Biking through a speed bump on the North Michigan Ave Greenway. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
An unintended use of these speed bump channels.
Speed bumps on Portland’s neighborhood greenways are a double-edged sword. They’re effective tools for slowing car traffic, making it safer and more comfortable to ride a bike on a street shared with cars. On the other hand, they can be unpleasant for people riding bikes to navigate over, adding some unfortunate nuisance to a bike trip on a greenway.
Recently, the issue came up again in the comments section of a BikePortland Instagram post about new bike-friendly speed bumps on NE Alameda. The consensus from naysayers seems to be that these gaps tempt drivers to dangerously shoot through them so they can avoid hitting the speed bump.
“I feel these encourage cars to veer from their lane and cause erratic, unpredictable behavior,” one commenter said.
“I watched no fewer than six people crash in a single Pedalpalooza ride when they haphazardly installed the NE 28th ones,” someone else wrote. “I have always wondered how these are supposed to work. I have ridden my bike thru the dip but it put me towards the middle of the road and resulted in getting honked and yelled at by a car. Are they supposed to be for bikes to avoid the hump?”
Lots of questions. And a bit of confusion and concern. So we reached out to PBOT to find out what’s up…
According to the Portland Bureau of Transportation, there are two different types of speed bump gaps on Portland’s streets. The first were designed in response to complaints from emergency vehicle operators who said these traffic calming measures were slowing down emergency response times. These speed bump channels split the speed bump into multiple “cushions” narrow enough that a fire truck driver can bypass hitting the bump. The second type — the “bike-friendly gaps” — were developed later as a variation of the emergency response vehicle speed bump treatment.
“The fire-friendly speed bumps were created to slow people who speed on local and small collector streets without sacrificing emergency response time,” PBOT Public Information Officer Dylan Rivera said in an email to BikePortland. “Having received complaints from people biking about the speed bumps, dating back to when we first began installing them, we thought a different design with a channel in a different location could be a desired improvement for neighborhood greenways.”
Rivera said that so far, PBOT has had “good results on speed reduction” on the neighborhood greenways where they’ve installed these speed bumps
“Their intention is to provide a more convenient trip for cyclists, prioritizing their positioning on the road without sacrificing speed reduction,” Rivera said. “So these days, Portland has fire-friendly and bike-friendly speed bumps.”
A fire truck using the speed bump gaps. (Photo: PBOT)
I was personally surprised to discover how controversial these speed bump gaps are. I immediately noticed the treatment upon beginning to bike around Portland, and I always thought it was a nice idea. I invariably groan a bit whenever I have to roll over a speed bump (especially when on an e-bike with its higher speeds), so I’ll always aim for the gap if one is available.
I agree that too many car drivers swerve to use the gaps even though they aren’t supposed to. After all, speed bumps are installed to force drivers to slow down, and when so many of our streets were built to allow people in cars to go as fast as possible, this can be a hard pill for some people to swallow.
This is a tricky problem to solve. In my opinion, the solution isn’t to completely get rid of treatments like this. Instead, it needs to be more apparent to people driving that neighborhood greenways are meant to prioritize bicycling. This could be accomplished with more traffic diverters and signage that, hopefully, would change behavior over time and make greenways more comfortable and safer for people biking and using active transportation. Maybe one day, drivers will be so calm that speed bumps are no longer necessary!
Luckily for everyone who isn’t such a big fan of these “bike-friendly” speed bumps, it doesn’t look like PBOT will be installing them just everywhere yet.
“They’re not yet a standard tool. We are in the process of learning what we can, both about effectiveness and design,” Rivera said.
So, what do you think about the speed bump gaps? Are they helpful or do you think they just cause more problems?
Looking north on NE 7th just south of Alberta. Cars can now be parked on both sides of the street, and the center striping is gone. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
After finishing up the hotly contested treatments at the NE 7th and Tillamook intersection last fall, PBOT is moving onto other stretches of 7th. And one of the treatments they’re trying out in hopes of reducing car traffic speeds may raise some eyebrows amongst critics of on-street parking.
In order to reduce car traffic speeds outside Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, PBOT has added street parking to the west side of NE 7th between Alberta and Prescott where it previously wasn’t allowed. On-street parking has been shown to reduce driving speeds by narrowing a street — when cars are parked on either side of a street, there’s less room for through car traffic to pass, forcing people in cars to slow down.
But on-street parking creates other problems, too. A line of parked cars creates a visibility barrier between people using the sidewalk and car drivers, and more street parking also increases the likelihood of a bike rider getting “doored” by someone getting out of their car. The additional, free parking also may incentivize more people to drive on this stretch of NE 7th.
These safety concerns are especially pertinent considering the proximity of an elementary school to this street. But PBOT says the additional car parking will be helpful for traffic calming, and the visibility concern won’t be an issue because they’ve removed parking near the intersections on NE 7th to ensure people are clearly visible when getting ready to cross the street.
PBOT currently has other plans in the works that will reduce on-street parking, like the plan to build a protected bike lane on NE Skidmore near Wilshire Park. They’re also looking at an initiative to plant trees in the curb zone, which has all the traffic calming benefits of street parking without the cars. There are many ways PBOT attempts to reduce car driving speeds other than opening up more space to cars, so this seems like a missed opportunity to try something else.
PBOT crews are in the process of removing the center striping on NE 7th.
