We have a special night planned at Bike Happy Hour tomorrow (Wednesday, July 17th). City of Portland staffers will be on-hand to help us understand what’s in store with the upcoming election and our transition to a new form of government.
If you’ve read some of our previous reporting on the charter reform effort, you’ve already done your homework. Or if you’ve clicked on those nice Ranked Choice Voting banners on BikePortland for the past few weeks, you might have already started learning about how the new voting process will work. Regardless, tomorrow night will be an excellent opportunity to get a hands-on education.
In addition to ranked choice voting experts, we’ll have City of Portland Charter Transition Project Manager Shoshanah Oppenheim in the crowd to answer all your questions about how things will work on January 1. How will the role of PBOT director change? How will the new Public Works Director manage PBOT? If no city council member is in charge of PBOT, how will transportation policies and projects get proposed and voted on? What other questions do you have for Shoshanah?
To spice things up, staff from the city elections office will do a short presentation about ranked choice voting that includes a mock election. We came up with nine candidates and the question to rank them with is, “What is the most important off-street path in the Portland cycling network?” You can visit this website and begin your voting now. We’ll also have a QR code to hit at Bike Happy Hour so you can make your decisions on the patio tomorrow night.
In addition to nerding out on elections and government, we’ll be joined by at least one city council candidate. District 2 candidate Jennifer Park will join us and will say a few words around 5:00 pm.
It will be a great night. Hope you can join us. (Bike Happy Hour is 3-6 pm every Wednesday at Gorges Beer Co on SE Ankeny Rainbow Road)
Thanks for reading.
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What does “the most important off-street path” mean? Most important to me in terms of my personal usage? Or the thing I believe serves the most people?
open to your interpretation. Just like if you were voting for a person you would have to weigh who you might like personally with what might be the best decision to serve most people. It’s just a mock exercise so the important thing is to learn about RCV. Thanks lois.
I told folks about this on our pedalpalooza ride tonight, I think it is really cool that you came up with a way to kind of demonstrate RCV like this, city council election seems a little more complex but good to have a general understanding of how this new system is going to work.
Thanks bjorn! Yes I think it’s really cool the City is willing to come to our event and spend time and resources to educate folks. I’m all about civics and education about how gov’t works. I have always said since Day One of BP that one reason I’m doing this is because well-informed people cannot be f’d with.
The off street paths most used by the greatest number of pedestrians and cyclists could objectively be considered the most important. Of course the correct answer is that the off street path that I use most reigns as most important.
You are welcome
Disappointing to see that the Fanno Creek Trail and the Westside Trail didn’t make the cut; they would rank #1 and #2 for me using an interpretation of “most important” as “most vital to me” and I think most Westsideres would agree with me. I know they’re not technically in Portland city limits, but these arteries in Beaverton are vital to any N/S travel.
Just like a real election, the candidates on the ballot aren’t necessarily the folks you’d want holding power.
The paths on each bridge are the most important, obviously. I’d personally rank Hawthorne #1, Steel Bridge #2, and Broadway #3, but I could understand Tillamook being up there too, also SE Market over I-205.
If there was any social justice in Portland, the Sullivan’s Gulch Trail would be done by now and immensely popular, as much as the Burke-Gilman in Seattle.
But of course the point of this survey is not to get our opinion, but to demonstrate how Portland’s rank voting system will work. Typical PBOT.
“Sullivan’s Gulch Trail”
I don’t get it. Riding a bike in a gulch alongside a major highway and heavy rail line just doesn’t strike me as pleasant. I guess the I-205 trail is not uniformly awful, aside from the obvious afflictions that would also impact a trail alongside I-84 that was even less visible to nearby residences.
Maybe widespread adoption of EVs (especially trucks) would make it more attractive from a noise and air pollution point of view.
I think people want the Sullivan’s Gulch trail because they see it as a vital connection that needs safety from cars, not because they want to use it for relaxing rides on a Sunday afternoon.
Yes, but the comment I was responding to compared it to the Burke Gilman trail in Seattle, which is popular because it’s good for transportation and relaxing rides on a Sunday afternoon.
I’m not opposed to the project, but it will take a lot of resources and I think the payoff is relatively low.
BG is not that great for transportation in many sections. I rode sections between Freemont and 45th and Montlake when I lived in Seattle. Usually frustrating to ride in so much pedestrian traffic (‘stroller dodging’) and frequently more efficient to ride on the street. Plus there were agro bike cops that would issue tickets for not stopping at street crossings or riding even moderate speeds (like over 10 mph). I love BG, but it is a good example of the tradeoffs inherent in MUP design. Bike/car conflict is inherently more intense than bike/ped conflict (higher stakes), but bike/ped conflict is a real thing.
I am confused about what PBOT has to do with this…
The Sullivan’s Gulch trail would almost certainly not be as popular as the Burke Gilman… the BG runs along a canal and through neighborhoods, Sullivan’s Gulch is next to the busiest freeway in Oregon.
