Three brothers enjoying our city via Biketown: Philmore, Jermaine, and Vilynn Yun Ulinwa.
(Photos: J Maus/BikePortland)

This article is by Jessica Roberts, a principal at Alta Planning + Design and resident of north Portland. She previously wrote about a local bike racer and infrastructure on North Williams Avenue.

To the average Portlander, it must look like they just dropped from the sky overnight. Or perhaps like an exotic fungus that sprang up from the ground over a particularly rainy summer evening. I’m talking, of course, about one thousand bright orange Biketown bikes that have already – just one month into the program – become nothing short of cultural phenomenon.
[Read more…]

Contributor
Jessica Roberts
(Photo © J. Maus)

This article was written by contributing writer Jessica Roberts. Jessica is a bicycle planning professional with Alta Planning+Design and she previously shared her thoughts on the notorious Broadway/Williams intersection. Below, she strikes a completely different tone with the first in a series of interviews where she’ll sit down and chat with a broad cross-section of Portland bike scene veterans.

[Read more…]

Jessica Roberts
(Photo © J. Maus)

This article was written by Jessica Roberts. Jessica is the former metro area advocate for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and she is now a planner with Alta Planning and Design, one of the nation’s premier bike and pedestrian planning firms.

In the article below, Jessica offers her perspective and gives us a bit of historical context for the infamous Broadway/Williams intersection, which PDOT is currently working to improve.

[Read more…]

This article was written by Jessica Roberts. Jessica is the former metro area advocate for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and now works as a bicycle and pedestrian planner for Alta Planning and Design. She previously wrote about the City of Portland’s bike parking fund.

[Read more…]

Jessica Roberts
(Photo ©
Jonathan Maus)

This article was written by Jessica Roberts. Jessica is the former metro area advocate for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and she is now a planner for Alta Planning and Design.

In the article below, she offers insights on how to write effective letters-to-the-editor, and more importantly, how get them published.

[Read more…]

[Editor’s note: This article was written by new BikePortland contributor Jessica Roberts.]

Staple racks on SW Fourth Ave.
(File photo)

Did you park your bike at a rack outside your favorite store or café recently? If so, you might have been using facilities paid for by Portland’s Bicycle Parking Fund.

Created in 2004, the Bicycle Parking Fund is one of several tools being used by the City of Portland to make sure that cyclists have a place to park their bike once they get where they’re going.

Here’s the basic gist of how it works: Every new or renovated building is required to provide a minimum amount of short-term bike parking. The building owner or developer may either meet that requirement by installing bike racks themselves, or by paying into the Fund. Developers must pay into the fund based on how many spaces are required under the code for a development of that size. [Read more…]