I’m still going through the recent bicycle count report published by the Portland Bureau of Transportation this week and there’s something I need to make very clear: The reason more people aren’t biking is not because of some flaw in the idea of bicycling itself or even because of any shortcomings in the network of roads, paths, and lanes that people do it on.
The problem is cars. Too many cars, to be exact. And too many of them driven without regard for others. This isn’t just my opinion, it also happens to be the official stance of the City of Portland.
This problem has always been right in front of our faces but we don’t recognize it as such because it requires us to acknowledge that something we (nearly) all do on a regular basis might actually have negative impacts on our community and our city. Put another way, the problem is us, and that’s the problem. Not only is driving a car something the vast majority of us do and sympathize with, it’s also normalized by trillions of dollars in marketing over the last century as something that is cool, fun, and harmless. When you’re in a car, Big Auto propaganda says, everyone else is the problem. None of that is true of course, but this is America! With enough money and marketing savvy, you can convince people of anything.
But I digress. What I want you take from this post is a clearer understanding of what has happened on Portland streets in the past decade.
As many of you know, I’ve thought a lot about why bicycling leveled off and then declined in Portland (even before the pandemic). I’ve also tracked closely what PBOT says (and doesn’t say) about the matter. On that note, did you happen to read what PBOT said in the “Discussion” section of the report? On page 16 you’ll see three reasons cited as the causes for the decline in cycling in Portland over the past ten years. Here they are (emphases by PBOT):
- The population soared, with an average of about 10,000 new resident commuters hitting the roads each year from 2014 to 2018. Unlike in previous years where biking and working from home absorbed the plurality of new commute trips, during this period it was driving alone. This likely translated to less comfortable conditions for biking.
- Public perceptions of safety have dropped. People are driving faster and yielding less since the pandemic, and 2023 was a record year for traffic deaths. But it goes beyond transportation. Anecdotally, the rise in houselessness, encampments along bikeways, as well as open drug use, have deterred some riders.
- It has continued to be exceptionally easy to drive a personal vehicle, with a preponderance of street space dedicated to vehicle movement and storage—often at the expense of people who walk, bike, roll, or take transit.
Notice what all three have in common? Cars. Too many cars, to be exact. And too many of them driven without regard for others.
I understand PBOT is inherently biased against reaching some conclusions about the decline (such as their anemic designs, lack of political power to sway City Hall dysfunction, and so on) and that just like I often say bicycles and their riders are easy scapegoats, I recognize it’s very easy to blame cars for everything.
But in this case, as the City of Portland itself appears comfortable doing, blaming too many cars is a reasonable conclusion — especially when you consider what happens when cars are removed from the equation, like during Sunday Parkways events or during the pandemic when bicycling and walking on our streets skyrocketed. It’s also worth noting that the PBOT staffer who wrote this leaned on the 2022 Portland Insights survey that found nearly half of all 5,290 people who responded said they’d be interested in biking more if it were affordable and safe (see above).
So next time a city staffer or elected official is in a meeting and says they just can’t imagine why bicycling has struggled in Portland, remember they’ll probably leave that meeting, drive home in a sea of hundreds of other cars, and wonder what all the fuss is about.
“This problem has always been right in front of our faces but we don’t recognize it”
the problem not being recognized is that PBOT is going to grab the AASHTO manuals when designing anything, and in those manuals anything but a car-centric design is an impediment to safe driving. “Guidelines” for ped and bike infrastructure are in supplements. Afterthoughts.
I repeat it endlessly, but the cycling community and pedestrians need to realize that they are considered obstacles and given less or little priority in those manuals. It won’t change until those manuals stop emphasizing throughput and safety at speed in cars. They wont change until legislators can be persuaded to impose change which elevate other modes to equal footing.
The downside to ignoring the manuals is that if something bad happens, you can get sued and maybe lose your engineering license, which is basically a professional death sentence.
The point is not that we should design manuals entirely. Rather, it’s that the design manuals need to be revised and written in such a way that they don’t solely prioritize automobile traffic. NACTO, for example, publishes an alternative to the AASHTO design manual for urban transportation that does a better job of placing people at the center of transportation design.
