Can you believe we had all these candidates at Bike Happy Hour back in July! (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
If you haven’t voted yet and are interested in what we’ve shared about all the candidates and the election in general over the past year or so, this post puts it all in one place.
BikePortland watchers know I’m always experimenting with new ways of sharing content and telling stories. And a big part of that in recent years has been a higher priority on videos. I know not everyone appreciates this, but I’m sufficiently intrigued by video’s potential. I also like the challenge of learning new skills and it’s been fun to move beyond just typing and still photos these past several years.
On that note, I’m also lucky enough to know Aaron Parecki, a successful YouTuber and one of the smartest people around when it comes to making videos on the web. Aaron agreed to help make my dream of turning the BikePortland Shed (my backyard workspace) into a video recording studio! I’ve been recording interviews in the Shed for years, but adding video has been a technical lift I just couldn’t figure out on my own. Aaron was amazing! He figured out all the details and led me every step of the way.
This episode of In The Shed with Eva Frazier and I is the first time we did video and I’m happy with how it turned out. I hope you are too. Now you can watch and hear our podcasts and interviews on our YouTube channel or in your audio player.
Here’s a taste of what Eva and I talk about in this episode (which was recorded on Monday, 10/21):
The two fatal cycling collisions on the same morning
Eva’s East Portland ride
Why business is tough for small bike shops
Jonathan explains why people who use “e-bike” to describe e-mopeds/motorcycles is such a concern
BikeLoud’s new Bike Buddy Program
Where you can (and can’t) bike on sidewalks downtown — and why riding on sidewalks can be cool
And more!
Special thanks to all our financial supporters, advertisers, and paid subscribers. Your support is what allows me to invest in new tech and continue build a community media channel that we can all use and benefit from.
2020 photo looking down on NE Glisan between 130th and 128th. This within a few yards of where the man was hit and killed Monday morning. Note that a video of the collision appears to show the rider using the general travel lane, not the bike lane. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
It’s the morning after two people were killed in fatal collisions with car drivers while bicycling on Portland streets. They both happened in northeast Portland east of I-205: one on NE Glisan near Menlo Park Elementary School around 2:30 am and the other in an industrial-zoned area of NE 105th north of Sandy Blvd at about 9:00 am.
I’ve heard a bit more details about the second collision from the Portland Police Bureau and one local TV station shared videos from the scenes — including what appears to be security video of the collision on NE Glisan — so we know a bit more about that crash as well. Two Portland City Council candidates have also come forward with a joint statement.
While I wait to learn more about what happened, let’s talk about the media coverage and response from candidates.
NE Glisan just west of NE 130th
Screenshots from KPTV Fox 12 video.
I am grateful for local TV stations that have the capacity to send a video crew to any location in our city at any hour of the day. They also do important leg work in gathering information. But sometimes their framing is extremely bad and unhelpful. Case in point is KPTV Fox 12. Their story, “Portland biking community urges safety after 2 deadly crashes in 12 hours,” focused primarily on telling bike riders how to be more safe by gearing up with high-visibility clothing and other equipment.
That’s a fine message, but not in this context.
Prior to spending most of the segment hearing from one veteran bicycle rider (and then calling it “Portland biking community” as if one person speaks for anyone but themselves), the KPTV reporter introduced video of the hit-and-run on NE Glisan. It appears to be shot from the front yard of a house on the south side of the street between NE 130th and 128th (above). In the video — UPDATE: which I now have my own copy of — we can clearly see a man on a bike pedaling west in the general travel lane. Then a black or dark blue, two-door sports car comes flying into the frame and plows into the bike rider from behind at a very high rate of speed.
Approximated reconstruction by BikePortland based on footage shared by KPTV Fox 12.
It’s notable that the bike rider didn’t appear to be using the bike lane. After reviewing video from a nearby homeowner, the impact happened just as the rider went under the pedestrian overpass. While we might never know why the rider didn’t use the bike lane, it’s important to note that Oregon law does not require a bicycle rider to use a bike lane if there’s a hazard (like debris or other obstruction), or if the rider is preparing to make a left turn. Since first posting this story, I’m now able to view the video on my own without having to rely on Fox 12 TV.
