Welcome to Monday.
Below are the most notable stories that came across my inbox this past week…
It never goes well: Oh look, yet another out-of-touch lawmaker who proposed a bicycle user fee — only to be forced to walk it back after being informed about what a terrible idea it is. (Bicycle Retailer)
Mobility in rural Oregon: Meg Wade, author of a great article about transit in rural Oregon I shared here on the MRU last year, was a guest on a podcast where she talked about her life as a transit user. (The Detour/Oregon Humanities Podcast)
Frustration in Eugene: Two transportation planners and a city planning professor from University of Oregon penned an editorial calling for better road designs after two college students were killed while bicycling by drivers in similar circumstances. (Lookout Eugene/Springfield)
Stop with ‘on your left’: I agree with this article and am much more of a bell ringer than an “on your left” yeller. That being said, I do believe “on your left” has its place — it all depends on the context and tone. (Canadian Cycling Magazine)
Bad batteries: Another example of why it’s so important to buy e-bikes (and e-bike batteries) from trusted sources. Even Amazon is suing Chinese e-bike makers for false UL certification. (Bicycle Retailer)
They don’t want it: Some folks north of the Columbia River who don’t like the idea of MAX light rail coming into their state are proposing a taxing subdistrict that would charge only Vancouver residents for the light rail component of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program. (Clark County Today)
Far-aWaymo: Leading robotaxi operator that wants to run a fleet in Portland told uses workers based in the Philipines to assist with driving trips. What could possibly go wrong? (Futurism)
Sneckdowns FTW: Fantastic to see “sneckdowns” – the phenomenon where leftover snow outlines opportunities for street redesigns – get another 15 minutes of fame. And the article even includes a mention of the inimitable sneckdown journalist Clarence Eckerson. (New Yorker)
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.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
The Waymo thing really pisses me off. I’m too busy hitting myself with wrenches to keep up with the State Legislature, but the relevant bill is HB 4085. The Oregonian article about this was publish 2/4/26, the same day of the congressional testimony revealing the use of the use of remote operators in the Philippines. I believe the opportunity for public comment was today and, as I sit here rocking a crying baby and drinking too much coffee, as far as I can tell, that opportunity was already missed and I was supposed to submit my comment 2 days ago anyway. We have to stop this, right? What can we do? I already sent an email to Susan McLain, who introduced the bill.
From her website:
“I am thrilled to serve as Chair of the House Transportation Committee and Co-Chair of the I-5 Interstate Bridge Committee.”
Re: “On yer left!”: The article midiagnoses the problem, which leads to a bad take, IMO. The use of voice or bell notifications is commendable on the whole. The problems alluded to in the article arise from riding too fast in mixed-mode settings and passing too close. Those problems won’t be fixed by a bell. Adding a bell to the situation just makes you into an asshole biker with a bell. I like bells, but often I find I am able to be more expressive with my voice, including communicating friendliness and patience, which can improve awkward passing situations.
Also the distance and position you call or bell matters. IMO the way to do it is to move left a good distance behind the person, slow down a bit like you said, then call or ring your bell when you’re 5-10 seconds behind them. I do this and have never had an issue with someone jumping in front of me or getting mad. If you call or bell before you move, people instinctively move out of the way of where they hear the sound from, which is where the meme of people jumping to their left when they hear “on your left” comes from. You’re not really processing the words, just the fact that you hear a sound directly behind you.
When I was a young and very fast cyclist, I used to pass people without saying anything and they’d yell at me for scaring them. As I got older and was scared in turn by younger cyclists, I saw the value of saying something to warn peds or slower cyclists of my presence and desire to pass. So that’s what I do now and I say bosh (!) to anyone who criticizes the practice. It’s a good thing and I’m going to keep doing it.
The problem that I encounter with this is that people passing may not time it well, closing to a half wheel position as they signal. Even when I know the person is there it’s still startling when the signal is right in your ear.
When I’m passing I try to signal from about 20′ back and watch for an acknowledgement, a head move or a slight move to the off side.
If a person has head phones on it’s complicated. I might sit back and wait for a wide spot, or pass very carefully. Riding hard on an MUP is a little sketchy.
For shizzle! I do (unfortunately) startle folks sometimes, but most of my interactions are amicable. My less charitable instincts suggest that people who have a lot of trouble alerting peds when they pass could improve things just by making an effort to be courteous.
I bought a set of used carbon wheels a few years ago, and they turned out to have one of those obnoxiously loud freehubs. But, the noise actually has a benefit in situations like this: I find that it alerts pedestrians without me having to use my voice or bell. Speaking out or dinging the bell can often be perceived as antagonistic, but the freehub buzz is neutral – it simply is.
Yeah! Loud freehubs are sooo good at that.
