Welcome to the week. There is so much going on beyond the cycling and transportation world that demands our attention. I hope some of you were able to take part in community-building and/or service work yesterday for Martin Luther King Day. And I know most of you logged some sunny miles on the bike over the past three days! I’ve unfortunately been sick since Friday but am finally feeling a bit better. I should be 100% by Wednesday and look forward to seeing everyone at Bike Happy Hour.
For now, let’s take a look back at the most notable stories of the past week…
The Amish and e-bikes: Amish folks know how terrible cars are for communities, so they’ve stuck to horse-and-buggy. But an increasing amount of them are hopping on e-bikes as a way to get around. (Jalopnik)
Portland snubbed! A major national cycling nonprofit published a list of the top 10 bike lanes built in the U.S. last year and Portland’s SW 4th Avenue was not among them. Ouch. (People for Bikes)
More bus, less stop: There’s one bus service change that is cheap, fast, and effective: removing stops. I have yet to hear a good argument against having fewer stops. And for folks who bring up access issues for older and/or disabled riders, I’d say the pros (much better service overall) outweigh the cons (a few extra blocks to a stop). (Works in Progress)
New Jersey’s blunder: The governor of New Jersey signed an absurd and unprecedented bill into law that requires riders of all e-bikes — from basic Class 1s to e-motos — to be licensed and registered. It’s a worst nightmare situation. (NJ.com)
Sound Transit deep dive: An excellent look at the ups and downs of Seattle’s Sound Transit as it builds out its light rail network and experiences ridership growth, while being criticized for not building fast enough. (Bloomberg Citylab)
All eyes on Salem: It will be fascinating to see what happens in the transportation funding debate during the upcoming short session. This article is a good overview on where things stand at the moment. (The Oregonian)
Two-way streets are better for humans: I hope some influential folks in Oregon read this story about how cities across the country are converting one-way streets back to two-way streets. It’s always bugged me how many downtown main streets across Oregon are suffering because of one-way thoroughfares. (AP)
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
Thanks for reading.
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The article about bus stop spacing was such a good read and something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Bus stops in Portland are so close together! For example, from SE 12th to SE 82nd, the FX2 (the project the article is probably referencing) has 12 stops. In the same distance, the 9 has 23! During rush hour the bus is stopping as pretty much every stop. That’s crazy and also why it’s faster for me to take the FX2 most of the time even though I live south of Powell.
Given TriMet’s budget situation I’d love to see them do a system-wide stop cull to streamline their operations and make bus service more reliable.
TriMet planners know all this, and it is beyond me why they don’t pick the low hanging fruit already.
My best guess is TriMet is “saving” it for a bigger project (like converting the #2 to the FX) so it can show a bigger payoff and justify the project cost. If they’ve already culled the stops on the #9, harvesting 75% of the benefit of a bigger project for free, it would be harder to justify doing the remaining 25% that would actually cost money.
In other words, gaming the funding streams trumps providing better service. TriMet’s interests do not always align with those of riders.
The cynical part of me agrees with you.
I’m sure it’s more nuanced though. I think some of it is probably just the sticking power of tradition. “We’ve always had those stops there so we have to keep them there!” Maybe partially a disconnect between management and operators & riders – in that upper management doesn’t use transit and feels pressure to keep stops because when they close them, people complain.
“Coverage” could also play a role here. My friend works for a transit agency in a smaller city and some of their funding is based on the amount of “coverage” they provide. One way they do that is by adding more stops to lines so that on paper, they are serving more households.
Trimet has (or maybe had by now) a group of employees dedicated to development, yes, development along the train lines. A task they are completely ill suited for and a waste of time, tax money, and effort by them. There are already several City bureaus that can do the same, better with little extra cost. But we have to remember, it’s not about servicing transportation customers, it’s about bringing in money to feed the construction and legal professions in Portland. Goldschmidt really knew what he was doing when he brought the trains to Portland.
The need to develop all the goddamn parking lots along MAX. It’s crazy that all along the Blue/Red lines there’s oceans of parking that get more frequent train service than many of the most urban neighborhoods around the metro area.
When TriMet installed the Orange Line, they acquired a number of properties along 17th between Powell and McLoughlin, a prime transit-adjacent inner city corridor within walking distance of a reawakening commercial district, perfect for high density housing. Instead, they built parking lots for TriMet employees, and there is no new housing along that stretch (and only one new building anywhere closer in). It’s mostly wasteland, and the Orange Line has so few riders that they’re able to replace train service with buses in the evenings (and, probably during most of the day if they wanted to).
And since they were redoing everything, they could have built sidewalk-level bike lanes essentially for free, but ignored the pleas of the cycling community and opted for a conventional bike lane instead.
