2023 Archives

Portlanders march to remember traffic victims amid call for safer streets

Some of the 60 sleeping bags laid out to represent traffic victims at Memorial Coliseum on Sunday. Full gallery below. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“I wish more people could see this and recognize that these are real people.”
– Jackie Yerby, bike advocate

About three dozen Portlanders did something together on Sunday that far too often feels like a dangerous activity: they took a walk. And if the reason for it wasn’t clear in the short walk from Lloyd Center Mall to Veterans Memorial Coliseum, when they arrived at the plaza in front of the coliseum, there could be no doubt.

Upon arrival they walked past 60 sleeping bags laid out in rows to represent dead bodies of the people who’ve died using Portland streets so far this year. And in a sad irony, the display was two bags short of the actual total because two more people were killed since the event was organized. And as of this morning, it’s now three bags short as Portland’s annual traffic toll has shot up to 63 lives lost — on pace with 2021 which was the deadliest year we’ve had since 1990.

Dedicated bicycle advocate Jackie Yerby, who serves on boards of The Street Trust and Cycle Oregon (and is a former member of the Community Cycling Center board) told me she had a visceral reaction to walking past the bags. “To see those bags and those names… I got really choked up. It’s a really powerful image, and I wish more people could see this and recognize that these are real people.”

The walk and installation of body bags with the names and dates of victims tagged to them, were part of an event to mark World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, an internationally-recognized demonstration that was organized locally by The Street Trust, Families for Safe Streets OR/WA, Oregon Walks, and the City of Portland.

“We generally try to find joy in our work and come together around the things we can get excited to transform like street plazas and bike buses and group rides and improvements to our system,” said The Street Trust Executive Director Sarah Iannarone as she stood in front of the bags. “But today is not one of those joyful days. It’s a somber day. And we need to pay close attention to the fact that the statistics that we’re talking about, each of them represent a precious life in our community — someone who was beloved mother, sister, father, brother, nephew, worker, leader, killed on our streets.”

Watching Iannarone from the crowd was Michelle DuBarry with her husband and her two children. 13 years ago DuBarry’s husband was pushing a stroller in the crosswalk of North Interstate Avenue at Lombard when he and their one-year-old son Seamus were hit by a careless driver. The father was injured. Seamus died at the hospital shortly after. DuBarry is now a volunteer activist with Families for Safe Streets.

“These deaths and injuries to people we love are violent, they are sudden, they are impossibly painful for everyone involved,” DuBarry said while holding a photo of Seamus. “And they are entirely preventable.” “Every day I think about the simple crosswalk improvements that could have prevented the crash that killed my son, and our transportation agency’s repeated insistence that there is no money to save lives.”

Wendy Serrano, who works as equity and inclusion manager for the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation, has also lost family members to violent traffic crashes. In the past 20 years since she and her family arrived in Portland from Guadalajara, Mexico, her grandmother (whom she described as “more like a mother”) and her grandfather were killed by drivers.

With her baby in a sling strapped to her chest, Serrano recounted those preventable deaths and shared, “We need to be clear about whose safety we should be prioritizing, whose comfort our governments and entities should be prioritizing, in our streets. And we need to be clear about who are the most vulnerable and who are the people who will continue to die in our streets.”

A growing segment of Portland’s traffic victims are the extremely vulnerable people who live adjacent to streets in tents and other makeshift shelters. The sleeping bags used in Sunday’s memorial weren’t just to represent dead bodies, they were an intentional statement about the toll traffic violence takes on people who live outside. “We know people experiencing homelessness are overrepresented in Portland’s pedestrian fatalities,” The Street Trust’s Iannarone said. “It was as high as 70% two years ago. This year, we’ll probably be on order of about 50%, if not a majority of pedestrian fatalities on Portland streets.” (The sleeping bags were packed up and donated to homeless services organizations.)

As we walked past several people living on the sidewalk on our way to the memorial, I asked Portlander Lena Wiley why she showed up to the event. “I am a pedestrian. And in my daily life, I encounter all sorts of unsafe situations,” Wiley shared. “And it’s just really important to me to build safer streets, both for myself but also for the community.” Asked what she wanted see more of from the city, in terms of safety changes, Wiley said she’d like to see turning movement more aggressively addressed because so many people make unsafe right turns on red signals.

For Claire Vlach, who showed up with her husband and two young children, the event made her appreciate just being able to walk together. “The main thing I was thinking about on our way over here was how grateful I am that my family has not been touched by traffic violence. Because we walk and bike most places that we go, and I always feel vulnerable. And I’m grateful that my children are around and I wish that everybody’s children were still around.”

Watch a video of the event posted to our social media channels today (if it doesn’t show up below, watch it on Instagram here):

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City auditor takes up Portland Heights ADA ramp saga

Corner of SW Montgomery Drive and Roswell Ave on July 20th, 2022, the day after the new ramp was demolished.

Readers might remember a couple of posts BikePortland published about a year and a half ago about a hapless ADA ramp in Portland Heights which had to be built four times (and torn out three) before it was finally able to pass inspection.

Well, it turns out that a neighborhood curmudgeon reported the fiasco to the city auditor’s Fraud Hotline. The auditor investigated, and indeed found that several ADA ramp installations were “inefficient and wasteful.” The auditor’s report came out a couple of weeks ago.