I appreciate the loud freehubs when I’m getting passed, but usually, during the passing, they are quiet as the rider is actively pedaling. An unlubricated chain is noisy when you pedal, so maybe consider lettering the rust build up?
It’s pretty easy to hold up for a pedal stroke. That little blip of sound is enough for an alert rider. If the person doesn’t settle into line they may need a “Passing!” call.
“On yer left!” and most bells became irrelevant sometime during my lifetime between the emergence of the Sony Walkman and the iPod. I’m sure that timing might have some correlation with in ear headphones/earbuds becoming universally adopted by the type of people we co-exist with multi-use paths.
At this point anyone moving faster than the slowest pedestrian needs to assume nobody hears them and wait patiently until they can pass while giving everyone a large amount of room.
People who walk pets with long/extendable leashes on shared paths do deserve to be hung by their ankles with their leash from the nearest utility pole.
Completely agree.
I’m walking on a MUP (or is it “an MUP”?) every day with my dog, and appreciate warnings, since bikes often can’t be heard Either bell or verbal is fine. I almost never have anyone pass me too fast or too closely on the path. Could be because I have a big dog.
On your left: Most of my bike bells go “bing” as they should, and are often ignored by pedestrians on the paths, but one of them makes a really annoying noise, not at all loud, that always gets pedestrians’ attention, a sort-of scraping noise like a dog roughing up the carpet. Most people I know who walk on the trails simply find all passing cyclists annoying.
This is the real issue honestly. Some people just wanna be mad.
That’s a great point, David. A few years ago I was cycling on a path in Gabrield Park and passed an older woman who yelled, “You shouldn’t be on this path!”
So that’s the issue for some people: they don’t want bikes around them at all. Well, too bad.
I’ve said before that the biggest problem with Oregonian’s bike tax was that it’s just not an effective way to raise revenue. New Hampshire estimated that it would have to tax up to 10,000 bike riders just to support the new bike taxing bureaucracy, before any money went to infrastructure.
The issues of the landowner who had Strava tracks across his property are real but I don’t know if taxation would be a good away to fix that. Strava might shut down a section although since I’m not a user I don’t know if that is a thing. I do know that there’s a strong culture of volunteerism in the mountain bike community so a positive approach could be for the state to involve riders in land management. It might be a resource for landowners as well.
Here’s a crazy concept, with the MAX being a failure on this side of the river, how about we stop expanding a fiscally irresponsible transit option that Trimet has difficulties properly prioritizing transit for Portland citizens?
Have 1 dedicated bus lane going each direction would be a lot more useful for transit as well as emergency vehicles. Oh, and we’d save BILLIONS in tax money too!
Says who? I ride the MAX all the time – esp to and from PDX – and it’s great. It’s the opposite of a failure, IMO. If anything it needs to be expanded, improved, and made much faster.
I wouldnt call the MAX a failure. The Yellow Line, Red Lien, and Blue Line perform pretty well financially. The Blue line is particularly good for a modern light rail line. But TriMet doesn’t publish updates line-level financial metrics unfortunately. But the Orange and Green have always been underperforming relative to the other 3. This isn’t to say we must extend the MAX over the river, it’s more that parts of the MAX are really good and others are just okay.
But given the current situation budget-wise, it does seem insane that anyone is talking about an extension that has very high projected per mile operating costs.
MAX crossing over into Vancouver makes sense. We have a line running downtown that stops at the river.
We all know that the new bridge isn’t actually going to reduce traffic through North Portland. In fact it will make it worse, as the new, wider bridge will now be dumping even more cars into the existing 6-lane section of I-5. Thus, there will be absolutely no appetite to maintain or expand the HOV lanes on I-5 here. Your busses coming from Vancouver will be stuck in gridlock with everyone else.
MAX can bypass all of this, and we should use it.
MAX runs as a trolley on N Interstate. That serves people who live there but it’s not great for a person who boards three stops into Vancouver. The service would be better if the trains were more frequent, or some combination of signal timing and grade separation could speed up the trains. The stations could also be optimized. It’s expensive, but much cheaper than building a new line.
Many of the issues with MAX could be improved if the line went under the river instead of over the Steel Bridge.
I regularly see dangerous, uncourteous riding behavior on the Springwater Corridor, by people riding all manner of bicycle. In approximately zero of those cases is the rider calling out “on your left.”
I call out “on your left” all the time. Very often, the pedestrian says “thank you!” as I pass. To me, it sounds like they truly appreciate the warning.
I’ve noticed that very few other riders seem to do the same: they just pass with no warning of any kind. Sometimes, in those cases, I notice the pedestrian react with apparent surprise.
Very often, when someone suddenly passes me on the left with zero warning, I will yell “ON MY LEFT!” Do they not realize how hard they would hit the deck if I happened to shift left in the lane while their front wheel is next to my back wheel????
