Well the rain has settled in and those wonderful fall leaves have gotten soggy and slimy. Hope you’ve avoided flooding and that your rain gear is holding up.
Here are the most notable stories our community came across in the past seven days…
**Sponsored by Ender for East Portland**
End ‘motorized violence’: Protests have erupted in France and the country’s transport minister held a meeting with cycling advocates after a driver allegedly murdered a bike rider (who happened to be a well-known advocate) with their car on the streets of Paris. (The Independent)
Rail-biking: Turning defunct railroad lines into pedal-powered thoroughfares with rail-bikes is a quicker and easier path toward human-powered access than rails-to-trails ever was. (NY Times – paywall)
Bikesketball: Love it when my worlds collide! Retired National Basketball Association player and legend Reggie Miller is a cycling fanatic who loves racing ‘cross and mountain bike. Such a great ambassador for both sports! (Velo)
E-bike racing: It’s one thing to be cool with e-bikes in the bike lanes, but should hardcore training rides and racing organizers look to embrace them in competitions? Marley Blonsky says it’s time. (Cycling Weekly)
No more McKenzie Pass? There’s confusion and outrage among many Oregon cycling lovers after the State of Oregon seems to have made an about-face on their policy of welcoming riders onto a carfree McKenzie Pass before it’s open to drivers in spring. (Statesman Journal)
IBR team in la-la land?: The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program doesn’t account for induced demand even though the project includes five miles of wider freeways and seven new freeway interchanges. (The Urbanist)
Boo!: Don’t want to dull anyone’s excitement for All Hallow’s Eve on Thursday, but this is our annual reminder to please drive carefully and remember there are a lot of kids running around enjoying streets and that your car can easily kill one of them. (Vox, 2022)
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.
Thanks for reading.
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There’s something bitterly ironic about the McKenzie Pass and IBR stories being next to each other here. ODOT has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on marketing and planning the expansion of the freeway network in the Portland area (including the IBR, Rose Quarter, Abernethy Bridge and Boone Bridge projects), but no money to spend on maintaining any of the existing infrastructure that rural Oregonians rely on. This extends far beyond McKenzie Pass, but it’s shocking to me that this hasn’t metastasized into a larger political issue. Spending the lion’s share of road money on Portland projects feels like it ought to be way less popular in a state that loves defining itself in relation to Portland.
And I mean it’s not like saying “you can use McKenize Pass at your own risk in the off season if you aren’t in a car” even costs them anything. If they are worded about liability, be clear about what is allowed and not allowed when people interact with plows. That’s basically free!
Bitterly ironic, yes, but the sad reality is that that perverse incentives exist to encourage this reckless behavior. First, the money is divided between O&M costs and capitalized costs, where the capital costs can be bonded and paid for over a long period of time. Also, the IBR is expected to be largely paid for with Federal grant money, which does not exist for O&M work and which doesn’t carry a requirement to ensure that the asset’s maintenance and operation can be paid for by the owner(s). ODOT is incentivized to build these huge megaprojects that attract a lot of Federal money that would otherwise go elsewhere out of state, even as the same ODOT struggles to maintain what they already have.
There many other seasonal sno-parks that are just as difficult to get into and with no service etc., so I don’t see why 242 should be any different. And if ODOT is so concerned about the spring interactions with maintenance crews, why not close during a maintenance period but still guarantee a car-free period before the gates open? Or is that just unconscionable because . . . cars?
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if they just let it rot between the gates and had risk assumed for all users. Car access would be gone in a year or two and it would remain an epic trail for decades as it re-wilds. There’s no good reason to bisect these two wildernesses here.
It’s pretty obvious that ODOT is all about the cars. I’d love to collect people’s stories of trying to get ODOT to maintain the crappy bike infra on ODOT-maintained streets like Barbur. It’s always like pulling teeth – they are so unresponsive and even downright hostile to any suggestion that they make their infrastructure work for bike riders. I personally have given up dealing with them, which is, I am sure, the way they want it.
As far as e-bike racing is concerned, it’s been around awhile already. They just used gas engines in bicycle frames instead of electric back then. At least the author calls for a separate category for them.
Rail bikes are indeed fun (try one in Hood River), but those carts they use are really more like electric cars with pedals than bikes. They have 4 wheels, side-by-side side seating, an electric throttle, and pedaling is optional (and exhausting).
Go Pacers! REGGIE REGGIE REGGIE!
Can you imagine Spike Lee talking trash to Reggie at a cyclocross run up? That would be epic.
Let’s all go back and watch the ESPN 30 For 30 documentary about Reggie Miller vs the Knicks and Spike Lee. What a moment in sports history.
I was waiting for ODOT to use the excuse that some bikers were rude once and bam there it was, classic. Good on the sisters bike shop folks pushing back.
Alas, the emerging “solution” to drivers recklessly crashing into trick-or-treaters is something called “trick-or-trunk”. Or maybe it’s “trunk-or-treat”? Depressingly, families drive their kids to a parking lot, everyone pops their trunk (or hatchback — need that minivan or SUV to make the streets as dangerous as possible), and the kids walk around the parking lot getting high-fructose corn syrup. What could be more American, or more terrifying, or more predictive of just what we are collectively doing to this next generation???