The screenshot below shows the bicycle rider about 100 feet east of the overpass. It was taken from a security camera about five seconds before impact:
One second later, this car flies into the frame. Notice how the speed of the suspect car (one the left) is so much higher than the SUV in the photo below that it’s significantly more blurred:
To see this video and then decide to spend most of the news segment telling bike riders they’d be safer with “grippy pedals” and “side lights” shows a complete misunderstanding of the issues and comes off as victim blaming. It also perpetuates the culture of irresponsible driving that is a large part of why so many vulnerable road users are killed every year.
NE 105th and Marx
According to new information from the PPB shared with BikePortland this morning, there were multiple drivers traveling southbound on NE 105th. “As one attempted to turn eastbound onto NE Marx Street, it was involved in a crash with a cyclist traveling northbound on NE 105th Avenue.”
Identities of the deceased are pending notification of kin. I hope to learn more about both of these crashes in the days and weeks to come.
Timur Ender and Steph Routh are both leading candidates to represent District 1 on Portland City Council. They also both have significant experience in the transportation space — Ender as a Portland Bureau of Transportation project manager and Routh as an executive director of nonprofit Oregon Walks (among other things). They released a join statement yesterday about these tragedies.
“This is not an academic exercise for people in District 1. Our part of town has more gun violence, more traffic deaths, and a life expectancy 10 years lower than the rest of Portland,” Ender and Routh wrote. “This is our current reality, but it doesn’t have to be our future.”
The two candidates know “public safety” is the most popular phrase on the campaign trail and they want more Portlanders to understand how road safety is a key part of it. They shared a link to a map of shootings in Portland to illustrate how they are much more frequent along fast, dangerous roads with a history of crashes.
“As we work toward a future where everyone can thrive, we must recognize that community safety includes leveraging the tools, levers, and resources of local government to extend our community’s life expectancy,” Ender and Route wrote. “We are committed to providing the political support to do that.”
It’s not a documentary about biking per se, but ‘We Are All In This Together,’ which screens tonight (Tuesday, 10/22) at Cinema 21, illustrates the power of cycling to bring people together and the opportunities for understanding other perspectives that open up when you travel by bike.
The film was produced by Daniel Troia, who pedaled his bike 7,000 miles over seven months across America without food or money. Why embark on a journey like that without knowing where you’ll eat or how you’ll pay for anything? Here’s a blurb from the film’s official website:
Just like a lot of Americans, Daniel Troia had been feeling all of the tension in the country, which made him question just how connected we really are anymore. Determined to find out if we truly are as divided as it seems, he decides to set off on a cross-country bicycle journey with no food, no money and the hope of gaining a better understanding of the human connection.
Equipped with hidden camera glasses and a sign that says, “Ran out of food. Anything helps”, Daniel listens to stories from the people that lend a helping hand and learns that those who face the most adversity in their lives, often have the most to give.
After spending 7 months on the road and meeting a diverse group of kind strangers, his perspective on the country changes and he realizes that there is much more that brings us together, than what separates us.
The film shares incredible views and adventures from the road, but the most memorable moments come from conversations with people he meets along the way. Based on the trailer it’s easy to see why the film has collected numerous awards from film festivals across the country.
Troia is a filmmaker whose work has been featured on National Geographic Adventure.
Half of the proceeds from tonight’s ticket sales will be donated to Rose Haven, a nonprofit women’s shelter.
See the screening and meet Troia at Cinema 21 tonight. Ticket sales and more information at Cinema21.com.
Sometimes questions are more revealing than answers, and Steve Novick, City Council candidate from District 3, posed a good one at last Wednesday’s Bike Happy Hour. “We have seen this really unfortunate drop off in bicycling as a percentage of trips over the past nine years . . . So my question is: What should we focus on to get ridership back up?” And then he continued with a long series of possible reasons which showed his command of transportation issues.
