Welcome to the week.
Below are the most notable stories that came across my inbox in the past seven days…
It’s spreading: The urge by lawmakers to paint with a far too broad of a brush when it comes to young people and electric-assisted bicycles and e-motorcycles has spread to Australia, where families say harsh new laws will make school trips harder and advocates say their input was not heeded. (Australian Broadcasting Company)
The real war on cars: I am in love with the framing of this piece that explains how the infamously anti-bike, pro-car policies of Ontario Premier Doug Ford have made life so much worse for people who rely on cars. (TVO Today)
Seattle’s big weekend: I learned with envy about the opening of a major new light rail line in Seattle over the weekend. If you want to understand the policy and politics behind how they were able to make it happen, read this. (Seattle Times)
Novick and the Blazers: Councilor Steve Novick is taking a very strong stand against using taxpayer dollars to fund the business of the billionaire who owns the Portland Trail Blazers, and he’s making it clear that Clean Energy Fund dollars would be much better spent on bicycling than basketball. (Willamette Week)
Speaking of the Blazers: Maybe I was the last to know, but new Blazers owner Tom Dundon not only made his billions by pushing sketchy car loans on people who couldn’t afford them, but he was actually sued by the State of Oregon for doing it! (ProPublica)
Third spaces rule: This article argues that excellent public spaces, sometimes called “third spaces” because they give people a place to connect that isn’t home or work, are an effective way to combat extremism. (Guardian)
Choosing the carfree life: This powerful and inspirational essay comes from a woman who has learned to fully embrace her life without driving, not because of what it has made her give up, but because of how it has added richness and beauty to her everday existence. (Irish Times)
Who’s the real criminal? A man who painted stop signs and crosswalks near a park in his neighborhood in southern Los Angeles was arrested for taking traffic planning into his own hands. (LA Times)
Made in the USA: A company making children’s bike in a factory in Indiana has found success, but to do even better they want the Trump Administration to enact tougher tariffs on companies that import bikes from overseas. (NPR)
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.
VOTE NOVICK!!
Please don’t rank the guy who has a corruptly cozy relationship with the reactionary Portland Metro Chamber, killed the progressive income tax for transportation, helped defund bike/ped infrastructure, and championed an unfunded vision zero program as progress.
Novick, the original police defunder. How did that work out for Portland?
“It’s spreading: The urge by lawmakers to paint with a far too broad of a brush…” with respect to e-bike use may or may not be justified. I’m neither a legislator in Queensland nor a constituent, and maybe 15 kph is an appropriate speed for bike travel on their shared paths. That’s a good quick pace for a runner after all, one that few people can maintain for an hour.
In the face of such laws, my first question would be, do they have the same regard for pedestrians when legislating for motor vehicle operators, and do speed limits, etc, put the same burden of care on those people?
I too would be curious about what the speed limit for cars driving on footpaths are in Queensland. My guess is that cars are banned completely in that environment, so probably no, not treated the same.
PS: The limit reported in the magazine article is 10 kph, which is pretty dang slow.
Yet another bad-faith argument. It’s getting tiresome.
Only because you don’t understand my point.
What is your point? The places where cars and pedestrians meet are not on footpaths. Maybe drivers in Australia are uniformly careful and polite around pedestrians but they’re bound to be going a lot faster than 10 kph (thanks–that’s 6.2 mph, almost a jogging pace).
Cars: much faster than e-bikes, more blind spots, closed windows, fifty times the mass, similar entitlement as the worst stratum of e-bike operators. Regulate that.
We (and the Australians) have tons of regulations on cars. Perhaps more (or different) regulations are needed. That issue is independent of what a rational regulation scheme for people riding motorized vehicles in pedestrian areas might look like (and I have no comment about whether these particular rules are appropriate).
We agree cars are dangerous. We agree the rules governing the use of cars could use improvement (especially in Australia, where they apparently don’t even know what side of the road to drive on). But the response to any regulation of anything can’t just be “but what about cars?”.