I’d like to revisit that episode, not just because the city auditor backed up BikePortland reporting, and not because KOIN’s Brandon Thompson put me on TV (and gave a shoutout to BikePortland reporting in his written article). That was all nice.

No, what’s really important about the saga is what it says about how our city government is currently organized, and what the city reorganization ushered in by charter reform is hoping to fix. Namely, the City of Portland employs a lot of hard-working, conscientious people who struggle to work within a dysfunctional organizational structure.

I can think of no better example of the resulting inefficiencies than this ramp imbroglio.

This is going to be another of my wonky dives into the details of how the city is run, but I’m someone who wants to understand why things are the way they are, and I think there is some light at the end of this tunnel.

The recap

As part of the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) Goose Hollow Sewer Repair Project, the city was required to upgrade affected streets with ADA ramps. As the auditor’s report describes, BES was responsible for the overall project, with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) providing “design, inspection, and other services” concerning the ramps. BES hired a contractor, and sub-contractor, to do the ramp construction. What could possibly go wrong?

The auditor’s report

Here’s a bit from the auditor’s report:

Audit cover

In October 2021, Transportation determined the contractor did not follow the design, but Environmental Service paid the contractor anyway because they later determined that even if the curbs had been installed as the plan directed them to do, they would not have met Americans with Disability Act requirements. Better coordination with Transportation could have prevented concrete being poured using a non-compliant plan.

According to photos from a local newsletter, an earlier concrete pour took place in June 2021, and those ramps were removed in July 2021. The Environmental Services work log did not cover that period of time because the contract manager for the project changed.

After several months of inactivity, and two more designs, Transportation determined curb ramps installed in June 2022 were also not poured per design. Environmental Services said that the contractor tried to make field adjustments and design revisions in collaboration with Transportation, but the ramps still did not pass inspection for Americans with Disability Act requirements.

The final curb installation we received records for was in July 2022, and Transportation determined those curb ramps were installed correctly in August 2022.

Basically, the report describes what we used to refer to as “spaghetti code,” a tangle of missed communications and unclear responsibilities.

The audit is a very readable five-pages long, and concludes, “when bureaus do not adhere to what they say is standard practice, they should do so with greater transparency, so that their reasons for not doing so are clear to policy makers and the public.”

The BES response to the auditor’s report is detailed and worth reading. Regarding a recommendation for “closer oversight,” BES replied,

Environmental Services agrees with this recommendation and is working on process improvements with PBOT as there are projects in process with ADA ramps. As curb ramps are a PBOT asset, PBOT staff are better equipped and trained to oversee the design, construction, inspection, and acceptance of curb ramps and determine their ADA compliance. BES is actively engaging and coordinating with PBOT to develop improved processes for design, construction, and inspection of ADA ramps on BES projects. When finalized, these improved processes will be implemented for ADA ramps on BES construction projects in the future.

Interestingly, KOIN reported that KC Jones with the auditors office told them, “during the transition, we’ve flagged this for the transition team as the sort of relationship that the city needs to kind of get better at.”

City reorganization

CAO Michael Jordan presents to City Council

KC Jones’s “transition” refers to the reorganization of city government away from our current “commission” system, in which each member of the city council has a portfolio of bureaus to lead, to a more standard model in which the mayor heads the executive branch and implements city policy with the help of a city manager.

Two weeks ago, the City Council voted in favor of the new organizational chart. The nearly five-hour meeting began with a presentation by Shoshanah Oppenheim, the Strategic Projects and Opportunities Team Manager, the City Organization project manager Becky Tillson and Chief Administrative Officer Michael Jordan.

Jordan, who was for many years the head of BES, concisely summed up the pitfalls of the commissioner system. His comments were a spot-on description of what went wrong with the ADA ramps. Here is what he said:

I think we are all subject to thinking about organizational structure in a vertical way. Certain groups report to certain bureaus which report to certain executives which report to the mayor, ultimately. And we think about the organization in a very vertical way.

I think this reconstruction of the way we think about ourselves offers us an opportunity to look horizontally, across the organization. And to think about the city as a complete enterprise and how we allocate our human resources, how we think about the delivery of services, particularly within the city, to support the direct service delivery of our bureaus.

It provides us with that opportunity which we, quite frankly, lack today. It is very challenging for us to think horizontally across the organization. And I think this new structure gives us the opportunity, not only to think horizontally, but also to give clarity of accountability, and transparency about how we do business and what decisions get made, and where they get made in the organization.

The wastefulness of the ADA ramps installation is a perfect example of how challenging it is for the city “to think horizontally across the organization.” Imagine how challenging it is being the neighbor watching this unfold and trying to figure out who in the city to call.

Jordan knows the problems as someone who was running a bureau. He gets it.

I know the problems as someone involved in my neighborhood. When a neighbor can’t figure out who to call, they call their neighborhood association. This kind of between-bureaus problem happens often enough, I call it inter-bureau, interstitial purgatory—that sad space you find yourself in, caught between bureaus, acting as a human conduit for silos which don’t have one another’s phone numbers.

It’s one of the reasons I voted for charter reform, and I’m cautiously optimistic that soon our city will be running more efficiently.

