Are you a frog, chameleon, turtle, manatee, sloth, slug or snail? It all depends on which route you choose for the first-ever Sunday Parkways Bike Bus.
As I reported back in May, the Portland Bureau of Transportation is pulling out all the stops for their upcoming event downtown on September 14th. Since the focus is downtown revitalization and the event coincides with a Travel Portland “staycation” promotional campaign, PBOT is going the extra mile by offering seven guided group rides from Portland neighborhoods to the downtown parkways loop.
“We want all Portlanders to learn how to confidently bike from their homes to downtown any day of the year,” PBOT said in a statement. They launched the campaign with Mayor Keith Wilson and other city leaders at an event downtown this morning. The event also included special guest Mike Bennett. Bennett is a Portland artist famous for his traffic calming critters and he teamed up with PBOT to create seven new characters for the bike bus routes.
PBOT will offer guided rides both to and from Sunday Parkways. This is a perfect opportunity to do your first ride into downtown in a safe environment! Here are the seven bike bus stops:
- North Portland: The Frog Route will depart at Arbor Lodge Park
- Northeast Portland: The Snail Route will start at Khunamokwst Park
- East Portland: The Slug Route will depart at Columbia Inclusive Regional Services
- Southeast Portland: The Sloth Route will depart East Portland Community Center
- Sellwood Ride: The Manatee Route will depart from Sellwood Park & Miller
- Southwest Portland: The Turtle Route will depart Rieke Elementary/Ida B Wells Parking Lot, Vermont Entrance
- Northwest Portland: The Chameleon Route will depart Wallace Park at NW Pettygrove and 26th
Let’s pack downtown and show everyone that Portland is the greatest cycling city in the world!
— Learn more about Sunday Parkways here.
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Nice cross-town network. Maybe PBOT ought to take the next step and make these into cross-town major bike routes, complete with diverters, severe car traffic restrictions, and prioritized treatments like barrier-protected bike lanes?
I’m very encouraged that PBOT is taking these steps to start the conversation about the most important routes to the largest population center from each inner neighborhood. This is a huge step in admitting there’s a problem regarding which projects PBOT prioritizes. If most kids are only able to ride inner Ankeny, E Broadway, NE 7th etc. once or twice a year, it begs the question: “Network for who?”
PBOT will propose these measures, but then the vehicular cyclists will show up to Forrestersplain why actually the routes are fine as is bro just ride with the cars bro trust me
And for those of us coming in from Westside… zoo bomb!
Way to go! Seven ways, even! Fabulous!
“Let’s pack downtown and show everyone that Portland is the greatest cycling city in the world!”
LOL! Is a packed special one-time bike event all it takes?
No, but it could inspire some people to get on their bikes more. Could also help to build the association between bikes and sales with small business owners who are most often the barrier to good infrastructure.
Interesting that PBOT is tackling the sociocultural aspect of cycling instead of their usual focus (or lack of focus?) on infrastructure.
Why do a “turtle” route from SW? The selected route will make inexperienced cyclists climb Vermont and then descend and climb 2-3 times on Terwilliger. Why not take cyclists down Bertha and then glide down Barbur? That’s a much easier route. But wait! – could planners be avoiding Barbur due to the lack of a continuous bike lane over the two bridges? Probably. Still, I don’t think an infrequent rider is gonna love the Terwilliger route and want to ride it regularly. That’s a work-out ride.
You make a good point. If the future, it would be cool to do a ‘temporary pilot’ bike path on Barbur using those orange water-filled jersey barriers that you see on construction sites. Surely they could repurpose a Northbound vehicle lane for a weekend without the world ending.
I agree with you but I’m sure ODOT doesn’t. Losing one lane on Barbur – even temporarily – would be armageddon for them.
ODOT closes I-5 and I-405 for Bridge Pedal every year.
Oh good. Then see if they’ll close a lane of Barbur, just for one day, or an hour of one day, for this event. Betcha twenty bucks they won’t.
ODOT does stuff for Bridge Pedal cuz they have to, basically.
What are we betting on? Whether I, as a regular citizen, could get ODOT go close Barbur by asking nicely? Or whether PBOT could do so by providing flaggers, barricades, and offering to cover any associated costs and liabilities?
Traffic aside, I’m not sure I would want to lead a group of inexperienced riders down a long hill like Barbur in any case, especially if I could somehow be held responsible if things went wrong.
Why does ODOT have to do anything for Bridge Pedal?
If you’re coming from Hillsdale, it makes way more sense in terms of mileage and elevation to take Capitol Hwy and Barbur than it does Terwilliger. You don’t even need to deal with the Barbur bridges since Capitol Hwy puts you downhill of them.
From Ida B Wells to i405:
Terwilliger 4.1 miles +177 ft / -519 ft
Barbur 2.7 miles +0 ft / -352 ft
Great point but from Reike you still have a pretty good climb in Hillsdale itself, plus the descent to the ramp on Capitol is pretty tight and cyclists have to take the lane there. I’ve done it many times and I’m not very comfortable in that spot, so novices might really struggle with it.
Interesting that the Chameleon route chooses the far more stressful NW 19th over the greenway one block over (NW 20th). I wonder why that could be?
Must be the “crime” and “nuisance behavior” on 20th lol
Is there still a greenway there? Will there be one still in September?
Wow – this is awesome except for they don’t know how timing bike rides works. They really need to be clear – Bike ride gathering and departure times are needed.
I’m sad to see the downtown route so small, perhaps when filled up won’t even allow for biking, making it look more like the Hawthorne Fair. It chould have been like the other Sunday Parkways, with one major stop at S Portland and the other at NW Portland
Saw this road marking yesterday on the newish Everett greenway extension at 78th. I thought it might have something to do with Parkways but it doesn’t appear to overlap. I wonder if it’s related to those bike signs put up in Ladds recently or if it’s something more official. Either way it looks nice.
It’s part of the bike bus wayfinding pilot:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/walking-biking-transit-safety/safe-routes/bike-bus-wayfinding
I volunteered to help with one of the inbound rides from SW to downtown. In the first online orientation session, I asked about what measures PBOT was planning to help cyclists through tough spots along the route where bike lanes either disappear or are pretty sketchy. To my surprise, PBOT plans to do little to nothing. Riders will essentially be on their own as they are any other day. Apparently, it won’t be “a perfect opportunity to do your first ride into downtown in a safe environment!” I appreciate PBOT’s fiscal situation and desire to minimize expenditures, but in addition to being inappropriate for safety reasons, we are likely to make the rides to/from downtown stressful, moving “interested but concerned” bicyclists into the “no way” category.