Portlander Sam Balto, known as “Coach Balto” by millions of adoring fans on the Internet, is riding a wave of enthusiasm for bike buses that is transforming transportation policy across America.
But before his viral videos, national media attention, and meet-and-greets with bigwigs like US Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and members of First Lady Jill Biden’s staff; Balto was just a summer camp counselor who just loved to work with kids. When he moved to Portland, I noticed his tactical urbanism projects and watched him evolve as an advocate. On Earth Day 2022 when I showed up to his first-ever bike bus at Alameda Elementary School, he told a crowd of kids and their families, “I think this is the start of something special.”
I don’t think any of us realized how prescient that statement would be.
Two years later, Balto has gotten so busy being a bike bus advocate and influencer that he’s taken a year off teaching duties to focus on growing the movement full-time. He’s a co-founder of Bike Bus World, a new organization that just received official nonprofit status (which gives him the fun title of Bike Bus World Leader).
In this episode, you’ll hear Balto share how he thinks bike buses (and walking school buses, traffic gardens, and other things that get kids doing active transportation) can help restitch our country’s social fabric. He also talks about how he wants to help build bike buses into something that has a greater impact than just the ride to school. When I asked if he wants bike buses to be funded on par with yellow school buses, he scoffed and said he’s shooting even higher: “I think we should put this on par with federal highway funding… anything is possible with money and political will.
“We demolished entire communities to make it easier for people to drive. The amazing thing about making it easier for children to walk and bike to school is that nobody’s gonna lose their houses. What are we waiting for?”
We also talked about how barriers to staring bike buses and a critique from some that they are only possible in wealthy areas. Balto said equity-based critiques might just be trolling from people who don’t like the idea of bike buses. And if they aren’t, he says the solution is more funding. “If that’s an issue that want you want see a bike bus in a less affluent communities, it’s going to require more resources, and our government has those resources, so let’s go to them to get those funds and resources.”
When it comes to the future of how bike buses interact with schools, Balto is very excited about recent grants from federal and local sources and says the vision of Bike Bus World is where every school has an active transportation specialist.
Yes his plans are grand. But Balto and his crew at Bike Bus World have momentum and they aren’t afraid of the moment. Next week Balto heads to Washington DC to visit a local school and join their bike bus. Through his connections with Sec. Buttigieg, Balto has connected with First Lady Jill Biden’s staff.
“You don’t get what you don’t ask for. So I reached back out and I was like, ‘Hey, can we do a bike bus to the White House? We’ll see what happens.”
Whether you want to lead a bike bus, already lead one, or are just excited at how this movement has potential to change neighborhoods across this country for the better, you don’t want to miss this conversation. Watch the video or listen in the players above or on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
The intersection of SW Shattuck Rd, Illinois Street and 60th Avenue, looking south-east. Source: PBOT.
There’s some hardball being played at Alpenrose, and it’s not on the baseball diamond.
On November 8th, the Hearings Officer (HO) for the Raleigh Crest Land Use application approved, with conditions, the developer’s plan to divide the 51-acre site of the old Alpenrose dairy into 263 lots of attached and detached houses. The Alpenrose site is in the Hayhurst neighborhood of southwest Portland, and its subdivision would be one of the largest housing developments Portland has seen in recent years.
Readers might remember that City staff had recommended against approving the application in mid-September, citing a number of issues which had not been resolved. Since then, the city and developer have hashed out those problems and come up with agreements on: the placement of the Red Electric Trail which crosses the northern edge of the property; environmental concerns about disturbance of the sensitive riparian environment at the site’s southern tip; inadequate sewer facilities, and stormwater management issues.
Despite the developer and City coming to terms on a range of issues, on November 11, the Hayhurst Neighborhood Association (NA) voted to appeal the HO Decision to the Portland City Council,
due to the impact of increased traffic on the safety of SW Shattuck Road and its intersection with SW Illinois St and SW 60th Ave. Neighbors also would like wildlife crossing signs to be installed on Shattuck during Stage 1 instead of Stage 4, and to be informed of the results of the wildlife crossing camera monitoring.
Traffic monitoring of SW Shattuck Road conducted by PBOT in August, 2024 showed that 91% of drivers were over the speed limit. Neighbors question the city’s decision to override the recommendation in the developer’s traffic study to install speed cushions on SW Shattuck, stating that there needs to be a “systemic evaluation” of changes to Shattuck. The neighborhood wants greater safety protection for crossing the future five-way intersection of SW Shattuck at Illinois St, which is a Neighborhood Greenway and Safe Route to School.
Before getting into the details of the intersection design, it is worth noting the interests of the three parties involved: the developer, the Public Infrastructure team of the Portland Permitting and Development Bureau (PP&D) and the Neighborhood Association.
Alpenrose development preliminary plan.
The developer, the neighborhood association and the city
An appeal is a quasi-judicial hearing, in which the City Council acts as jury, and the appellant (in this case the NA) and city/developer present their cases in a trial compressed to fit into an afternoon session of City Council. It’s a chance for everyone to play Perry Mason, with professional lawyers guiding the show. Given the upcoming holidays, an appeal could very likely not be heard until 2025, after the brand-new Council is seated. The new Council structure, with its district representation and larger body, introduces uncertainty into the outcome.
Delay is a developer’s worst enemy. So it is in the developer’s interest to avoid the legal and financial costs of an appeal. The expense of a few speed bumps and stop signs is a rounding error compared to the cost of firing up their attorney and the expense caused by the delay.
The Hayhurst neighborhood association has genuine concerns about the safety of the children who will be walking and riding bicycles from Raleigh Crest, across Shattuck, to the Hayhurst Elementary School a few blocks away.
The task of the City’s transportation review is to try to apply rational and standard roadway treatments to an area of town with a very non-standard roadway network. For example, Shattuck Road runs for nearly a mile between Vermont St and Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy without a single through cross-street or stop sign— and without any sidewalks. That lack of connectivity and infrastructure encourages some drivers to speed, and is dangerous to any road user outside of a car.