Comment of the Week: Bike parking thrown out with the bath water

BikePortland regularly covers stories which are somewhat technical, and our readers benefit from the many pros who comment here. I certainly appreciate it when commenters I’ve grown to trust over the years share their expertise.

The City of Portland’s Housing Regulatory Reform program (HRR) is about as technical as it gets, and it is also an overwhelming subject because building code regulates so many different things. We’ve been focusing on bike parking; but even that one sliver, if you want to go deep, touches macroeconomics, finance, the micro economics of building in Portland, creating a resilient city … OK I’ll stop.

Commenter Todd/Boulanger knows a thing or two about parking bikes, and he has broad experience beyond Portland, so I’m always glad to see him weigh in. He tends to have a good view of the big picture.

Here’s Todd’s reaction to last week’s vote by the Planning Commission to recommend rolling back key requirements put in place in 2019:

Again I will restate: after working on several developer projects and proposals for others in Portland…a lot of the friction for bike parking in multifamily / mixed use retail projects is also self imposed by the development community getting used to new things: That bike parking is typically the “last” item located in a project which brings up higher implementation costs. Plus the racking install is the ‘last item’ on the punch list and has to be worked around the other contractors work and thus react to any omissions others have overlooked and thus changed in the as-built to make their install go better. Floor staple racks are pretty easy to implement but when bike parking goes 3D (multi tier or wall rack) and requires vertical spacing it is all too often encroached on by HVAC, fire sprinklers, plumbers (from the units above)…etc.

So now that the ‘baby has been thrown out with the bath water’ … the only solution that will fulfill the city’s climate outcomes is to build bike parking in mobility hubs on each block of new dense housing / mixed use developments. The city may as well add car parking to these mobility hubs so that the car spaces can be reallocated over time to bikes, EV charging and other new transportation technology vs building the current generation of car parking warehouses that will be fragmented and harder to reinvent / reuse in 10 to 30 years. Or deploy the next generation of bikesharing with e-cargo bikes, e-family bikes etc.

Thank you Todd/Boulanger. You can read this comment, and a lot of other good ones, at the bottom of the post.

Monday Roundup: Blaming the victim, speeding tech, adaptive bikes, and more

Welcome to the week.

Here are the best stories we’ve come across in the past seven days — from sources you can trust.

Work in government? Please read this: The standard pedestrian safety messages that come from DOTs and other government agencies usually miss the mark because they don’t focus on root causes and tend to blame victims. (Route Fifty)

New acronym day: ISA is short for Intelligent Speed Assistance; technology that warns drivers when they’re speeding with messages, sounds or haptic cues. We should all add that to our quiver of talking points and knowledge bank because the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has finally called for it to be added to all new cars. (Fast Company)

Car design kills: I am very pleased this issue continues to move into the limelight. When groups like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) call out car hood design it gives city and state DOTs more reason to create policy to address it. (IIHS)

Not just any pedestrian: “If a 6-foot-7 basketball player is hard for a driver to see from behind the wheel of a vehicle, how does anyone else stand a chance?” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Dude, where’s my rebate?!: Surely if Bloomington, Indiana can figure out a way to offer residents e-bike rebates, Portland can? (Indiana Public Media)

Battery fire pushback: When New York City’s fire commissioner names names of e-commerce giants and says they have “blood on their hands” when it comes to deadly e-bike battery fires, you know the issue has reached a tipping point. (NY Times)

The policing/public safety conundrum: As TriMet considers beefing up security on its vehicles, consider these three methods that can improve safety of public transit without more policing. (Streetsblog USA)

Adaptive bikes FTW: Portland’s Adaptive Biketown could/should continue to grow and expand its reach given new research that shows adaptive bicycles are the key to capitalizing on the needs of seniors and people with disabilities. (Streetsblog USA)

The true EV heroes: “The electric transport revolution is a great chance to rethink how we move through our cities – and whether we even need a car at all.” (The Conversation)

Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.

The bike infrastructure of NYC (Photo Gallery)

Fresh kermit in Brooklyn. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

During my time in New York City last month, I soaked up a lot of different bike infrastructure. You might have seen it make cameos in some of my previous videos or photos. But there were a bunch of images that I hadn’t shared until now. This post has 60 or so photos of the various types of bikeways you’ll find in Manhattan (with a smattering of images from Brooklyn).

Overall, I was impressed at the quantity of bike infrastructure and the clear priority NYC’s DOT is giving bikes (and buses for that matter). But the quality of the bikeways was often unpredictable and navigating most parts of the network still demands a level of riding ability and risk-aversion that unfortunately puts a ceiling on the number (and demographics) of folks who will ride. As I look through the images below and think back to my time there, I think what’s hurting NYC from a cycling perspective is less about the quality and volume of bike-specific infrastructure and more about the fact that — despite laudable efforts at traffic calming, large-scale pedestrianization, transit priority lanes, daylighting, and so on — there are still simply way too many drivers and cars.

The big lesson from NYC (which holds true in Portland and every American city), is that until you reach a certain tipping point in street design and network permeability that forcibly keeps drivers and cars out of the system, almost no amount of bike infrastructure will feel safe for the majority of people.

Scroll down to see how bikeways are looking in NYC these days. I think you’ll be simultaneously jealous and appalled. (Read captions for more information about each image.)

An east-west connection to the Hudson River in the Washington Heights area (W 157th or so).