145 of you — so far — have answered him.
But amid his questions, Novick also slipped in some thoughts about increasing the percentage of Portland Clean Energy Benefits Fund (PCEF) money going to transportation, and suggested redirecting some of that money toward building out complete networks.
One commenter, SD, picked up on the PCEF angle and wrote,
The way to mobilize resources from PCEF and other sources around climate and equity is to center a core tenet that is already a reality of the city for most people and needs to be applied to every decision. “Make Portland a city where you don’t need a car for most trips.” Every decision should start with, “does this decision increase car dependency or decrease car dependency?”
That caused me to sit up straight. Anyone (me) who has ever dug deep into PBOT documentation knows that PBOT is an anti-racist organization. This means that PBOT views all its actions through a, “Will it advance equity and address structural racism?” lens. SD seemed to me to be suggesting that a similar rubric regarding car trips might be useful.
Asking people who bike “What can we do to get more people biking?” has generated a lot of great responses. Many of them are frequently covered on this site and in the comments. Foremost — let’s fully execute greenways and protected lanes. We have tried to create a secret invisible bike network using passive aggressive implementation, but it is not safe because of drivers.
However, the question that Novick is actually asking is how to make a viable, enjoyable, sustainable, equitable transportation system politically expedient? What big change will mobilize support and dispel the haters? The answer to this question is that Portlanders are not going to stand up en masse and fight for dramatic changes to a transportation system that they are heavily invested in, even though it is killing them. This is even more the case since the most immediate deaths are people in poverty.
A strong coalition of support for the best transportation system has to be established within city government, first. I listened to Novick’s interview on OPB along with other candidates, and there were many candidates that said “bikes and transit” were important to them. We have heard this for decades. But when it came down to it, they compromised, they folded, they implemented half measures, because the political juice they got from “bikes” in that moment didn’t stand up to the political juice they got from whoever else was yelling at them.
A decade ago, Portland had a strong vision and identity. A decade later, it is still there, but obscured by self-hatred and weak leadership that was installed by wealthy individuals whose fortunes depend on car-commuters.
The way to mobilize resources from PCEF and other sources around climate and equity is to center a core tenet that is already a reality of the city for most people and needs to be applied to every decision. “Make Portland a city where you don’t need a car for most trips.” Every decision should start with, “does this decision increase car dependency or decrease car dependency?” Part of this is just people waking up and realizing that it is already true. The other part is building infrastructure. The other part is looking to specific demographics, like seniors, and providing car-free living services that take the place of cars.
Thank you SD. Do I need to say that there are many, many strong comments in this thread? Steve Novick commented (pinned at top) that he was “awestruck by the number and thoughtfulness of the comments.” He’s going to try to respond to them, but my understanding is that he will be pretty busy through November 5th.
Welcome to the week. I hope you were able to enjoy the beautiful fall weather we had the past few days. I got out to Gateway Green Saturday with my teenage son and his friends and it was wonderful.
Here are the most notable stories our community came across in the past seven days…
JT on a bike bus? Coach Balto is in the news again as his mission to get Justin Timberlake to join the Alameda Elementary School bike bus has gone viral. JT is set to perform at the Moda Center January 13th. (🔒The Oregonian)
Food route: Is there any location in Oregon where we could create and promote something like Quebec’s “Veloroute Gourmande” food trail? Maybe southern Oregon? Or maybe we do an urban-version and call it the “Portland Food Loop”? (BBC)
Gravel privateers: A look into the fascinating changes to professional cycling inspired by the gravel boom and how it’s impacting the career trajectories and pocketbooks of some of America’s fastest cyclists. (The Guardian)
The cost of (parking) cars: America’s problem housing its people is directly related to its policies for housing cars. This interactive article is a really good explainer about how parking minimums destroy cities. (NY Times)
Joyride ban: The tradition of riding the carfree NY Marathon course before the runners take over now faces a crackdown by the authorities after organizers say are safety concerns from past years. (🔒NY Times)
When cultures collide: You know when car and police culture collide, the result will not be pretty. In this case an off-duty officer in Boston who slammed into a family while driving drunk has since been promoted. (NBC Boston)
Brilliant satire: Please read this satirical spin on the classic auto-centric opinions often expressed by folks who oppose cycling and the lanes it requires. (The Spinoff)
Police say it happened near this intersection of the Parkrose neighborhood just east of the I-205 path and north of Sandy Blvd.
