NW 15th and Hoyt. Note the yellow caution sign in upper right.
The City of Portland has come to a settlement agreement with a bicycle rider who claimed that bumpy pavement caused them to crash and suffer serious injuries. According to KOIN, the person was riding near the intersection of NW 15th Avenue and Hoyt in June 2021. The city will pay out $25,000 as part of the lawsuit, instead of having the case go to court.
Court documents obtained by KOIN 6 News state that plaintiff Natalie King was turning left at the intersection onto 15th Avenue when she struck the uneven pavement surrounding a set of abandoned trolley tracks and fell to the ground. The fall allegedly broke multiple bones in King’s left wrist, which required surgery, and caused scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs.
“Unknown to [the] plaintiff, there were abandoned [trolley] tracks that ran parallel to 15th Avenue,” the lawsuit filed on Feb. 15, 2022 reads. “The abandoned [trolley] tracks had both newer and older asphalt that had been paved around the tracks, where some of the tracks end abruptly. The combined effect of the newer and darker asphalt, the older and lighter older asphalt, and the abandoned [trolley] tracks created a dangerous street condition, of which no warning was given.”
For their part, the city didn’t deny the existence of the hazard. Instead, they placed blame on the company that owns the old tracks and on the rider’s own negligence. In documents obtained by KOIN, the City of Portland said the bicycle rider, who was on an e-bike, failed to take necessary cautions that would have prevented her fall.
Notably, we raised concerns about these same exposed tracks on two occasions back in 2016 during our Northwest Portland Week. I was shocked at how dangerous exposed tracks on NW 12th were and I also pointed out risks of the tracks on NW 15th.
I know that the Portland Bureau of Transportation is aware of these hazards, but I’m not aware of any project or strategy to remove them. It’s quite expensive to remove all the hazardous rails, so — similar to the existence of streetcar and max tracks which have claimed thousands of victims over the years — the plan is likely to just encourage folks to use caution. That typically comes in the form of the (oddly) popular yellow caution signs that show a bicycle rider falling — one of which is installed on the corner where this crash occurred.
I’ve asked PBOT for a comment about this and will update this story when/if I hear back.
Center: Olive & Dingo lead the troupe across the Hawthorne Bridge. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
After another really fun Bike Happy Hour (thanks to everyone who came out!), I rolled over to the Clown Ride last night. It was led by Portland’s beloved clowning duo Olive & Dingo.
Folks met at Pioneer Courthouse Square to warm up their juggling skills, dial-in their clownsuits, and get faces painted. It was such a sweet group of folks. I know some folks think clowns are scary, and I understand that, but I personally love them! The ones I’ve met over the years are funny, talented people who I respect for their dedication to an art form that I’ve always felt is best shared in the streets. One highlight of my night was meeting Jusby the Clown, who works out of West Linn.
I didn’t stay until the end of this ride, so I regret not getting the full experience; but I still had a great time being in the presence and getting to document of all this joyful ridiculousness. This one of the many amazing rides going on right now during Pedalpalooza.
Check the full gallery below and don’t miss the little video (above) where you’ll hear from Dingo himself!
A very unsafe and stressful intersection in north Portland could get a drastic makeover if the City of Portland wins a state grant that will be announced later this year.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced at a meeting of their Bicycle Advisory Committee Tuesday night that a project that would remake the intersection of North Lombard and Denver has made the first cut for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Great Streets grant program. The announcement came during a presentation by PBOT Planner Mike Serritella. He’s in charge of the North Portland in Motion plan that is nearing final adoption. During the outreach process for that plan, Serritella said he and his team heard many concerns about the intersection and decided to seize an opportunity with the Great Streets program to make it work better. (Since Lombard is an ODOT facility, the project isn’t part of PBOT’s North Portland in Motion Plan.)