Contrary to what often gets simplified to “NIMBY’s opposing development,” the NA’s conflict is with the City, not the developer. The role of neighborhood associations is to hold the City accountable to its own code and policies — that is a big part of why NAs were created. In recognition of that role, City code waives the $6,566 City Council appeal fee for qualified NAs.
The developer is caught in the middle, between the neighborhood and the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) engineers, holding the wallet and listening to the clock tick.
The intersection of Illinois and Shattuck
The intersection of SW Illinois, 60th and Shattuck sits at the crest of large hill. As noted above, Shattuck doesn’t have through cross-streets, stop signs or sidewalks, a common enough configuration in the southwest that I have a name for those roads — toboggan runs. Cars speed on them. Shattuck’s posted speed is 25 mph, but the developer’s traffic study, conducted in 2022, showed the average 85th percentile speed to be 11 mph faster. Also at issue is that the sight distance calculations for the intersection were based on posted, rather than on observed, speeds. And that the intersection’s situation at the top of a crest makes crosswalk marking less visible to a driver approaching from below them.
The developer’s initial traffic study, from April 2024, suggested that “The City and Applicant should collaborate to install speed cushions and the associated signage and pavement markings along the frontage of the new neighborhood on SW Shattuck Road,” per PBOT’s Traffic Design Manual. A month later, PBOT returned the study with comments, including that “Speed cushions require approval of the Fire Bureau prior to installation.”
The revised traffic study which the developer submitted in June dropped the speed cushion suggestion.
Source: EKS Engineering & Forestry
As part of the ongoing dialogue between PP&D and the development team, the developer submitted a conceptual design (above) of a tightened intersection box at Shattuck and Illinois, with striped crosswalks and bike crosses.
I asked PBOT to comment on their requirements for the intersection, specifically whether “the finding that stop signs and speed bumps are not warranted is so strong that it justifies the delay and expense of a City Council hearing.” PP&D Public Information Officer Ken Ray, relayed this response from PBOT:
As you are likely aware, the City of Portland has been working with the community and applicant on this project to identify solutions that meet PBOT’s goals for a safe, accessible transportation system, that align with traffic control best practices given the context of the land use case, and PBOT’s authority through that review.
PBOT is aware of the concerns related to speeding on Shattuck Road and the desire to ensure the crossing at Shattuck and Illinois is safe for all road users. The City shares those goals. Through the land use process, PBOT worked to evaluate a variety of options to improve conditions across the Raleigh Crest development site.
The design of the intersection at Shattuck and Illinois evolved through the public comment and hearing process, leading the applicant to include some additional improvements to narrow the existing intersection along with marked crosswalks and crossbikes were included in the design. Separate from this development, concept development for a new gateway treatment to enhance the existing neighborhood greenway on Illinois Street is underway.
All-way stop control at Shattuck Road and Illinois Street was evaluated through the traffic study, and it was determined that the volume of activity and the reported crash history at this location did not meet PBOT’s standards for stop sign placement. More information about the use of stop signs can be found here: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/traffic-operations/stop-sign-overview.
Speed cushions were also considered through the land use process. PBOT no longer has a traffic calming program due to equity concerns and lack of funding. It only installs speed bumps or cushions as part of projects for Neighborhood Greenways, Safe Routes to School, on known cut-through routes through Fixing Our Street funding, and at locations with known safety issues. Shattuck Road is classified as a Neighborhood Collector and Major Emergency Response street. Per the Transportation System Plan, “Major Emergency Response Streets that also have a Local Service or Neighborhood Collector traffic classification are eligible for speed cushions, subject to the approval of Portland Fire and Rescue.” It has been PBOT’s recent experience that Portland Fire has not been supportive of long stretches of speed cushions on Major Emergency Response streets. To be effective, speed bumps or cushions need to be placed at regular intervals along a corridor. In this case, review by City bureaus including PBOT and Portland Fire and Rescue did not establish that speed bumps or cushions are so critical the Portland Fire should consider their placement on a Major Emergency Response Route.
And that is where things stand for the moment.
I’m writing this post less than a week after the City Auditors Office wrote a critical report about PBOT’s Vision Zero program. One thing is clear to me: Vision Zero will not be successful if it is the purview of only a small group within PBOT. Everybody needs to share the Vision and make it a priority — PBOT Maintenance and Development Review, Water and Environmental Services, Fire and Police, the City Attorney, and the City Council and Mayor. I am hopeful that Portland can do this.
Street chaplain Sara Fischer on the steps of Portland City Hall. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland – Full gallery below)
The annual World Day of Remembrance brought advocates, elected officials and survivors together in front of Portland City Hall Sunday. It was a powerful event where five newly elected city council members were moved to speak and many were moved to tears. The energy was part rally and part memorial ceremony as the crowd heard speeches aimed at inspiring policy changes, and songs aimed at spurring emotions.
The event was held in cities across the globe to force people to recognize the senseless and preventable deaths that happen on our roads. Around 40,000 people are killed in traffic crashes every year in America. Oregon has at least one fatality per day and Portland has seen a stubborn increase in road deaths despite working to reverse the trend. But Sunday’s event went far beyond sad statistics. Attendees heard mothers and fathers share graphic details of how their children were killed and held space for expressions of loss mixed with anger and confusion about a culture that doesn’t seem to care.
“I am here this morning for everyone that has died due to traffic crashes and I’m here for the communities they left behind. Which is all of us,” said street chaplain Sara Fischer at the outset of the ceremony.
Behind Fischer, bicycle inner tubes wrapped around the marble columns of City Hall held twigs of green laurel. To each side of her were protest signs and buckets of red flowers that represented someone killed in traffic in Oregon. A bright white ghost bike was a stark symbol of the gathering’s purpose. Fischer spoke of the need for more advocacy to fight for safer streets and buoy the strength and spirit of families who’ve lost loved ones. “They should not do this work by themselves,” she said.
In addition to short speeches, there was a large canvas banner spread across a table where people used pens to scrawl names of crash victims. Co-organizer and Families for Safe Streets volunteer Ted Buehler said, “We’re here to remember that they were each a unique person and unique tragedy.” The canvas will be at more events in the future and Buehler says they’re in talks with incoming city council members to have it hang in the City Hall atrium next year, “to motivate city staff and elected officials to change the way things are run in the city, so that not nearly as many names appear on this in the future.”
