Year: 2024

Job: Kerr Bikes Lead Staff – Albertina Kerr

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Kerr Bikes Lead Staff

Company / Organization

Albertina Kerr

Job Description

We’re seeking a Lead for our Kerr Bikes seasonal rental store!

Kerr Bikes provides the public with seasonal bike rental services, kayak rental, and adaptive equipment recreation. The Lead may supervise other Kerr Bikes employees, volunteers and participants in services we provide, and will perform maintenance on bicycles as needed.

Albertina Kerr strengthens Oregon families and communities by helping children and adults with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges – empowering them to live richer lives.

Responsibilities:
– Consistently uses Standard Operating Procedures to rent equipment and complete tasks
– Performs bike maintenance and repairs
– Ensures rental assets and shop is secured
– Acts within the interests of Kerr Bikes and creates value while on shift, encouraging other staff to do the same
– Keeps tidy environment and organizes parts/tools
– Completes daily and weekly logs on repair, inventory, register counts, and other reports as required
– Communicates bike repairs and parts information to manager
– Takes responsibility for store in manager’s absence
– Prepares daily register reports, holds shop keys, makes bank deposits, gets change as needed, opens and closes store, and other operations duties as needed.
– Other duties as required

Qualifications:
– Comfortable working alone
– Supervisory experience preferred
– Ability to lift 100lbs, continuously bending, squatting, twisting and standing for long periods
– Mechanical aptitude and knowledge of maintenance of bicycles
– Weekend availability required

How to Apply

Apply on our website at www.albertinakerr.org/careers/

Job: Kerr Bikes OMSI Lead – Albertina Kerr

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Kerr Bikes OMSI Lead

Company / Organization

Albertina Kerr

Job Description

We’re seeking a Lead for our OMSI Kerr Bikes rental store!

Kerr Bikes provides the public with seasonal bike rental services. OMSI Lead may supervise other employees and will perform bike maintenance. You will be responsible for daily operations of the Adaptive BIKETOWN program and Adaptive rides.

Albertina Kerr strengthens Oregon families and communities by helping children and adults with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges – empowering them to live richer lives.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
– Checks for Adaptive BIKETOWN reservations daily and follows protocol for adding to Point-of-Sales (POS)
– Stays in compliance with Adaptive BIKETOWN contract
– Performs bike maintenance and repairs
– Ensures rental assets and shop are always secured
– Completes all opening and closing tasks
– Provides great customer service to Kerr Bikes customers
– Maintains all bikes for safety and performance at OMSI location
– Completes daily and weekly logs on repair, inventory, register counts, etc.
– Communicates to manager any repairs needed, parts needed, and repairs completed
– Responsible for shop in manager’s absence
– May provide coverage at other Kerr Bikes locations, as needed.
– Other duties as required

Qualifications:
– Comfortable working alone
– Retail, customer service, or bike maintenance experience
– Supervisory experience preferred
– Ability to lift 75 lbs, continuously bending, squatting, twisting and standing for long periods
– Mechanical aptitude and knowledge of bicycle maintenance and repairs
– Weekend availability required

How to Apply

Apply on our website at www.albertinakerr.org/careers/

Legos, growth, and ‘Dynamic Density’ in Irvington

Hosts Rick Potestio (center) and Jonathan Konkol (right) with the low-density building table in the foreground. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

Game on!

Armed with only a bag of legos and a table-sized map of district properties, you and your team have a couple hours to insert 600 new residences into Portland’s historic Irvington neighborhood.

The group which gathered last Saturday at the Broadway McMenamins seemed up to the task and happy to spend a rainy afternoon talking about density and zoning. Their hosts were urban designer Jonathan Konkol and architect Rick Potestio, and the event was a dry run of the duo’s Dynamic Density process, a new method of accommodating growth which empowers neighborhoods.

I bet you think you know where this is headed.