Another aspect of this project is the removal of the center line striping on 7th from Alberta all the way south to NE Schuyler, just north of the Lloyd neighborhood. This is another tactic to promote slower car traffic speeds: research has shown that removing centerlines makes people more hesitant and cautious about how fast they’re driving.
According to PBOT, NE 7th will also soon be equipped with upgraded lighting at several intersections, and new lighting will also be installed at several intersections on NE 9th in between Prescott and Ainsworth streets. This will be done within the next few weeks.
Right now, it’s hard to tell how the changes on NE 7th will impact the feeling on the street. When I rolled over there earlier today, there weren’t a lot of cars in the new parking zone, so I wasn’t able to get a sense of how it would feel if all the spots were utilized. But in the places where the center line striping has been removed, 7th does already feel more like a neighborhood street and less like a busy throughway. It’s very interesting how a little bit of paint (or a lack thereof) can make a difference.
All of this is part of phase 1 of implementing the Lloyd to Woodlawn Neighborhood Greenway project. Once the first phase is complete, PBOT hopes to begin work on the next round of plans for the greenway project construction, but this second phase is currently unfunded.
The exchange with Dave Miller (of Think Out Loud fame) came in response to a question he asked Kotek on behalf of Sarah Iannarone, a former Portland mayoral candidate and current executive director of transportation advocacy nonprofit The Street Trust.
Iannarone submitted a question to OPB that referenced Oregon’s woeful track record of pedestrian fatalities, high household transportation costs, and the relative absence of any focus on these topics by Kotek (either in her campaign or her public statements thus far).
In her answer, Kotek pivoted to TriMet.
Here’s the exchange:
Dave Miller: Sarah Iannarone, a former mayoral candidate who is now the head of the Street Trust, sent us this question: “Oregon was in the top 10 states for pedestrian fatalities in the latter half of 2022. Transportation is the second highest household cost after housing for many people. Yet our mobility isn’t much talked about in the governor’s agenda. What are Tina Kotek’s plans to get Oregonians moving safely and affordably?”
Tina Kotek: Thank you for the question, Sarah. In the 2017 transportation package we did, for the first time, have a statewide payroll tax to help local transit. Again, I haven’t been in office very long, but one of the questions I would have for the Department of Transportation and our local transit districts is: “How are they using that money effectively to improve lines and the pricing?” I don’t think we’ve paid enough attention to how TriMet is doing their business, and so having conversations with them will be important.
Dave Miller: What are the questions that you are most eager to ask them?
Tina Kotek: Well, are we really focusing on making it as easy as possible to move people, make that option of public transit a real option? As you know, I lived in and represented North and Northeast Portland for years, and it wasn’t easy to get on the bus and get where you need to go, and the Max was too slow, multiple stops, right? How do you really have a conversation about changing behavior? It has to be easier, has to be affordable, and TriMet plays a big role in the metro area, and I’m going to ask them what they need and see if we have to do something differently so they can do a better job serving the community.
It’s notable that Kotek zeroed in on TriMet here. There was nothing in the question that even referenced transit, yet this is what popped into the Governor’s mind. Why is it notable? Because for many years, advocates have grumbled about the lack of accountability at TriMet, and despite its reputation compared to other transit agencies in America, using the bus and MAX in our region is still not as easy or attractive to people as it should be (especially compared to driving a car).
One reason it’s difficult to hold TriMet accountable (and thus, push them to be more bold) is because their board is chosen by the governor. That means even though TriMet is funded primarily by payroll taxes and fares from the Portland region, it’s governance is controlled by lawmakers in Salem who might have never set foot on a TriMet bus.
Not only is Kotek different because she has lived experience using TriMet (and she had constituents in north Portland as a state legislator who relied on it as their primary form of transportation), she has now made public her concerns about whether or not it’s doing enough of the right things.
“Basic principle 100 of good governance is that those who are most effected, those who pay the bills, that’s who should be in charge. So, who pays for TriMet? It’s the people who live in this region who pay the payroll tax and who pay the fares. And while that is enabled by the state, it is not a statewide revenue source, it is a revenue source in this region and most effects this region, and those are the people who should be in charge.
… Absolutely TriMet should be under regional control… The idea that there the board should be appointed by a governor, you know, and then confirmed by state senators from Burns or Klamath Falls absolutely makes zero sense. And it’s not fiscally responsible…”
For the first time in a long time, we have a governor who understands our region from a transportation perspective and has questions for TriMet. This is definitely something to keep an eye on.
A recipient of one of Colorado’s several e-bike rebate programs. (Photo: Bicycle Colorado)
At a time when Portland’s bike ridership numbers are falling, we can look to Denver where electric bikes are bringing new people into the fold.
House Bill 2571, a.k.a. the e-bike rebate bill, is currently working its way through the Oregon legislature with strong support from activists statewide who know just how transformative e-bikes can be for getting people out of their cars and lowering carbon emissions from the transportation sector. Now, thanks to a report released out of Denver last week, these advocates have more data to back up their stance on the efficacy of e-bike rebate programs.
After launching its wildly successful e-bike voucher program last April, the city of Denver, Colorado has become an exemplar for why it works to give people money for electric bikes. Denver’s initiative allows any resident to access a $400 e-bike voucher, while income-qualified residents can access up to $1,200, with an additional $500 for the more expensive e-cargo bikes. Every time these vouchers have been offered, Denver residents have snatched them up like hotcakes: more than 4,700 Denver residents became e-bike owners in 2022, and an additional 860 people benefited from the latest round of vouchers offered in January.