Hope you appreciated this little tour. For more stories and content from my New York City trip, see more coverage here.

Weekend Event Guide: World Day of Remembrance, rain celebrations, and more

Welcome to the weekend!

Here are some ride and event ideas sure to please…

Friday, November 17th

Friday Night Ride – 7:00 pm at Ladds Addition (SE)
Weekly social ride will get you connected to bike-minded folks in the community. Expect a fire and/or fun at an end spot. More info here.

Saturday, November 18th

Ride Westside Breakfast Club – 7:30 am at Ava Roasteria (Beaverton – Washington County)
Coffee, baked goods, socializing, 10-mile urban ride with some fall colors, breakfast burritoes… What’s not to love? More info here.

Big Dig Day at Rocky Point Trails – 9:00 am at Rocky Point Trails (Scappoose)
Join nonprofit NW Trails Alliance to make a deposit into your sweat equity account and “earn your turns” at a trail maintenance event that will help get trails ready for winter. More info here.

Celebration of Rain Ride – 10:00 am at Nossa Familia Coffee (SE)
This PBOT-led ride will offer an education about how Portland uses rain to its benefit. Expect a chill-paced loop with lots of good info from a knowledgable ride leader (hi Timo!). More info here.

Sunday, November 19th

Sloppy Sundays Strava Art Ride – 9:00 am at Good Coffee (SE)
Ever wanted to do that thing where you trace a picture with on a GPS app? Join this ride (no GPS device needed!) and the leader will take you on an adventure that will result in a fun “drawing.” More info here.

Bobs Red Mill Ride – 10:00 am at Gateway Transit Center (NE)
Need to stock up on oats or other goodies from the Bobs Red Mill HQ? Join Portland Bicycling Club for a medium-paced (13-15 mph), 25-mile ride from northeast to the holy land of oats. More info here.

Sloppy Sunday Ride – 11:30 am at Something Cycles (NE)
A sporty-paced shop ride that will head up to St. Johns and into Forest Park. Bring your wide tires for wide smiles. More info here.

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims – 11:30 am at Lloyd Center (NE)
PBOT, The Street Trust, and Oregon Walks are coming together with Families for Safe Streets for a walk and vigil to raise awareness of traffic deaths. A walk will go from Lloyd Center to Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum where there will be speakers and a vigil. More info here.

— Don’t see an event? Please tell us about what’s going on in your neighborhood by filling out our contact form!

Hundreds roll on ‘strike bus’ to get kids outside and support teachers

The bike bus became the “strike bus” this morning as hundreds of Portland Public School students and their families from five schools joined a ride to show support for teachers who’ve been on strike since November 1st.

Route map (Source: @crestoneaglesbikebus on Instagram)

While the massive, moving picket line stretched many city blocks and bolstered weary strikers at schools along the way, it was also for the kids. As schools across Portland have started bike buses to get kids to school, many of them have had to do without that fun, active, and social outlet for the past 10 school days.

“I miss my friends. PPS, do the right thing!” read a sign taped to the back of a bike trailer.

This morning’s ride started at Richmond Elementary School in southeast Portland. Richmond PTA President Oom Marquardt told BikePortland it was part of their efforts to make sure kids have some sort of structured activity every day (today is the tenth day schools have been closed). “Usually we have the bike bus in the mornings, so we joined with other schools to join forces and have more impact,” said a beaming Marquardt as she surveyed the huge crowd that had assembled in front of the school.

Glencoe Elementary School PTA President Rob Galanakis helped organize the ride. “Seeing hundreds of people of all stripes and backgrounds showing up to support our teachers, schools, and communities — it was moving and inspiring for me,” he shared with BikePortland. “And more importantly, for our striking teachers.”

At the start of the ride in front of Richmond School, there was a band playing (a version of Johnny Cash’s “I walk the line”), boxes of free donuts and coffee, pro-teacher signs attached to bikes and backs (one young girl’s sign read, “Hot! Cold! Rats! Mold! This is getting really old!”), and Portland’s favorite clowns Olive & Dingo were on hand to make balloons and keep things cheery.

Once the ride shoved off, the size of the group became evident. I estimated about 500 people on bikes as the group spread across the entire street for many blocks on a four-mile loop. The route stopped at four schools along the way, picking up dozens of riders at each one. As the group passed Franklin High School, cheers erupted from picketers standing on the sidewalk.

As music blared from bike-mounted speakers, the joy emanating from riders was impossible to miss. “Joy is a form of resistance,” Alameda Elementary School Physical Education Teacher and bike bus organizer Sam Balto shared. “PPS management and the district will not steal our joy.”

Galanakis hopes the big crowd to get noticed by PPS and the Portland Bureau of Transportation. “I hope PPS takes note of the turnout and will offer our educators a better package, and I hope PBOT takes note of how many parents and kids will bike when the atmosphere is safe and supportive — so many families biking today told me they don’t ride nearly as often as they want because they don’t feel safe or confident on our streets.”

The ride was also a clear illustration of the renaissance of kids riding bikes to school — and how the proliferation of bike buses in Portland has made our community stronger.

— Want to start a bike bus at your school? Email Ride@BikeBusPDX.org for info and encouragement. Scroll down for more photos.