We’re in Irvington after all, the inner-Portland neighborhood which in 2010, after years of work by neighborhood activists, was put on the National Register of Historic Places. With that designation, “Irvington now benefits from important protections that encourage preserving the area’s character and livability for future generations.”

Offhand, one wouldn’t expect this to be the most receptive audience to a pitch about growth.

ReUrbanist Collaborative

Neighborhoods would become Community Development Corporations, making them eligible to receive a portion of the system development charges the city collects from new development.

But Konkol and Potestio think there is a way forward, past the tension between preserving neighborhood character and the need for affordable places to live.

As Konkol says, “It’s not if we grow, it’s how we grow.”

Konkol and Potestio have teamed up to form the ReUrbanist Collaborative, and Saturday’s event was a test to see if their Dynamic Density process was viable. And yes, the test involved a bunch of legos, and a bunch of people who care about their neighborhood, about half of them were affiliated with the board of the Irvington neighborhood association.

Potestio began the day with a presentation about density, zoning and growth. He pointed out that, even without changing a single building in Irvington, the neighborhood population one hundred years ago would have been about double what it is today. That’s partly because families were larger and more people lived in a typical house, but also because our standards have changed. People today want two bathrooms, not one, and they want more space per person to live in. But, in a disconnect between what people want and what is actually getting built, Potestio said “we are right now designing for one-, two-bedrooms, or studios.” We are also in the middle of a housing crisis, he continued, without enough housing production to meet demand. And our local and state governments are responding by undoing decades of growth policy. “There is a lot of pressure to expand the urban growth boundaries, on the precept that more land is cheap land and that we can build affordably by building out. And that argument is being made in legislature right now,” Potestio said.

Both Konkol and Potestio disagree that sprawl is the answer to the housing crisis, and their goal is to increase the housing supply in all neighborhoods — particularly urban neighborhoods well-served by transit — in a way that makes neighborhoods a partner in that growth.

Dynamic Density and the pattern book

(Source: ReUrbanist Collaborative)

We have all heard of duplexes and four-plexes, but what about the cryptoplex and the bricker? Distributed throughout the room were pattern books of traditional building typologies: the twin house, the stacked duplex, courtyard apartments.

With those typologies in mind, the group toured the neighborhood to see examples of them in real life. Upon returning, Potestio numbered participants off into three groups and gave each one a bag of legos representing 600 housing units. There was a catch of course. The collection of legos in each of the bags was not the same, no, no, no, there was a “low-,” “mixed-” and “high-” density bag, each filled with legos representing different types and densities of structures. The Dynamic Density task for each group was to create a granular zoning which would accommodate the additional dwelling types in each bag.

The low density bag was filled mainly with Duplexes and FourPlexes, the high density folks got L-shapes and Towers.

The mixed-density group got an even distribution of the six building types, meaning it had the most diverse set of buildings, and also about an average number of lego bricks—compared to the generous low-density bag, or the meager high-density bag of towers.

And off the three groups went to their tables and maps.

So how’d they do?

Mixed-density bag
High-density bag

To be honest, I took off for a couple hours as the groups worked, but I returned in time for the presentations, and to a room full of intently focused people. Afterward I talked to Konkol a bit about the mood in the room, and he described it as one of “curious problem solving.”

Two participants talk across a soon to be filled map.

The final group to present was the table with the low-density bag (pictured at top), and when they were done everybody ended up in a loose circle around their table. The hosts bought a round of beer for participants and we fell into a relaxed conversation about growth. This was my favorite part of the day, informed people thinking out loud, and the conversation was all over the place: low-density infill doesn’t solve the affordability problem because the new units end up costing the same as the single-family house they replace; ground is expensive in Irvington; zoning is exclusionary; the difference between the old Portland Development Commission and its new incarnation, Prosper Portland; the Pearl district was built by local developers; 25% of the units there were built as affordable housing; today, most developers are based out-of-state, an extractive economy.

