The City of Portland is laying groundwork for a marketing campaign that aims to spur a cycling renaissance. Hoping to put an end to years of declining and/or flat cycling growth and harken back to a decade ago when Portland was last seen as a global leader for cycling culture, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has released a survey that tests seven different pro-cycling messages.
“Whether you bike or not, the City of Portland wants to understand what messages could make it easier for you and your fellow Portlanders to say yes to biking around the city,” reads a new PBOT website. The survey will, “help us shape our city’s transportation future and how best to reach more community members,” the site reads.
The anonymous survey first asks how the respondent feels about riding bicycles and why they feel that way. Then the survey proposes seven different taglines intended to increase bicycling in Portland. Survey takers are asked how they feel about each tagline and then they’re asked to rank their top three based on whether or not it would encourage them to ride more. Here are the seven taglines (parentheticals taken directly from PBOT):
- See your city in a new way. Bike. Explore. Portland.
- Biking – a gateway to better community. (This tagline would be accompanied by an image of a big group of people riding bicycles together.)
- Want to help reduce air pollution? It’s as easy as riding a bike.
- Want to be healthier? It’s as easy as riding a bike.
- What kind of family-time do you want? (This tagline would be accompanied by a juxtaposed image of a chaotic family car scene with a scene of a happy family bicycling.)
- Want to have more cash in your pocket? It’s as easy as riding a bike.
- A healthier, happier you. For $0.00 a gallon. Ride a bike.
I haven’t heard back from PBOT about this survey, and I don’t think it’s had an official public launch yet (or if it will get one). However, it is likely part of a marketing effort BikePortland reported about late last year. In November 2024, PBOT Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller unveiled a plan to get Portland cycling again. By his estimation, a major factor needed to create a resurgence of cycling in Portland is to simply make it more popular via peer pressure and good, old-fashioned marketing. “We don’t have time to wait to build protected bike lanes on every roadway where we want them,” Geller told a meeting of PBOT’s Bicycle Advisory Committee as he made his pitch for more mass bike rides and compelling advertisements.
Geller isn’t wrong; but the devil is in the details. One reason driving has such a strong hold on Portlanders is because automakers spend billions on persuasive, inescapable marketing campaigns. It’s unclear how much PBOT will spend on this campaign and where its taglines will ultimately end up. On the survey website, PBOT hints that, “you may see [the taglines] in the future in print, on billboards, online in banner ads, or on radio/TV.”
Do any of these speak to you? Do you think these are compelling enough to break through to the masses and significantly grow the size of the pedaling pie?
Don’t forget to take the survey yourself and let PBOT know. It will be up through Sunday, June 15th.
Thanks for reading.
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I can’t say any of these is particularly good.
That’s because none of them are particularly good. There are actually people who write good copy; it’s a skill, just like traffic engineering. It does not seem to have been engaged here.
My brother’s bike shop (RIP OlyBikes) used to sell stickers that said, “I enjoy my commute, do you?” But alas no one at PBOT has considered “Enjoy your commute!” as a way to promote bicycling. I guess because a three-word slogan would be to snappy and memorable, so they decided to possibly go with a fifteen-word slogan, one that references “cash in your pocket” even though relatively few people even carry cash anymore.
WHY WHY WHY do they do stuff like this????? Is there really nobody there who understands how to engage the public???????
Stuck in traffic? You are the traffic! Ride yer bike
“We don’t have time to wait to build protected bike lanes on every roadway where we want them” – Roger Geller
I am all for more people biking! And I took the survey. But, I am a bit disappointed to see pbot planning to spend who know how much money in a pr campaign. The world has changed in the last five years. We can’t focus on returning to a pre-pandemic lifestyle. Instead, we need to adapt as a city. Part of that is acknowledging that for most residents, biking doesn’t feel safe enough in most parts of the city.
PBOT continues to put sharrows down and unprotected bike lanes and pretend this is bike infrastructure. The time is now for PBOT to commit to only building protected lanes moving forward that accommodate people 8-80 in feeling safe while using the lanes.
IMHO this survey is a waste of money and the campaign is a waste of time. I’d rather see pbot put it’s limited funds toward building effective bike infrastructure, which will increase bike ridership.
Hey Liz, I’m sure you’re not the only one who feels this way.
Technically, PBOT did commit to this back during the days of Leah Treat in 2016. Who knows what happened to that.
I have a few questions:
1) What is the intention of these signs? Is it to increase mode share? If so what is the evidence that signs will have any effect?
“We don’t have time to wait to build protected bike lanes on every roadway where we want them” – Roger Geller
2) This statement is both nonsensical as well as a truism, depending on how you see it. AKA, the problem is so big it’s unsolvable. It’s widely known we have very little money to build PBLs and divertors. But that is not the elephant in the room. The problem is political will. Are the signs then meant to build political will? Would they not be better directed at the mayor and council members?