“If any of you have ever biked or walked or ridden the bus or driven through this intersection, you know that there’s an aging signal there, there’s a bike facility that merges with general traffic, the bus often gets stuck in traffic, and there’s a pattern of pedestrian crashes of this intersection,” Serritella said at the meeting last night. “We’ve heard a lot from neighbors and stakeholders, and the shelter that’s going into the corner there, about kind of a call-to-action to do something.”
PBOT slide shared at Tuesday’s meeting.
Serritella said the time has come to address this intersection because of community concerns and because of its crash history. In the five-year stretch between 2014 and 2018 there were 30 crashes here, eight of which involved vulnerable road users with seven of them being people on foot or bike. That history helped PBOT’s project score high enough to make it into the second round of consideration with just 14 other projects statewide.
Now PBOT is refining the project and garnering public support to make sure it competes well when final decisions are made later this summer. ODOT has about $35 million to spend in this program for the 2024-2027 cycle. The Great Streets program is new and ODOT says it’s in its “proof-of-concept” stage — meaning they need to choose projects that will prove the program’s worth. They want projects that, “address community safety and multimodal connectivity” on major arterials. Projects are scored in part on their expected reduction on greenhouse gas emissions and social equity factors.
As for what PBOT has in store, Serritella revealed a drawing of their latest concept. The project would fully rebuild the old traffic signal which would allow PBOT to separate vehicle turns from pedestrian crossings. They’d also extend the bike lanes on Lombard recently installed by ODOT that unfortunately end a few blocks west of Denver on N Delaware. This would fill a big gap and connect the Lombard bike lanes to existing ones on Denver that stretch north and south into the Kenton and Arbor Lodge neighborhoods.
One of the most exciting features of the project would be to finally close the slip lane in the southwest corner of the intersection. PBOT says they’d depave the corner and plan some trees.
PBOT’s final application is due in August and they’ll need as much documented community support as possible. If you’d like to share your support or feedback for this project, email Serritella at mike.serritella [at] portlandoregon.gov.
Portland-based electric bike company Vvolt has branched out their marketing to a local baseball team.
The Portland Pickles are a beloved franchise in the Great West League and play their games in Lents Park. As part of a new partnership, Vvolt has set up the Pickles with a seven-bike e-bike library and the team’s mascot — Dillon T. Pickle — will be rolling around the park on one of the bikes all season long. The bikes will be made available to any Pickles player or team staffer who wants to bike instead of drive to the field or for team-related errands.
“With Vvolt in the batter’s box, the Pickles are all set to hit a home run for sustainable transportation,” reads the wonderfully cheesy marketing copy.
If you want to get into the spirit, mark your calendar for Bike to the Pickles night on July 29th. Just ride to the park or join Vvolt staff for a group ride from inner southeast. We hear “Large Marge” of Pee’s Wee’s Big Adventure Fame will make an appearance.
Vvolt is also doing a giveaway as part of this promotion. One lucky person will win a Dill City Edition bike (just like the one Dillon rides!) and a runner-up will get a $350 Showers Pass gift card. Enter the contest and learn more about this pedaling Pickles player promotion at Vvolt.com.
The short answer is, “probably not you.” The book is the collected wisdom of an accomplished mid-career professional, and would make a wonderful text for a graduate-level course titled Engineering 240: Transportation and Community Engagement. And if you are already a transportation geek who is seeking a deeper understanding of why Portland’s transportation system is the way it is, it’s a good guide into the belly of the beast.
For me however, I found it a bit disappointing — not because of what I read, but because of what I didn’t.
Before being elected the Metro President, Peterson was the secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation for Governor Jay Inslee; the transportation policy advisor to Governor John Kitzhaber; TriMet’s strategic planning manager; and transportation advocate for 1000 Friends of Oregon — as well as being elected to the Lake Oswego City Council, and chair of the Clackamas County Commission.
Drawing from that deep background, Peterson illustrates many of her points with examples from Portland. The book builds to a middle chapter titled, Addressing the Racist Legacy of Transportation and Housing Policy in which she uses the destruction of the historically Black Lower Albina neighborhood, and the controversial I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening and capping project, to illustrate ineffective community engagement, and she criticizes the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) for it.