In a very positive sign for Portland, five recently elected city council members spoke at the event: Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo, and Steve Novick from District 3 (Southeast); and Mitch Green and Eric Zimmerman from District 4 (West/Sellwood). Council candidates Marnie Glickman (D2), Chad Lykins (D4) and Nat West (D2) were also in attendance.
Councilor-elect Mitch GreenCouncilor-elect Tiffany Koyama LaneCouncilor-elect Eric ZimmermanCouncilor-elect Angelita MorilloCouncilor-elect Steve Novick.
Green said he was almost hit by a car driver while biking to the event on SW Barbur Blvd. He used his speech to talk about the need to take a systems-level approach to road safety. “Because we lack infrastructure for safe, active transportation, many people will default to wearing a car as armor. And as one person does, so does another and another, so we engage in an arms race of driving larger cars to keep our loved ones safe — meanwhile those who do not drive are increasingly exposed to the collateral damage of this arms race,” Green said. If the city built more sidewalks, installed more modal filters (aka diverters) and did more road diets, “It’d be much easier for people to make the choice to leave the car at home.”
And then Green, speaking like as if he wants the title of council’s cycling and road safety champion, said he sees it as his job to make streets safety, that he’ll lead the “fight” for more funding and better policies, and that Portland City Council should have a permanent Safe Streets Committee. Then he looked over at fellow District 4 candidate Chad Lykins and said, “You can be sure if I don’t make progress on this, Chad will take my seat.”
“I’ve wanted to make that turn. I’ve wanted to drive faster. But what I’ll take from today is that none of that annoyance can outweigh the impact when tragedy strikes.”
– Eric Zimmerman, D4 councilor-elect
Koyama Lane, who will represent southeast Portland on City Council, fought back tears as she recalled walking and riding her scooter by roadside memorials in her neighborhood. “This shouldn’t be normalized,” she said. She too talked about fighting for more safe streets funding and added that she wants the community to hold her accountable once she takes a seat on the dais: “This isn’t a topic that we’re just supposed to talk about when we’re running for office and it’s cool to go to Bike Happy Hour… we will keep fighting.”
Zimmerman, the District 4 councilor-elect, admitted that he’s been annoyed as a driver by some of the changes the Portland Bureau of Transportation has made to our streets. “I’ve wanted to make that turn. I’ve wanted to drive faster,” he shared. “But what I’ll take from today is that none of that annoyance can outweigh the impact when tragedy strikes.”
Former city commissioner and new District 3 rep-elect Steve Novick has a special place in this conversation. During his last stint at City Hall he was in charge of PBOT and knows how the transportation policy sausage is made (or at least was made before the charter changes). Novick also spoke impromptu after being moved by what he heard from survivors. He was at times defiant during his speech, saying, “Drivers have become crazier since the pandemic, and cars have become bigger, and that’s a problem.” Because of that, he said, “Frankly, I am not worried about the Big Brother aspect of putting speed cameras at every goddamn intersection in the city.” Novick also vowed support for higher registration fees for larger SUVs and trucks.
Kristi Finney-Dunn
When emcee and co-organizer of the event Michelle DuBarry introduced Kristi Finney-Dunn, I was surprised and heartened. Finney-Dunn’s son Dustin Finney was killed in August 2011 while riding his bike on Southeast Division near 84th. It was a hit-and-run that resulted in the driver serving a five-year prison sentence and I’ll never forget being in the courtroom that day while Finney-Dunn stared across the room at the man who killed her son and stood to address the court holding her sons ashes in her arms.
Finney-Dunn was a fixture in local safe streets activism for five years or so, but had fallen completely off my radar since about 2016. She was reluctant to even show up Sunday. “Part of the reason I didn’t want to come today was that I feel so pessimistic,” she said, as her hand on the mic shook with a mix of rage and sadness. “Why are there not thousands of people here today?! Why?!” she asked a rapt crowd. “This is a small crowd compared to the numbers of people we know are impacted every single day by these traffic crashes.”
Finny Dunn’s anger was palpable and warranted.
PBOT Vision Zero Coordinator Clay Veka was not only present to hear the speakers, she was also invited to speak. “We have a vision for streets that is different than today’s reality,” Veka said. Then she admitted she and her colleagues can do more. “PBOT has not moved fast enough or invested sufficiently to fundamentally transform our streets to advance our Vision Zero goal.” Veka said PBOT can’t reach Vision Zero on their own and it will take partnerships on housing, land use, addiction services, and transit to make it a reality.
Sarah Risser sharing the story of her son’s death.
The final person to speak was event co-organizer Sarah Risser from Bike Loud PDX. Risser was in the car as a passenger with her teenage son Henry at the wheel when they were hit by a semi-truck on a rural road. Henry died next to her while they waiting for first responders to arrive. Risser has dedicated herself to helping survivors — and the community-at-large — remember crash victims. A few weeks ago she stood on the corner of NE 105th and Marx with the mother of Damon Cousins, who was killed by a driver while bicycling to work October 21st.
When Cousins’ mom shared a photo of him with Risser, she thought it conveyed strength and beauty. “Another young adult with so much to offer the world, lost to a crash. I thought, ‘Why do we tolerate this?'” Risser said to the crowd that had assembled under the City Hall portico to escape heavy rainfall.
Risser recounted how moved his grieving mom was when a long line of cyclists showed up to remember her son. “The community showed up. The community cared,” Risser said. “We stood together around a memorial mostly in silence with the victim’s family. I’m not sure there is more important work than this.”
Threshold Choir singers.
The event ended with the Threshold Choir singing into the space where advocates and survivors huddled together in relative darkness as rain fell all around.
“They are sending you light. To heal you. To hold you. They are sending you light. To hold you in love.”
Sarah Risser and Michelle DuBarry.David Sale’s daughter Danielle was killed by a TriMet bus driver in 2010.Sara FischerMichelle DuBarry
I was drawn to Dan’s comment partly because of his writing “voice” — it goes down easy, and is unpretentious and authoritative at the same time. Like someone who knows what he is talking about, but parked the ego at the door.