3) What would be a functional (measurable) objective that PBOT can do instead that would have a potential effect on mode share? Pairing Sunday parkways with the Bike Bus is a fantastic first step to admitting there is a solvable problem (i.e., there is no separated network outside downtown). Take the next step PBOT. Use whatever funds to separate X# of intersections on those routes starting from downtown.
Not building all the protected bike lanes on every roadway is an equation for the overwhelmed and defeated. Relying on marketing is just lying to ourselves more. Expanding what exists is a measurable and workable solution that can have immediate effects.
COTW!
This is truly a question and not an argument. Is safety the reason people don’t bike? I’m not trying to say everything is safe and we don’t need to improve anything, but safety concerns are just not something I hear from my friends. I recognize this is all anecdotal, and in the end it’s probably a combination of things, but I know people that live next to easy, good routes and will still drive short distances instead of bike. I have a theory that people just find it inconvenient and above all else are impatient.
I know someone who used to bike a lot, and lives just off Clinton and works downtown. He basically has a dedicated bikeway all the way to work. He drives. My collection of anecdotes (this being one) also don’t suggest safety is the primary issue.
If PBOT had been building protected bike lanes for the past 10-20 years, there would now be a safe(r) bike network that would be more appealing than traffic-choked busy streets. Then, people would choose to bike instead of drive, as it is finally _more_ convenient. Instead PBOT hasn’t done enough, the streets are more dangerous than ever, and people still drive.
Your post assumes that safety is the primary consideration regarding mode choice, an assumption that Eric was explicitly challenging.
Why do you think bike riding rates are primarily determined by safety rather than the other factors people might consider when choosing how to get some place? If safety isn’t paramount, then building protected bike lanes would not change ridership levels much. Why have we observed rates of riding falling in Portland even as we have built more and safer bike infrastructure (even if it isn’t protected bike lanes)?
Safety is the reason I bike a lot less now than I used to. Between the increase in unsafe driving and the total lack of safe bicycle parking, it’s easier on my nerves to just walk or take the bus.
For our Bike Bus Wayfinding pilot, we didn’t like what PBOT proposed. We spoke up and asked for much more direct signage, that told drivers what to do, instead of wishy-washy language like ‘Look out for kids biking’, ‘Thanks for driving safely’.
So we suggested “Kids Biking, Do Not Pass”, “Use Alternate Route”, etc. They listened, and we got some good signs out of it!
If you don’t like these taglines (I don’t), I would encourage you to 1) post your own, and 2) tell PBOT why you don’t like what they have.
Did the signs work well and was the backstop a big serious bus to back it up? Drivers need more substantial reinforcement, physically there here and now. Once they realize its serious, for real and can’t get away you will have their attention before they can squirt around and dodge away. Anything that allows them to get away or go around is not effective. This is all the normal touchy, feely, suggestion BS. It sounds like we should use, co-opt yours with the school/kids changed to stop, wait, do not pass, use main, alternate route, thoroughfare, etc, etc. No platitudes or anything that lets them do their normal crap without thinking about it.
Its interesting, I live and ride mainly in East county, Mall 205, David Douglas, Glendoveer, Parkrose, Gateway, Maywood park, Rocky Butte, Mount Tabor, Montavilla, Laurelhurst, 205 bike path, Springwater trail and plenty more.
Knock on wood, I have very very few close calls, I do not cut cars any slack but respect them well. I travel like a car and move like one with them when needed, most and even the drivers that you can tell don’t respect anyone else usually respond well when I assert myself, I look them in the eye, use a hand signal if warranted and purposefully make the move, turn, lane change etc with little or no drama. I do almost always ride alone, wear a helmet and mirror with 3 lights and cameras both front and rear, 24/7, 365, period.
So I don’t really know what it takes overall, closer to town is of course more of a challenge, especially in traffic but I do mostly the same with maybe a bit more vigilance but take the lane more, give more direct stern looks and become a hard to hit moving target when it makes sense.
Tangential question, what camera do you use?
Welcome to Portland.
Please ditch the car.
I like mine better: Welcome to Portland, Now Get on your Bike!
Or the ever jolly “This bike is a pipe bomb.” I never understood that one, but it sounded fun!
PS If you have to tell someone something is sexy… it’s not.
Ha! I have never disagreed with you more strongly about anything Watts. Cycling is so sexy. Some folks just don’t think of it that way at first. That sticker was very popular BTW!
Perhaps so, in which case it should be self-evident.
That was a band, I believe from Florida, in the early 2000s
Love that last one, “If you were riding, you’d be happy now.”