Can you point to any AASHTO designs implemented by PBOT or city policies that support your contention? Here’s the city’s Traffic Design Manual. You see much AASHTO in there? Traffic Design Manual (portland.gov)
You have no idea how terrified of being sued by drivers the city’s legal dept. is. People were told a pedestrian-protecting guardrail on SW Gibbs might be struck by a car, resulting in lawsuit by driver. NO thought about lawsuit from ped walking on shoulder – they were just an obstacle in the clear field, after all. All you preferring bollards and barriers? Guess what can happen if a driver hits them! So no on those.
Can I point to AASHTO use in the city? I don’t need to; PBOT TELLS us that’s what they use. That Gibbs guardrail mentioned above? PBOT told SW residents “AASHTO rules prohibit placing the guardrail closer to fog line.”
BTW, there was no such rule. Guardrails can go right up against fogline if necessary (tho 18″ is preferred minimum. IIRC).
The point is: people wonder why things are done in a way that endangers peds/cyclists, or ignores their needs? Those manuals, and a culture that fears more blowback from drivers than other users.
OK. That’s one, and it’s not for a bikeway design. Got any others that are bikeway designs?
PS
“References
152 of 153
References
GENERAL REFERENCES
AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (2012)
AASHTO A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets (2018″
I interpret those three PBOT bullet points differently than you do. The second talks about cars as one prong in a general array of safety issues, and, anecdotally at least, much of the increase in lawless driving is related to and is a consequence of the other factors listed.
The first and third bullet points essentially say that driving works too well (from the driver’s perspective) for people to consider alternatives that are slower, require more effort, expose people to the elements/unsavory characters, etc.
It is true that driving comes with some pretty big external costs. I think the key is to find ways to reduce those costs while maintaining much of utility provided by mechanized transportation.
EVs will help reduce the climate, noise, and local pollution related externalities, and increasing the gas tax could help internalize some of the climate costs of gasoline cars. It seems plausible that increased regulation around the shape/size of vehicles could help with some of the safety issues, as would better enforcement of traffic laws. Automation will also help with some of the safety issues, as will other vehicle safety improvements such as cameras and auto-braking systems. Longer term, roadway redesign will help as well.
Rather than a “war on cars”, I’d like to see a “war on the external costs of cars”.
I want to be super clear that I also support improving transit and enhancing the biking environment. We should do those things as well, but I think the potential gains there in terms of widespread behavior change are limited, and, especially for transit, the costs of any gains will be high.
To summarize:
Blah, blah, blah, we will always have cars and will always need cars.
It’s your usual take, unfortunately. EVs are not going to save us.
I agree. They are not. They are a necessary but not sufficient part of limiting climate change and local pollution.
Show me a plausible short to medium term future where this statement is wrong.
To summarize:
Blah blah, I have no ideas or solutions myself so I’d rather attack those that at least have a thoughtful idea.
Nothing is going to save us, but I’d rather support ideas that are a small step to maybe something even better. EVs aren’t the sole solution either, but they are something.
I’d like to see a “war on the external costs of cars”.
This will devolve into an Equity argument of who should pay those costs and who shouldn’t.
This is a very salient point. There aren’t nearly enough decision makers, power brokers, or otherwise influential people in the city who actually get around primarily without a car. And it feels like the ones who talk about biking do so without much consideration for what the real issues are (looking at you, Mingus Mapps).
Yes, but don’t forget that Mapps is an “avid cyclist.”
Your conclusion reminded me of a line in some op-ed about a driver marooned in heavy traffic, wondering what was to blame for all of this traffic.
“And then he looked in the mirror.”
The problem is NOT too many cars. Oregon’s population has grown for the last few decades. I believe it has tripled since 1970. I-5 has the same 2 lanes in each direction thru the Rose Quarter as it did then. Sellwood Bridge has less. Many of our streets have undergone a “road diet” and have have less capacity.
The problem is not too many cars, it is too few lane miles of roadways for the increased population.
Too many cars and too few lane miles of roads are the same problem, just framed in different ways. Your framing suggests if we just add more lanes to every road, eventually we will reach a traffic-free nirvana but that’s not how it works in reality. The potential for a faster car trips always attracts more people than the road can handle in reasonably urban settings, and removing car lanes has basically no effect on congestion (as clearly demonstrated in Seoul).