Here are Dan’s ideas for sparking a resurgence in cycling:
I have spent 45 years riding my bike everywhere, including over 35 years commuting and riding for fun in and around Portland. In my view, marketing ain’t gonna cut it.
For example, there’s a bike lane on Beaverton-Hilldale Highway, which is an important transportation corridor to the west. And even I hate riding on it. I used to ride my bike to meetings and events in downtown Portland, parking and locking it on the street. The idea of doing that now is laughable. People in cars have become more and more lawless, and the streets more dangerous. To really make bikes a meaningful part of our transportation system, here are a few ideas:
1) Step up enforcement of traffic laws — a lot. 2) Build more off-street bike paths. This includes both in town and long-distance bike paths to far-away places. 3) Create a secure, staffed bike parking facility downtown. 4) Improve and maintain existing bike infrastructure, including sweeping. 5) Tax gas and cars a lot more. 6) Close some streets downtown and in business hubs and create pedestrian areas. 7) Provide tax advantages for buying and using bikes and electric bikes. 8) Crack down on bike thefts and theft rings. 9) Dramatically increase civil and criminal penalties for drivers that hit, harass, or otherwise harm cyclists. 10) Elect leaders who think of cycling as a form of transportation at least equal in importance to all others, not just a niche segment to wink at now and then to be politically correct.
Many will dismiss most or all of these suggestions as unrealistic, and indeed perhaps they are in early 21st century America — even in a place that at least thinks of itself as progressive like Portland. But in other places in the world, all of these things are simply reality — and they work. Marketing is basically wishing something will happen. We need to do the hard work to try to make it actually happen. We get the society we collectively decide to make.
Here are the most notable stories our community came across in the past seven days…
Open streets forever!: I love that advocates in San Francisco put an open street project on the ballot… and won! Now a two-mile section of a coastal highway will be permanently closed to car users. What street should we do this for in our region? (SF Gate)
Echoes of North Williams: A debate over a road diet and bike lane in a Washington DC neighborhood reminds me of the conversations about race Portland had in 2011. (Washington Post)
Pedestrian solidarity: This article about the pitfalls of walking in cities in India is a good reminder that pedestrian advocacy is a global pursuit and there are advocates working to make it better across the globe. (BBC)
Daylighting in effect: A new law passed in California requiring cities to prohibit parking near intersections in order to improve safety and visibility. Now the question is, will the daylighting happen and will the law be enforced? (San Francisco Standard)
The state of state-owned roads: A solid rundown of why urban highways (“stroads”) are so bad and the relationship between city and state governments — with a nod to Portland’s 82nd Avenue. (Vox)
Bollard considerations: A rare bit of new research on how different types of bollards impact bicycle users. (Forbes)
Bikes in national parks: Every national park in America (not just Arches National Park) could benefit from a traffic plan that embraces cycling — especially now that e-bikes are so popular and readily available. (Clean Technica)
Get more out of your bike: If you got a new gravel bike this past season, it could become a really solid around-town bike through winter with a few key changes. (Cycling Weekly)
Paris growing pains: It’s not all good news in the budding cycling capital of Paris. All the new cyclists have spurred a backlash due to how chaotic their traffic behaviors can be. (Le Monde)
According to a description of the grant application provided by Metro, the funding will be used to invest in walking schools buses and bike bus programs. The aim is to see what happens when these activities are funded and supported by more than just a parent or two and if the availability of a safer route to school and supportive school environment gets more families to leave their cars at home.
Bike parking at Roosevelt High School. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The pilot activities will take place in the Roosevelt High School cluster in north Portland with programming at five elementary schools (Astor, James John, Sitton, Rosa Parks, César Chávez), one middle school (George), and one high school (Roosevelt). That cluster has 68% students of color, a 45% absentee rate, and 43% of the families have low incomes. Metro crash statistics reveal that the routes kids at these schools take are much more dangerous over average than the region at-large. The grant application also cited concerns with gun violence as a reason families don’t walk and roll to school.
“The combination of school demographic needs, crash data, and strong community infrastructure are why this pilot project area was chosen,” reads the Metro project description.
Metro applied for the grant. In addition to PPS, partners on the project include nonprofits Oregon Walks and Community Cycling Center, Portland State University, and Portland Bureau of Transportation.
The grant will allow Metro to pay adult leaders at elementary schools to to establish weekly walking school buses and bike buses. There will also be monthly events to bolster the programs and encourage participation. Two elementary schools in the program will receive “learn to ride” education and teachers will receive training on bike and pedestrian safety.
For high schoolers, the program will fund transit trainings that will include a field trip to ride the TriMet system. And students will receive hands-on training on how to use the Biketown bike share system.
The grant will also fund an annual adopt-a-bike event and free bike locks and helmets for students. Social media training, so bike bus leaders can spread the word about their program and reach more families, will also be part of the program.
While this is mostly a planning and organizing grant, there will be some investment in demonstration projects. Temporary wayfinding for the walking and biking routes will be installed and there’s a plan to paint “traffic gardens” on the campus at each elementary school. “Temporary or pop-up circulation improvements to guide traffic during pickup/drop-off times,” is also included.
Everything will be analyzed and evaluation by PSU’s Transportation Research and Education Center to see how the various interventions are impacting safety and perceptions about walking and biking to school.
If the pilots are deemed successful, Metro and their partners will integrate walking schools buses and bike buses into more schools and “apply lessons learned regionwide and support broader implementation of the most successful initiatives.”
Work is expected to begin July 2025 and will take place over three years. This news comes just weeks after the nonprofit Oregon Walks received a nearly $1 million grant through the Portland Clean Energy Fund to develop walking school buses citywide.
Balto on Instagram a few hours ago.
“It is a wonderful day for children’s mobility,” said bike bus leader Sam “Coach” Balto. “SS4A is incredibly meaningful funding. A humongous ‘thank you’ goes to the staff at Metro who are always open to try new things and take risks.”
Roger Geller (black shirt) leading a bike tour in 2023. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Roger Geller has been the City of Portland’s bicycle coordinator for over 30 years. For most of that time he worked for a city that was a leader in his field. That’s not the case anymore and Geller has a plan to put Portland back on top.