It is insane. It seems not long ago that
the idea of someone offering candy from a car trunk to children (or anyone) was expressly warned about and a child was to run away in such a situation rather than happily go over and suffer the momentarily enjoyable, but long term ill effects of big-agriculture gone wild.
Strange times we are in.
Seriously, why don’t they just stay in their neighborhood of boomer fart boxes, occupied by people who are barely participating in life, let alone Halloween. Make your kid walk a full block to get a box of raisins, sounds super fun.
Some people, thankfully our entire neighborhood, still like to let loose a bit, enjoy something as ridiculous as Halloween. Eat a little junk, stay up past bedtime and fortunately keep their kids as far away as possible from anyone trying to do anything to them collectively.
Unfortunately “trunk-or-treat” is super duper popular here in drive-everywhere North Carolina, they even have such events in walk-friendly parts of urban areas and at churches, often sponsored by the local transportation, police and fire departments.
Part of the problem is that in many poorer urban areas and rich white rural areas, if you come knocking on their door after dark, they homeowner may end up shooting you, perfectly legally too, as “defending their property” – we’ve had way too many such shootings – and so “trunk-or-treat” events are seen as a safer alternative.
McKenzie Pass Highway is closed annually for 6.5-7 months per year. It is beyond ridiculous that the demand it to be open for cyclists cannot be easily met and still avoid conflict with ODOT work crews. I would propose October 15-November 15, the road is closed to cars and trucks. Bikes are e-bike s have access “at their own risk”. From November 15-April 15, snowmobiles and skiers are given access. From April 15-May 15, ODOT has exclusive access to open a single lane and evaluate the road for any hazards. May15-July 1 is bike/e-bike access + hikes/runners, etc. July 1-October 14, the road is open to all users. If it become popular enough, they could experiment with a couple of summer weekends where the road is closed to cars, or even close one lane for one week/month and use the other lane as a 2-way bike only lane, alternating the lane closures each month. There are lots of ways this could be done!
ODOT has completely lost its way. ODOT’s mission statement: “We provide a safe and reliable multimodal transportation system that connects people and helps Oregon’s communities and economy thrive.”
Road users want to ride this without cars. Businesses in McKenzie Bridge an Sisters like having the bike tourism. This is road that is already closed to cars more than it is open. Setting up clear times for users to avoid conflicts with work crews is simple if you are operating in good faith. Trying to completely and arbitrarily exclude a couple of user groups who have enjoying the public resource for decades is a recipe for people ignoring ODOT’s signs and inviting conflict.
It’s just a liability thing. They probably got sued by someone who slipped on gravel, or are worried about getting sued.
Either way, just go ride it. You’ll be fine.
Amen.
There’s something interesting to me in the rail bike article. They talk about “how expensive” it is to make a rail trail, but then don’t elaborate on the frankly eye-watering cost of $51/person (for a tandem) for an eight mile round trip journey. This is bad enough (and I mean the source they used is frankly embarrassing), but it gets worse when you realize that part of the line that this journalist rode a rail bike on has already been converted to a rail trail. That project cost $16.2M (for 11.5 miles of trail – but also included rehabbing the corridor’s drainage and replacing a major culvert) and the section of trail receives 16,000 monthly visitors. They really say “not every line is rail trail material” about a rail line that is demonstrably rail trail material!
192,000 yearly visitors use the rail trail portion of the corridor – far more than use the rail bike portion of the corridor (I found an article estimating it at 30k). I love railroads, and I love weird little things like rail bikes, but if there is no appetite for serious rail service (like actually useful passenger service or local freight) then a trail is a bargain and should be pursued. Why should a privately run tourist operation be more important than the public need for safe and convenient routes to get around on bike or foot?
I thought the same thing. JM’s summary of the article:
is simply wrong. There’s no comparison between a rail-trail – open 24/7 for commuting and recreation – and a privately-run tourist operation that doesn’t take anyone anywhere and charges them a lot of money.
If I get to vote on rail-bike vs rail-trail, I’ll vote for rail-trail every time.
Hi Fred,
Seems like you believe rails-to-trails are better than this rail-biking thing. I agree with that 100%. My statement in the post was not “simply wrong” however. Read more closely and you’ll see that I’m stating a fact: It is easier and quicker to open up a private rail-biking facility than it is to convert a rail line into a bike path. I’m not making a value judgment between the two things.
If I had to vote or advocate for rail-biking or rail-to-trail I would hope that you and everyone else would know that I would very obviously choose the latter!
I remember reading an article in the past couple of years about the head of British Rail regretting the wholesale abandonment of most of the rail in the UK in the 1960s and 70s, that if Britain was sincere about fighting climate change it would re-create the rail network it had in the early part of the 20th century when you could easily get to pretty much any town and most villages by train – and let the carbon-intensive asphalt and concrete roadways and rail-trail bike paths gradually disintegrate. And Britain has a lot of rail-trails.