Poll finds voters likely to renew 10-cent gas tax to fund transportation

With a budget teetering on the ledge of a cliff unlike any in their history and recent decisions that have whipped Portlanders of all persuasions into a frenzy of distrust, the Portland Bureau of Transportation is about to embark on a delicate conversation about renewal of a local gas tax that’s key to their financial health.

First passed by voters in 2016, the Fixing Our Streets 10-cent tax on gas purchases has become one of PBOT’s most important and reliable sources of revenue. When it was new, it passed with just 52% support. But after four years of delivering projects, it was renewed in 2020 with a whopping 77% approval.

With another renewal coming up in May 2024, PBOT is ramping up for what is likely to be a more challenging political environment than what they enjoyed four years ago. And the stakes could not be higher this time around as PBOT expects the tax to raise $75 million.

PBOT currently faces a $32 million budget shortfall and faces a 30-35% cut in their discretionary budget (what their top budget planner referred to as “our keeping the lights on” budget) in their 2024-2025 budget cycle. After years of cutting the bone, if PBOT doesn’t get a lifeline from City Hall this time around, they will make massive cuts to staff and programs the likes of which we have never seen.

If they don’t renew Fixing Our Streets for a third time, that $32 million annual shortfall balloons to a $52 million shortfall. PBOT Director of Policy, Planning, and Projects Art Pearce said at a joint meeting of the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees Wednesday night that if the renewal fails it “Would be an additional problem we’re not actually accounting for… so we’re proceeding with a level of optimism that that is renewed again.”

Full details of Fixing Our Streets 3 (FOS3) aren’t finalized yet, but PBOT gave a preview of what to expect at a meeting of the program’s oversight committee Tuesday night where they released results of a poll of likely voters taken earlier this month.

The main takeaway is that PBOT is likely to pass the tax, but only if they put a very similar measure on the ballot as the one voters passed in 2020. In their poll, PBOT also asked people for feedback on extending the tax beyond four years and whether or not they’d support a 15-cent tax or indexing it to inflation.

The poll queried 600 likely voters and according to what PBOT released last night, 71% of them said Portland is “on the wrong track.” “Positivity is still stubbornly low,” states a PBOT slide from the meeting. As for transportation issues specifically, they found most Portlanders are more interested in other issues like homelessness, public safety, drugs, housing, and so on. The poll found that when asked what’s on their mind, only 2% of voters mentioned roads, transportation, or traffic congestion.

The good news for PBOT is that nearly 60% of likely voters say they’d support a 10-cent renewal of the gas tax that lasts four years. Poll numbers thus far are similar to what PBOT found in 2019 prior to garnering 77%, so it’s likely FOS3 will pass. “Nearly 6 in 10 Portland continue to support investing in streets and safety through renewal of the gas tax, despite being otherwise very unhappy with the direction of the city and prioritizing competing issues,” PBOT says.

PBOT also asked if people would support a 10-cent tax that would last eight years (instead of four). 52% of respondents said yes.

Other iterations of the tax PBOT is considering failed to receive majority support:

renewal at 10 cents for four years followed by an increase to 15 cents for the next four years (46%),

an increase to 15 cents for four years (37%),

and making the 10 cent tax permanent but indexed to inflation (37%).

“All of these also have high levels of ‘strong’ opposition,” PBOT found.

As for how to spend the $75 million, PBOT says they’d continue the same “balanced approach to basic maintenance, safety, and street services.” The funds would be split into three $25 million buckets: “smoother streets and paving,” “community transportation street services,” and “safer streets projects.”

Notable changes in FOS3 under consideration include switching $20 million in paving they would typically contract out to internal PBOT crews, who would focus on more preventative pavement maintenance instead of complete road rebuilds (this would also preserve jobs as layoffs loom). PBOT also wants to use half of the $25 million allocated to safety projects to matching dollars for grants and “strategic investments.”

The details of FOS3 could still change. PBOT will present the polling results and their proposals to the bureau’s Budget Advisory Committee at their meeting tomorrow night.

Planning Commission votes to roll back bike parking code to spur new housing

Requirements for bicycle parking in new residential buildings have begun their roll back.

On Tuesday night, the Portland Planning Commission recommended suspending, or striking altogether, several bike parking requirements which were adopted by City Council in 2019, including:

A temporary reduction of long-term parking-to-unit ratios
A permanent deletion of in-unit parking standards, such as the 15-foot and alcove requirements
A temporary removal of the cargo bike accommodation requirement
Adjustments to required loading spaces

Essentially, the Planning Commission will recommend the Housing Regulatory Relief Project (HRRP) bike parking amendments as written to the Portland City Council.

The Commission passed the entire HRRP package by a 7-1 vote, and considered their own four amendments on bird-safe glazing, eco-roofs and neighborhood contact requirements — along with a group of “technical amendments,” which amounted to clarifications and word-changes. Some changes are permanent and others are meant to be temporary and will sunset in five years.

“I’d like to call attention to the bike parking piece as a specific follow-up… I’d like to ask city council to commit to looking at that section of the code—without waiting five years.”
– Eli Spevak, planning commissioner

No amendments to HRRP’s bike parking modifications were proposed, either by staff or the commissioners. The commission spent the bulk of the time discussing their bird-safe glazing and eco-roof amendments to the draft proposal. In a win for the Audubon Society, the commission decided to retain the existing bird-safe code and noted that it was a complicated issue that “needs a little bit more time.”

