committee or asked to participate in meaningful decision-making processes, is that tokenism or representation?” Hagedorn shared with BikePortland today. “There’s a fine line.”

Another OBPAC member pointed out that the committee just added two more members (both of whom are white), “But we’re not increasing the diversity of the committee.”

Then ODOT Bicycle and Program Manager Jessica Horning spoke up to say she wants more flexibility around how members are added. She pointed out that OBPAC was formed via Oregon statute and their are specific requirements about the size of the committee (eight members), where they must live, and which interest groups they must represent. “I would love to have a conversation about how we meet those requirements and find ways to expand representation,” Horning said. “Do we actually need to work with an elected official to propose statutory changes… to make good on those commitments?”

OBPAC Co-chair Emma Newman also acknowledged the problem and urged fellow members to take ownership of Lightsey-Walker’s questions, “So that we’re walking the walk and talking the talk.”

There was talk about difficulties recruiting BIPOC people to the committee, despite efforts to do so. The conversation reminded me of the interview with Will Cortez on our podcast back in December. I asked Cortez, a member of many advisory committees and one of the founders of BikePOC PNW, about the ongoing problem of transportation advisory committees being too white.

“I’m unsure how to proceed. At this point I really think we need an action plan, not another presentation.”
– Mavis Hartz, OBPAC co-chair

Cortez said many Black and other people of color simply don’t have more energy to expend in spaces like advisory committees. “We’re trying to take care of ourselves. We’re trying not to expend energy where it’s like beating our heads against the wall,” he said. He also pointed out that many committees are too “extractive” and not mutually beneficial to volunteers who serve on them. Paying for attendance would be a welcome step forward, he said.

ODOT’s OBPAC isn’t the only committee struggling with this issue. The Portland Bureau of Transportation recently completed a detailed evaluation of its three modal committees, and their lack of diversity was one of the chief reasons for doing so.

Ligthsey-Walker knows he’s up against something much larger than just this one ODOT committee. At the end of his comments yesterday he reiterated that he’s just trying to call out the larger system to stop it from perpetuating itself. “We can’t let [the system] continue to reinforce itself. And maybe it will. Maybe it will prevail.”

Even though committee Co-chair Hartz said she was “unsure how to proceed,” she sounded sincere in wanting to make progress. “If this is a recurring issue, then we need to figure out the root… At this point I really think we need an action plan, not another presentation.”

Another discussion about this issue is on the agenda for OBPAC’s next meeting.

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Amid revenue decline, the CCC will shift away from retail bike shop

CCC Bike Shop on NE Alberta. (Photos: Community Cycling Center)

“The shop was quickly becoming our most expensive program despite its revenue generating purpose.”
– Jonnie Ling, CCC director of finance

Rising expenses and a decline in customers have led the Community Cycling Center to shift gears on its well-known retail bike shop. The nonprofit that has called Northeast Alberta Street its home for nearly 30 years, announced today the current shop space on the corner of Northeast Alberta and 17th will undergo a major remodel.

“Today we are announcing that we are going back to our roots of being an education center,” the CCC said in a statement.

The move comes just days after the CCC’s shop won “Best Bike Shop” in the annual Willamette Week Best of Portland poll. Despite the love, the shop just isn’t pulling its weight in the organization.

The shop had been a reliable source of funding for the organization’s other programs (such as the Holiday Bike Drive, youth summer camps, bike education classes, and so on) for years. But, a statement from the CCC said, “As this funding source becomes less reliable with the changing landscape of cycling in Portland, we realize that we will need to diversify our offerings in order to keep up with the new and changing demands if we are going to provide community services for another 30 years.”

According to Interim Executive Director Stef Galen, the plan is to create three new spaces: a membership-based, DIY workspace; a bike repair classroom; and a much smaller, bare-bones retail shop.

The new membership workspace will be open to anyone in the community who wants to work on their own bike and maintenance and repair classes will be offered by CCC staff. “This new membership-based DIY workshop and class space we will have an additional revenue stream to help grow our current programming to reach even more people throughout Portland,” Galen said.

The members-only workspace will take over the large corner location and a new, smaller retail space will open next door.

According to the CCC, many factors figured into their decision. The rise of remote work and corresponding decrease in commuters needing supplies and repairs was cited as the main one. They said Portland’s precipitous drop in cycling rates hurt their bottom line.

Back in April, the CCC Bike Shop also became the first bike shop in Portland to unionize.

Asked if higher labor costs related to unionization played a role in the shop decision, CCC Development Director Jacks Volkoff said the organization has paid staff a living wage for many years. “Becoming a union shop has not significantly affected our expenses,” they shared. “The cost of labor has increased in Portland, as it has across the country, however, all of our other costs have also grown over the last couple of years.”

According to CCC Finance Director Jonnie Ling, shop revenue was historically about 48-50% of the nonprofit’s total revenue and about 42-44% of its total expenses. But in the past few years, revenue has dropped to 43-44% and expenses have risen to 58-60% of total revenue. “The shop was quickly becoming our most expensive program despite its revenue generating purpose,” Ling shared with BikePortland.

He also alluded to the increased cost of labor and its impact on the CCC’s decision. “The bike industry has long relied on cheap labor in order to generate revenue and that reality is changing. While we applaud and champion better wages for bike shop workers, we need to shift our model in order to continue to support the communities most impacted by transportation inequities.”