The best way to “fix traffic” is to give people alternatives to sitting in traffic. Like riding a bike, or taking a bus (with a bus lane), or riding a metro, or walking. NYC might have miserable car traffic, but last time I went I barely noticed since my subway trains didn’t interact with the street at all. It was lovely.
No one drives there any more — there’s too much traffic.
I’ve been traveling for work in Seattle suburbs all week and it’s been a refreshing reminder how true this is. There are literally no other options but to drive out here. So everyone drives.
Barely any sidewalks, no bike lanes and even though many streets are signed for 35 and lower that’s basically a joke. The nearest hotel to my office is a mile away but I have to drive because there isn’t even a shoulder to walk on let alone a sidewalk.
I’ll be so happy to get back the transportation “hellscape” that is Portland. I complain a lot about it but having a reminder about how bad it can really be is quite refreshing.
Ask yourself what it would take to eliminate or greatly reduce car use in such an environment. Would improved transit and bike lanes get a noticeable number of people out of their cars?
People who are unable to provide any alternative vision like to criticize me for saying it, but car use is basically locked in in places like this.
Yes. So would decreased parking availability, higher fees for parking, higher fees for owning and operating an automobile in the metropolitan area, fewer lane miles dedicated to general population automobiles, etc.
Jersey barriers, lots and lots of them for lots and lots of protected Bike lanes on exsiting roads…I know, iknow…simplistic thinking, but that’s just how I think I guess.
A sidewalk would have gotten me out of my car by allowing me to somewhat safely walk to work. I’ve worked in a lot of suburbs over the years having even the most basic infrastructure has allowed me to get to work without a car. When I worked in Wood Village the bike lanes on Halsey made it possible to get there without a car. When I worked in Wilsonville their infrequent but available bus system got me to where I needed to go.
I don’t care about getting a noticeable number of people out of their cars I care about giving them the option. It’s baked in because of how you frame it. The idea that it’s only worth providing infrastructure for alternative modes if a noticeable amount of people use it is basically saying we should do nothing.
Most people don’t use those bike lanes on Halsey but I was able to sell the only car I’ve ever owned because of them. That wouldn’t be an option if I worked in Woodinville.
I’m sure you’d agree that you’re an outlier, and are thus not the case I’m interested it; I’m more interested in everyone else, especially those who have to travel much further than you did, and who have to get to the grocery store, get their kids to activities, etc.
I’m at all not saying this. I agree that everyone should have the option, and I am sure some would use it. But not many.
If 1% or 3% or 5% use a new-found alternative to driving, that won’t make any impact at all for the issues I care about.
I want change on a societal scale.
We know exactly how to shift people from SOVs to transit, the cost to drive(in time and money) must exceed the cost of transit for the same trip, it really is that simple. Portland’s transit system does not accomplish that as currently operating. To get there we must stop spending billions of dollars to add a few lane miles of freeway, and instead invest those dollars in our transit system. Vancouver BC, which is slightly larger than Portland, runs 3min headways on their Expo light rail line during peak hours. The Trimet blue line runs 15min headways during peak hours. Skytrain BC has 6 times the annual ridership of Trimet. What Vancouver doesn’t have is two freeways carved through their city. Stop the freeway madness and put that money into a more efficient transportation system, that’s how the needle gets moved on mode share.
Transit is particularly efficient for getting a lot of people from one place to another, like into downtown during the morning rush hour. It is much less efficient at getting people from hundreds of varied origins to hundreds of scattered destinations, a more common situation in suburban areas.
Outside the downtown area, Vancouver has a ton of cars, and looks much like most other North American cities.
COTW
Brandon, Vancouver also has a very good bike network of safe/protected routes that are direct, interconnected, and connected to key destinations. Their greenway have frequent diverters. Vancouver also has regular street sweeping, and strictly enforced parking rules (they will tow!). Vancouver also an amazing network of ferries. There are big ones across the Fraser to North Van., but the smaller ones that run around False Creek are fun and useful. Vancouver has also committed to an incredible waterfront trail around Stanley Park and False Creek that connected people to beautiful views, incredible recreations and commercial areas all along a car-free path- it really shows how poorly developed our waterfront trail is.
My commute to Wilsonville from North Portland was 40 minutes by car. I took the bus though so it was 90 minutes. Even by car that’s a longer commute than 78% of Portlanders based on the most recent census data. By being more interested in those 22% that actually commuted further then me you’re focusing on the outliers and ignoring a majority of commuters.