Readers might recall that the HRRP began this year with a survey sent by the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) and Commissioner Carmen Rubio’s office to people who had recently interacted with BDS, including city staff. The survey asked “What are the top five requirements the City of Portland should consider suspending or modifying to support increased housing production?”

Of the 22 options listed, respondents reported bike parking to be the most onerous of the requirements.

Yesterday’s hearing was the third hearing in nearly as many weeks about the package of code changes aimed at boosting housing production. After the outpouring of public testimony at the initial hearing on October 24th, the Planning Commission called for a work session on November 7th. Tuesday’s vote was to consider resulting Planning Commission amendments to the HRR draft plan.

Commissioners wrestled with the intricacies of several complex policies in a compressed timeframe. Votes on a few amendments were evenly split. The eco-roof amendment only passed after Commissioner Eli Spevak called for second vote on it, right before the final vote on the entire HRR package. The group could not come to an agreement on bird-safe glazing.

After the final vote to recommend the amended HRR package to City Council, Chair Mary-Rain O’Meara commented that “there will be a lot of happy developers and people trying to advance housing.”

Here are the three changes to existing bike parking code that were supported by Planning Commission (taken from HRR proposed draft):

Pattern area map from 2020 bike parking code update.

The first temporarily reduces the long-term bike parking ratios for household living uses for a period for 5 years. Within the inner pattern areas (see graphic at right), the ratio is reduced from 1.5 to 1 space per unit. In the outer pattern areas, the ratio is reduced from 1.0 to 0.7 space per unit… Over the next 5 years, staff can study whether the existing ratios balance future needs with space utilization of housing projects to potentially consider a future amendment.

The second and third amendments simplify the in-unit bike parking standards (up to 50% of the required bike parking spaces are allowed in dwelling units) and temporarily removes the requirement for larger bicycle parking areas to accommodate larger or cargo bikes.

When discussion turned to what the accompanying letter to Council should say, the commissioners appeared to relax. The discussion of the letter was telling. A couple commissioners wanted to preserve the debate and discussion of their various amendments, either in a spreadsheet-type format, or a synopsis of the debate, to pass on to the City Council. They wanted to document that votes were split on several issues, and that “we did consider these items very seriously.”

Several commissioners also brought up monitoring and review of the code changes, “how will we know at the end of five years that, either these measures are successful, and how significantly they alleviated burdens to housing development, or maybe the opposite of that, the unintended consequences.”

As the discussion unfolded, commissioners made it clear they understood the magnitude of what they had just voted for, namely to undo the decisions of previous Planning Commissions and City Councils, some of it recent (like bike parking and eco-roofs) and other code (such as neighborhood notification) which has been baked into city governance for decades.

Finally, Commissioner Spevak brought up bike parking, “I’d like to call attention to the bike parking piece as a specific follow-up piece. We concluded with 100% of staff recommendation on this, because we recognized this is just going to take more time than we have here. So, I’d like to ask city council to commit to looking at that section of the code—without waiting five years. Sooner.”

The Planning Commission will forward their recommendation to the Portland City Council for consideration and a vote in December.

— A video of the meeting can be seen on YouTube.

Ride highlights link between bicycling and housing on inner eastside

A stop on the Inner Eastside For All Ride on Sunday, November 12th. (Photo: Portland: Neighbors Welcome)

Portland’s bicycling goals are inextricably linked to housing. If we don’t get our land-use right and create smaller circles between where people live and work and shop and play, we will never get over the hump with cycling mode share.

That’s why it came as no surprise that bike advocacy nonprofit BikeLoud PDX co-organized a ride this past weekend with Portland: Neighbors Welcome. The ride was part of the launch of P:NW’s Inner Eastside for All campaign that seeks to “End apartment bans throughout inner Portland neighborhoods.”

That campaign is buoyed by a coalition of over 20 local housing, environmental and transportation nonprofit organizations who signed onto a letter in October to the Portland Planning Commission to influence their thinking on a directive from the State of Oregon to boost housing production.

P:NW wants to re-legalize the fourplexes, apartments and other multi-family dwelling types that were once legal in Portland’s inner neighborhoods until the city updated its Comprehensive Plan in 1980. In a move known as the “Population Strategy” that is now considered part of Portland’s racist planning legacy, city leaders outlawed housing types that they felt were leading to “white flight.” That strategy, “laid out a policy justification for prioritizing middle-class, educated families and wrote policy that favored housing types and neighborhood character that were attractive to those populations at the expense of others. The result was downzoning of inner southeast neighborhoods so that multi-family dwellings were legal only on ribbons of streets adjacent to buy streets.

“This decision helped pave the way to terrible housing shortages and rent hikes, both here and elsewhere in the city, in the 1990s and 2010s,” P:NW says on their campaign website.

The focus of this campaign is from about SE 12th to 60th, and NE Fremont to SE Powell.

P:NW’s vision is to create more walkable neighborhoods with a mix of housing types (including some single-family homes) that are well-served by transit lines and bikeways where you can find bustling commercial centers, corner stores, and public spaces.

The campaign mantra is “Four floors and corner stores!”