In 1997, early in Geller’s career, Portland was the first American city to add color (blue) to bike lanes. 11 years later Portland was still an innovator, becoming the first US city to install bike boxes in 2008. Then we layered something even greater on top of infrastructure accolades: the best bike culture in the world.
Between 2007 and 2014 Portland was one of the greatest cycling cities in the world. What we lacked in ridership and bikeway infrastructure compared to great northern European capitols, we made up for with a cultural milieu so steeped in cycling it was the envy of Dutch planners and its tendrils reached anyone who spent time here. Industry, events, political support, economic development, advocacy groups, racing, media — the influence of biking was everywhere!
Geller in 2012.
As head bike planner for the the Portland Bureau of Transportation, Geller was a key architect of that golden age. So when things started to cool off in 2014 or so (following a few years of shaky politics for cycling), Geller felt the shift. In a new white paper released this week, Geller wrote, “Portland’s bicycling strategy has not been producing desired outcomes since 2016,” — a notable acknowledgement from the city staffer largely responsible for that strategy.
“I think it’s really important for the city to demonstrate its commitment to bicycling by taking potentially disruptive actions.”
After a decade or so of stagnation and decline, there are signs of life for cycling in Portland. And Geller thinks the time is right for a local cycling renaissance.
At the Tuesday night meeting of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (Geller has been PBOT staff liaison to that committee to for at least 20 years) Geller unveiled a 14-page plan he calls, “a comprehensive program to immediately focus on increasing ridership.”
After painting a picture of cycling’s political heyday for a new crop of BAC members, Geller said, “And here we are today. And I can’t remember the last time I heard any elected official say something positive about bicycling. It’s kind of dropped off the map.”
To get it back on the map, Geller wants to act fast — maybe even circumvent the city’s typical approach of incremental, politically-safe progress. Geller’s thesis is that how we get around is simply a rational choice people make. And right now, more people choose to drive than to bike.
“So how do we get people to choose to ride a bicycle rather than to drive a car? I think that is our challenge,” Geller said.
A typical response to this is to build more and better bike infrastructure. At a rally outside City Hall in 2010, before Portland City Council voted to adopt the Bike Plan for 2030, advocates held signs that said, “Built It!” as in, “built it and they will come.” Even today the “paint is not protection” mantra remains strong.
“You can’t watch anything on TV during the football season without seeing five Bud Light ads over the course of an hour right? That’s the level of campaigning that I want to do for biking. That’s what I think we need.”
Geller acknowledges that great cycling facilities matter, but those can take years to design and install. “We don’t have time to wait to build protected bike lanes on every roadway where we want them,” he said. Instead, Geller wants to go big on marketing, lean on existing advocates and early adopters, make bold yet inexpensive capital investments, and organize mass bike rides that will convince people to hop on a saddle.
Here’s an excerpt from the plan’s introduction:
Portland has strong policies and plans to reduce motor vehicle miles traveled. But, unless there is a dramatic shift in local politics and culture, Portland will be unable to rely on similarly strong driving reduction incentives to encourage increased bicycling. Portland will instead need to rely on persuasive tools to re-elevate the possibility of bicycling, on providing compelling reasons to do so and creating opportunities for a new generation of Portlanders to discover the joys and benefits of biking in the city.
Portland needs to re-awaken an awareness of bicycling and its many benefits. A reinvigoration of bicycle culture will create forums through which bicycling can re-enter Portlanders’ collective consciousness as a desired transportation choice. Through multiple polls and surveys, we have clear indication that Portlanders are interested in such a choice8 . Here is where we need to summon faith in our product (bicycling and what it creates) and our policies that elevate it as a tool toward achieving our desired outcomes.
Geller knows talk of marketing and communications will rub some infrastructure-first folks the wrong way. But in his calculation, Portland’s problem isn’t a lack of good bike infrastructure. Our problem is that not enough people are using it.
“This might be a controversial statement,” he said at the BAC meeting Tuesday night. “But I think there’s really not much we could do more immediately that would create safer conditions for biking than just getting more people out biking.”
Ordinary Portland bike traffic (these are not group rides) in 2013 and 2016.
That’s the “safety in numbers” philosophy. And it works in practice. I’ve experienced it in places like Amsterdam where there’s no bike-specific facility to ride on, but it feels safe because there are people on bikes all around me. It’s also why so many people love Sunday Parkways or mass group rides during Bike Summer. And Portland has already tasted this phenomenon when bike traffic would spike during peak hours on streets like N Williams and NW Lovejoy back before The Decline.
How does Geller think we can get a massive number of Portlanders on bikes as “quickly as possible” (his words)?
His plan outlines six categories of action:
All actions are to be considered in the context of how they can contribute to messaging about bicycling and the city’s intent.
Capital and programmatic elements to display bold steps to both demonstrate institutional / leadership commitment and to get people to pay attention.
Undertake actions that will inspire and activate advocates for bicycling, including opportunities for volunteering, proposed capital improvements and campaigns.
Create an organized framework of rides to provide easy access to multiple ride opportunities.
Initiate and execute a professional marketing campaign to promote bicycling.
Start immediately with inexpensive efforts that feature rides, home-grown messaging campaigns and capital improvements.
He wants to hire a professional firm to poll Portlanders and figure out effective messages — then put them on billboards, run ads on social media, infiltrate all City of Portland communications with pro-bike messaging, and so on. And he wants the city to stop dithering and start doing. While large-scale capital projects with lots of curb work and concrete aren’t part of this plan, Geller thinks striping bike lanes in certain places and re-allocating lane space away from parked cars could be done quickly with great effect.
“I think it’s really important for the city to demonstrate its commitment to bicycling by taking potentially disruptive actions,” Geller said, in response to a question from a member of the public about PBOT’s reluctance to make driving less convenient (something that’s politically difficult, but imperative to influence choices).
Stop and note: This is a city employee saying he feels it’s time for his own agency to take “potentially disruptive actions.”
