Could paying organizers to blanket neighborhoods with groups rides and a marketing campaign that spreads the good word about bicycling spur a Portland cycling renaissance? That’s a key question some advocates, insiders, and at least one Portland city council member are seriously pondering this week as ideas swirl around City Hall for how best to spend a $15 million chunk of climate tax revenue.
This funding is being debated as the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability goes through its annual adjustment of the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) Climate Investment Plan (CIP). The PCEF Committee has recommended an adjustment that would transfer $15 million from electric vehicle subsidies to home energy retrofits. But that change isn’t final and councilors see an opportunity to chart a different path for that funding. You might recall my story last month about how City Councilor Mitch Green wants to use the $15 million to backfill TriMet’s budget and rescue them from “doom loop” of service cuts.
Now Councilor Steve Novick, who has a history of pushing for higher transportation spending from the PCEF tax, has come forward with an idea of his own. This issue was first discussed at the City Council Climate, Resilience, and Land Use Committee on January 15th and a more robust conversation is planned for the next meeting on January 29th.
One of the ideas Novick supports is based on an intriguing plan to boost bicycle ridership first covered by BikePortland in November 2024. It’s an idea championed by noted bike planner Roger Geller, who’s led the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s bicycle program for over 30 years. Here’s the gist: Geller and Novick believe that since the bike network has improved dramatically in the past decade while ridership has cratered, what’s needed now is a grassroots effort to get people to actually use it.
In 2024 Geller told the city’s bicycle advisory committee: “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.”
The idea came and went for most of us, but Geller has never stopped thinking about it. Now with the opportunity for funding presented by PCEF, the plan’s moment in the spotlight has arrived.
At last week’s Climate Committee meeting (which Novick co-chairs), Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Jim Middaugh hinted at the plan: “We have a world-class system that gets people on their bikes. There is clearly opportunities for more investment to make that system better, but we can also make the most of it today by encouraging people to bike.”
Due to his role as BAC chair, Middaugh has certainly been privy to renewed interest in Geller’s plan from Councilor Novick. One element of the plan — that appears to be just one part of a more fleshed-out and formalized version of Geller’s 2024 memo — was posted on the BikeLoud Slack channel by bike bus advocate Rob Galanakis a few days ago. It reads:
This effort will see PBOT contract with an organization who will enlist coaches who will be responsible for lead rides and encourage participation. Each coach would be responsible for an area that encompasses 1 square mile or approximately 4,500 households.
Coaches would:
- Lead regularly scheduled, advertised rides in neighborhoods throughout a project target area. Rides would reliably leave daily from set locations at set times.
- Promote the rides throughout their assigned area of the project target area. Promotion would be in the form of door-to-door canvassing, putting up flyers in neighborhood destinations and attending events and public meetings.
- Depending on scale, the effort could reach up to 181,000 of Portland’s 304,000 households in the following neighborhoods: Central City, Interstate Corridor, Lents-Foster, Montavilla, Hollywood, MLK-Alberta, Belmont-Hawthorne-Division, Woodstock and Sellwood-Moreland-Brooklyn.
As you can see, the plan would be akin to a get-out-the-vote campaign, but for cycling. And this is just one element of the bike marketing plan. If what Novick’s cooking up tracks with Geller’s 2024 vision, it would also include a few high-visibility network improvements, a professional marketing campaign, and demonstrations of political support. I hope to share the full plan soon so you can see the whole enchilada and make your judgments based on that. But for now, what are your general thoughts about this approach?
Councilor Novick sounds like he wants to give it a try. “I tend to agree with Roger that since infrastructure has improved somewhat over the last decade but ridership has plummeted, we should at least consider some non-infrastructure ideas,” he told me yesterday.
Novick says we can expect an in-depth discussion about this and other ideas for how best to spend the $15 million, at the Climate Committee meeting next week (January 29th). Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.
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You mean PCEF money, which was intended for transition to clean energy (the CE in PCEF), not marketing bike riding in Portland.
We’ve done stuff like this before, and we know it doesn’t work. The rise and fall of biking in Portland is not a marketing issue; it’s one of cultural trends, and there is nothing sadder than the government trying to make something cool.