The report is co-authored by multiple organizations including the advocacy non-profits PeopleForBikes and Bicycle Colorado, sustainability research organization Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), the City and County of Denver and Portland-based ride tracking company Ride Report. Each group digs into a different pertinent topic, like how often these new e-bike owners are using their bikes, what kinds of trips they use them for and how other cities and states should create their own e-bike rebate programs. Here are a few key insights gleaned from the report.
People use their electric bikes as car replacements
Although many people who own electric bikes can tell you how life-changing they are for getting around without a car, some e-bike rebate skeptics have expressed concern that people will use public funding to buy bikes they never use. The Denver report refutes this idea, showing data that suggests people use their new electric bikes a lot.
The City of Denver’s office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency (CASR) sent out a survey to rebate recipients to gauge some of their travel habits. Through the roughly 1,000 people responded to the survey, CASR gleaned that respondents are riding their e-bikes an average of 26 miles each week, replacing 3.4 car round trips. In total, CASR estimates the new e-bikes replace 100,000 vehicle miles traveled each week.
Additionally, Ride Report has been studying data from a smaller pool of Denver e-bike rebate recipients who used their ride tracking app to record how they used their new e-bikes. Ride Report wanted to know if “rebate recipients actually ride their new ebikes” or if they “sit dormant in the garage collecting dust,” and their findings indicate the former result. 65% of e-bike rebate recipients who downloaded the Ride App were riding their e-bike daily, and 90% were riding weekly.
Interestingly, the report indicates that income-qualified residents use their e-bikes nearly 50% more than standard voucher recipients, perhaps because they didn’t have a reliable transportation method before getting their electric bikes. Oregon’s proposed e-bike bill currently doesn’t include means-testing: regardless of income, all Oregonians would be able to access the same voucher amount.
One particularly notable data point is that nearly 30% of survey respondents indicated they were new bike riders. At a time when Portland’s bike ridership numbers are falling, we can look to Denver where electric bikes are bringing new people into the fold.
There’s a process to getting these programs right
The report gives a rundown on how Denver started its e-bike rebate program and why other cities are embracing these incentives, offering some advice for designing similar initiatives.
“Electric bicycles reduce barriers to bicycling by helping people ride more often and for longer distances…[e-bike incentives] create low-cost, accessible, and efficient solutions for achieving our nation’s climate, sustainability, health, and transportation goals,” Ashley Seaward and Not Banayan from PeopleForBikes write. “In the United States, the transportation sector accounts for nearly a third of total carbon emissions. Electric bicycle incentive programs target this specific segment of carbon emissions by making this emerging technology more available to Americans seeking affordable mobility solutions that reduce their emissions and better connect them with their communities.”
Denver’s e-bike rebate program is funded through the city’s Climate Protection Fund, which uses a $0.25 sales tax to pay for local climate mitigation projects including the vouchers. After nine months of the program, the city had spent $4.7 million on e-bike rebates.
The City of Denver has several tips for cities and states organizing their own e-bike incentive programs.
Budget accordingly
Keep the resident application process simple and easy
If e-cargo bikes receive a different level of incentive, try to make the definition of e-cargo bike as objective as possible
Make the incentive applicable at the time of purchase
Build relationships and work with local bike shops
Lead early and genuine outreach in lower income neighborhoods
Make a plan for how to collect data from individuals once they have purchased the ebike
Think holistically about inducing demand for biking in your region by prioritizing investment in safe infrastructure
E-bike rebates don’t remove the need for shared micromobility systems
The report states that in order for e-bike rebate programs to be as effective as possible for reducing car use in a city, they must work in tandem with bike and scooter share programs. Denver saw their highest ridership of shared electric bikes this past summer during the e-bike subsidy program, “indicating that the rebates are a complement to the shared program and vice versa.”
According to research from Ride Report, the average trip length on a subsidized e-bike is 3.3 miles, while the average trip distance on a shared e-bike is 1.6 miles.
“The data indicates that the owned ebikes purchased through the rebate program are for longer and more frequent trips, and during commuting type times compared to shared ebikes. This again is an indicator of the distinct and complementary nature of shared and owned ebikes, both of which are encouraged through public policies and programs from the City and County of Denver,” the report states.
The carbon emissions savings are real
RMI’s calculation of how the e-bike incentive will reduce car use over the next 8 years. (Source: RMI)
How valuable are e-bikes as a tool for climate action? While anecdotal evidence is positive, this hasn’t been fully hashed out yet.
“While ebikes are very popular with users, their full economic and climate benefits are not fully understood. It can be difficult to assess the impact that shifting trips from ICE and electric vehicles to ebikes will have on transportation emissions, making it difficult for policymakers to incorporate them into climate policy,” the report states.
According to RMI’s research on how e-bike subsidies help combat climate change, this program saved 94 lb CO2e per dollar spent, for a total of 2,040 metric tons of CO2e avoided emissions per year. RMI’s research shows that e-bikes aren’t just superior to internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, but they’re also more effective for avoiding carbon emissions than electric cars, which currently receive the vast majority of government subsidies and rebates. If an ICE vehicle produces .54 metric tons (MT) of CO2 emissions, an electric vehicle produces .19 MT and an e-bike produces .01 MT — a huge difference.