I was never happy on Trimet or car commuting and even motorcycling commuting wasn’t fun, but the times I worked someplace I could take my bike on the MAX which let me cut out the bus connections I was actually happy while biking and I enjoyed talking to other people at work about cycling when they saw my bike in the corner. FWIW I think this is something to emphasize a lot as I suspect none of the other car or trimet commuters are happy commuting that way.
Thanks Jake9 (and others). That last one was inspired by signs outside condos and apartment buildings I would always see off freeways growing up in Orange County, California: “If you lived here, you’d be home by now.”
Last one is my fave.
The city should listen to Jonathan! I also love the last one and think it’s way better than any of the slogans in the survey.
I took the survey and got slightly different taglines that the ones above. Interesting that they’re already adjusting them. Overall, though, I agree that this was probably a waste of money that would’ve been better spent on infrastructure or staff salary. Secondly, the best PR governments do are usually from clever/funny/witty young people who want to hone their marketing skills and get some good portfolio material (I’m thinking about the Oklahoma Dept of Wildlife’s twitter/x feed). That would be a better use of the funds used on this survey: hire a young person who loves biking to make some cute social media posts. I watched a tiktok video the other day from a person who lives here using the “propaganda I’m not falling for this year” format and one of them was BIKING! I died a little!
Put the taglines on some actual hard infrastructure, steel bollards, concrete barriers and planters, stuff in the street that physically excludes cars from bikeways. It’s not like we haven’t seen Paris JFDI.
I’m really glad PBOT is doing this; what cycling in Portland really needs is a good tagline, especially one that reeks of smug.
PS Claude suggested “Bike: Because adulting is hard enough without finding parking” (the best from a long list of awful).
What a waste of money! PBOT can’t afford to sweep the bike lanes yet has $$ to spend on PR? Ridiculous.
“Marketing seen as key to our return to glory.”
There’s still a lot of good stuff in Portland but it’s gonna take a LOT more than marketing for Portland to return to glory.
And there you have described two opposing camps. Some people think its all just a PR problem.
The “Say nice things about Portland” crowd are the absolute worst.
It’s the not-nice things that we need to talk about.
“On the survey website, PBOT hints that, “you may see [the taglines] in the future in print, on billboards, online in banner ads, or on radio/TV.”
But not on the roadways? Instead of the money spent on this survey and the money spent on this insignificant PR, I think a better allocation of funds would be to expand the “Bikes May Use Full Lane” signage to all neighborhood greenways.
It would be a small action, but it would create a cohesive, system-wide understanding of the greenways as a place which genuinely prioritizes bike users on these roadways.
PBOT’s own language defines neighborhood greenways as “streets that prioritize people walking, bicycling, and rolling.”
Separately, I’ve become less enamored with bike-exclusive campaigns by PBOT. As the greenways definition states, those streets prioritize a coalition of distinct travelers.
If bike users, pedestrians, and those that roll are regularly split into camps, it feels like the messaging becomes unnecessarily splayed and these groups can be unintentionally seen or treated (perhaps unintentionally) as rivals.
Generally, I think those walking, bicycling, and rolling in a city the size of Portland share the same sentiment that they would like to walk, bike, and roll in a safer environment. It also seems logical that an urban area which wishes to seriously promote non-auto modes of travel would improve infrastructure and conditions for all of these groups concurrently.
So this Matt. Thank you. This should be the main argument used for separated bike lanes as well. Call them “slow lanes” or whatever. It’s not necessarily for bikes. It’s for everyone going slow relative to cars. People aren’t “cyclists” or “drivers.” Most people just want to get where they are going in a safe, reasonable and comfortable way. Separating those spaces is as easy as putting a big rock and some paint in the road. It’s not a lack of funding.
I’d wager the large majority of motorist driving on a greenway don’t know or care what a greenway is.
Cars are the top prioritized mode of transportation on almost every single street in Portland, outside of a few section of greenway where PBOT has mustered the political will to mildly inconvenience motorists with traffic diverters.
Motorists respond to hard infrastructure only. “Greenways” will only genuinely prioritize non-motorists when PBOT installs traffic diverters to keep motorists from using greenways as through streets.
Speed bumps with cutouts for cars in the middle and signs don’t do a thing.
Yikes. Is this what PBOT is spending time and resources on? Peer pressure and marketing campaigns to get folks cycling? This is such an outdated and ineffective approach, that does not seem to understand the true barriers to cycling.
Yeah, couldn’t agree more. PBOT sucks. I mean, Portland is the best North American city in which I’ve ever cycled, but that’s certainly not PBOT’s doing. I mean, just because there are bikeways to every corner of the city (that I ride often), doesn’t mean that PBOT is doing a good job. Yes, I know lowering speed limits all over town and taking away travel lanes has brought speeds down, but you’d can’t credit PBOT with that. After all, what do they know. All those bike lanes and neighborhood greenways. Sheesh. Yeah, PBOT sucks. Now, excuse me. I’m going out to take another thoroughly enjoyable bike ride in this city that’s really good for bicycling despite the last 40 years of concerted effort by the city transportation agency. PBOT sucks.
