BikeLoud wants to boost DIY bike lane sweeping effort

Portland’s grassroots response to the challenging problem of leaves in bike lanes continues to evolve. At a virtual meeting hosted by a local bike advocacy group tomorrow, folks will come together to brainstorm new ways to scale up the effort.

BikeLoud PDX is organizing the meeting and it comes after years of testing ways of empowering local cyclists to pick up leaves, gravel, and other debris themselves. While the City of Portland has improved their response to the annual slippery mess in recent years by purchasing smaller sweepers and investing in the staff to operate them, there are simply too many leaves for city workers to clean up. And the annual Leaf Day Pickup program has made the problem even more acute as hundreds of property owners intentionally blow and rake leaves into bike lanes in advance of pickup by city crews (despite education efforts by the transportation bureau).

To combat the problem, Portlanders have begun sweeping lanes themselves — and the technology and ingenuity have advanced considerably in the past few years. In 2018 BikePortland shared one local man’s invention that attached several swiveling brooms onto a bike trailer. It was a valiant prototype, but something with more sweeping power was needed.

Then in 2022 I highlighted an invention from Californian Pierre Lermant. He’d just completed a working prototype of his Bike Lane Sweeper product and he reached out to BikePortland to see if any local groups wanted to test one out. BikeLoud answered the call.

Fast forward three years and BikeLoud has worked closely with Lermant (and his partner Cedric Everleigh) to help push the design of the Bike Lane Sweeper forward. BikeLoud also loans out the sweeper and maintains an active online communication platform where volunteers coordinate locations and other details. Other local sweeping technology has evolved as well.

One year ago I introduced you to Michael Reiss, a BikeLoud volunteer who embraced the challenge and has been working on various sweeper prototypes of his own ever since. Reiss maintains a website for BikeLoud’s sweeping program that includes specifications of all the sweeping contraptions he’s built, a how-to guide for using the Bike Lane Sweeper, and a map where he marks off routes that have been swept.

With years of testing and use under their belts, BikeLoud and their amazing volunteers are confident the sweepers work. They also know there’s demand for them all over the city. All that’s missing are more volunteers and a sustainable budget to keep the wheels turning.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, November 25th), BikeLoud is hosting their first meeting, “to discuss a sweeper budget and ideas for increasing sweeping efficiency.” The goal is to inspire more folks to create sweeping devices of their own and/or to buy more bike lane sweepers.

This is an exciting niche in the bike advocacy world that’s really poised for growth. If you’re intrigued, attend tomorrow’s Sweeper Zoom, join BikeLoud’s Slack channel and/or stay tuned to BikePortland for updates.