RMI concludes that “establishing a program similar to Denver’s ebike rebate program would likely reduce GHG emissions from transportation in cities and save residents money” but ” until this point, the exact impact of the program on cities’ climate goals has been hard to determine.” RMI’s carbon savings calculator “can arm advocacy groups and cities with firm numbers to quantify impacts and help officials understand and assess the value of adopting a similar program.”
More benefits
Some other outcomes of the e-bike rebate program are more tangential, and can be difficult to quantify. One such advantage that the report didn’t touch on is how the rebates are creating a broader coalition of bike advocates, resulting in improved bike infrastructure even for people who didn’t receive a voucher.
A recent CityLab article looks at how residents getting their “first taste of the joys and anxieties of navigating their city on two wheels” after buying an e-bike through the rebate program may be compelled to “add their voice to those already clamoring for better bike accommodations.”
The Denver report contains more information about the e-bike rebate program and is a very helpful document for understanding the benefits of such initiatives. You can find the full report here, and stay tuned for more updates on Oregon’s e-bike bill.
For our latest episode, I rode down to City Hall and recorded an interview with Portland City Commissioner Mingus Mapps (luckily I only got rained on during my way home). Mapps has served as one of Portland’s five council members since 2020, and was recently named the commissioner-in-charge of the transportation bureau.
Mapps is a graduate of Reed College, he has a PhD in government from Cornell and is a former political science professor. Prior to ousting former Commissioner Chloe Eudaly from her seat in 2019, Mapps worked for the City of Portland’s Office of Civic Life.
Commissioner Mapps and I covered a lot of ground in this interview. We talked about the type of person he’s looking to hire as the next director of PBOT, how he thinks transportation policy and projects can help revitalize Portland, why he thinks the 2030 bike plan is outdated, his rationale for wanting more police officers on Portland streets, his position on automated enforcement cameras, the I-5 Rose Quarter project, and much more.
Listen to the full episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. An edited version of our conversation is below…
Mingus Mapps in his City Hall office, Friday March 3rd. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
What’s it been like being thrust into being the leader of the transportation bureau over the last three months?
Oh, my gosh, I don’t even think it’s been three months. I think it’s been two months and three days. And I’ll tell you in that time. The director of the Bureau who was very much looking forward to working with, resigned. We had a strike. And we had the second largest snowstorm, I think of the past 50 years. So it has been and an enormously hectic but exciting time. I’ve seen the bureau step up to a number of different challenges in a way that really makes me proud to be part of this team. And in addition to those sort of day-to-day operational things, Portland and Oregon is going through some really fascinating and important conversations about what the future of transportation infrastructure looks like. So it’s an incredibly exciting time to be here.
Portland has been through a lot in the past few years, and we are often lauded for our legacy of smart transportation and urban planning decisions — yet at at time we need those type of decisions most, it seems to me like those issues are on the backburner in City Hall. Do you think transportation infrastructure and urban planning policies should play a big role in Portland’s revitalization?
I don’t know if I can comment on the importance of transportation receding from City Hall in recent years, but it’s incredibly important to me. And I can tell you, I get to sit on a lot of planning tables and a lot of budget tables and moving forward, transportation is going to be core to the city’s revitalization, and the state’s revitalization and what the future of our community looks like. It’s not just about moving vehicles back and forth. It’s about how we live. I think we’re at the precipice of a new and exciting chapter in transportation, where infrastructure is going to emphasize cars less emphasize public transportation, biking and walking. I’ll also tell you, a lot of the old models for funding transportation infrastructure have become obsolete, which is both a crisis but it also is an opportunity to reimagine how we go about supporting infrastructure. And frankly, that’s kind of a good thing, because our old systems for funding infrastructure in the transportation realm have not served us well. So I’m very psyched about the 21st century.
When it comes to transportation, what is something we are not doing well in Portland?
As the guy where the buck stops on our transportation infrastructure, I’m horrified and upset about the number of traffic deaths we see out there. You know, literally driving a vehicle is a scary experience. And I think driving a bicycle in Portland is often a scary experience. And I will tell you, we need to manage this better as we head into what I expect to be a couple of decades of growth, where we have more people, you know, in a confined space. This won’t work unless we reimagine how we help people get to where they want to go.
What qualities are you looking for in the next leader of PBOT?
We need both a visionary leader who can help reinvent our our transportation infrastructure for the 21st century, and at the same time, this person needs to be able to help PBOT navigate the transition to a new form of government. My bureau directors — from water, environmental services and PBOT — literally sit around the same table that you and I are sitting at and we talk about how we can work together better, where we want the at these bureaus to look like as we move to a new form of government. You know, questions as radical is, you know, ‘Are these going to be separate bureaus three years from now? Five years from now? So you need someone who can navigate all of those changes. At the same time at PBOT, you know, over the next five years, we have a structural $60 billion deficit. Our next PBOT director needs to imagine and build the roads and sidewalks and bike lanes of the future, maintain the 1000s of miles of infrastructure — and you need to do it as your budgets are at least for the short term, shrinking.
Has anyone at PBOT briefed you about bicycling or the 2030 Bike Plan?