If Portland wants to fight climate change, we should be putting all our money into heat pumps, home insulation, and electrifying any engines running on fossil fuel (reserving maybe $15M or so for a marketing campaign to make veganism cool).
Hi. This comment seems to really expose your bias against bikes. I mean, what would you call a “transition to clean energy” if not getting more people to ride bikes instead of use cars? It’s not even a debate whether PCEF should help bike riding in Portland, it’s just a clear fact. It already funds all types of bike-related things.
Also, I disagree that we’ve done this type of thing before. I’ve followed biking in Portland pretty closely for 20+ years and can’t remember anything like this being proposed.
And if you think cultural trends just happen organically I have some bad news for you about how marketing works.
And PCEF puts a ton of money into home energy retrofits, and that’s great. Also worth noting that transportation is the #1 GHG emission source and this particular $15 million was initially allocated to the transportation category (not the home energy category)
I ride a lot and I think bikes are great. I am part of a multigenerational bike family. I am not biased against bikes. I am biased in favor of getting results.
Every time we piss away another chunk of PCEF money on things like sweeping streets or marketing bicycling, we lose a chance to make a real, albeit small, impact on the climate crisis.
If we could get the mastermind behind Portland’s big bike surge in the 2000s back to do it again, it would be $15M well spent. But of course we can’t, because that trend was organic, not the result of yet another hapless PBOT marketing campaign.
There’s basically one strategy that can be implemented at the city level that we know works — electrifying everything, and converting our electricity generation to renewables. Everything else is a distraction.
Roger Geller might’ve been that “mastermind”…
good to know you’re a big biking fan. Will keep that in mind when I read future comments from you. I want results too! I just think you and I see things pretty differently. I think we need to try new things and what I’m seeing in this proposal so far looks very intriguing. I also think there can be multiple paths to progress at the same time.
We should try new things! But just because they’re new doesn’t mean they’re likely to work. We need to apply a little rigor to this conversation.
See my most recent post for my attempt to do so, and why I think the marketing idea seems so ridiculously off-base. (And where I propose a much more plausibly effective use of $15M to reduce emissions.)
How do you know how much rigor has been applied to this? I happen to know that Mr. Geller has spent many years pondering how best to spur more cycling and the dude is no slouch. You haven’t even seen his plan (I shared one small part of it, will share the whole thing soon) and you are already dismissing it? I just think you should give Geller and this idea more respect. He’s a nationally recognized dude who doesn’t just spitball things on a napkin and call it good. I think it’s an extremely thoughtful and interesting idea that has merit and deserves a lot more consideration.
Because it’s marketing.
Is Roger willing to tell us how many miles of driving he expects his publicity campaign to avoid, and how he arrived at that number?
I have a lot of respect for Roger, but I think he’d be the first to tell you he has no real idea why bicycling increased so rapidly or collapsed when it did.
There is zero evidence the problem was lack of marketing.
it’s a lot more than that. Again, wait for the full plan. Marketing is one element of it, but the main expense is to hire ride leaders and have regularly scheduled rides in neighborhoods so that folks can be exposed to the existing network.
maybe because this is a sociological phenomenon and not a scientific one and therefore it cannot be precisely understood? That being said, Roger in fact does have some real ideas about why it declined. I’ve read them, have you? Not sure why you’d assume he doesn’t.
One reason to believe marketing is important is that the bulk of expense and expanse of our bike network is on n’hood greenways, which are hidden from the vast majority of people. I think our greenways are the best part of our network, but it’s a big problem when most non-biking portlanders have no idea the routes exist because they are not routes folks drive on. So therefore I believe it’s reasonable to think if we did something to educate a bunch more people about these neighborhood routes, they’d enjoy them and start using them more. Call it marketing or ride organizing, or whatever you want.
Totally agree. I love biking, but group rides aren’t going to get me to bike more when I don’t have a good bikeway connection to my destination in the winter when it’s dark out super early. I would love to see this money going to building insulation, heat pumps, etc. which is what I thought I was voting for back then.
Cycling is clean energy end of story. There is no way to word game your way out of it.
spend that money on celebrating year round bike use
Which is another way of PBOT admitting that the bike infrastructure they have (or lack) in other parts of town kinda suck.
PBOT used to to this same sort of thing with Timo Forsberg’s “Smart Trips” group back in the early 2000’s.