A bicycle rider died in a traffic collision in northeast Portland this morning. It happened around 9:00 am — less than seven hours after a separate fatal collision involving a cyclist this morning.
According to the Portland Police Bureau, this crash happened in the area of Northeast 105th and NE Marx. The driver remained at the scene and the investigation is ongoing. No other details have been released at this time.
Looking north on 105th at NE Marx.
Two cycling deaths so close together is rare and will likely lead to a large response from local bike activists. Beyond the timing, what’s also notable is the locations. This more recent fatality happened just 3.4 miles north of the one on NE Glisan earlier this morning.
NE 105th and Marx is an industrially-zoned area of the Parkrose neighborhood just a few blocks north of Sandy Blvd (US 30). 105th is known to some bicycle riders because it’s the road that runs adjacent to the I-205 path just south of where it connects to NE Alderwood Road. I’ve hopped onto 105th to access this industrial area. There are no bike lanes, sidewalks, or curbs, and the shoulders are often full of gravel.
This is the fifth person killed in a bicycle crash on Portland streets so far this year.
I’ll share more as I learn what happened. For now, if you have any information about the incident, please contact crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov, attention Traffic Investigations Unit, and reference case number 24-269938.
Looking west on NE Glisan where it crossings 128th. Menlo Park Elementary School is on the left. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
A man riding a bicycle was killed by a driver near the intersection of Northeast Glisan and 128th this morning. The Portland Police Bureau say it happened around 2:37 am. By the time officers arrived they found the bicycle rider dead and the driver had fled the scene.
This is the third fatal collision involving a bicycle rider so far this year.
While we don’t know many details about what happened yet, this location is notable for a few reasons. This section of NE Glisan east of I-205 was significantly reconfigured by the Portland Bureau of Transportation in 2019. Once referred to as a “raceway” in a PBOT slide presentation, the street was converted from a classic east Portland stroad into a more humane design with protected bike lanes, enhanced crossings, and other safety-related features.
Glisan at 128th is also where the 130s neighborhood greenway crossing from north to south. It’s an off-set intersection, so PBOT built a two-way protected bike lane and median island crossing in order to help get bicycle riders safely across the intersection. Another reason PBOT paid special attention to this crossing is because it’s right outside Menlo Park Elementary School.
PPB is still investigating the crash and said in a statement his morning the incident could impact the morning drop-off.
According to our Fatality Tracker, this is the 47th fatal traffic collision on Portland streets so far this year, down from 55 at this point last year.
If you have more information about what happened, please let the police know so they can track down whoever did this. If you saw or heard anything, please email crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov attention Traffic Investigations Unit and reference case number 24-269766.
UPDATE, 10/22:Video from the scene by KPTV (Fox 12) shows that the bicycle rider and driver were headed west on NE Glisan, just before coming to the overpass outside the school. The rider was in the general travel lane and the driver hit him from behind at a high rate of speed.
Hold onto those ballots! Especially if you live in City Council District 4. Because I’ve just uploaded a new podcast episode where Lisa Caballero and I dish and debate the D4 race.
Barring any changes in plans, I’m done with individual candidate interviews as we are in the final few weeks before ballots are due. Now I want to focus on more general analysis of each district and the mayor’s race. So I asked Lisa to join me in the Shed yesterday because she’s lived in D4 for over twenty years and just as obsessed with this election as I am. Lisa has also done neighborhood-level activism in those years and she’s hosted and attended a bunch election-related events in recent months.