We haven’t had a formal briefing on it yet. It is definitely coming up. PBOT is an enormously large and complex organization. We haven’t gotten to the bike plan yet, but it’s literally on our list. And I will tell you, I’m a reader and fan of BikePortland, so I’m aware of the history here. I’m aware that we are not achieving our goals. And I’m committed to actually making Portland a better and safer place for people to bike.
The decline in bike ridership started in 2014 and it’s been flat or going down since then. From your perspective, do you think that’s a problem? And what what should we be doing about it?
I certainly want to diversify the way the ways in which people get to where they want to go… we definitely want to increase the amount of miles that people commute in Portland on bike, I think part of that means infrastructure, for sure. I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done here. And frankly, one of the things I hope I can at least launch in the two years I have left on this council is to revisit the bike plan to see where we could do better. That bike plan was put together under Mayor Sam Adams at a time when Portland was very different and I think a lot of those assumptions that we had then are just different.
Do you think it’s time to invest more public funds into our bike share system?
We’re in conversations around how to get more bikes and better bikes out there. I’m hopeful that those conversations will bear fruit.
How would you respond to someone who is irate about a traffic diverter near their home or a business owner mad about parking removal?
Over my time at as Commissioner of PBOT I fully expect to piss off people who wish that there were no bikes on their streets. And I fully expect that the bike community will hold me accountable for not building enough bike lanes — it just has to be a balance. And what we’re trying to do is optimize the infrastructure we build and the culture that we build. We’re trying to optimize the trade-offs that we have to confront.
Should there be space for cycling on 82nd Avenue?
I’d have to take a look at what the plans there are. I think that we’re definitely looking at bike lanes in that space, or at least I believe we’re looking at bike lanes in that space. And, you know, we’ll be in conversation with the community about figuring out what the right solutions for the folks who live along that street.
How would you characterize PBOT’s relationship to the Rose Quarter freeway expansion project?
I think it’s a really exciting project. You know, it’s represents an opportunity to reimagine that neighborhood to a large degree. So this is not just about roads, it’s not just about moving cars, it’s about moving people and an opportunity to do a lot of — I hope — equitable economic development… This is a real opportunity to lay the infrastructure that we need to make this a vibrant neighborhood. So we’re very excited about the concept of it.
But do you have trust that ODOT can actually pull that off?
I would I would reframe the way this discussion is playing out. There is a robust discussion happening right now, between stakeholders about what this infrastructure looks like. ODOT because of their mission, has a particular perspective. But ODOT is not the only player at the table. The City of Portland cares about this a lot. Local businesses care about this a lot. Albina Vision cares about it a lot. The Trail Blazers care about it a lot. We’re all in conversation trying to figure out how to make this project work. And frankly, this is a top priority to figure out how to make this space work for everybody.
What is your assessment is of where PBOT is right now in their relationship to the Portland Police Bureau and enforcement of traffic laws?
I believe it’s time… I think the city needs to step up its traffic enforcement work. In the last five years, traffic deaths in Portland have roughly doubled. It’s not like our infrastructure has gotten dramatically worse during that time. Frankly, it’s not really even like, you know, the amount of car traffic on the roads has dramatically increased. What has increased or changed during this time is the fact that we got out of the business of traffic enforcement.
So you want more police on the street enforcing traffic laws?
Yeah. I think I can say that. Traffic deaths have increased dramatically. I think it also contributes to a broad sense of Portland being a lawless place. You know, every day I see someone run a red light in Portland, which is kind of remarkable. And I don’t think I’d seen that before.
Are you a fan of automated cameras? And can you help us understand why there aren’t more of them?
Oh, absolutely. I am a fan. You will see more of them in the next two years. Frankly, I believe in the next year, I will double the number of traffic cameras and speed cams that we have out there right now. And frankly, you would see more, but the bottleneck here has to do with the supplier of the cameras, we are not able to find a contractor who could consistently provide the service at the volume that we need it.
When it comes to transportation in Portland, what policy or project do you want your tenure to be remembered?
I’m working towards building greener transportation infrastructure. I’m working towards building a more equitable transportation infrastructure. And I’m working on providing and establishing a stable and sustainable financial model for funding.
Listen to the full episode in the player above, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can see past episodes at BikePortland.org/podcast.
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.
Given that it delved into policy, last week’s story about the struggle to get a sidewalk built on SW Gibbs Street (Traffic impact studies: shouldn’t pedestrians and cyclists count?), got a surprising number of comments. Many readers weighed in with relevant insights.
But only one commenter went “meta.” qqq read the story, in part, as a response to long-running debates in the BikePortland comments section. What a good reader! And who’s to say what the author was thinking.
Here’s what qqq wrote:
Besides the great reporting uncovering the craziness of this particular situation, I love this for touching on so many things that have come up in other articles:
–the disjointedness of City government — while some of PBOT is busy on biking and walking projects, another arm is reviewing projects under the premise that biking and walking are irrelevant to transportation
–there’ve been lots of “neighborhood associations are all NIMBYs” comments, but here’s one that brought up an issue with PBOT reviews whose correction will help the whole city
–one roadblock to testifying or commenting about issues is the “leave it to experts” stance, but here’s an example of a neighbor having obvious technical knowledge that allows them to identify a problem with PBOT reviews that all of PBOT has apparently been unaware of or unable or unwilling to fix
–the way City processes are set up so it’s easy for bad things (PBOT’s approval of no sidewalks) to slip through unless it — almost by chance — gets noticed by a neighbor or someone outside the review process who knows how to object
This line from the article really sums it up well:
“It is difficult to understand why the fate of transportation infrastructure near this economic engine depends on conversations between a PBOT middle-manager and a neighborhood volunteer.”