What does he mean by that? Geller, like many of us, is tired of PBOT plans gathering dust on a shelf. He used the example of Central City in Motion — a plan now 11 years old that still hasn’t reached its promise.
“Central City in Motion for example,” Geller said on Tuesday, “calls for bike lanes on 11th and 12th through southeast and northeast Portland. If we striped those bike lanes, eliminated a travel lane, or eliminated on street parking — whatever we choose to do — that would gain people’s attention and demonstrate a commitment on the part of the city to follow its policies and achieve its goals.”
Read that again. This is a leader who works in the same agency that removed a newly-installed bike lane because a few neighbors said it was a hardship they weren’t given proper notice about (by the way, it’s been almost a year since they were removed and PBOT has made no announcement about putting them back).
Once a project is in the news and people are paying attention, Geller says that’s the moment to deliver the message. For Geller, the message (which would have been professionally crafted beforehand and city staff would have been trained to deliver with confidence) should be something like: “‘Yes, it is important to us to limit driving for these reasons, or to encourage bicycling for these reasons.'”
Before your cast stones at Geller’s plan because it relies mostly on words and intentions, keep in mind he’s operating from the very reasonable assumption that the power of marketing and trends is the best option at our immediate disposal. It’s a pragmatism forged from three decades working in government under a dysfunctional political system (that is thankfully gone in six weeks).
“We don’t have the tools Copenhagen has. We can’t make gas $8 a gallon. We’re reluctant to make parking very expensive. We can’t have the registration cost of a car be 100% the cost of the car,” Geller lamented at the meeting. “So we don’t really have those strong financial tools that help with the decision making in those other places. So we have to find something else that resonates with people and encourages them to choose [bicycling].”
If Geller had it his way, he’d fund this plan with a $40 million budget over a few years. That kind of money, he said half-jokingly, would allow him to “run the Bud Light campaign for biking.”
“You can’t watch anything on TV during the football season without seeing five Bud Light ads over the course of an hour right? That’s the level of campaigning that I want to do for biking — both at the grassroots and a high-end, professional level. That’s what I think we need.”
The man the Oregon Department of Transportation tapped nearly five years ago to deliver billions of dollars in freeway expansion projects in the Portland region is leaving the agency.
According to Willamette Week, ODOT Urban Mobility Office Director Brendan Finn has taken a job as chief of staff for Multnomah County Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon.
Finn was the first ever director of the office and assumed the role just six months after it was launched. The Urban Mobility Office (UMO) was created in 2019 (initially called the Office of Urban Mobility & Mega Projects) with the goal of completed a suite of freeway expansion projects funded in the 2017 legislative transportation funding package known as HB 2017. That bill included earmarks for several megaprojects that ODOT claimed would reduce congestion in the region: the I-205 Tolling project, the Regional Mobility Pricing Project, the Boone Bridge Improvements project, the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvements project, and the I-205 Improvements. The projects became known as ODOT’s “Urban Mobility Strategy” and it was Finn’s job as UMO Director to get them done.
(Source: ODOT)
Finn earned a salary of $222,650 from ODOT in 2023 and oversaw a staff of 37 FTE with annual payroll of around $4.5 million. I’m not yet aware of why Finn left, but he appears to be taking a big paycut. A typical chief of staff at Multnomah County makes about $130,000 per year.
The last five years at the Urban Mobility Office have been a roller-coaster and Finn has been sitting on the front row.
When he took his position in 2020, the I-5 Rose Quarter project, which will widen I-5 through the Lloyd Center and adding highway covers with surface street improvements and real estate development on top, was in shambles. It lacked support from the City of Portland and ODOT was taking heat from activistsand elected officials. Even Metro called ODOT’s assessment of the project “inadequate” and “highly misleading.” In June 2023, Finn became emotional and walked out of an I-5 Rose Quarter advisory committee after members expressed disappointment about a lack of funding and progress. While there’s been some great news for the project earlier this year, it’s still dogged by lawsuits and lacks funding to be completed.
Finn’s mission received another big blow back in March when Governor Kotek paused work on the Regional Mobility Pricing Project. That plan that would have added tolls to freeways in the Urban Mobility Strategy that would pay for the projects and for continued operation of the Urban Mobility Office (UMO) itself. The lack of funding from ODOT and other sources to complete the projects has put the UMO in difficult straits.
Prior to leading the UMO, Finn was a transportation policy advisory for former Governor Kate Brown and previous to that he was a chief of staff for former Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman.
ODOT has yet to name a replacement for Finn. Stay tuned to see how his departure might impact the UMO and it’s projects going forward.
Display of shoes representing traffic victims at Portland’s 2016 World Day of Remembrance. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Time to plot your weekend strategy and I’ve got some suggestions for you. Be advised there are a lot of slippery leaves out there — so watch those corners!
Saturday, November 16th
Dig Day at Rocky Point – 9:30 am at Rocky Point Trails (Scappoose) Local bike shop Cyclepath and NW Trail Alliance are building new trails (yes, new trails!) at Rocky Point and they need your help to make it happen. Get out and help create new places to ride. More info here.
Bike Milwaukie Harvest Ride – 10:00 am at Great American Espresso (Milwaukie) Join bike advocates in the city just south of Portland for a ride that will peep fall leaves and end at Bobs Red Mill so you can stock up on grains and oats for the winter. More info here.
Mitchell Point Tunnel Dedication Ceremony – 11:00 at Mitchell Point Tunnel (Gorge) An extremely rare and historic opportunity to be the first to peer through the restored picture windows that have been closed for over 70 years. As I mentioned in a story last week, access to the site is tricky and they aren’t letting bikes all the way through. More info here.
Motorhead vs. The World Ride – 6:30 pm at Eastbank Esplanade (SE) NakedHearts:PDX will bring the loud sounds on this hard rockin’ ride that will be an homage to influential band Motorhead. Maybe a mosh pit so get ready to get your freak on! More info here.
Sunday, November 17th
Back in the Saddle Again – 9:30 am at Gateway Transit Center (NE) If you’re just getting back into cycling or want an excellent way to introduce yourself to group road riding, look no further than this ride led by experienced and welcoming Portland Bicycling Club leader Ann Morrow. More info here.