For me, the day felt like a long monopoly game (that’s a compliment), and I found myself wondering what it was like to play monopoly during the depression — you didn’t have any money but it might have been fun to throw around the fake stuff.

Similarly, this past few years we have seen all sorts of changes to regulations in the name of encouraging housing production. Some of it might be necessary, but it is also true that the housing crisis is starting to feel like a great big fig leaf covering enormous giveaways to the building industry, giveaways that may not adequately increase the housing supply, or make it more affordable. It seems like there’s a lack of vision and a flailing attempt to do something, anything.

In that context, it is kind of nice to have someone ask for your recommendation about accommodating future growth in your neighborhood, and fun to sit around talking about it.

The sweetener: system development charges for all

I left off the part about money. A key element of the Dynamic Density plan is that neighborhoods would become Community Development Corporations, making them eligible to receive a portion of the system development charges the city collects from new development. This lets a neighborhood benefit financially from the growth happening within it. Neighbors could then direct their allocation to neighborhood projects, such as a community garden, a new dog park, or beautifying.

Jonathan Konkol summed up the ReUrbanizing sensibility to me with some final words:

“We are stewards of our built environment, watching over it for the next generation. There should be a synergy between preserving what we love about our neighborhoods and growing gracefully.”

— Learn more at ReUrbanistCollaborative.com.

Survey aims to understand barriers to cycling faced by women

Bike traffic on North Williams Avenue: May 4th, 2016. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

When City of Portland Transportation Planner Sean Doyle presented the 2023 PBOT bike counts at a meeting last week, he pointed to one figure in particular he feels is, “an important indicator of the quality of our bike network.” That figure was the number of women who ride.

Now, BikeLoud PDX is sharing a Women Biking in Portland survey that aims to learn more about women and cycling with an aim to achieve gender parity.

While a 50/50 split of men and women riding is the goal, Portland has never come close to that. When PBOT first began counting bicycle riders in the 1990s, the number of women on bikes was estimated to be about 20%. The number grew steadily, and between 2003 and 2021, PBOT found that about 31-32% of all riders were women.

But for the past two years, the number has dropped several percentage points and is now at around 29%, its lowest point since 2006. East of I-205, PBOT’s latest counts found that only 17% of bicycle riders are women. “Since the start of the pandemic, the gender split in people biking widened,” states the PBOT report.

The charts below are from PBOT’s 2022 and 2023 bike counts:

Some questions from the survey. Take it here.

“Not to dampen on the recovery,” said PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Ally Holmqvist at their meeting last week, “but the distribution between men and women… looks like we’re back at 2006. And that jumped out to me as starkly concerning.”

BikeLoud PDX volunteer Cathy Tuttle is also concerned and wants to see Portland set on the trajectory of cities like Osaka, Utrecht (where she lives currently), Copenhagen, and Tokyo where women make up 64%, 56%, 55%, and 50% of the cyclists respectively. Tuttle was impressed with “Women’s Freedom,” an initiative led by the nonprofit London Cycling Campaign. Part of that effort is a survey. Tuttle contacted LCC staff and learned they are interested in responses from other cities, so she created a nearly identical survey and is now urging Portlanders to take it.

Some of the questions Tuttle hopes to learn answers to include: Are there lived experiences of people who identify as women that make them more or less likely to continue biking for everyday work, errands, and recreation? Is it a lack of safe routes or harassment from drivers or something else that skews the balance toward fewer women on the road in Portland?

The survey has 22 questions (see a few of them above) and should take about 10 minutes to fill out. Please take this survey and consider sharing it with friends. Find it online here.

Job: Customer Service Representative – Chris King Precision Components

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Customer Service Representative

Company / Organization

Chris King Precision Components

Job Description

Chris King Precision Components is a U.S. manufacturer of the finest bicycle components in the world. We are a socially and environmentally minded company and take pride in each and every part that gets made under one roof right here in Portland, Oregon.