Thank you qqq! You can find qqq’s comment, and many other informative comments too, under the original post.
Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers have come across in the past seven days…
London did it: Latest counts show that London has achieved Portland’s goal with 27% of all trips being made by bike on a typical day — more people on bikes than cars in their city center! (Forbes)
Inside the ‘gain cave’: For some riders — like this guy who has put 55,000 miles on his trainer — indoor cycling isn’t an alternative, it’s just what they’ d rather do. (Cycling Weekly)
Truth about self-driving cars: A comprehensive look at the fables and facts around automated vehicle technology proves that the field is still nothing more than a automaker-fueled fantasy that should be marginalized instead of mainstreamed. (Bicycling)
Snow in the bike lane: Residents of Reno are questioning that city’s snow plowing policies after a bike rider was hit and killed trying to avoid a wall of the white stuff. (This is Reno)
Doggie doping: An Olympic mountain biker was dinged by the UCI for using drugs — but it turns out it was just medicine for her dog. (AP)
On-street dining: New Yorkers are grappling with the future of their “dining shacks” that sprung to life in parking spaces during the pandemic as city leaders seek to cut them back to seasonal structures. (Slate)
Freeway fighting update: Portland’s No More Freeways is one of the groups involved in this roundup of what anti-freeway groups need to scale up their fights. (Streetsblog USA)
Better batteries: The bike industry is watching New York City’s new law that would allow only UL-tested e-bike batteries to be sold. It’s an effort to thwart fire concerns from cheap batteries. (Bicycle Retailer & Industry News)
Citizen enforcement: New York City is looking to do something similar to Oregon with a new law that would give anyone the ability to initiate a traffic citation, and it’s going through a few compromises as it approaches a council vote. (Streetsblog NYC)
Cycle Portland’s new spot. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
Ever since Velo Cult closed, there hasn’t really been a spot like that that’s kind of what we want to do.”
– James Kelly, co-owner
Cycle Portland has been a local staple for rental bikes and tours since 2007. Now, almost three years after shop ownership changed hands, Cycle Portland has moved just around the corner from its former location on NW 2nd into a new, more spacious Old Town spot — and the owners have exciting plans for how they’re going to utilize it.
The new shop is on the corner of NW 3rd and Davis in a space that formerly housed a Starbucks. It’s bright and airy inside, with plenty of room for a large assortment of rental bikes and a service shop in the back. Co-owners James, Kurt, and Renee — who bought the shop from founder Evan Ross in 2020 — have done a great job of making the place their own, but there’s still a cafe feel to the space giving it a unique, inviting atmosphere.
This is exactly what the owners want. At a grand reopening party in February, co-owner James Kelly told me he hopes the shop can become more than just a bike rental facility — he wants it to be an event space where people come to watch bike races or just to socialize while getting their bike tuned up.
“Ideally, people can come watch the Tour de France, or we would just host cool bike-related events,” Kelly said. “Ever since Velo Cult closed, there hasn’t really been a spot like that. We won’t be able to take up everything they did, but that’s kind of what we want to do.”
Much of the work Cycle Portland does revolves around bike tours and rentals for people visiting from out of town. They have a variety of bikes for people to rent and have come up with multiple different tour routes to showcase our city by bike. It’s a big responsibility to guide someone’s first time biking in Portland, and Cycle Portland offers a much more personal approach to bike rental than you could get from just downloading the Biketown app and taking off by yourself.
“We envision a future where our city is the most sustainable destination to live or visit in the country. We believe one of the most positive impacts a visitor can have in our region is choosing the bicycle over a car while here,” Cycle Portland’s website says. “Local businesses and residents will be thankful to see visitors choosing to cycle as part of their trip.”
It was clear from the energy at the re-opening party that Cycle Portland means a lot to people. The shop was buzzing with longtime friends and current and former staff who oohed and ahhed at the roomier facilities and chatted excitedly about future opportunities as shop dog Baikal roamed the floor.
Be sure to check out the new location — even if you don’t need to rent a bike or get yours serviced, you can partake in a glass of wine or draft beer and browse the wall of funky socks or just sit and chat. I’d love to see this spot become a watering hole for tourists and locals alike to share stories and tricks of the trade, so I’m very eager to see what’s next to come for Cycle Portland.
We are the world’s largest library of bike routes, and we enable cyclists to go on better rides, more often. We have a website and mobile apps that allow riders to discover the best riding in their area, and get turn by turn navigation using either their phone or bike computer of their choosing. Come join us in taking Ride with GPS to the next level! We are a mature, bootstrapped, profitable company of > 30 employees, and are looking for another senior level mapping engineer to help us continue to grow and build new products.
Maps, routing (finding optimal paths between two points), and elevations are critical technologies to Ride with GPS, and represent a distinct area of development for us. We both maintain forks of existing open source Open Street Map related technologies, as well as custom mapping solutions of our own design. Come work on the team that is responsible for the core technologies powering our route planners and search! We work with lots of interesting data, and we make pragmatic decisions about developing custom solutions vs extending existing technologies. This is a low overhead, highly independent small team.
Qualified candidates have extensive experience writing performant code in low level languages. Rust experience highly preferred.