Ladies Flat Clinic – 10:30 am at Trek Slabtown (NW) The wonderful Maria “Bicycle Kitty” Schur will show you how to fix a flat at this ladies-only event inside the warm and cozy Trek store. More info here.
World Day of Remembrance – 11:00 am at Portland City Hall Families for Safe Streets and other local advocacy groups have come together for this event that will bring attention to lives lost on our roads. Rally outside city hall. Enough is enough! Note: There are a few group rides from districts to downtown. More info here.
— Did I miss your event? Please let me know by filling out our contact form, or just email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com.
Advocates got a first-person view of what’s in store with the Interstate Bridge Replacement project during a bike ride last month. (Photo: Oregon Walks/Just Crossing Alliance)
“People should be aware of the realities of what happens on the Vancouver Waterfront, where the transit stations are at 100 feet. People can’t visualize that. They can’t make sense of that. That’s 10 stories into the air!”
That was Oregon Walks Executive Director Zachary Lauritzen during an interview with BikePortland yesterday. Oregon Walks is a member of the Just Crossing Alliance, a large coalition of advocacy groups working to “right-size” the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) Program. The IBR will add new lanes to five miles of freeway and enlarge seven interchanges of Interstate 5 between Portland and Vancouver. It’s estimated to cost $7.5 billion and many (including Lauritzen) believe it will ultimately cost $10-12 billion.
With that price tag, members of the JCA feel like we shouldn’t settle for anything less than world-class cycling and transit facilities.
With just five days left in the all-important public comment period for the project’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS), the JCA has released a four-page “Active Transportation and Transit Vision” (PDF) and they want everyone in the region to amplify their concerns via an official comment on the project. The vision document points out the inefficient use of space in the current design and the need to “future-proof” the biking and transit facilities.
Details of pages in the JCA Active Transportation Vision.
Lauritzen and several other coalition members formed an Active Transportation Working Group (separate from the full JCA coalition) to take a closer look at the biking, walking, and transit elements of the project. Other members include The Street Trust, Bike Loud PDX, Bridgeton Neighborhood Association, and advocates from Vancouver.
To be clear, the JCA isn’t working to stop the project. They want to make it less bad.
That transit-station-in-the-sky Lauritzen warned me about, is just one of several things he and his group are deeply concerned about. The bike path for instance, is on the opposite (east) side of the new MAX light rail transit line and there’s no elevator to get folks from the Vancouver waterfront up to it.
If the project is built with the design currently being proposed by Washington and Oregon departments of transportation, people biking north and south would be forced one mile out-of-direction. That’s because the IBRP team has made the bike path route down a half-mile spiral ramp near downtown Vancouver and the waterfront. Lauritzen says they call it the “Vancouver dip.”
Looking south from Vancouver at official project illustration. Red arrow marks the half-mile ramp on the bike path. Note how bike path is on opposite side of the bridge from transit.
The JCA want the biking and walking path to be on the same side as transit (to take advantage of multimodal options) and they want the path to remain elevated all the way to the last transit station (at Evergreen Blvd).
“Those two things [bike and transit routes] have to be together. That path needs to be with the transit, so people can step off of the MAX and get on their bike, ” Lauritzen said. “It’s called ‘multi-modal transportation’ for a reason.” “What the plans are now is you step off the MAX, you go out of direction underneath the road, up some stairs, then on some ramps and then you’re on the path.”
There’s already an elevator the MAX station in the plans, which is another reason the JCA workgroup wants the bike path next to it. The IBR team has planned the bike path on the east side because of what they say are space constraints on the west side, where the new, wider freeway is already forcing them to demolish several buildings.
The Street Trust, Oregon Walks, and other groups helped lead a bike ride to get an in-person, up-close look at what the IBR plans have in store. Lauritzen said the group stood at a spot on Hayden Island and looked north at the highest point on the lift mechanism of the current bridge. “That’s where the new bridge is going to be, and people [on the ride] were just like, ‘It’s going to be that high?’ People were blown away.”
Another takeaway from the bike ride was that gaps in the existing bike network at the edges of the project boundary must be addressed. The IBR team likes to talk about the new protected bike lane on Expo Road, but on the other side of the project, the multi-billion dollar design would drop bicycle riders onto dangerous sections (“no man’s land” JCA says) of NE Marine Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The IBR project team is leaning on transit and biking traffic to help meet its GHG and environmental goals, but the JCA Active Transportation working group believes it will take much better designs to get people to use those modes.
Lauritzen says getting a high volume of public comments into the official record is key to forcing the hand of the project team to address these concerns. His group doesn’t have the threat of killing the project to give them political leverage, but if enough people amplify active transportation concerns, it could give IBR partner agencies pause.
“The bridge design has to be approved by all the jurisdictions — Metro, TriMet, City of Portland, etc., — and those entities have very specific active transportation, transit, climate and VMT [vehicle miles traveled] goals,” Lauritzen said. “We are saying, ‘If you don’t follow our recommendations, you’re going to get to the end of this project and you’re not going to be able to those partners in the face and say, ‘These are going to happen.’ So make those changes now, make these investments now in your design, so that on the back-end you can approve this’.”
Lauritzen says every comment counts. Even if it’s just a few sentences.
(Background photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland. Inset: Auditor report cover)
The Portland City Auditor has released a report on the transportation bureau’s Vision Zero program. Vision Zero, a framework for decision-making with the goal of no traffic deaths, was adopted by Portland City Council as a goal in 2016. Since then, the annual fatality trendline has spiked upward. The auditor noted progress on some safety projects; but found incomplete work on other fronts. The report says the Portland Bureau of Transportation needs to refine its approach to equity and, “systematically evaluate whether its safety projects reduce traffic deaths and serious injury crashes.”
For several years now, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has weathered criticism about its Vision Zero program. The idea, adopted from road safety experts in Sweden, first came to town in 2010 when a public health researcher visited Portland and called the question: “Why do we allow these deaths to occur?” The idea grabbed hold of cycling and transportation advocates were eager to have a mechanism to build urgency for safer street designs and more human-centered mobility policies. By 2015, Vision Zero had firmly ensconced itself as one of the top priorities at PBOT.