If you are passionate about what you do and are interested in working hard for a progressive company that you can believe in, we just might have something for you! We are searching for a dependable, kind, timely, responsive professional with amazing customer service skills. As the face of our company, our Customer Service team plays a crucial role in delivering exceptional sales and service to our customers. The ideal candidate will demonstrate a proven ability to work both as a team and autonomously, showing self-motivation and a proactive approach to tasks without constant oversight. They should also be receptive to feedback, actively pursue opportunities for growth and development, and embody a commitment to continuous improvement. This includes maintaining and cultivating relationships with existing customers, as well as establishing new connections to foster trust and drive sales growth.

We offer a full benefit package and the perks of being in the bicycle industry. We have an in-house cafe that rivals many restaurants in Portland and you can earn café credits towards meals for riding bike or public transit.

Schedule for this role is Monday – Friday from 8:30 – 5pm

We do require a drug screen within 30 days after your first day working.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OPERATIONS:

· Provide excellent customer service through inbound and outbound telephone and email communication.

· Maintain and expand relationships with existing and new customers to increase trust, loyalty, and sales.

· Practice effective communication.

· Proactively communicate with current and potential customers.

· Demonstrate positive morale, professionalism and enthusiasm for company products, operations and initiatives.

· Address customer concerns related to products, shipping, and other company-related matters to ensure swift and effective resolution.

· Process all orders as indicated by policy and procedures.

· Follow up with current and prospective customers through email and phone communication.

· Possess product and technical knowledge, with a commitment to continuous learning.

· Process and record information accurately.

· Maintain integrity of orders, credit memos and all other paperwork.

· Able to adapt to changing circumstances and effectively solve customer needs.

· Serve as a backup in Shipping when needed.

· Prepares reports as requested.

· Treat all coworkers with courtesy and professionalism.

· Able to work harmoniously across all company departments.

· Take initiative and prioritize tasks to ensure work is completed.

· Participate as needed in events such as bike races, trade shows and in-house events.

· Adhere to our environmental and social philosophy when making decisions and recommendations.

· Complete other tasks and projects as assigned.

· Capacity to learn technical problem-solving.

Skills and Requirements:

Reasoning: Ability to solve complex problems.
Planning/Organization: Ability to handle various assignments while meeting deadlines with attention to detail.
Interpersonal: Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships.
Language: Effective written and oral communication skills.
Mathematical: Ability to work with advanced mathematical concepts.
Computer: Proficiency in basic office software, ERP systems, and experience with Microsoft Office Suite and Apple products.

Physical Requirements:

Continuously: Sit, use a computer, use hands and fingers, talk, hear, speak.
Frequently: Reach, bend, twist.
Occasionally: Stand, walk, bend, stoop, kneel, lift up to 50lbs.

Environment:

Exposure to fumes or airborne particles.
The noise level varies, from quiet to loud, depending on job functions.

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:

· 2+ years of delivering a superior customer experience, through utilization of ERP systems and solid understanding of CRM account management (preferably as a retail sales lead or assistant manager).

· Knowledge of bike components, maintenance, compatibilities and installation.

· Capacity to learn technical problem solving.

· 1 year in outdoor industry preferable.

· Requires computer literacy, experience with a Microsoft Office Suite and Apple products helpful.

Benefits include, but are not limited to:

100 hours of paid time off (PTO) during your first year of employment
8 Paid Holidays per year
Company sponsored health insurance, vision, short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance
Voluntary dental insurance
401(k) Qualified Retirement Plan eligibility
Section 125-plan participation eligibility
Onsite employee café serving breakfast and lunch daily at cost pricing
Commuter credits for using alternative transportation ie: biking, walking, e-vehicle, etc.
Employee purchase program for internal CKPC and outdoor/cycling industry products
Bi-annual bike commute challenges to earn up to 20 additional hours of PTO per year

***Please include a cover letter when applying***

It is the policy of King Cycle Group not to discriminate against any applicant for employment because of age, color, sex, disability, national origin, race, religion, or veteran status. Visit our website at www.chrisking.com.