Early in the chapter she recounts the destruction of Albina between the late 1950s into the 1970s as I-5 was routed through the heart of the neighborhood. In the name of urban renewal, Portland allowed houses and businesses in this neighborhood to be razed to make way for the Memorial Coliseum, the Rose Quarter, Emanuel Hospital, Lloyd Center, and the Portland Public Schools Administrative Building.
From that sad and disturbing history, which is well-trod ground, Peterson pivots to present-day racial equity initiatives, the Rose Quarter widening and capping project, and she recommends Ibram X. Kendi’s 2019 book, How to be an Antiracist, as a starting point for one’s own antiracist journey. The chapter ends with instructions for how to bring a racial equity framework to the reader’s transportation work.
It is in the construction of a narrative that views all actions through a racial lens that I become aware of the accumulating errors of omission. For example, in Peterson’s discussion of “deep-listening” to the community, “community” always seems to mean Albina Vision Trust, the nonprofit that seeks to redevelop Albina and that Peterson hitched her position on the project to. But when invoking “community,” Peterson never mentions No More Freeways, the protesting students at Harriet Tubman Middle School, the Eliot Neighborhood, the Sunrise Movement. None of them make the book. She excises global warming from the discussion.
There might be pedagogical reasons for that, a clean simple narrative could be the easiest way to introduce the evolution of different programs for community engagement, but it strips the current Rose Quarter freeway expansion controversy of its flavor. It sanitizes a complicated story and makes it bland.
Similarly, in a section about overlooked and undervalued ethnic neighborhoods, Peterson turns to neighborhood greenways (PBOT’s bike-friendly residential streets) as an example of how “Whiter, wealthier neighborhoods were becoming safer as a result of these improvements…” But that overlooks the fact that the whitest area of town, southwest Portland, has the fewest number of greenways. That fact is not useful for her narrative.
My final example is the destruction of the Albina neighborhood itself. What Portland did is horrible, and the city is a less vibrant and humane place because of it. But Albina wasn’t the only neighborhood in Portland destroyed by urban renewal and freeway building. The Portland Development Commission also razed 54 “blighted” blocks in South Portland, home to a working class Jewish and Italian neighborhood. That ethnic neighborhood was so annihilated that there is no longer evidence that it ever existed. Between the South Auditorium Urban Renewal project, (the area around Keller Fountain), Interstate 405, the surface streets of Highway 26 and the Ross Island Bridge ramps, “block after block of south Portland homes, businesses, bars, churches and rooming houses [were cleared] … And by the mid-1970s, new construction had taken the place of most of the old structures.”
Again, leaving out the context of Albina’s destruction serves to support Peterson’s narrative.
My examples are not a three-part exercise in whataboutism. I’ve written all over this part of my book with marginalia — a lot of it question marks and exclamation points. To be transparent, I’ve given money to No More Freeways which opposes the Rose Quarter expansion of I-5. Peterson approves of the Rose Quarter Project, as she makes very clear.
However, I have a flexible mind, I can be convinced. But this section lost me, it skipped too many steps in the chain of logic, and left out the inconvenient facts that could make a too-clean narrative messy, and that just might make a story interesting.
By the end of the chapter, I found myself not completely trusting my narrator, and wondering if Peterson might be part of a cohort of traffic engineers who badly want their legacy to be having rectified the mistakes of a previous generation.
I do not think I would recommend this book to many people. You have to be pretty deep in the policy weeds to appreciate it. But for those who do jump in, it offers an illuminating peek into the ideas that appear to animate the higher levels of Portland’s transportation culture.
In this episode, I talk with Billy Sinkford, a bicycle industry insider and VP of PR and marketing firm, Echos Communications. Billy lives in Portland and is the man behind MADE, a major bike show coming to Portland August 24th – 27th that will feature over 200 custom bike builders and other companies in what he calls the largest handmade bike show North America has ever seen.