Interestingly enough when I was making that commute there was a father who would bring his infant on the bus with him every morning. After a couple of years he was bringing a toddler and another infant.
This whole focus on people with kids is just an excuse to continue with more of the same. People can get their kids around without a car and do all the time.You know where they’re not doing that though? Woodinville because their infrastructure sucks and forces you to drive.
I just don’t see many people voluntarily spending an extra 100 minutes a day to dedicate to the project of not driving.
The Lovely Subways of NYC
Why would anyone drive in NYC, it just doesn’t make sense…
I think it’s too many people thinking they need to use a car for every single trip, no matter how short that trip might be.
Sellwood bridge has less? What? The old Sellwood bridge was 2 narrow lanes with no shoulders.
Incorrect. The problem is definitely too many cars.
Cars have a geometry problem that is only getting worse with increasingly large vehicles. Until that dramatically changes in the opposite direction trends are currently going, the problem is and will remain too many cars.
“induced demand” — please look it up. (Or listen: https://youtu.be/PjxHrKJGfSY?si=Jn3CzY_FpAi0-zfX
You should convince the statisticians for NHTSB, whose numbers show a highly predictable correlation between velocities of vehicles and fatality rates if you are right, and it turns out that widening roads, and increasing traffic velocities, actually makes us all safer, you will have contributed an important insight that revolutionizes tbe whole field of traffic engineering!
Until we have hardened barriers (concrete is cheap and works well) between my bike and the cars I’m not getting on a bike in Portland.
I’ve been threatened by people in a car driving beside me and I had no protection or way out of the situation. If there had been barriers (not plastic wands) between me and them I might have felt safer.
I’m definitely no spring chicken so my safety has become more paramount to me than my younger days when I used to feel indestructible.
I’m sorry that happened to you, but I don’t think your response of “I’m not getting on a bike in Portland” is appropriate. In my experience Portland is a wonderful and safe place to ride a bike, and I do so every day. There are problems we should address, sure, but swearing off the bike until all infrastructure is protected is unrealistic and counterproductive to actual cycling safety.
I’ll give you that there are irresponsible and sometimes aggressive drivers, but I have never felt so threatened that I feared for the life of myself or the small child that is usually on-board with me. Keep in mind that there was only one cycling fatality in Portland last year. Not to minimize the tragedy that it is, but please don’t let your subjective perception of safety keep you from enjoying the objectively safe and beneficial transport mode that is biking.
Go ride your bike.
Chastising people who voice safety concerns is obviously the best approach to encouraging the interested-but-concerned to give cycling a try!.
Voicing safety concerns is one thing. And that’s fine. Telling folks you’ve stopped riding in Portland because it’s unsafe and you’ve had negative encounters with people driving cars is definitely going to turn the curious off to the idea of riding here. I’m not chastising, I’m just trying to reign in the response that I feel is not based on objective truths.
People are bad at risk-based decision making. We take these subjective stories at face value, and don’t really apply effective risk-benefit reasoning. As an example, I know people in the Portland area who kitesurf, ski, hike, and do all kinds of other outdoor activities, but won’t step foot in the ocean for fear of sharks. We’ve all seen the headlines about shark encounters, but there has only been one death in Oregon history (which may also be more attributable to a sea disaster as opposed to an unprovoked shark attack). Meanwhile, 49 people died on Mt Hood between 2003 and 2018 alone.
Point is, I think SolarEclipse’s response is based more on emotion than reason and is counterproductive to the goals of getting more people out on bikes and improving overall cycling safety.
That’s taking things pretty far. It sounds like chastising to me.
Someone says they personally don’t want to ride anymore because they don’t feel safe, Their reason why–they were threatened by people in a car, in a location where they weren’t protected–isn’t an exaggeration at all about unsafe conditions. They even give a totally believable additional personal reason–they’re becoming older.
They’re not saying that not biking makes sense for others. They’re not even saying biking is particularly dangerous for others. Their statement is actually much tamer than the “I almost get right-hooked every week”, “I don’t park my bike anymore because I don’t want it to get stolen”-type safety statements that are common–and probably true–here.