“The Inner Eastside is rich in public transit; in walkable, bikeable jobs and services; in mature, beloved street trees,” said Jennifer Shuch, the equitable zoning team lead for P:NW . “Allowing four floors and corner stores to exist anywhere in these neighborhoods is a natural, efficient way for Portland to share those assets while it keeps evolving and growing. We’re urging the city to start exploring the details of such a change.”

On Sunday’s ride, over 40 people showed up for a tour of southeast Portland. “We love policy rides, and this was a very educational experience that included stops throughout inner eastside neighborhoods to discuss the past, present, and future of multi-family housing in this area of the city,” BikeLoud posted on Instagram. “Increasing bicycle ridership will in part depend on the degree to which we build housing in neighborhoods with existing bicycle infrastructure.”

For more information on the campaign, visit PortlandNeighborsWelcome.org.

PBOT to pilot all-direction red signals as part of Vision Zero effort

(Source: PBOT Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-2025)

A person was killed while walking on SE McLoughlin Blvd (Highway 99E) early this morning. It’s the fifth death on the State-owned highway since early 2021 and three of those were pedestrians.

According to our Fatality Tracker, this was the 61st death of 2023 — that’s three more than we had last year and puts us on the same pace as 2021 which was our highest toll since 1990.

Portland first passed its Vision Zero Action Plan in 2016 with a goal to the goal to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on Portland streets by 2025. It’s now crunch-time for that effort. Despite efforts from the Portland Bureau of Transportation and its partners, 372 people have been killed in traffic crashes since 2017 and the numbers are going in the wrong direction.

That’s the sad but true context for the publication of an update to PBOT’s Vision Zero Action Plan released earlier this month. Among the list of actions PBOT says they’ll embark on in the next two years is to pilot new “no turn on red” and “rest on red” traffic signal projects and rekindle their enforcement relationship with the Portland Police Bureau. Here’s what else you need to know about this report…

This is the first update on Vision Zero PBOT has published since 2019 and the 48-page report is meant to guide their work through the 2025 target date. The new action plan provides a helpful snapshot of where things stand and gives advocates a helpful resource to hold the City of Portland accountable.

The report opens with a somber listing of names of everyone who has died in traffic crashes between 2017 and 2022 (above). The 311 names in small font, stack high like skyscrapers above a map of dots that marks where they died. And these are just the dead. The list doesn’t include names of people with seriously, life-changing injuries or the hundreds of family members and friends whose lives will be forever incomplete.

And while the numbers are outrageous and unacceptable, it’s important to remember that PBOT is just one of several government agencies in our city who are responsible for street safety. Metro, Multnomah County, the Portland Police Bureau, and of course the Oregon Department of Transportation, all play major roles. For instance, one of the four main focus areas for “getting to zero” is a new emphasis on “basic needs,” which they’ll lean on partners in housing, job access, drug abuse and mental health services to address.

For their part, PBOT points to some success in the report. They say a pilot program to install left-turn calming bumps at 42 intersections citywide has led to a 13% reduction in turning speeds. The number bike riders hurt or killed on our roads has also trended solidly downward in the past decade. And perhaps PBOT’s best success story comes from their years-long war on speeding. Their analysis shows that speeding is down 71% and top-end speeding (people driving 10 mph or more over the speed limit) has dropped 94% where automated enforcement cameras have been installed. PBOT has also seen an average 72% reduction along corridors where they’ve reconfigured lanes to reduce space for driving.

PBOT also wants the public to know that Portland is not alone in this struggle for safer roads. The report points out that in the last five years there’s been a 17% increase in traffic deaths across the U.S. “Compared to Vision Zero peer

cities in the U.S. with similar population, Portland’s traffic death rate is in the middle,” the report states, next to a chart showing Portland’s rate at 8 deaths per 100,000 residents compared to the national average of 12.

Here are a few more notable stats from the report:

Pedestrians face the greatest risk in Portland’s transportation network. Roughly 5.7% of Portlanders primarily walk to work, yet 40% of all traffic-related deaths from 2018-2022 were pedestrians.

Housing status data from 2021 and 2022 police crash reports indicate that 55% of pedestrians killed—30 out of 55—were unhoused when they died.

Impairment and speed are the two largest contributing factors to fatal traffic crashes, playing a major role in 69% and 42% of all deaths respectively.

Recent Portland data shows that Black and Indigenous community members died in traffic crashes at about twice the rate relative to their proportion of the population.

70% of pedestrian deaths and serious injuries occurred at night (2017-2021).

Wide streets, which make up 4.5% of Portland streets, accounted for nearly half of all deadly crashes in Portland from 2017-2021 and more than half of pedestrian deaths and serious injury crashes (52%).

Hit-and-run crashes were up 27% in the last fve years (2017-2021) compared to the fve years prior. Hit-and-run crashes represent one in seven deaths or serious injuries of pedestrians and people biking.

The section on “actions and performance measures” shared a few new things that caught my eye.

PBOT plans to launch a “no turn on red” pilot (above) to reduce risk of turning crashes, “that are particularly dangerous for pedestrians and people bicycling.” This follows growing national attention on the risks of turning on red signals and how that policy is woefully outdated. PBOT has already implemented it at several intersections, but this appears to be an expansion of the policy. Another traffic signal pilot PBOT wants to launch is called, “rest on red.” Here’s how PBOT describes it:

“At night, at some intersections with a history of speed-related crashes, display red lights in all directions to require drivers to slow down as they approach the intersection. Technology at the intersection will detect the vehicle and give a green light.”