I’ve known Billy for years, but have never been able to sit down and have a chat with him, so I was really excited he was able to swing by The Shed for this interview. I finally got a chance to ask him more about his interesting past, how he got into the bike industry, the work he does with Echos, why he’s such a big fan of handmade bikes, and more.
Billy in the Shed (with my dog Georgia). (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Oh, and he was also nice enough to share the strange — and I’ll just say, very personal story, of how he got his nickname, “Souphorse” — the name many people know him by and the name that’s tattooed across his neck.
But wait, there’s more… We’ll be giving away tickets to MADE shortly. Stay tuned for your chance to win!
I think you’ll love our conversation. As always, if you like our show please subscribe, leave a review, and tell you friends about it!
Juliette Rizzo approaches the staircase adjacent to I-84 near Eagle Creek Trailhead. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
There are few tools left for advocates to create urgency around the need to replace a set of inaccessible stairs near the Eagle Creek Trailhead on the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. They’ve gotten the issue squarely on the radar of the Oregon Department of Transportation and they’ve filed lawsuits and staged protests.
Their latest effort? Tour the site with a nationally-known disability rights advocate and make sure a journalist is there to cover it.
Last Friday I drove to the Eagle Creek Trailhead about 40 miles east of Portland in the Gorge to meet former Ms. Wheelchair America and Board Member of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, Juliette Rizzo. Rizzo, 55, has progressive disabilities caused by a mosquito bite that led to an infection when she was three years old. Rizzo learned the ropes of accessibility advocacy while working as communications director for Judith Heumann, a woman many people consider the mother of the disability rights movement.
AJ Zelada and Juliette Rizzo.A nice lookout, if you can access it.
Rizzo was invited to the Gorge by AJ “Jerry” Zelada, a longtime Oregon cycling advocate who’s teamed up with Rizzo to broaden awareness of disability access issues to cycling and walking advocates (he’s also a board member of the Friends of the Historic Columbia River Highway and former chair the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee). The duo has presented together at Walk Bike Places and the League of American Bicyclists National Bike Summit. Rizzo has also been a keynote speaker at America Walks and the 2018 Utah Department of Transportation Pedestrian Summit.
Now Zelada hopes Rizzo’s star power can help move the needle and finally replace this staircase once and for all.
Located about two miles west of Cascade Locks right off exit 41 and built in 1996 (six years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed), Zelada describes the stairs as a “tourniquet” that cuts off many people from enjoying the state trail. He thinks now is the right time to build an ADA-compliant ramp so that everyone can experience the state trail as ODOT creeps ever closer to fully connecting the 73-mile project between Troutdale and The Dalles. “The urgency is really the fact that the Mitchell Point tunnel is coming online in the second quarter of 2024,” he shared with me Friday. When the trail project is done, it will garner major headlines and attract thousands of tourists to Oregon to experience it.
But unless ODOT and their partners do something soon, the imposing and impassable staircase will still be there.
To Zelada, the issue goes beyond people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices. He and Rizzo talk about “cross disabilities” — less visible conditions like cognitive, vision, sensory, hearing, and many other issues. Or even people who are older and/or recovering from injuries or medical treatments. Then there are the bike riders or people with strollers who simply cannot lift their bikes down the multiple flights of steep stairs. Imagine if you have a stroller with very small children and you have to make two trips, Zelada said. What happens to the kids while you set them down and make the second trip to get the stroller?
“A ‘cure’ for me is staying active, to lessen my rigidity and strengthen my immune system with fresh air… it’s also critical that I don’t run into barriers.”
– Juliette Rizzo
The Eagle Creek Trailhead, where we met on Friday, is one of the most ADA accessible parking lots in the Gorge. It’s relatively flat and has large parking spots for specially-equipped vans. It’s also one of the closest major trail access point to the Portland metro area.