I can see your point if someone made a general statement that biking here is too dangerous, for reasons that are exaggerated. But to criticize someone who went to some trouble to present their decision as a personal one, not even implying that it was applicable to anyone else–because it will “turn the curious off” and is “counterproductive to getting more people on bikes” seems extreme.
There’s also many car free paths you could drive/bus your bike to for recreation
I have sympathy for you and the dangerous and scary situation you were put in. That said, you live in a world. Scary things may happen. You can’t and will never have protection from every possible threat. The response of “I will never get on a bike in Portland” just doesn’t feel like the right response. I agree with Andrew.
I mean, I drive too. I have had close and scary call in a car. I’ve had close calls and scary things happen on foot. None of these things make me say “I’m never going to drive or walk outside in Portland again”. It doesn’t make sense.
This isn’t a “gotcha”, but as someone who often criticizes me for “defending the status quo/driving”, what sort of trips do you or your family drive for, and why?
I’ve always tended to agree that “cars are the problem” when it comes to urban dysfunctions full-stop. But nowadays i hesitate slightly, because it reminds me uncomfortably of another, very similar kind of argument that enjoys the undying love of political reactionaries everywhere, eg, “DRUGS are the problem”, closely joined at the hip to, “criminals” (by which they mean solely “blue collar” crime), and also “homelessness” (by which they mean destitute and very poor people, not landlords and real estate speculators), etc.
So now it seems to me that, by conferring quasi-human agency upon mechanical objects and substances (cars, drugs, etc), we are depoliticizing our conversation in ways that are very congenial to capitalist oligarchs and reactionaries of all stripes, ways almost as pernicious as the explicitly fascistic “punching down” intended by excoriating [exclusively blue collar] “criminals”, “the homeless”, “immigrants”, etc.
Initially, I thought you were completely off base, but now I realize that you’re pretty spot on.
There are places where the things you note don’t exist, they used to not exist here, but the culture shifted. There is no open air drug use allowed, even smoking pot outside is frowned upon. There is no unchecked criminality, cars are frequently left unlocked. There is no homelessness, services are infrequently available that would support it. There is no graffiti, it is immediately covered if it ever exists.
These places of course aren’t populated entirely by capitalist oligarchs, but probably by capitalists nonetheless and the residents don’t even realize they are reacting to anything at all, it is just normal life. Interestingly, the residents probably don’t even care, that someone surrounded by the issues you note and then proclaiming that cars are the worst part, calls their life “fascistic” because the police, public works and local government do their job and keep these issues from disrupting the culture they’ve created.
In the end its all culture, you’ve got the one you wanted, and others have theirs. All is fair…
You say, “the culture shifted”, but that phrasing makes it all sound very mysterious to me. So my curiosity is piqued, even if yours is not. How do you suppose a “culture shift[s]” in such an inexplicable, spontaneous way? Do you have any hypotheses to offer? Was it due to a strange race of people parachuting in from origins unknown? (An hypothesis I have heard many people offer, so don’t laugh!) Or perhaps people who were already here had unusual genetic traits, “single nucleotide polymorphisms”, followed by gene expression causing maladaptive traits, triggered by something in the water?? Or something else?
Haha, I love your style.
I think the culture shifted to one of greater levels of acceptance for anti-social behavior coupled with a dramatically reduced enforcement of outright illegal activity.
Again, you make it all sound very mysterious to me. “Greater levels of acceptance for antisocial behavior” makes it sound like a lot of us suddenly became afflicted by a bout of masochism or something, no? I mean, “antisocial behavior” presumably harms people across a whole society, albeit to varying degrees, so what would possess many people to want to submit themselves suddenly to these harms?
In other words, was it a case of one minute we were firmly tamping down all this “antisocial behavior” that had always been there lurking right under the surface, just waiting for the smallest opening to burst into a raging inferno. But then a whole bunch of us decided, ah, hell, let’s just let a bunch of arsonists burn our houses down for kicks maybe?? You’ve got to admit, that’s a very bizarre turn of events you are speculating, no? Have you the slightest curiosity about it?
Nice companion piece: https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2019/08/the-car-free-myth-netherlands-is-great.html?m=0
Cars are a physical manifestation of humanity’s greatest failures.
Cars are indeed a physical manifestation of capitalism and individualism.