The report also addresses a growing push for more physical protection of bike lanes with a promise to develop a list of locations and find funding to “upgrade temporary materials (such as rubber curbs and flexible posts) to permanent materials (such as concrete).”

And it looks like a partnership with the PPB that iced over during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 is beginning to thaw. PBOT says they will partner with the (newly bolstered) Traffic Division on “focused enforcement” and to, “ensure training for new police recruits includes data about traffic safety, how to process DUII offenses, and city and state protocol and laws around making traffic stops.”

The narrative that a “massive investment” is needed to stem the tide of deaths is woven throughout the report. As we’ve reported, PBOT is facing its most daunting budget in history and is contemplating vast cuts to staff and programs unless new revenue can be found.

Regardless of the budget situation, the clock is ticking loudly on the City of Portland and their partners when it comes to the woeful trend of tragedies on our streets. We have two years left to make the bold moves necessary to reach our Vision Zero goal.

— Read the Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-2025 here. You may also be interested in the annual World Day of Remembrance event (hosted by The Street Trust) on Sunday, November 19th, that will consist of a walk and vigil.

State legislator pushes ‘Trenton’s Law’ to address safety of young e-bike riders

Rep. Emerson Levy at a legislative hearing Wednesday, November 8th.

A state lawmaker who represents Bend says her proposed electric bike legislation will be called “Trenton’s Law” to memorialize the tragic death of 15-year-old Trenton Burger. Burger was killed in a collision with a van after its driver made a right turn as Burger biked on a sidewalk along Highway 20 back in June.

Representative Emerson Levy presented her ideas at a meeting of the Senate Interim Committee on Judiciary in Salem last week. Since we reported on Levy’s efforts back in August, she has dropped the provision that would have made helmets mandatory for all e-bike riders (regardless of age).

As presented on Wednesday (11/8) Levy’s proposal would:

update Oregon to the three-class definition system that was recently adopted by the Biden Administration as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Oregon is one of 13 states that don’t use the Class 1 (20 mph with no throttle), Class 2 (20 mph with throttle), and Class 3 (28 mph max without throttle) system to regulate e-bikes;
make e-bikes with throttles illegal for ages 15 and under;
include grant money for bike safety education programs.

During her presentation to members of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Levy implored them to not dismiss this as a niche issue that only impacts affluent people. “It’s an incredible safety problem,” she said. And right now it impacts four cities in particular — Hood River, Bend, West Linn, and Lake Oswego — but Levy believes they could be canaries in a coal mine as the market for the bikes matures elsewhere.

And if safety issues don’t persuade lawmakers to prioritize the issue in this short, interim legislative session (Oregon only has full sessions on odd years), the political saliency should. “I get more emails about e-bikes than homelessness, measure 110, housing — there’s no comparison,” Levy said. “And they’re all organic emails, several pages long. This is an issue.”

To make her case, Levy painted a picture that e-bikes with throttles are very easy to modify and can be made to go 45 mph just by connecting a few wires. She was also careful to not vilify this popular new mode of transportation:

“The fundamental value is that I do think kids should be out riding bikes, they should have the freedom. These are incredible tools, they’re incredible anti-poverty tools. But the line for me, and I think for the community, and all the testimony we receive is that we don’t need 13-year-olds on things that are functionally de-facto motorcycles. And so this is the compromise.”

Levy hopes her legislation will allow educators to go into schools to teach e-bike safety. That can’t happen now because it’s technically illegal for most students to even ride e-bikes — but that doesn’t stop them from being very popular.

Levy’s focus on making throttle use illegal is different than several other states that have opted instead to prohibit young riders from riding Class 3 e-bikes that can go up to 28 mph. This approach runs the risk of singling out throttles as being inherently problematic. Oregon Senator and Judiciary Committee Chair Floyd Prozanski responded to Levy’s presentation with a comment that’s indicative of this perspective: “I personally think full throttle bikes should not be in the bike lane,” he shared. “I think that they are basically modified little motorcycles and they should be in the lane that is equipped for that.”

Prozanski and several other Judiciary Committee members seemed grateful and very supportive of Levy’s work thus far.

Oregon’s E-Bikes for All Working Group met the day after Levy made her pitch in Salem. There was relief among some members that the mandatory helmet provision was dropped and one person noted that the possibility of requiring licenses and registration was a political non-starter inside the Capitol. There was also some concern expressed that Levy might add provisions to limit the potential of e-bikes in the future. She mentioned in her presentation she felt the 1,000 watt maximum power mentioned in the current law was “outdated.” That spurred one member of the group who represents a company that uses electric trikes to deliver cargo, to say 1,000-watt motors are essential to their business and their entire fleet would be illegal if a 750-watt max was enforced.

E-bike advocates in the working group also expressed an ongoing concern that lawmakers might be too influenced by anecdotal evidence and hard data needs to be a larger part of the conversation. And several members of the group expressed that the real safety hazards on our roads come from cars and trucks, and e-bike deaths and injuries are “just kind of a rounding error” by comparison.

If you’re in the Bend area, there’s a panel discussion planned for November 16th on the future of e-bikes in Bend that will be moderated by a reporter from the Bend Bulletin.