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: From $19.00 per hour

Expected hours: 40 per week

Benefits:

401(k)
401(k) matching
Dental insurance
Health insurance
Paid time off
Vision insurance

Experience level:

2 years

Shift:

Day shift

Weekly day range:

Monday to Friday

Work setting:

In-person
Office

Work Location: In person

How to Apply

Please send your resume to caryn.millar@chrisking.com

National bike industry org urges changes to Oregon e-bike bill

One proposed change would carve out a different class for cargo bikes to allow them to have larger motors. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The debate around electric bikes at the Oregon Legislature is heating up ahead of a work session and possible votes on Friday. 

As BikePortland reported last week, House Bill 4103 has split opinions among cycling advocates. Now the debate has escalated to a national level as industry group People for Bikes has entered the fray. 

PFB has written a letter to leaders of the Joint Committee on Transportation urging lawmakers to make several key changes to the bill. The letter, dated Wednesday 2/21, was written by PFB’s Electric Bicycle Policy & Campaign Director Ash Lovell, Ph.D. The letter had been co-signed by Portland-based nonprofits The Street Trust, BikeLoud PDX and No More Freeways. National bike advocacy group the League of American Bicyclists has also signed on. 

The letter says Oregon is at risk of falling out of alignment with federal regulations if the bill does not include language in its definition of “electric bicycle” that clearly stipulates a maximum motor size of 750 watts and the presence of pedals.

Current law allows e-bikes to have a maximum power of 1000 watts, and that size is preferred by cargo bike companies that deliver freight, but PFB says that’s not the industry standard. 

“We recognize the desire of commercial interests in Oregon to have the ability to use higher wattage vehicles to transport freight when using electric cargo bicycles. These commercial cargo bikes are not consumer products regulated by the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission), and could have motors in excess of 750 watts,” the letter states. 

PFB wants new language that clearly defines e-bikes motors with a maximum of 750 watts and, “an electric assisted bicycle used for commercial purposes to transport cargo,” to have a maximum power output of 1000 watts.

Another suggested amendment is to make sure the definition of an e-bike includes having, “fully operative pedals.” This would disqualify many models that are used more like mopeds or motorcycles from being legally considered electric bicycles. 

PFB is also concerned about HB 4103’s language around a ban on people 15 and under from using Class 2 or Class 3 e-bikes (any bike with a throttle), and related traffic violation when they are caught by police. 

“This subsection also seems to include underage riders who are merely passengers on either Class 2 or Class 3 bicycles,” Lovell writes in the letter. “This would inadvertently eliminate the ability of families to take advantage of family cargo bicycles that are designed to have children as passengers. Many of these electric bicycles are Class 2 bicycles with a throttle. Family e-cargo bicycles can greatly reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and GHG emissions.”

The final change they request is language that would allow first-time violators of the new “unsafe riding” violation to have the offense waived if they complete a safe riding course. 

The bill had a public hearing last week and is slated for a work session and possible vote tomorrow (Friday, 2/22) at 5:00 pm. 

Toast BikeLoud PDX at Bike Happy Hour tonight

(Jonathan Maus)

Hi everyone. I’ve been out of town for the past two days, so I apologize for the tardiness of this post about tonight’s Bike Happy Hour (BHH).

I don’t think we’ll have any local political candidates in the room tonight, but you never know who might show up. What I do know is that we’ll save some time on the mic to highlight the great work of our friends at BikeLoud PDX. This scrappy-yet-mighty nonprofit has come a long way since their first meeting in August 2014 and I’ve never felt more confident in their trajectory.

Let’s come together and let BikeLoud know how much we appreciate their work!