Email careers@ridewithgps.com with your resume, your portfolio, and a cover letter that includes an overview of any work relevant to the position. If you have a personal connection to bikes, the outdoors, or mapping tech in general, we’d love to hear about it. We don’t require everyone to be a cyclist, but we have found having distributed product knowledge on the whole team lets us do more with less, and have more fun doing it.
Concept drawings by Eldorado Architects for Albina Vision Trust
The Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program (RCPP) was established in President Biden’s Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act back in 2021, and Portlanders have had their eyes on it from the start. This program acknowledges the damage some transportation infrastructure — especially freeway projects like I-5 in Portland — has created in communities due to displacement and other negative impacts, and it sets aside $1 billion in federal funds over five years to help make things right.
AVT applied for this grant last fall in partnership with the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and will use it to make initial plans for what the Rose Quarter and Lower Albina areas will look like when/if the Oregon Department of Transportation adds a highway cover to I-5 in the district. ODOT also tapped the RCPP for a very substantial grant of $100 million to construct the I-5 highway covers as part of their Rose Quarter freeway project. But ODOT’s application was denied funding in this cycle.
Other than the starkly different amounts of money requested, AVT/PBOT and ODOT’s applications may seem similar because they both deal with capping I-5 at the Rose Quarter. But while ODOT’s proposal to add covers to I-5 is wrapped up in their highly-controversial freeway expansion plan, the $800,000 in federal funds allocated to AVT and PBOT are not necessarily contingent on a freeway expansion.
Albina neighborhood advocates with AVT have signed onto ODOT’s Rose Quarter plan because they know it may be their best bet to negotiate capping the freeway to reconnect the neighborhood that was so negatively affected by the construction of I-5 in the 1960s. ODOT, meanwhile, knows that including these expensive freeway covers in the I-5 expansion project is the only way they get any federal funding for the plan. But so far, ODOT has been having a difficult time securing that funding even with the Albina neighborhood restoration as part of their pitch.
From the time the RCPP was first announced, some transportation advocates have been concerned that state DOTs would apply for RCPP money under the guise of restorative justice for neighborhoods harmed by infrastructure projects and then use the funding for freeway expansions. A blog post from transportation nonprofit America Walks calls ODOT out for this specifically, saying the proposed cap over I-5 at the Rose Quarter “has the potential to be a positive investment for Portland’s historically Black Albina neighborhood” but the USDOT should deny their application because it “comes attached to an expansion of the highway that will increase environmental and economic damage along the corridor.”
“We’re calling on USDOT to reject proposals like these, as they fail to align with the goals of the Reconnecting Communities program. Proposals like these leave in place the structures that cause damage — or even worse, expand them,” the post continues. “For that reason, they address neither environmental justice nor equitable development and result in either a negligible increase in community connectivity or a net decrease, in the case of proposals that bundle highway expansions into the project.”
Perhaps the U.S. Department of Transportation heard these concerns in their first round of RCPP funding — or maybe they just didn’t want to give ODOT more than half of the $185 million they have allocated for the program in its first year.
There’s still a lot up in the air about this project. It’s unclear how AVT and PBOT might be able to work independently of ODOT to make plans for a future Albina neighborhood that isn’t disconnected by I-5, and there will be more opportunities in the future for ODOT to apply for RCPP funding. But for now, critics of the Rose Quarter expansion project are calling this a win.
This section of SW Gibbs Street lacks sidewalks or bike lanes. Looking west toward construction of new apartment building. (Photo: Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)
The rules Portland uses to determine transportation impacts of new development currently do not take into consideration pedestrian and bicycle trips. That needs to change says Ed Fischer, president of the Homestead Neighborhood Association, who recently called on the Director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to review best practices for Transportation Impact Studies.
Fischer’s request is part of the Homestead neighborhood’s response to a new five-story, 43-unit apartment building which is currently being constructed on SW Gibbs Street, near the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) on Marquam Hill. As BikePortland has reported, the city will not allow the developer to pour a cement sidewalk on the building’s Gibbs Street frontage.
The construction is well underway, but the developer wants to increase the number of units from 27 to 43. This modification triggered a new round of permitting, including a modified application review by the Hearings Officer (HO). (Presentation of the completed application to a Hearings Officer is the final step in the permitting process for large developments.)
This second HO hearing gave the neighborhood association another opportunity to call-out the limited frontage improvements. In this second review, however, they took the further step of offering pointed criticism of what the city accepts as a Transportation Impact Study.
Since the law does not require it, the Hearings Officer cannot direct the expenditure of public funds to this project under the facts of this case. In this case, whether to modify the rules to include analysis of pedestrian and bicycle trips and whether to direct PBOT resources to prioritize a fix of the unsafe shoulder is within the sole province of the legislative and executive branch of the City (City Council and the PBOT Director). The Hearing Officer’s non- binding recommendation to PBOT is to use their executive and legislative powers to fully fund the projects identified in the PBOT emails with Mr. Fischer.
In other words, the HO’s hands are tied because he doesn’t have authority to require action from the city. But he thinks the city should do something about the unsafe shoulder new residents will be walking on, and also update city traffic analysis rules which are blind to pedestrians and cyclists.
Portlanders who follow trends in active transportation might be taken aback to see how outdated the city’s administrative rule guiding traffic studies is.