As Rizzo and the rest of the group made their way to the stairs, we used the bike lanes between the parking lot and the trail. When we came upon an old lookout over the creek with a stone wall and bench in the middle, we realized its entry was too narrow for Rizzo’s chair. “So that was fun,” Rizzo said, sarcastically. “How awesome that would be and how easy that would be to make that accessible?”
For Rizzo, having experiences in nature are key to her health. “A ‘cure’ for me is staying active, to lessen my rigidity and strengthen my immune system with fresh air. It’s critical to me,” she told me. “And it’s also critical that I don’t run into barriers in the great outdoors.”
“There are many people that say, ‘Oh, well, she’s bound by a wheelchair.’ But what I say is, how can I be bound by the only thing that brings me freedom?”
But Rizzo wasn’t free to enjoy this trail. As we approached the staircase, she pointed out that there wasn’t even a sign from the parking lot saying that the trail was inaccessible to people in wheelchairs or with other physical disabilities. She then rolled right up to the base of the stairs, while others continued up them. Her friend walked all the way to the top to explore the forest where the path begins. With her head tilted up into the trees beyond the stairs, she said, “I just can’t join my friends.”
ODOT says they want people like Rizzo to be able to enjoy the full trail, but fixing the stairs just isn’t a top priority right now. ODOT’s Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Coordinator Terra Lingley shared in an email with BikePortland this morning that her office (working with the Oregon Trails Coalition) sent a “congressionally directed spending” (aka earmark) request to Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s office this earlier this year. “The package included a request for funding for alternatives analysis to understand the range of ADA-compliant solutions to address the Eagle Creek Stairs,” Lingley wrote. “These stairs remain on our priority list, but our first priority is to create the full connection of the [state trail].”
It’s a complicated project. The first issue is cost, which goes up every year. Then there are the technical and geological challenges.
In 2009 a project to replace the stairs with a ramp was estimated (very roughly) at $2.5 million. In spring 2022, an estimate from an engineering firm put the cost at $40 million (about the cost of the damage from the devastating 2017 Eagle Creek wildfire). Now Zelada says it’s up to $50 million.
“ODOT is out there, looking for money to do the project,” Zelada shared with me Friday as we walked back to the parking lot. “But they say in terms of an ADA priority, this is at the end of the line after many other projects and have given us a 2030 completion estimate.” ODOT has also said that they are prioritizing completion of the state trail before the stairway project.
Rizzo with (left to right) her friend Korey Davis, AJ Zelada, pediatrician Martine Sacks (Zelada’s partner), USFS Volunteer Nancy Meitle, and Friends of Historic Columbia River Highway President (and former ODOT project manager) Jeanette Kloos.
Costs aside, Zelada understands the complexity of building an ADA-compliant ramp on a steep slope is no small task — especially given the type of soils in the Gorge. “We’re under a riverbed right now,” he said, referring to the Missoula Floods that carved the Gorge thousands of years ago. “The earth out here is basalt with a sandy slope and is very unstable. You can’t fix a trail to it. The solution isn’t just getting rid of the staircase, it’s finding a solution within this living geology we are standing on.”
Despite the challenges, Rizzo seemed optimistic after her visit. “Many people think it’s about physical accessibility. But sometimes the most important things are accessible attitudes. With accessible attitudes, anything is possible,” she said. “It is just a matter of getting the right people at the right table at the right time to make this happen.”
Then in her typical wit, Rizzo added, “And you know, it would be easy to have me at your table because I bring my own chair.”
Here’s to hoping we can all roll on this trail with Rizzo when she returns to Eagle Creek in the coming years.
Future path between SW Shattuck and Cameron. (Photo: City of Portland)
The City of Portland is taking another step forward to build the Red Electric Trail. After they completed the carfree Red Electric Trail Bridge last summer, they’re ready to hear public feedback and begin the design process for a separate one-half mile segment of the trail near the former Alpenrose Dairy site.