If you’ve been to Bike Happy Hour there’s a good chance you’ve met a BikeLoud member or one of their leaders. They’ve supported the event since the start and I’ve really appreciated the ways we’ve leaned on each other to make our community stronger.

We figured it’d be fun to make this BikeLoud Night because right after BHH, they’re hosting their first quarterly meet-up of 2024. So around 6:00 pm, I plan to hop on my bike and follow BikeLoud’s Aaron Kuehn over to the Blumenauer Bridge where there will be a party at the new Bear Blocks! I hope you’ll join us. (And don’t fear the weather. There will be covered places to sit and hang out. Also, jackets exist.)

What are the Bear Blocks? It’s a new gathering space on the south end of the Blumenauer Bridge that will eventually have food carts, a beer garden, and so on. You might recall a story about this project back in August. There’s been exciting progress at the site, so let’s help break it in before spring is in full swing. The BikeLoud event will run from 6-8:00 pm. Show up for free delicious snacks, no-host drinks (beer and non-alcoholic), and to help break-in the bike parking and get a sneak peek at the Bear Blocks.

See you tonight!

Bike Happy Hour is every Wednesday, all year round at Ankeny Tap/Gorges Beer/Crema PDX. Find us on the Ankeny Rainbow Road Plaza from 3:00 to 6:00 pm.

PBOT erects concrete barricades to deter drivers – and vandals – on NE 72nd Drive

A bike rider enters NE 72nd Drive at Tillamook, where they’ll be able to ride without worrying about drivers buzzing by. (Michael Mann)
Location of Jersey barriers. See close-up of section circled in white below. (BikePortland)

After incidents of extreme vandalism last month, Portland Bureau of Transportation crews returned to Rose City Golf Course over the weekend. They wanted to send a clear message that drivers are no longer allowed to drive northbound on Northeast 72nd Drive between Tillamook and Sacramento. And this time, they were not messing around.

In a bid to prioritize bicycling and walking on this section of the street that’s considered a lynchpin of the 70s Neighborhood Greenway, PBOT installed signs and poles late last month. But anti-PBOT local residents repeatedly destroyed the infrastructure and used power tools to saw off heavy-gauge traffic poles and signs.

PBOT spent weeks planning the new approach that was installed over the weekend, and the new infrastructure has significantly hardened the changes. There are now four concrete Jersey barriers at the site — one in northbound lane of 72nd at Tillamook, another about 300 feet north adjacent to the cafe and golf shop, and two more at the northeast corner of the golf course parking lot (to prevent drivers from exiting the lot onto 72nd, a movement that would endanger southbound bicycle riders). The signs are adorned with “Do Not Enter”, and “Road Closed: Except Bicycles” signs.

Golf course parking lot northeast entrance/exit. (Michael Mann)
Barrier north of Tillamook. Note location of old poles that were cut in foreground. (Michael Mann)
View of barriers on 72nd from Tillamook. (Joseph E)

The barriers are likely about 3,000 lbs each and should deter all haters. But just in case someone does try to push them away, PBOT has also installed security cameras on a nearby light pole (photo at right). BikePortland readers shared an email from a PBOT project manager that confirmed not only the presence of the cameras but also that Portland Police officers will be present to make sure the new infrastructure is unharmed.

Security camera on a nearby pole. (Anonymous source)

PBOT also plans to install traffic separators to finish out the new design. The concrete barricades are much more robust than anything that was planned prior to the vandalism incidents. Initial PBOT plan drawings showed only the use of plastic traffic separators and paint. I also don’t think the parking lot exit closure was part of the original design.

Heightened security via a camera and a call to the PPB certainly wasn’t in the plans — and their presence speaks to an unprecedented level of anti-PBOT sentiment among some residents, many of whom are emboldened by Nextdoor posts and a delusional sense of entitlement.