Very much agree here. Not saying we shouldn’t have the trail, but I think I’d temper my expectations of just how much use it would see compared to Burke Gilman or similar trails. Keep in mind that B-G connects directly to UW. I don’t have any personal experience here, but I imagine that’s a huge trip generator.
Now for the question: What do you think would see more use?
Mapping it out, it would be pretty similar travel distance on a bike from Gateway TC to Downtown. Ideally we’d have both. For the sake of argument, assume the costs and feasibility are the same.
One thing that weighs heavily for Sullivan’s gulch is that it would be free from crossing motor vehicle conflicts. A protected street route could be given signal priority if anybody cared, but SGT wouldn’t need traffic control at all. That’s rare in Portland.
The Most Important Bike Path is the one that STILL hasn’t been built – the Sullivans Gulch Trail, as a car free path from Gateway through NE Portland to downtown would be absolutely transformative for would-be bike commuters who haven’t made the commitment because sharing the space with cars is scary.
Hard to say what’s more important. I really like the Marine Drive path, but its “use” is limited in utility. Unless you’re in North Portland trying to move East/West. I think the I-205 bike path really seems useful (and nice) and yet I haven’t used it. It looks like there are some really awkward spots for getting on it from Marine Drive, when I’ve tried planning out a path to it. I wish that would be improved.
Eastbank Esplanade and the Springwater are really the ones I use all the time. But all this might just boil down to “where do you ride from”.
I had a similar thought with the photo, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Kudos.
It’s tautological that a bike path is only useful for travel along its route. I live in nopo and find the Marine Dr. path useful to get to costco, winco, cascade station, and restaurants in Parkrose, which are all useful destinations in my book. There are not very many good E-W routes from nopo IMHO (would love for the collective to tell me how to do it). I usually do Marine Dr. to the 205 path to get anywhere that is far East. It might be out of the way, but the riding is nice.
Yeah, that’s true. I was just trying to think out loud interpreting “useful” in the context of this poll, and thinking of it as “utility” as opposed to recreation. For cycling to replace car trips, it has to have utility. But I agree recreation is useful too. And as you (and I) say, it’s useful if you live up there, close to it. My reason for pointing that out, that isn’t tautological, is that (maybe?) fewer people live close to it (since it has nobody living north of it) than, say, a good East/West bike path closer to the center of the city. So I meant it as “useful for utility” for the most Portlanders, not a specific Portlander who lives close to it.
Totally agree. The poll is basically ‘Which MUP do you live by?’ Marine Dr. path is primarily recreational for me (as opposed to legit utility like shopping), but I don’t see that as a drawback. I would point out that a lot of people work at the airport, and the Marine Dr. path could be a good way for them to commute to work. I don’t see any indication that there are many people doing this now, but I probably wouldn’t notice.
Do you have a suggestion for a more “useful” route to take me from Peninsula Park to 122nd and Halsey? I couldn’t agree more about the need for a better E-W connector.
Not at all, that seems like the best for you (and me, also living by Peninsula Park). Also a great way to go, I really like the Marine Drive path. I wish there were better ways to get to it.
I’m just thinking a nice middle of the city route (like the Sullivan’s Gulch one people are talking about) would be really nice. Or maybe even better (in my opinion): a good Sandy protected bike lane. That would be amazing.
Thanks for the response, and I heartily agree with everything you said.
I voted based on which paths have the worst options if they didn’t exist. Like Marine Drive… without that path that entire area of the river would be impossible to access by bike.
Honestly, having to vote on it, none really stand out as being as important as the MUPs in other places I’ve lived. Like when voting for public offices, I kinda have to hold my nose and pick one. I’ve done a lot of riding on MUPs in Massachusetts (Minuteman Bikeway) and Virginia (Washington & Old Dominion, Mount Vernon), and I gotta say, Portland’s MUPs are pretty unpleasant and ineffective by comparison.
The MUPs I’ve seen in other places that I’d consider most important run along neighborhoods, through business districts, and provide direct access to parks and places people want to be. The problem these paths have is that they’re too busy (and not from cars driving on them). Portland’s MUPs tend to run along freeways/state highways and the very unappealing non-places freeways create. Even the 17 miles of Springwater trail between Sellwood and Boring really only passes one food cart pod and a non-descript back entrance to Powell Butte. Compare this to the Minuteman Bikeway where in 10 miles you will have ridden from a major transit hub, through dense neighborhoods, through lovely parks, through business districts in Lexington and Arlington, past large-scale employers, and even past direct access to Trader Joes. For me, none of Portland’s MUPs really rise to the level of importance that I’ve seen elsewhere.
A trail in Sullivan’s Gulch would have air and sound quality roughly comparable to the Eastbank Esplanade. People go out of their way to use it. Without pavement marking or signage the bike/ped mix works just fine.
I believe the SGT should be built for two reasons:
–It connects a lot of stuff
–Any place that has the physical potential for a 5-6 miles of continuous separated right of way for active transportation should get a trail now, before some other thing gets plopped in the way.