This makes me so mad. Take that money and get the glass and overgrown vegetation out of the bike lanes and more people may want to bike.
Visual – A cyclist passing stalled traffic
Caption – You’re having more fun than they are
“Biking–its fun and safer than you think, its not just for athletes”
I know thats essentially what my ex used to convince me to start riding a bike as an adult.
But is it safer than you think? I don’t know about that anymore.
There seem to be way more cars on the road than there were before, I don’t know where they all came from but they often don’t seem all that nice, or sober.
Would PR get me to change my mind on that? I mean we can all see the crazies on the road and camping on the bikepaths for ourselves–and all the stolen bikes.
Save money, get excercise, have fun.
I agree with Watts; a lot of these taglines come across as smug at worst and dated at best. PBOT should recruit some of the local food/event social media influencers to promote cycling. TriMet has been doing that and reception has been pretty positive. I think I remember one guy who did ‘bus to brews’ and just did a little tour of breweries around town using transit. Something like that, but for riding a bike. Cycling for fun helped me find good routes around my neighborhood and became a gateway to using the bike for more practical errands, including commuting. Maybe that could be a BikeLoud project? Or BikePortland x Food Influencer collab? Lol.
I also agree with Matt, more “Bikes May Use Full Lane” on greenways and sharrows on common bike routes (eg. SE 24th, SE 21st Clinton->Powell, SE 76th) could go a long way toward making bike routes more visible to drivers and potential riders alike.
Sharrows are the bike-related thing
we spend money on that I have the least faith in, as a rider. That’s a feeling, just one person’s opinion. I don’t like riding over speed bumps but they do slow some drivers, intermittently, a little. They’re annoying and some people might choose to take another route to avoid them.
If anyone has data that support the use of sharrows I’d be interested in that. If we’re going to have sharrows, focus a PR campaign on ‘what are those things on the street?’ because it’s not at all intuitive. I’m sure there’s been messaging somewhere about sharrows but it’s stale. (I see that my phone doesn’t know what sharrows are either.)
Good question Robert. Sharrows seem to be a mixed bag at best. Here’s the perspective of a Dutch engineer. From the research I’ve read, it really depends on where you put them. The “traffic safety perspective” viewed as a given in some other developed countries, isn’t all that accepted in the US (and Portland). We still skew avid cyclist in the US and that tends to make people shy away from physical separation (e.g., “Just take the lane!”), and informs sharrow placement.
In general, placing sharrows on a wide, high traffic road en lieu of a separated bike lane is just asking for people to be hurt (and teaching drivers to ignore those markings). But placing them somewhere that indicates to drivers that there will be a slow (<15mph), shared place such as a pedestrian zone might be a benefit.
One achilles heel I often see in our greenways: width.
In the US people tend to believe in personal decisions leading to biking behavior, and that’s true to some extent. But road design limits choices, and leads to safer outcomes.
The research isn’t all that robust, but one study out of Chicago compared bike lanes and sharrows:
But again, it really depends on where DOTs decide to put sharrows.
Any PBOT or City of Portland sign should speak as if that agency is using its voice.
Message that contain persuasive arguments disembody the message so that it sounds like it could be coming from anyone.
A huge obstacle for many people who are starting to bike or who rarely bike is that they feel awkward or out of place often when they are biking.
I would like to see a simple message from PBOT directly saying that they, the entire agency and city, want people to bike and support them, now and forever.
The message could be as simple as “Biking is Better” with a big PBOT logo on the sign.
“Biking is Better” is one of the few slogans here that doesn’t seem either smarmy or just plain dumb.
These are all depressingly bad, seems no one with knowledge of marketing or persuasion was involved in their formation.
A tagline expressing that Portland has solved both rampant bike theft, and the usage of our bike lanes as gravel/glass/refuse containment, along with the policies to back these claims up, would go a long way towards people getting into the saddle.
“We don’t have time to wait to build protected bike lanes on every roadway where we want them.” I am so tired of hearing about how there isn’t money or time to “build infrastructure” that would save lives. Because, as PBOT might figure out if their priority was the health and wellbeing of humans, we actually don’t need to build protected bike lanes. We can just need to bar motor vehicles from existing streets. Any street without motor vehicles is way safer for bicyclists, pedestrians, skaters, and wheelchair users. And these streets already exist! No time needed to add them! Say it with me, PBOT, “let’s devote roadways to human safety and not to speeding vehicles!”