BikePortlander Joseph E. said it seems to be working well so far. “I saw four groups of people walking on the northbound side of the street, enjoying the low traffic environment during my two minute ride up the hill,” he shared in an email Sunday. “It is very nice not to worry about drivers trying to pass me on the curve.”

This project is the result of city policy that requires PBOT to create safe neighborhood greenways that prioritize bicycle riders and walkers. PBOT’s traffic data shows showed that 831 people per day drive cars northbound on 72nd — and 65% of them were exceeding the speed limit.

I plan to take a closer look at the changes in the coming days. Stay tuned and let me know what you think if you’ve ridden or driven by this already.

Podcast: In the Shed With Business Advocate Stephen Green

With my usual co-host Eva Frazier on vacation (hope Italy is amazing Eva!), I welcomed a special guest into the shed this week: Stephen Green! Stephen is a multi-talented business advocate and community builder you should probably know about if you care about the future of Portland. Why?

For starters, Stephen is executive director of Business for a Better Portland, the nonprofit organization founded in 2017 as an antidote to the Portland Metro Chamber. In his role at BBPDX, Stephen helps 400 member businesses navigate everything from city politics to building social capital. Pitch Black, now in its eighth year, is an annual event that connects BIPOC entrepreneurs with funders. “It’s Shark Tank meets America’s Funniest Home Videos,” is how Stephen describes it. He also sits on all types of important advisory committees and boards, including the Governor’s Central City Task Force.

Stephen’s superpower is connecting people to information and resources and using his knowledge and experience to help others. That’s my kind of guy! We haven’t spent a lot of time together over the years, but I feel like we’ve both known about each other for a long time. I’ve watched him from afar with respect and knew that eventually our circles would cross. Now they have!

In this episode, Stephen and I chat about all sorts of stuff; but mostly local business and politics (especially our new form of government). He tells stories about Portland’s Black history (did you know “the Pearl” district was named after a Black woman?), we dish on what we think makes Portland tick, why bike riders tend to love Portland so much, how to talk to business owners about bicycling and transportation reform, and much more.

Thanks to Brock Dittus of Sprocket Podcast fame for our fantastic theme music.

Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. You can hear a short highlight reel in the video below:

Monday Roundup: Older women on bikes, Lyft’s labor loss, and more

Hi everyone, I’m starting the week being with family in Grants Pass (southern Oregon) today and tomorrow so this roundup will be a bit quick and short. I won’t be back in the Shed until Tuesday night, so please adjust your expectations as we settle into the week.

Here are the most notable items our community came across in the past seven days:

Pedestrian-less in Seattle: ” If I paid attention to drivers as well as they paid attention to me, I’d be dead by now.” (Seattle Times Opinion)

Feeling validated: I’ve long pointed to how the decline in cycling in Portland has tracked with the increase in road fatalities. Now there’s research that might back that up. It shows that in cities with high cycling rates, traffic safety for all users is generally better. (Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research)

Heavy Lyft: Los Angeles officials have run into opposition for efforts to expand e-bike share because of the labor practices of its preferred vendor: Lyft. (Politico)

Fountain of youth: We’re used to articles that extol the health virtues of cycling, but this one is different. It’s about how our society discourages women from getting into pursuits like cycling, and how revelatory pedaling can be for them — even well after retirement age. (NY Times Opinion)

Speed cameras all the rage: It says a lot about the intractable behavior of most drivers that a country where “Freedom!” is such a cherished value has given into automated speed cameras. (NPR)

Bikers, beware: Florida is a beautiful place, unfortunately it’s way too deadly for bicycle riders says this new report that ranks American counties. (Guardian)

How to talk about it: Get personal, stop blaming individuals, include a call-to-action — those are the three big takeaways from a report on how to message Vision Zero/Safe Systems effectively. (Streetsblog USA)

Use bike racks to protect sidewalks: We don’t have a huge problem with people parking on sidewalks, but this campaign from the UK could still be used here to keep people from driving up on them. (Road.cc)

Land use for the (climate change) win: Statewide laws that encourage compact development could be an even more powerful lever in climate change policymaking. (Rocky Mountain Institute)

Sec Pete visits the bridge: A big push from Democrats to create momentum for funding the Interstate Bridge Replacement project brought US DOT Sec. Pete Buttigieg to town. (OR Capital Chronicle)

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.