I think a better solution is spending $15 million to bribe outright bicyclists to ride – if you want 100,000 new riders, that would be $150 per person…
“I think a better solution is spending $15 million to bribe outright bicyclists to ride – if you want 100,000 new riders, that would be $150 per person…”
It would definitely be the more honest route, as well as more accountable of where the money was going as well as measurable.
I like the idea Novick and Geller are coming up with, it sounds a bit like a lot of bike busses for adults. However, using PCEF funds no matter how legally appropriated for a marketing campaign is just too much. If the spending goes through and no matter how much I support the end result, is there anything left that the funds can’t be appropriated to do?
I see the PCEF committee is still hiring for unpaid (but incredibly powerful having control of so much money) volunteers. We could do away with that committee and just put the money into the general fund. No more need for legal shenanigans whenever the City Council finds itself short of funds.
The bribe is actually a great idea. Maybe there’s an app, and every ride you log to an event or work gets you a free meal, drink, $ payment, voucher, etc. Once you ride to work a few times you gain the motivation to do it more often. A bribe would definitely be one way to get the ball rolling, and have more effect on me than yard signs or a billboard.
What would stop someone from just logging every driving trip as a cycling trip?
Some of these incentives could be given out in person, to people with/on bikes, so that would be an easy filter. As for an app-based approach, there are ways to auto-detect cheating, look up what Strava’s done with comparing distances, speeds, routes, etc. Maybe you take a pic of your bike at the destination and upload that. Nothing is perfect, but I’m sure there’s a fairly simple way to make this work using existing tech and programming.
Probably not much we can do about that, since everyone logging into our theoretical app would basically have to admit they need to be bribed (or incentivized) to bike, but since Roger & Co at PBOT aren’t really interested in getting more people to bike per se, but rather being able to actually measure a significant rise in bicycling-to-work mode share, maybe we could link the app to people’s home and work addresses? Require a confirmation by their employer? (assuming they aren’t independent contractors or self-employed). Naturally we aren’t really interested in people who bike for pleasure, kiddies, retired folks, and those of us unemployed – as important as we might be – only employed people matter on mode-share, and really only those who answer the Census ACS (American Community Survey) – but no one is perfect. I did think of requiring some sort of GPS tracker for your bike, but of course anyone could throw their bike in the car and also drive to work. Maybe we could put a geotracking device linked to your phone number that excludes any mileage on freeways?
We aren’t really interested in mileage either, it’s more about the number of trips we can record and how many people claim to be biking to work versus other modes.
Given the social cost of carbon, one mile of avoided driving is worth about 10c.
Design your bribes accordingly.
Still do. Smart trips Portland. There used to be a ton of outreach aimed at people new to the neighborhood (recent movers) but not sure if this is still happening. I don’t know what the details of Roger’s idea are, but I sure hope it’s not a re-invention of something that’s been tried, and still exists to some extent. Also, the idea of spending money on mainstream media advertising just makes me want to vomit.
I dunno about the idea that infrastructure has improved thus so should ridership. Infrastructure has not improved evenly or completely, and in many cases it has been compromised to preserve car access (20s bikeway, I’m still bitter. And how about 7th Avenue?). Despite better Naito and 4th ave and NW Flanders bridge and some other good projects, it’s quite clear to the casual observer that cars still rule, so why not join them. Heck, an uber for two is usually cheaper than Biketown for two!
Step 1. Find a brick building downtown to paint a huge mural that says “Welcome to America’s Bicycle Capital”
Step 2. Pay off the Oregonian to stop writing trash anti-bike editorials.
Step 3. Obtain Kompromat on Portland Metro Chamber executives to stop them from sabotaging everything that is good.
Step 4. Hire drivers to drive the speed limit side by side on high crash corridors to slow speeding traffic and model good behavior at pedestrian crossings.
Step 5. Install a mole at a high level of ODOT.
https://bikeportland.org/2014/05/06/city-of-portland-orders-removal-of-americas-bike-capital-mural-from-downtown-wall-105559
Step 6. Put up huuuuge banners saying “Trump hates bicycles! No more cycling” and then sit back and enjoy the crowded bike lanes.