In this episode, we talked about who we think are the 12-13 most viable candidates in the field. Since Olivia Clark, Eric Zimmerman, and Eli Arnold nabbed endorsements from the two biggest media outlets in town (The Oregonian and Willamette Week), we talked about them the most. “I think it’s hard to ignore those endorsements,” Lisa said about how those three candidates have emerged this week. “If I were another District 4 candidate, I would be feeling a little down right now.” We also shared our thoughts on other front-of-the-pack candidates like Mitch Green, Chad Lykins, Lisa Freeman, Bob Weinstein, Stan Penkin, Moses Ross, Ben Hufford, Sarah Silkie, and Tony Morse.
How are they on transportation issues? It’s a mixed bag and we didn’t share all their positions. I used a question The Oregonian asked every candidate as a jumping-off point: “Which would you prioritize: Creation of more protected bike lanes and priority bus lanes or improved surfacing of existing degraded driving lanes?” I realize that’s an annoying binary that doesn’t appreciate the reality of funding, but it was fun to see how the candidates answered.
In Lisa’s mind, what’s important isn’t whether or not a candidate nails a bike-related question. She wants someone with experience and the political moxie to make progress — and most importantly someone who can work with others so the sum of council is greater than it’s individual parts. “We have a lot of candidates with experience, and especially Eric and Olivia, they’ve got more experience than anybody running for mayor,” Lisa said. “We don’t have someone who can design a bike lane… So I have a fantasy of Olivia Clark having a weekly breakfast with (D1 candidate) Steph Routh… Likewise, I think it would be really cool if Eric Zimmerman and (D1 candidate) Timur Ender had coffee every once in a while.”
A red flag for Lisa is anyone she feels is too dogmatic. “I don’t want people with purity tests. I want someone who can talk to someone who doesn’t see eye-to-eye, listen to them, perhaps learn from them and persuade them.”
No matter how things turn out once all the votes are tallied, Lisa is sanguine about the new form of government and the influence on ranked choice voting. Beyond the three who win seats, Lisa says, “We’ve got another nine who are going to be very well-informed about the district. And what a wonderful process this has been! It has created nine people who are not going to be on City Council, who are going to be able to advocate, and who have spent a lot of volunteer time really getting to know this area. That’s a win-win for everybody.”
Listen to the full episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Steve Novick at Bike Happy Hour last night (with a free, day-old croissant from Crema someone gave him, securely placed under his arm). (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Steve Novick has been out of Portland politics for eight years, but you wouldn’t know that if you’ve watched him on the campaign trail. Novick, who’s running for one of three seats in City Council District 3 (Southeast), has landed back on the scene and finds himself atop a very competitive race. This week he wrapped up the big trifecta with endorsements from The Willamette Week, The Oregonian and the Portland Mercury.
And last night he walked onto the Gorges Beer Co patio to join us for Bike Happy Hour. In his typically demure style, Novick didn’t announce his presence and he didn’t even tell me he’d be there. But he was prepared and on a mission to find good answers to specific questions about bicycling that could inform his platform and politics going forward.
Before I share his questions, let’s go back in time a bit…
For anyone around during his previous tenure as a city commissioner (between 2012 and 2016), you’ll recall Novick’s relatively solid record on bicycling and transportation. Two weeks after he received the PBOT bureau assignment, Novick made time to stop at Breakfast on the Bridges where he mingled with local bike lovers and advocates. As PBOT commissioner his entire term, Novick was the tip of the spear when it came to pushing the 10-cent local gas tax increase. Novick even earned a Comment of the Week nod here on BikePortland for his acerbic rebuttal of economist Joe Cortright’s concerns about the tax. Portlanders have voted in support of the tax three times since, so it might seem like a no-brainer, but Novick likely sacrificed his re-election by standing up for more local transportation funding. Novick was also in charge when we launched Biketown, and he was an ardent supporter of Better Naito.