The rule, TRN-10.27 – Traffic Capacity Analysis for Land Use Review Cases, describes minimum levels of service for vehicles at intersections that have either signals or stop signs, but it does not mention anything about people walking or biking.
The purpose of the rule is to determine if the local transportation system is capable of supporting the additional trips generated by new occupancy, but its car-centric bias is glaringly out-of-step with government policies, including city and state decisions in recent years to end parking mandates.
That active transportation omission makes it impossible to analyze transportation impacts in a location like Marquam Hill, where the city began capping and regulating parking twenty years ago. As a consequence of that city policy, OHSU has only enough parking for one in every three employees. This has successfully resulted in many employees and students traveling to the Hill via public transportation, or by biking and walking.
The red truck marks the site of the new 43-unit development under construction. (Photo: Lisa Caballero/BikePortland, 2022)
And it has spurred “walk-to-work” development throughout the area, especially on Gibbs Street. But Gibbs does not have continuous sidewalk coverage, and sidewalks are completely missing near the new development.
Nevertheless, PBOT’s Development Review office determined that
… based on the evidence included in the record, the applicant has demonstrated to PBOT’s satisfaction that the transportation system is capable of supporting the proposed use in addition to the existing uses in the area.
This did not sit well with Fischer, himself a retired transportation engineer, who told BikePortland “the city is trying to make walkable neighborhoods.”
To further that goal, he suggested the following five changes to the traffic study administrative rule and the way PBOT reviews traffic studies:
Require trip generation estimates to include pedestrian and bicycle traffic. (These volumes could affect typical mitigation measures beyond just sidewalks, including crosswalk warrants, signal warrants, bicycle signal warrants, etc.),
Require PBOT reviewers to visit the proposed site on the ground and to examine, first-hand, facilities and access issues within a reasonable area of interest around the site, looking at likely destinations to and from the proposed development site,
Require documentation of actual traffic volume and speeds, not make assumptions based on posted speed,
Require review of recent, planned or proposed system improvements within a reasonable impact area around project site, and
Require (within the TIS) consideration of the use of System Development Charges to address local needs.
It is difficult to understand why the fate of transportation infrastructure near this economic engine depends on conversations between a PBOT middle-manager and a neighborhood volunteer.
Fischer said that the Homestead Neighborhood Association does not plan to appeal the Hearings Officer decision to city council, but that they are “keeping the momentum up to see if we can get the city to follow through on some of our recommendations.”
“Keeping the momentum up” has involved ongoing conversation with PBOT’s Development Review office about the neighborhood’s new, watered-down goal of prohibiting on-street parking on the road’s shoulder and increasing shoulder width downhill from the new apartments, the direct route to OHSU. (See photo at top.)
Their ultimate goal is a two-block long cement sidewalk, but the city told them that it would come with a price tag of $1.6 million, due to water pipes having to be relocated to avoid being under the sidewalk.
OHSU is the city’s largest employer. In 2021 its researchers brought in over $405 million in federal grants to the Portland area. It is planning a $650 million hospital expansion. Alongside this growth, private developers are filling in Gibbs Street with dense walk-to-work residential projects.
It is difficult to understand why the fate of transportation infrastructure near this economic engine depends on conversations between a PBOT middle-manager and a neighborhood volunteer.
If the city is really committed to its visions of supporting walking, biking and the densification which allows for better public transit, it should follow the Hearings Officer’s recommendation to use its “executive and legislative” powers to build the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure needed to provide safe passage for OHSU employees, students and neighbors. Infrastructure conversations need to rise a few pay grades.
North Williams Ave at night. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
“Had to jump off my bike and take cover in some bushes on one of their attacks.”
Two weeks ago we received a troubling text from a reader who said they’d been attacked by drivers multiple times while riding up North Williams Avenue late at night. The person wanted more people to know in case the suspects have done similar things to other people. (It also reminded me of a road rage incident we reported in December of last year that happened just a block over on North Vancouver.)
The reader (who wants to remain anonymous) owns a bar and rides their bike home after closing. In the past few months they say they’ve been attacked twice and sprayed with a pellet gun while riding up the street. “Both times the car would circle [back] and shoot at me,” they wrote.
The first time was a few month ago and it happened while they were biking north on Williams just past Skidmore. They say someone driving a Toyota Camry four-door hit them and another rider and made two more passes before the riders were able to elude the car north of the Killingsworth intersection (which is one-way only).
They decided to reach out after their second attack because it was so much worse than the first one. They were attacked three times by the same driver (in a Chevy Tahoe SUV), starting on NE 7th and Tillamook, then on Tillamook between MLK and Williams, and then again while riding north on Williams.
Here’s how it went down:
“I was literally being hunted by a Chevy Tahoe that was full of people yelling ‘We’re going to kill you m’fer!!’ Seriously was scared for my life. Had to jump off my bike and take cover in some bushes on one of their attacks and then take invasive [sic] maneuvers and alter my route home to escape.”
The bike rider says the vehicle didn’t have a license plate, but they still reported the incident to the Portland Police non-emergency line. We followed up with PPB and they confirmed the report.
If this type of thing has happened to you, please make sure to call it into the police so we have some record and data to track how often it happens. For the rider who shared their story with us, we’re just happy they were not seriously injured.
“I just think other late night cyclists need to know and be prepared,” they shared. “North Williams now has bandits hunting cyclists late at night!”