Last spring the City announced a $750,000 federal planning grant (issued as part of Covid relief programs) that will allow them to bring a section of the Red Electric Trail between SW Shattuck Road and Cameron Road up to shovel-ready status. This project looks to reclaim old train right-of-way that was used over a century ago for the interurban lines that criss-crossed the southwest hills. Currently used as an informal, unpaved path by local residents, the alignment runs adjacent to a community garden, a park, and an elementary school (see map below).
This segment will ultimately connect to the west with the portion of the Red Electric Trail that will be built as part of the new housing development at Alpenrose.
In the past year, the City has hired a design and outreach consulting firm. They’ve also had crews clear out vegetation on the trail and have completed initial survey work. Now they’re ready to share what they’ve learned with the public and hear what folks think about the project in general. An online survey opened this week and they’ll be at the Hayhurst Neighborhood Association meeting to make a presentation tonight. There will also be a neighborhood walk starting from Pendleton Park from 4:00 to 6:00 pm on June 20th.
When this project is completed by next summer, the City will have all the major design elements, a cost estimate, and a construction timeline nailed down. Stay tuned for chances to weigh in and check out the project website to learn more.
Looking south on Wallace Rd NW (Hwy 221) between milepost 11 and 12.
A resident of Portland was killed on Saturday just before 11:30 am while biking on a rural highway in Polk County.
According to Oregon State Police, 55-year-old Adam Joy was riding southbound on Wallace Road NW (Highway 221) about 10 miles southeast of McMinville when he was struck from behind by 47-year-old Robert Weeks who was driving a 2021 Ford F-350 truck. The collision occurred near the 11.5 milepost marker, which is near the entrance to Spring Valley State Park (approximate location pinned on a map here).
Here’s an excerpt from the OSP crash statement (which is likely based solely on the recollection of the driver and a cursory investigation):
“The bicyclist fell over, into the lane of travel, just as the F-350 passed. Even though the F-350 had slowed when passing, the rider of the bicycle was run over by the F-350 and was pronounced deceased at the scene. The operator of the Ford remained on scene and was cooperative with the investigation.”
2021 Ford F-350. (Note: This is just a sample image to show what the truck might have looked like.)
Adam Joy in school staff directory.
The roadway on this section of Wallace Rd is two standard lanes. There is little to no paved shoulder space beyond the two lanes. While this highway might look unsafe for cycling, that’s only because of how fast drivers go on it. The surrounding area is very popular for cycling with the bike paths in Spring Valley and the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway nearby (the latter being just on the other side of the Willamette River). The Wheatland Ferry — a fun way for bike riders to cross the Willamette River — is about two miles away and the Wallace Rd. section of the bikeway route is less than two miles from where Joy was hit.
It was notable to me that OSP said the “bicyclist fell over in the lane of travel.” Given the width and striping of the roadway, it would be impossible for a bike rider to fall over to their left and not be “into the lane of travel.” Also, Oregon law (ORS 811.065) states that a driver of a car or truck must only pass a bicycle rider if they can do so at a safe distance. In this context, “safe distance” is defined by Oregon statute as, “a distance that is sufficient to prevent contact with the person operating the bicycle if the person were to fall into the driver’s lane of traffic.”
I’ve asked Oregon State Police if the driver was/will be issued a citation and will update this story when I hear back. UPDATE: Cpt. Kyle Kennedy says, “The investigation is ongoing and those determinations will be made by the investigations in conjunction with the local district attorney.”
It’s interesting to me that OSP says they can’t comment on possible safe passing law implications due to a pending investigation; however they were willing to report that Joy fell over before that investigation was complete.
Students and colleagues have decorated the door of Adam Joy’s classroom. (Photo sent in by a friend)
UPDATE, 2:50 pm: A commenter verifies that the victim was a school teacher in Vancouver. “The rider who was killed was a beloved middle school science teacher at VSAA in Vancouver. He left hundreds of grieving students and staff in addition to his family.”