The one quibble I recall about Novick is that he didn’t push hard enough to improve bike safety on SW Barbur when the opportunity presented himself. I felt like he deferred too much to Oregon Department of Transportation Region 1 Director Jason Tell. When I learned Novick’s chief of staff Chris Warner (who’d go on to become PBOT director years later) was a close personal friend of Tell’s and it felt like Novick was parroting ODOT’s position on the issue, I emailed Novick to ask about the Warner-Tell relationship. Minutes later, Novick picked up the phone and called me. When I answered, he chewed me out and warned me to never question the integrity of one of his staff again and then hung up before I could respond. I was shocked, but chalked it up to just another interesting day on the job, and moved on.
Here are the questions Novick posed to the crowd last night (I’ve also posted a video of his speech at the end of this post and on Instagram):
“A question I have for the bicycle community is, we have seen this really unfortunate drop off in bicycling as a percentage of trips over the past nine years. We sort of reached a peak in 2015 and we used to have this idea, ‘If we build it, they will come.’ If we keep on improving the bike infrastructure, the bike mode share will increase. And obviously we should do a lot more to improve the infrastructure, but the infrastructure is better and more extensive than it was in 2015 and we still have lower ridership.
So my question is: What should we focus on to get ridership back up? How much of it is simply safety — the fact that drivers went insane during the pandemic and they’ve stayed insane and people are scared to be on the streets? How much of it is enforcement?
How much of it is that… bicycling was like this sort of hot thing that in the mid-2010s every city was competing to have the best bike program. Then it sort of faded as a cause. To what extent can we just say, ‘Hey, this is a critical cause. It’s vital for climate change. It’s vital to reduce people’s spending on transportation. Is vital for health. How much could we recapture by just sort of being more aggressive cheerleaders for bicycling?
How much of it is education? Our primary tool is the greenways, but you have the population changing all the time. To what extent could we do a better job of educating new people who come here where the greenways are?
And to what extent is it improving the infrastructure? Are there some dramatic, disruptive things we could do in certain places where it’s an infrastructure improvement that makes everybody stand up and pay attention? What are some key places where we could do some big things in order to jumpstart things again?”
Then Novick shared a new (to me) plan to boost the share of transportation-specific funding in the Portland Clean Energy Benefits Fund (PCEF) from its current level of about 17% of the $750 million total to a “majority”. Novick said he’s been pushing PCEF leaders to spend more on transportation because it’s the largest source of carbon emissions. Then he shared a related question:
One argument you will run into is [PCEF funding] is supposed to be for reducing carbon emissions, but it’s also to be supposed to be benefiting low-income people and people of color. Does that mean we have to spend all of the money specifically in communities that have a large proportion of low-income people and people of color? Or can we say, ‘You know what, building out the entire bike network is important, even if some of that build-out occurs in places that aren’t particularly concentrated with people of color and low-income people, and that fighting climate change as a whole is important to low-income people and people of color, because they are going to bear the brunt of it. So making investments that reduced carbon emissions wherever they are, is still an environmental justice issue.’
Will people be willing to step up and say, ‘Yes, we think that that’s true’?
Given that Novick speaks from experiences as a commissioner who’s been in the trenches and stands a very good chance of winning a seat on council, it would behoove all of us to think about these questions and have good answers ready as the lobbying of council begins anew in January 2025.
“If I lose my election, answering those questions to me will be utterly irrelevant,” Novick said last night. “But if I win, I’d love to have you come and talk to me.”
A few scenes from last week’s gathering. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Bring your voters guide and a notepad to Bike Happy Hour tonight (Weds, 10/16 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at SE Ankeny & 27th) as we help each other get educated and excited for the upcoming election. We’ve spent over a year getting to know candidates, and now it’s time to make some decisions!
In addition to the usual wonderful community connections and vibes we’ve had at our previous 79 happy hours, here’s what to expect on the Gorges Beer Co patio* tonight:
District 2 council candidate Chris Olson will join us. Chris is an unabashed progressive who’s been endorsed by the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), Moms Demand Action, and Bernie PDX just to name a few. Come around 5:00 to hear his latest stump speech and chat him up.