Back around 2000 I was involved in a PSU-MURP project with TriMet and Metro to design a BRT system from downtown to Damascus Oregon. Among the numerous documents was the right-of-way easement that TriMet owns outright for the former Portland Traction Line, which once upon a time was an electrified commuter rail that ran from downtown Portland to Boring Oregon – yup, that’s right, the Springwater Corridor – and TriMet can legally re-possess the entire 100-foot wide corridor if they so desire. But would they? Aside from environmental considerations (it’s a wetland along Johnson Creek for much of the way, plus there’s hillsides to deal with), it would likely be political suicide for TriMet to convert a very popular rail-trail managed various parks departments (Portland, Milwaukee, Multnomah County, Clackamas County, Gresham, & Boring).
So are we going to get serious about mitigating climate change and reducing our carbon footprint by expanding passenger rail service, to help reduce our driving everywhere? Or are we going to encourage more driving by creating more rail trails that not only often get paved with asphalt with large nearby parking lots, but generally encourage tourists to drive out there to go bicycling or walking, which then require our roadways to keep getting maintained with more asphalt and concrete?
Oops. This wasn’t intended to be a response to Blumdrew.
I really like that that article from The Urbanist about the IBR. They mentioned land use and I think that’s a big part of my conflicts about the whole project. For one, I do think that the bridge itself needs to be replaced. However, the engineers have been tasked with doing so while also “fixing traffic”. As long as car-dependent places continue to be the most affordable and attractive places to live, we’ll end up filling any roadway capacity that exists and there will constantly be a fight to expand freeways.
In the article, they mentioned limiting sprawl on the Washington side of the river. I think there’s a lot more factors to the land use in much of our region that influence where people choose to live and work.
Anecdotally, the biggest deciding factor I’ve seen push people – particularly young families – to the suburbs, is a lack of affordable and accessible family-oriented housing in Portland proper. Most of the new housing going up is studio and 1-bed five-over-ones. Plenty of single-family homes are occupied by just 1 or 2 empty-nesters who don’t want to, or can’t, move because it doesn’t make financial sense. Any new construction, like townhouses, that is big enough for a family is practically made of paper. I used to live in a standard new construction 5-over-1 timber framed building, and it sucked! I could hear my neighbors sneeze.
A lot of folks would love to live in walkable neighborhoods, but the want for good urban amenities doesn’t outweigh the household bottom line. Why would one want to raise kids in a townhouse with paper-thin walls and no yard when they could pay the same to have a detached house, garage, and back yard? I don’t have kids personally (too much mental illness and generational trauma lol) but if I did I’d have to really consider if the benefits of a walkable neighborhood were worth the tradeoffs to space, privacy, and cost.
What I’d like to see are some incentives for family-sized apartments and townhouses – with good soundproofing and thick walls – as well as tax incentives that allow older folks to ‘right size’ their housing without taking a big penalty for downsizing.
To answer your question:
Why would one want to raise kids in a townhouse with paper-thin walls and no yard when they could pay the same to have a detached house, garage, and back yard?
I am raising my kid in a townhouse because we have a school field 100 yards away (takes care of the back yard problem), plus two parks within 1/2 mile walk. We can also walk to the library, grocery store, restaurants, coffee, shops etc. I don’t have to get in the car to take care of every errand, and my kid gets to see that there are different ways of transportation besides getting strapped in the back seat. Plus I don’t have to spend time mowing the backyard or gardening; that’s a negative for me though I understand some folks feel differently. That package of amenities–that extend beyond my personal property lines–is far more valuable to me than what I could get in a suburb with a detached house, garage and backyard that would include additional maintenance and driving requirements, and fewer community amenities (may vary slightly based on location).
I would like to see better sound-proofing though!
I liked the e-bike article: the author had good points about mixed ability groups, etc.
However, will say this: higher speeds on any kind of bicycle will increase the consequences of a crash. So, *for me*, when it comes to my recreational activities, I’d rather not assume the greater risk inherent in the increased speed on an e-bike.
I ride an e-bike to work, and that’s great for a lot of reasons. Mainly, I can’t devote 90 minutes of stiff exercise a day just to get to work and back on my acoustic bike. The e-bike lowers the time to about 50-60 minutes, and the effort as well.
To me, that’s worth the general increase in risk.
On the other hand, if I’m recreating, I’m trying to get some exercise, not travel a certain distance in as little time as possible. While the distance from my home to my worksite is fixed, the distance I travel while exercising is more arbitrary. I usually exercise for a set period of time, and there isn’t much value to traveling that distance faster, as my e-bike would allow.
This is personal, of course! Someone may have a destination in mind for a recreational ride, rather than a certain amount of time, or intensity of effort. Or, as it is for my mother, an e-bike might allow a more sedentary person to ride more comfortably in hot weather.
The electric motor is a great addition to the world of bikes. I just think we should keep in mind that e-bikes allow us to travel at higher speeds, and that creates some additional risk.
PSU is a “stones throw” from the IBR??? Someone must have a hell of an arm!