Nine years later, the Vision Zero is more commonly the punchline of criticisms than the proud rallying cry many of us hoped it would be. While I quibble with the lazy scapegoating and lack of self-reflection from many who question its value as an organizing principle, the facts are inescapable. Whatever PBOT is doing is not keeping up with the threats posed on our streets by dangerous driving. When Vision Zero first gained favor in 2010, we had just 26 people die on Portland streets. We’ve averaged around 70 fatalities for the past three years and are on track for another tragically high tally this year.
Slides from Auditor report.
The audit focused on PBOT’s Vision Zero work since 2019 when the bureau made it a key part of their strategic plan and council adopted an update on the program. In that 2019 update, PBOT listed for main strategies: protect pedestrians, reduce speeds citywide, design streets to protect human lives; and create a culture of shared responsibility. The audit assessed progressed on the first three of those strategies.
When it comes to protecting pedestrians, the report gave a mixed review. PBOT completed key projects like new signal timing and traffic calming projects, but hasn’t added as many streetlights or filled as many crossing gaps as their plan calls for.
The next critique from the report won’t come as a surprise to anyone: The Auditor found that PBOT has done a good job reducing speed limits, but hasn’t done enough to make sure they’re enforced — either by automated cameras or via police. In the first seven years of the speed camera program, PBOT had installed just nine cameras at five locations. Officials have blamed everything from contractor and supplier issues, to design problems, vandalism, and electrical challenges for the delay. The logjams appeared to be resolved last year.
The best grades given to PBOT in this report are in their efforts to redesign streets and corridors. “The bureau did well in most of its strategy to design streets to be safer for everyone,” the report states.
While its clear PBOT has ticked off many important boxes on their Vision Zero plan, the main takeaway of the Auditor’s report is that PBOT isn’t doing enough to prove the projects are actually making roads safer. Not only is PBOT not do routine systematic evaluations of completed projects, the Auditor said, “We found confusion within the Bureau as to what constitutes a Vision Zero project.”
Here’s more from the report:
Without systemic evaluation of safety outcomes, the Bureau is missing the opportunity to create more alignment between the work they do on safety projects and the overall goal of Vision Zero. A more systematic approach would allow trends to be identified and analyzed to better understand the outcomes of completed projects, and which may need to be altered or dropped. As traffic deaths continue to increase it is vital that the Bureau consistently evaluate completed safety projects so they can see which are working best at shifting the trend towards the intended goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries.
Given how important equity has become as a “north star” for PBOT in recent years, the report’s advice on the subject is notable. The Auditor says PBOT’s current approach to making sure safety focuses on areas with a higher percentage of low-income people and Portlanders of color, puts too much emphasis on large-scale corridor projects. The report says PBOT should focus on a more micro level. This insight came from audit staff who joined a series of community walks in east Portland and learned:
There are many dynamics at play within the city that impact where people live, play and congregate, which present more opportunities for equitable safety improvements if other sources of data, such as community stories, are used. The current methodology for incorporating equity in its decision-making may prevent the Bureau from considering other opportunities to address safety needs equitably, such as smaller-scale improvements that may evolve out of these other sources.
The City Auditor made three recommendations for PBOT: create a plan that closely ties safety projects to expected outcomes; install all promised speed cameras; and make sure a revised Vision Zero approach zooms into “smaller-scale improvements” to address equity goals.
None of the findings will come as a surprise to PBOT staff or leadership. My hunch is many folks in the bureau are glad to have this audit as a way to get more attention on their work. It will be interesting to see how Vision Zero changes and how these audit recommendations are operationalized under the new government structure and their new boss, Deputy City Administrator of the Public Works Service Area Priya Dhanapal.
Detail of North Portland in Motion Plan showing narrowing of N Wall at Fessenden via curb extensions.
“This is a huge deal.”
– Mike Serritella, PBOT
The Portland Bureau of Transportation has scored another windfall from the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF). On Tuesday evening, at the monthly meeting of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, PBOT announced they’ve received a $5 million grant to implement bicycling and walking projects from the North Portland in Motion Plan.
“This is a huge deal,” said PBOT Senior Planner Mike Serritella, who leads the project.
PCEF is managed by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS). It’s funded by revenue the city collects from large retailers (1% tax on corporations with $1 billion in national revenue and $500,000 in revenue in Portland) and is dedicated to “community-led projects that reduce carbon emissions, create economic opportunity, and help make our city more resilient as we face a changing climate.” The fund plans to award $750 million in grants over five years.
NPIM launched in 2021 and PBOT released a slate of recommended projects in May 2023. While the projects are very exciting, this is just a planning document that comes without any built-in funding commitment. PBOT has many plans like this on the shelf gathering dust, just waiting for the funding stars to align. Now they have.
Because PBOT is so accustomed to operating with limited resources, many of the projects recommended in NPIM are relatively inexpensive. “These are small-scale projects identified in the plan,” Serritella said at the meeting. “So that $5 million commitment gets us a huge way forward on the plan.”
Plan area.
In April, the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee BAC wrote a letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler and the rest of city council that stated: “Adopting this plan is a critical part of ensuring a long overdue vision for safe mobility in the quadrant.”
The funding comes from PCEF’s Strategic Program 30: Active Transportation and Small Capital Projects and is part of a tranche of PCEF grants PBOT won earlier this year. The grant marks just the latest good news from PCEF when it comes to bicycling and transportation funding. In May 2024 the fund was a lifesaver for the PBOT budget when it injected $49 million to PBOT projects and programs. PCEF is funding a $20 million e-bike rebate program, and its community grants have injected millions into local transportation nonprofits.
I haven’t seen the application and it’s not clear to me yet which specific NPIM projects PBOT will build with this $5 million. But with Serritella and a solid crew at the helm, and with lots of momentum behind the projects in the plan, I have no doubt this amazing funding news will lead to key upgrades in north Portland in a short time-frame.
Some projects in the plan have already been built. And last night Serritella said, “We’ll continue to build more projects as soon as it stops raining.”
The NPIM plan is expected to be considered for official adoption by Portland City Council in December.
