Have a dog? Love dogs? If so, Corvidae Bike Club’s Pupperpalooza is the ride for you.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

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Map of Portland’s inner-city freeway loop. The 2005 Freeway Loop Advisory Group study proposed relocating the dashed segments into tunnels. (Source: the 2005 Freeway Loop Study.)

The year was 2005, and the tone was urgent.

“Clearly, the I-5/405 Freeway Loop needs immediate attention.”

“To keep the I-5/405 Freeway Loop viable, planning and design for improvements must begin now.”

“We are at a very critical juncture. It’s time to move forward.”

The blue ribbon Freeway Loop Advisory Group (FLAG), appointed by former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Oregon Department of Transportation Director Bruce Warner, was tasked with finding strategies to surmount the increasingly apparent flaws of the inner-city’s post-World-War II freeway plan. The FLAG included representatives from ODOT, the Portland Business Alliance, the Oregon Trucking Association, TriMet, the Oregon Transportation Commission, and Metro.

This group—hardly a bunch of radicals— noted that “freeway construction, combined with urban renewal projects, divided and destroyed neighborhoods in the name of a modern transportation system.” To begin to remedy this, and to insure a prosperous future for our region, they proposed the very bold plan of removing the Marquam Bridge and relocating the southern and eastern portions of the Freeway Loop into tunnels. “Complex transportation projects can take at least 15 years from initiation to completion,” which is why they urged the planning to begin “now” (the study tends to bold the twelve occurrences of the word “now”).

Sixteen years later, where has our boldness gone?
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Mike Perham and I at a recent Timbers game.

I’m excited to share that we’ve received our first equity investment. What does that mean? It means that after 16 years, this little upstart media company you’ve helped build finally has some breathing room — and room to grow.

Believe it or not I’ve never had a business plan (shocking, I know). This business started in 2005 with a lot of long hours, love, optimism, hard work, and blind faith. And that’s pretty much been how it’s survived ever since. But everyone has a limit. And I probably would have reached mine by now if not for Mike Perham (@getajobmike on Twitter).

I’m proud to announce that Mike is a new co-owner of Pedaltown Media, Inc., the parent company of BikePortland.
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40-Mile Loop volunteer Jim Sjulin at the Quarterly Trails Forum last week.

A retired Portland Parks and Recreation planner has just gifted the transportation community something very, very special.

If you’ve ever tried to secure funding for a trail or path project, or advocate for one, you can relate to the dizzying array of acronyms and information that comes with it. What starts as an exciting idea to create a new bike path, can end up leading you down a rabbit-hole of application deadlines, funding parameters, and clunky government websites. It’s enough to cause premature burnout in even the most hardened advocrat.

Jim Sjulin knows this feeling well. As a retired Parks employee and current volunteer with 40-Mile Loop Land Trust, he’s ferreted his share of funding pots. I was impressed with Sjulin’s excellent work to fund remaining gaps on the Marine Drive bike path, but his latest effort is on a whole nother level.

At the Quarterly Trails Forum hosted by Metro on July 14th, Sjulin shared a spreadsheet with information on every government funding source available for trail projects in Oregon. To the uninitiated, that might not sound like a big deal. But once you browse the document, it’s scope and value become apparent. [Read more…]

(Source: Sunrise PDX)

“Enough is enough!”

Portlander Hami Ramani is pissed. He’s tired of what he sees as a lack of bold action against climate change from the Oregon Department of Transportation and their bosses. To do something about it Ramani has just launched a new ride that will happen this Wednesday (tomorrow, 7/21) to show support for Sunrise Movement PDX and their ongoing protest at ODOT headquarters in downtown Portland.

As you might recall from our story on this protest last month, youth climate activists organized by Sunrise PDX have staged twice-monthly protests outside ODOT Region 1 headquarters on Northwest Flanders. The protests have grown in size in recent weeks. This is in part because the clear evidence of climate change-induced catastrophes is unfolding here in Oregon and in many other places worldwide, as our leaders sit back and rest on incrementalist rhetoric and status quo decision-making. Also fueling these fires are recent decisions by the Oregon Legislature and at Metro to endorse funding policy that will lead to more freeways being built and more cars being driven. [Read more…]

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A photo from Jonathan’s recent trip to Miami. (Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Hi everybody![Read more…]