The shop will close on September 18th and the CCC will take about six weeks to remodel the space before re-opening in November. The CCC hasn’t shared the cost of the new membership. See their announcement and FAQ for more information.

Correction, 8/1: This story originally stated that CCC Finance Director Jonnie Ling was alluding to a recent vote by shop workers to unionize in his statement about higher wages. That was incorrect. The story has been edited and I regret the error.

Commissioners probe bike parking code as possible rollbacks loom

“Are our climate goals more important than assuring affordability in the city?”
– Rene Gonzalez, City Commissioner

Jonathan already primed the pump with his story this morning, so I’ll just jump right on in…

At the outset of Tuesday morning’s Portland City Council work session on housing production, Commissioner Carmen Rubio pointed out that “housing development is an incredibly complex topic.” Thankfully, bureau staff did an excellent job explaining the financial, economic and social issues that make it so.

But it took Commissioner Rene Gonzalez to charge full speed into the china shop with what he labeled a “provocative” question:

Are our climate goals more important than assuring affordability in the city? I’m not sure that is a place that policy makers have been willing to go in recent years. I think that’s a question that we have to ask ourselves at some point, and again, there are millions of tradeoffs in our code on a whole host of venerable policy goals that negatively impact construction cost and therefore affordability. I put that out more rhetorically and provocatively.

And yes, bike parking came up several times.

Matt Fairris, of BAE Urban Economics, speaking at council Work Session.

For several months, the bureaus — Planning and Sustainability, Development Services, Housing, and Prosper Portland — have studied how to boost housing production. As part of that work, the Bureau of Development Services surveyed developers and others involved in the permitting process to learn what they viewed as key impediments to quick housing production. BikePortland reported in February that respondents across the board—developers, city employees and other professionals—reported bike parking as a key cause of delayed housing production.

At Tuesday’s work session, Matt Fairris, of BAE Urban Economics, a consulting group working with the city, presented findings about the cost of various local regulations. He explained that the current bike parking regulations add 3 to 6% to a project cost, or about $11,000 per unit.

Given that System Development Charges (which the city collects to offset the impacts of the new development on, for example, sewers, transportation, and parks) are 3-7% of project costs, and that requirements for ground floor active use are only 1-4% of project costs, the costs of bike parking are, as Commissioner Mingus Mapps put it, “a surprising result.”

Mapps asked for more detail about that expense. Fairris explained that in most of the city the developer has to build 1.5 bike parking spaces per unit. If they are only building above ground, that means a big room at ground level for bike parking—a room which could have been another residential unit or retail. Working with the city, Fairris’s group calculated how the volume of that room would shrink if you reduced it from 1.5 to 1, or even 0, spaces per unit, and what the value would be if that footage were generating revenue. From there they calculated a cost.

Mapps responded that “As your PBOT guy, one of my goals is to facilitate people getting out of their cars and on to bikes, so this is a space that I want to think about, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on council to figure out how to bring affordable housing whilst meeting our climate goals.”

The cost of public infrastructure, like bike lanes and sidewalks was also noted, with uncertainty around requirements being a problem.

Gonzalez picked up on that with a question, “Where are the specific areas of uncertainty that were identified. Because that sounded like it was a significant item. Biking requirements? I’m just trying to get a handle on that.”

Fairris responded:

It really is sort of the gamut. Unfortunately there is just a lot of uncertainty around road infrastructure — sometimes you have to upgrade the sewer, sometimes you have to do bike parking. You thought the entrance to your property could be here, but instead it has to be around the corner because of a bike lane. Again, all of this well-intentioned but it has kind of an impact on what improvements have to be made in order to get that development through the permitting process. So I would say from a cost perspective, digging up a road and upgrading a sewer is probably is one of the biggest things we can ask … Having some certainty from the beginning is probably more critical than anything else.

The session also delved into Inclusionary Housing, the finance of developing affordable housing, including project feasibility, permitting reform, cleaning up redundant and conflicting city code, and Portland’s future housing needs. Reports on those topics can be found online at Commissioner Rubio’s website. It is clear that this council has committed to a lot of house-cleaning, and it seems like they are putting everything on the table, particularly in preparation for the charter reform reorganization.

In the end, council seems poised to loosen regulations in the name of making housing more affordable — even climate change fighting-minded ones like bike parking. An important piece of context here is that as bike parking mandates have gotten stronger, Portland has, as of last month, eliminated all auto parking mandates. And if the debate is about cost, the price to provide car spaces and garages is vastly higher than providing space for bikes. That means developers have a strong incentive to reduce auto use, regardless of the bike parking code.

Former Portland planning commissioner and one of the architects of the 2019 bike parking code update, Chris Smith, doesn’t want people to take the wrong message away from Rubio’s proposals and their impact on housing affordability. “I would guess that developers are spending several multiples more on auto parking than on bike parking,” he told BikePortland after today’s work session. “And I get that building a bike room might cost more, but cycling is a transportation affordability measure. The payout to get around on a bike is a huge affordability benefit for tenants in the long run.”

Since it was just a work session, the Council did not take any votes. But in the coming weeks and months expect recommendations and actions on housing production strategies and development code changes to work their way onto city council agendas. Videos of the session can be reached here.