The most obvious problem I see is when a passing rider refuses to coast or slow down to wait for a “passing lane” to overtake a pedestrian or slower rider. Instead, these riders just squeeze through, in the middle of the path, with oncoming traffic hard to their left, and slower traffic hard to their right.
Are we really so in a hurry that this is necessary???
It would be comically simple for the City to put up some signage about how rude and unsafe this behavior is, but… crickets.
So, to me, “on your left” is not a behavior worthy of targeting in the form of an essay.
I used to have a bell, but it didn’t work right all the time. Furthermore, I don’t like removing my hand from my controls, especially when gloved and/or navigating an unpredictable situation (children, a large group of people walking different directions).
I do notice that children *often* turn and wander to the left if I call out, so I slow down more and give more room.
It is possible that a person’s tone of voice will carry less than mine, but I don’t find it beneficial to shout out at people from many yards away. I also just use a normal tone when the pedestrian is wearing large earphones: if they don’t care to hear me, I’m not going to yell at them to prove anything.
Maybe if I were in Zone 4 I’d sound aggressive, but I just cruise on the paths, and it’s easy for me to retain a friendly tone of voice when I call out.
“On your left” reads more like a reactive rant than a helpful article. The complaints seem to be more about the speed and proximity in which the author gets passed as a pedestrian rather than what is said to warn them someone is coming.
I feel like better advice than just “get a bell” (which functions at a much lower volume in the rain, so isn’t actually always useful either) would be: be careful with your tone of voice (no need to be rude), and give people time to react to your words before committing to a line past them. The cyclist is the faster (than pedestrian) user, and the onus is on them to give way until it’s safe to pass, just like what we expect (and admittedly rarely receive) from cars on the road. If the words themselves really are a problem, what alternative words provide the same information with such succinct clarity?
“On your left”? It depends: I appreciate it when people cycling behind me (as a cyclist) tell me “on your left”. That’s because I know how to respond (ie. don’t drift left and move to the right if possible). When I hear a bell (as a cyclist), I have to look around, which is not great depending on how fast I’m going and need to keep my eyes forward. When I’m riding in a mixed-mode environment I tend to use my bell because, 1) I’m already biking slower because pedestrians can move sideways in an instant, especially when kids or pets are spotted, and 2) pedestrians can turn around and figure out where I’m at and sort themselves out (not because I’m not barreling toward them, but because they can turn around easily and I’m also trying to find myself through at a slower pace than normal). Anyway, anyone shouting or using a bell to barrel through without impediment is probably going to cause annoyance to anyone nearby.
People are unpredictable, and shouting “On Your Left!” doesn’t guarantee anything at all. Maybe you’ll get a positive outcome, like a Thank You. Or nothing (often), or possibly some sort of annoyed retort or stupid move (rare, but it happens). More importantly, I don’t think people should be shouting at others unless they’ve explicitly agreed to accept that sort of communication. It’s just not a civilized thing to do, especially in an environment where people come to seek peace. I ring my bell, more than once and well in advance if I can, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s a pleasant, attention grabbing sound, tells others “I’m on a bike”, and it just works!
I hate bells as a pedestrian. So, as a rider I use my voice. I project, not yell, from.well back “passing on your left”. Because the duration allows people to process what they’re hearing and localize where I am in relation to them. Giving myself time to say that ensures I give them time as well.
I typically is to do as you describe, but say, “coming up behind you”. That lets them decide where they want to go (e.g., join their dog on the left side) and then it’s an easy pass from there.
I cross The Hawthorne Bridge regularly on my commute and this is the area where I encounter the most interactions with pedestrians. It’s also an area where I see far too many folks on bikes whizzing rapidly by pedestrians. They should clearly slow down.
No amount of “on your left” and bell ringing is more courteous or appropriate than slowing down for the conditions. In those moments when we’re interacting with pedestrians in relatively close quarters, we should normalize the neighborly pass where we’ve given enough space and/or slowed considerably to minimize unduly startling folks on foot.
But, be forewarned. If you deign to pass a pedestrian on the left on the bridge at a moderate speed, you will regularly encounter an inpatient biker riding your rear in pursuit of their insatiable quest to get where they are going as swiftly as possible. It shouldn’t stop us from doing the neighborly thing though.
I’ve never been a fan of bike riders playing music on speakers on MUPs, but on the other hand I can see the attraction of having a built-in approach warning system–no bells or calling out needed.
Or bagpipes.
“It never goes well: Oh look, yet another out-of-touch lawmaker who proposed a bicycle user fee — only to be forced to walk it back after being informed about what a terrible idea it is.”
This seems like a pretty bad take. A better one might be “A lawmaker proposed a thing, was given information about the downsides of that proposal and then changed their mind”
Meanwhile words and phrases like “out-of-touch”, “forced to walk it back” are unhelpful “us vs them” phrases.