The point is that so much time, effort, and oxygen is wasted trying to figure out new and creative ways to micromanage ebikes, which cause a tiny fraction of the social harm that cars do. It’s akin to city council spending time arguing about banning foie gras when there are hundreds of other priorities they should be spending their time on.
I get that we already have tons of regulations of cars, but clearly they aren’t working, and I don’t see anybody making any genuine moves to enact more (or different) regulations to stop the bloodshed.
You’re obviously more current on what’s happening in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, so I’ll concede the point.
I’ll add that I support banning foie gras in Portland. Just because we have one problem doesn’t mean we can’t address another, and most legislative bodies have the capacity to work on multiple things at one time. And restricting the speed of motorized bikes on sidewalks to that of a jogger seems pretty reasonable to me, especially if you are trying to create a safe and welcoming pedestrian environment to encourage people to walk rather than drive in order to, you know, stop the bloodshed.
On reflection, the word “footpath” is probably more like “sidewalk” than “MUP” which changes the case for speed limits quite a bit. It doesn’t change my feelings about regulating e-bikes in a society ruled by car users.
Let’s set down with a clean slate and draft safe and sensible rules for motor car use.
You’re often the swing vote between Peacock and the centrists. Do you have a sense of the temperature in the building on this one?
I really don’t know. I’ve only talked to a couple of people because public meetings law prevents talking to very many people. But I will say this: I rather suspect that the Peacocks would be embarrassed at the prospect of being to the right of Steve Novick on anything. So I think that if I have any influence, that’s the influence that I have.
The city owns the Moda Center. If the city did not want to be on the hook for renovating it, they shoudn’t not have bought it. It was obvious that the Allen estate wanted to goose the value of the Blazers by detaching ownership of the arena from the team completely. This would make the team more attractive to an out-of-state buyer who would be buying automatic leverage with the city and a clean option to just move the Blazers after the lease expired. The Blazers are THE anchor tenet of the Moda Center. It is in the city’s interest to keep its anchor tenet. If the Blazers leave, the city will own two out-dated arenas it will either need to renovate anyways just to keep major music tours coming to town or tear at least one of them down, lest they become anchors on the city’s finances, reputation and ability to redevelop Lower Albina.
Novick can get all holier than thou about how PCEF money should be spent, but PCEF was much better at generating revenue than expected, despite being tied to a nebulous special-interest policy priority at a time when the city’s core services all face a financial cliff. The form the PCEF tax comes in is similar to a VAT tax, but it is assinine to tie the the city’s hands for how the funds can be spent. Have the voter’s consider repurposing the tax so it can be tapped to fund parks, PBOT, the Moda Center, whatever other core services are in need. Councilors should work to move away from bespoke taxes and merge all taxes, fees, fines, etc that the city collects so they all go into the general fund. This would allow the councilors we elect to have full leeway to maneuver those funds to meet the priorities of the city without playing games about what public goods should get this or that pot of money.
If the city decides buying the Moda Center was a bad idea, they can try to sell it to a private entity, who will then be on the hook for spending private money to renovate it in order to keep its anchor tenet. Who might be interested? Live Nation, Ticketmaster. *gasp* Such a private owner would likely then want a say in how public infrastructure dollars are spent redevloping the Rose Quarter and could butt heads with the Blazers, making Dundon seek a more amicable spot to move the team. The NBA has proven time and again they are not loyal to cities, they are loyal to their owners. The city put itself in this position and does not have much leverage, despite what Novick may think. He is probably right that he can get the Peacock clowns to follow his lead.
If it comes to tearing down one Moda monstrosity is the obvious choice.
Check Brian Libby’s detailed analysis on Oregon ArtsWatch. Brian has been working on this for decades.
If the city finds itself with too many arenas, maybe we can fit a velodrome into one of them.
We do have too many arenas, the Coliseum gets very little use. A velodrome / bike skills park has been discussed, but somehow we can’t find a few tens of millions to spend on that.
And here’s the latest on Portland’s most successful transportation grift project (well successful for the nonprofit director)…..LOL,
https://katu.com/news/local/frog-ferry-announces-community-ownership-plan-for-portland-river-transit-oregon-boat-transportation-electric-catamaran