Comment of the Week: The transportation independence of teenagers

As two bills addressing e-bike regulation wind their way through the Oregon legislature, BikePortland readers responded with a slew of strong comments to last week’s article which focussed on one of them, House Bill 4103

Comments came in with a wide variety of opinion, commenter Eric even remarked, “I find it fascinating that I kind of agree with every perspective voiced so far in this comment thread.”

In her statement to BikePortland, Sarah Iannarone, director of The Street Trust, introduced the issue of transportation independence, “we have seen time and again how the transportation needs of teens in particular are regarded as a nuisance…”

Expanding on that thought, commenter Al Dimond got to the heart of what is really at stake — how auto-mobility has restricted the freedom and independence of teenagers. What you think is normal, or how things should be, is “both about when we grew up and where.”

That caught my attention, because one thing that I always found fascinating when we had a child at home, was the lack of consensus among Portland parents concerning how much independence they considered to be safe. It ranged from one neighbor who became panicked when she learned her child was walking door-to-door (really close to home) with another child, to another who had her 10-year-old taking the MAX alone to Hillsboro for an after-school activity. (Hint: one family was from Europe, the other from California.)

It’s something Al Diamond has thought about too, and here are his musings on the topic:

There’s this thing in here about what technology allows and what technology requires. Some of us remember a childhood where we could easily bike or walk to get around independently… some of us don’t… it’s both about when we grew up and where.

For my part I’m somewhere in the middle. As I got up through high school I was able to get around more of my suburb by biking, but I also developed more needs to travel beyond easy biking range, and also to destinations where non-car access wasn’t even an afterthought. That’s the suburbs for ya. The two cars in everyone’s driveway (at least as we perceived it) made that kind of lifestyle possible, and that, in turn, made it feel obligatory.

In the world of the car, everything has been going up for over a century. The cars get faster, the cars get bigger, the cars add more safety features to compensate for the greater speed and bulk. The roads get bigger to add safety margins between the bigger, faster cars. Rinse and repeat. Normal people not only feel like they need to have the cars to manage their obligatory travel needs but that they need four-wheel-drive because nobody’s going to excuse their absence on the one or two snow days every year. Of course, they’re encouraged to feel that way by marketing that exploits their fears of not keeping up or not keeping their kids up.

The obligation to drive to achieve full participation in the car-dominated world took freedom from kids. In families that could afford it, they clawed it back at age 16 with driver’s licenses. Safety concerns saw kids’ driving privileges scaled back. Now we have, with e-bikes, the freedom to travel greater distances becoming possible again, but mostly surrounded by ever-bigger and ever-faster cars in ever-more-hostile environments.

It’s true that kids can hurt themselves without e-bikes, without wheels even. Also true that additional speed can multiply danger. Also true that in many scenarios around cars the critical speed isn’t carried by the bike. Teens, pre-teens, kids, need some ability to get around independently — I think it’s an important part of learning to live in a free society. That’s never going to be safe if they’re obligated to navigate the extremes of today’s car-world by any method.

I can’t stand on any firm principle for or against e-bike regulations for kids, or for anyone else, that comes out of the US west coast. The only thing that’s really clear is that we need a better public realm in all our cities, towns, and suburbs, where we don’t have to go out on the highway for everything, where we can rely on public transit for trips where our legs won’t carry us.

If we do that we’ll be able to see where e-bike speed causes real problems. If we don’t do that, every time we try to work at e-bike regulation we’ll flail around blindly because everything else is drowned out by car considerations.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Al. You can read Al’s comment and many others under the original post.

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