A letter sent home to families Monday morning from VSAA Principal Lori Rotherham described Joy as a warm and involved teacher.
“He was very loved by our students and loved his students in return. We will miss Mr. Joy deeply, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Rotherham said.
Joy, 55, had worked in Vancouver Public Schools since August 2000. Before coming to VSAA six years ago, Joy had worked as a math and science teacher at Discovery Middle School for 17 years.
UPDATE, 6/13 at 3:25 pm: Bike Clark County Executive Director Peter Van Tilburg just sent us this note:
Adam Joy is a tremendous loss to our cycling community. He commuted daily from his home in Portland to Vancouver where he was a middle school teacher. He spent many long days, on his own time, teaching an after school bike curriculum to students. Over the years he ran this program, Bike Clark County often donated helmets so he could give them away to the students in his class. He was a frequent patron of Bike Clark County’s bike shop and just recently purchased two refurbished bikes for his two children that are still in the shop.
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.Please note: These selections are not endorsements.
BikePortland readers have much knowledge and experience, and when you share it you round out our stories and fill in needed background.
That’s what Mike Murray did for the Alpenrose story. The truth is, BikePortland is not the magazine that sits on your nightstand with the story inviting you to linger over it for ten pages. People will only read so many words per story on a screen. The Alpenrose story was already getting long so I didn’t feel like I could be expansive about the velodrome.
Luckily Mike (a longtime Oregon Bicycle Racing Association volunteer and official) stepped in to fill in the missing background. Here’s what he had to say:
Obviously I have a biased view on this subject as I managed the velodrome as a volunteer since the mid 80s. It would be wonderful if there was a way to retain the velodrome. Velodromes are very rare with only around 20 in the entire country. I have nothing against ball diamonds but even if groups have trouble scheduling time on ball diamonds there are WAY more ball diamonds even when viewed from a per capita user point of view. The catch, of course, is that even a smaller velodrome like Alpenrose takes up a lot of land space.
Alpenrose was one of the busiest velodromes in the country, right up until we were banned from using it. It has now fallen into disrepair but those issues could be addressed with no cost volunteer labor and materials in a matter of weeks, as we did for the last 40 years. Management of the program could also be done at no cost to the property owners, just as we always have. I’m not sure these things could be said about ball diamonds.
Coast to coast: Portland’s bike bus has inspired parents and teachers in New York City to start up ones at their school. (New York Times)
Bikenomics: A news publication in Toronto shares an excellent model for how to talk to cycling-skeptical conservatives. (The Hub)
Sorry for safety record: The new CEO of Rad Power Bikes has done something very rare in corporate America: admitted doing something wrong! (The Verge)
Last-mile tech: You know you’re in the midst of a real cargo bike delivery movement when you see companies innovating to compete. (Cycling Electric)
Pedaling the past: An annual ride by a group of Cherokee Nation teens retraces the 950-mile route of the Trail of Tears and brings them closer to their ancestors. (PBS)
Transit protest: Activists in San Francisco used bicycles to block traffic in opposition to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempt to defund transit. (SF Standard)
Relativity: One advocate says we should stop using the term “micromobility” because the “micro” assumes oversized trucks and SUVs are the benchmark size. (Streetsblog USA)
Corrupt cops: NYPD officers actually used a “get out of jail free” card to give friends and family a free pass and not face traffic citations — until one of their own blew the whistle. (Washington Post)
Musk’s deadly experiment: Turns out that Tesla has a much worse safety record with their automated driving feature than the company has admitted do. (Washington Post)
Bike the Apple: Apple’s latest watchOS comes with enough nifty new features for bike riders that it could be your sole cycling computer. (Bike Radar)
A perfect night for riding bikes with a few hundred (thousand?) folks on the streets of Portland. Pedalpalooza is pure joy on wheels.
Here are some photos from the LCD Soundsystem Ride, which combined with the Daft Punk Ride at Laurelhurst Park and continued dancing and rolling through the night.