Lmao. Libs will just do the “Oh I love bicycles and support bike lanes except on this street where I want to park my 2021 RAV4 and heres 800 reasons why I can’t ride a bike and we have to think about equity and what about disabled people who can’t ride?” At least conservatives just say bikes are gay and move on.
Except Republican president George W. Bush, he at least biked. Has any other president ever been seen on a bike?
I am always enjoy your support of FSB comra-I mean, fellow honorable checkist and future PMC mole-person member. With only very small smile and your help we can make meaningful, straightforward, data-driven projects a thing of scorn!
Instead of using 15 million to quickly build via cheap materials a rudimentary, separated network connected to downtown on major corridors (e.g., Williams, Burnside, Hawthorne) like most other cities that have been successful in adding new ridership, we must attack reactionaries who doubt we have world class system! We must redistribute wealth of bike vouchery to the loyal velocipedists so they will tell us that our city is world class!
I’d be incredibly excited about the above (as opposed to Geller’s Pedalpalooza-lite green-washing).
More people won’t bike until they feel more safe on our streets.
How many diverters could we install for $15million?! Per the old BP article, the big round barrel planters can be implemented “At a cost of just $1,500 to $3,200 per installation”.
https://bikeportland.org/2021/08/03/pbots-new-concrete-barrels-on-greenways-are-a-very-big-deal-335946
Let’s go with $3k/per diverter. $15,000,000/3,000=5,000 diverters. Those could transform our greenways and other side streets into much safer spaces, that far more people would be inclined to use.
You mean the ones they removed because drivers were hitting them too often and the maintenance was too expensive?
Speaking of they removed the ones on Salmon four months ago because they were going to put in more permanent diverters/traffic calming and there’s still nothing. Why the hell did they remove them before they were prepared to start the work?
PBOTs explanations are real SUS sometimes. I’m starting to think they might not be completely honest with us.
They aren’t going to put anything back on Salmon. Their “more permanent traffic calming” is speed bumps with SUV cutouts.
Worth a shot. I do think that increased ridership creates a snowball effect (and decreased ridership too). So something to encourage more people to ride now and then, with tons of support, might have an outsized effect.
(To the crowd that likes to play dumb, bicycling is clean energy)
I know you hate it when people “play dumb” and wave their hands around using words like “outsized” and “tons” (when not referring to mass), so let’s do some math.
Using a cost of CO2 emissions of $252 per metric ton (a much higher cost than most figures I’ve seen), $15M would be the cost of emitting 60K tons of CO2.
The average passenger vehicle emits about 400 grams of CO2 per mile, which means you have to drive 2500 miles to emit one ton.
Therefore, if by spending $15M on marketing, we can divert 150M miles of driving, it will be worthwhile. Ideally we want to do better than that, but that is the break even point.
Will Roger’s marketing campaign avoid 150M miles of driving? If not, let’s do something more effective.
Here’s an idea: One serving of beef emits 15.5kg. 65 servings emits roughly one ton. PCEF could spend $38 to replace each of 390,000 servings of beef in public schools with something healthier and less emissive (an equivalent serving of chicken emits 1.82kg CO2, and tofu emits only .08kg) and break even with the cost of emissions.
Or hell, spend $19 per serving and spend the other $19 on taking the commissioners back to Austria, and we’d still come out ahead. Or go big, and spend $2 to replace a serving of beef and actually avoid some real emissions.
Can your publicity campaign do that without resorting to fantastical thinking?
https://costofcarbon.org/
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle
https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/beef
Can’t emphasize enough that those who claim
have pretty low standards. For more equitable and effective outcomes, instead of spending PCEF funding on a marketing campaign, we should invest in making dangerous bike connections safer, build more protected bike lanes, and provide financial assistance to those who can’t afford good bike gear. Even diverting these funds to Biketown to decrease the cost per ride would be better. Marketing moves won’t reach new cyclists or non-cyclists in meaningful ways because the main reasons for non-cycling are safety (real and perceived) and cost. Not whether cycling is cool, or if there are bike rides you can join
IDK man, I’m pretty skeptical this will work. I think the best way to get people on bikes is to make building housing stupid easy and really focus on bringing a wide variety of jobs back to the central city. The $15M should be spent on subsidizing things like heat pumps, rooftop solar, and good insulation for that new housing.