I take the 9 in to work some days and good lord, I want to scream when we stop at 69th, then 67th, then 65th. I think there’s a 40th and 39th stop, too. Also 34th and 33rd? I will get off a stop early (sometimes two if it’s nice out) if someone else is taking that stop and walk a little farther just so I don’t feel like I’m slowing everyone else down by making the bus stop yet again a couple blocks later. I hate feeling like I’m putting people out and I almost need to apologize for taking my stop.
The 17 is the same way (along Holgate at least). Often, if I get off a stop early just as you describe, I’ll just about catch up to bus as someone requests a stop two blocks later.
“Portland Snubbed” A quick scroll through the featured projects show complete street designs that integrate space for bikes. They include landscaping, street trees and stormwater, pedestrian-scaled lighting, benches, and [place-making elements. They all seem like far better projects than Portland’s 4th Avenue project. I don’t think Portland was snubbed, it just failed to compete. 4th Ave is ugly- there is not landscape and no place for people beyond the most utilitarian use on a bike. There is no art or benches or interpretive signs. The buffers are expanses of concrete that are not ADA- accessible. Despite rebuilding extensive portions of the road, stormwater still pools and flow in the bike lanes. After looking at this collection of projects, I think the tagline should be “Portland Shamed” instead of “Portland Snubbed”
Agree.
On 4th, I could take a full-width traffic lane all to myself, and could easily ride side-by-side with a friend; now I can get about half the space, single file.
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, but the loss of space, turn options, flexibility, and the increased risk of hooks is measurable. The wildly varying intersection treatments and signage won’t instill confidence in the 8-80 crowd, and I confidently predict a very tiny increase in the number of 8 year-olds riding from PSU into the heart of Portland’s downtown.
Ok, I’m not going to be obstinate and argue with you about 4th because it’s clear we will never agree.
Can you tell me a bike lane project that PBOT has built recently that you do like?
““Making our roads safer for all users has been a key priority for my Administration,” the [Governor] said.”
A quick Google check of the numbers…
“In 2025, New Jersey saw a decrease in overall traffic fatalities, but pedestrian and cyclist deaths remained a significant concern, with one source noting 131 pedestrian deaths by late 2025 compared to 96 the prior year, highlighting issues with infrastructure and vehicle size.”
“One of the most alarming aspects of New Jersey’s traffic fatality data is the increasing number of deaths among pedestrians and cyclists. So far this year, pedestrian deaths in New Jersey have climbed to 131, compared to 96 in the same period last year. The death toll among cyclists has also increased, from 14 to 17. This spike comes after a modest reduction in pedestrian deaths from 2022 to 2023, puzzling experts who hoped for a continued downward trend.
Pam Fischer, former director of the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety, highlights several factors contributing to this increase: a lack of safe infrastructure, like protected bike lanes and pedestrian crossings, combined with the prevalence of high-speed, multi-lane highways through densely populated areas.
Right turns on red lights, larger vehicles like SUVs and pickup trucks, and increased driver impairment are also contributing factors, Fischer notes.”
Yeah, the e-bikes are definitely the problem here.
Anybody riding eastside MAX for the first time immediately recognizes the slog of stopping four times between Rose Quarter and Holladay Park just to cover half a mile. It has been nearly 14 years since Willamette Week pointed out that Portland Streetcar was slower than walking. Transit users know intuitively that spacing matters.
It really feels like the powers that be are the last people to know, whether it’s Streetcar conceding the point ten years ago or TriMet cutting the Skidmore Fountain stop last year.
A number of years ago the 7th ave stop was closed due to the construction of the apartment building next to it. While it was closed, stupidly the train still stopped there. Then after a moment moved on.
During that time the 7th Ave stop was not missed at all and could have been closed. Well, nope, there’s a TriMet office (or was) near there and their poor employees were incapable of walking to Convention Center or Lloyd Center stops instead like they had to during the closure. I heard that, not in those exact words, from a TriMet employee at the time.
They should close 7th and the convention center stops. Con goers can get off at Rose Quarter and walk.
They should close the Convention Center stop. It is one block from Rose Quarter.
To be fair to Portland Streetcar, they did close some stops that you can see the remaining platforms of. In my opinion the biggest change that would speed up the streetcar is actual transit signal priority. I swear it ends up stopping at every red light.
There really isn’t any justification for the Convention Center stop, when the Rose Quarter stop is just over two blocks away and serves the Convention Center just as well.
I’m not clear on whether there’s a good justification for the Lloyd Center station anymore either, since Lloyd Center itself is basically a ghost mall these days.
Regarding converting mid-last-century one-way stroud highways back to two way arterials…Hillsboro is the best local ‘poster-street’ for the struggle to accomplish this thru multiple failed starts. Vancouver would be another with its Washington Street ‘broken couplet’ (Broadway to McLoughlin to Washington) remanent still hanging on in all of its stroad-ness.
https://engage.hillsboro-oregon.gov/or8-oak-baseline-10th