I’ll get things started with our traditional Free Fries at 4:00, so come early if you want a fresh hot snack of tasty fried potatoes. And remember, the mic is open to anyone beginning at 5:00 pm, so come and promote your project, ride, idea, song, poem — or whatever you want to share. Can’t wait to see you all there.
Oh wait, one more thing… Did you know Bike Happy Hour is so great we’ve now spawned two similar events? I shared a report from my visit to the Westside Bike Happy Hour back in July and I’ve just been told about another one… in Milwaukie (just south of Portland). Maitri Dermeyer of Bike Milwaukie and her co-conspirator Jay Panagos says they’ll host a happy hour for bike lovers on the last Monday of every month at Beer Store Milwaukie. The next one is on October 28th.
*Looks like we’ll have a gorgeous dry night (fingers crossed!). But if it’s wet and nasty we’ll move the party across the street inside Ankeny Tap & Table.
UPDATE, 10/18: The original post and photos on Nextdoor have been removed by Mel L.
People who live near Rose City Golf Course in northeast Portland awoke Monday morning to large scars of damage criss-crossing the grassy turf. The deep skidmarks and tread patterns make it clear the damage was done by people riding some sort of two-wheeled vehicle. Witnesses claimed the vehicles were electric and one Rose City Park resident, “Mel L.,” posted photos to Nextdoor and falsely blamed the damage on “e-bikes.”
“Just wait until bikes are allowed on the golf course,” Mel L. wrote. “Sorry, PP&R, but signage won’t stop this.”
The damage to the golf course has ramped up emotions surrounding a current proposal from Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) to build new bike trails in and around the golf course and adjacent Rose City Park.
Source: Oregon DMV
It’s clear Mel L. is using this terrible behavior and vandalism to further a position shared by other nearby residents who’ve made it clear they do not support any new bike access as part of the PP&R trail project. Another person on Nextdoor, Janet Loughery, who’s been a loud voice against the bike trails in the past, piled onto the anti-bike sentiment in the thread: “These are the people the city wants to legally allow on the golf course by building trails they can have easier access to. This behavior will be come commonplace. Just say NO to trails on the golf course.”
Both Mel L. and Loughery are spreading misinformation and/or willfully misleading other residents because they don’t want more and/or certain type of people using the park.
The products used in the park were not “e-bikes.” As I recently explained in reporting on a tragic electric motorcycle crash in Tualatin, it’s common for people to use the term “e-bike” for vehicles that are not technically or legally bicycles in an way, shape or form other than having two wheels and a handlebar. For some folks, like law enforcement officials who write crash statements, it’s simply a matter of being ignorant of Oregon laws and/or not thinking the words we used to describe things matters. For others, like with these Nextdoor posters, it’s a matter of willfully painting a group with the wrong brush to further an agenda.
The discovery of this damage just as new access for bicycling is being considered, reminds me of the debate around bicycling in Forest Park. Back in 2010, as the conversation was shifting to support new and improved bike trails in Forest Park, someone tipped off PP&R staff about an illegal, handbuilt bike trail in a remote section of the park. The trail damaged a creek and was sloppily cut into the hillside. Bike advocates condemned the unsanctioned trail, but more importantly, PP&R staff and people who opposed cycling in Forest Park used it as a way to thwart forward progress on the biking plans. To this day, almost nothing has come from years of earnest advocacy to improve cycling in Forest Park thanks in large part to how some people leverage irresponsible actions of a few into an agenda that excludes all.
When it comes to the damage to Rose City Golf Course, a PP&R spokesperson told BikePortland this morning the greens have been repaired and the damage had no impact on golfers. As for what they were riding? “Some sort of vehicle,” the PP&R staffer shared. “We cannot confirm that e-bikes were used as someone claimed.”
We’ll get our first sense of how this damage might influence the city’s trail project tonight when PP&R hosts its second community meeting for the Rose City Recreational Trail Project. On the agenda is a discussion of trail designs, proposed trail locations, and more. The meeting will be held online from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Find the meeting Zoom link and learn more here.
