Incoming CCC Executive Director Jonnie Ling (left), Blaze the Trail Cat (center), and outgoing CCC ED Kasandra Griffin.
(Photo: Community Cycling Center)

Kasandra Griffin has decided to leave her job as Executive Director of the northeast Portland-based nonprofit Community Cycling Center.

In a statement to be released later today, the CCC says Griffin will leave at the end of February to spend more time with her family (Griffin and her wife are expecting a baby in early March). Taking her place will be longtime staffer Jonnie Ling, who’s been with the organization since being hired as a seasonal mechanic in 2008. Ling has worked his way up to Director of Programs and Enterprise, which means he supervises the managers of the CCC’s retail shop (Northeast Alberta Street), summer camps, and community programs.

Griffin began her tenure with the CCC in summer of 2017 and had previously worked for Upstream Public Health and served many years as a board member of The Street Trust. At the CCC, Griffin was a strong voice for cycling and active transportation activism. She spoke recently at the 2030 Bike Plan rally and was a member of the Getting There Together Coalition that’s pushing for a greener Metro transportation bond measure.

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“Build it!” rally on February 4th, 2010.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

10 years ago next week Portland City Council passed the Bicycle Plan for 2030. Now scrappy local bike advocacy group Bike Loud PDX wants to make sure they don’t forget about it. [Read more…]

En route to PCC Rock Creek and Sylvania!
(Photos: WashCo Bikes)

A fleet of 20 new bicycles is headed to two Portland Community College campuses on the westside. The bikes are part of a partnership between Hillsboro-based WashCo Bikes and PCC’s Sylvania and Rock Creek locations. [Read more…]

A Community Cycling Center STEM instructor (right) and student from Helensview High School .
(Photo: Community Cycling Center)

Teaching young people about how to work on bikes and ride them with confidence is the bread-and-butter of many cycling-related nonprofit groups. At the Community Cycling Center, they take that idea one step further by using bicycles as the centerpiece of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum.

The CCC has led a STEM bicycle mechanic program since 2015 at two local alternative secondary schools: Rosemary Anderson Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC) in north Portland and Helensview High School in northeast. In keeping with the CCC’s mission, they focus on schools that serve low-income youth and students of color who face barriers in traditional educational environments. The classes use hands-on lessons that give students confidence and training they can apply to life beyond high school. So far over 65 students have participated.

Now the program is set to expand even further afield with a new class in Woodburn. CCC will add Lord High School at McLaren Youth Correctional Facility to their STEM education program.
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When Sue Bartlett was hit by the driver of an SUV on August 30th, she was on a gas-powered motorized scooter; but that fact hasn’t stopped active transportation advocates from organizing an event to remember her life.

“Light individual transportation (LIT) with low carbon footprints are the most vulnerable and exposed users of our public space,” reads the description of an event co-organized by The Street Trust, BikeLoudPDX and the St Johns Scooter Club.
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Young activists have staked their claim as climate activism leaders.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Young people are literally fighting for their lives when it comes to climate change. And in downtown Portland today, they inspired tens of thousands of people to show up and fight with them. [Read more…]

Activism isn’t always this exciting. Burnout can happen when progress ebbs and fatigue sets in.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

“Burnout is a way of telling you that your form of activism was perhaps not very full circle.”
– Gloria Steinem

Ever since we celebrated the fourth anniversary of BikeLoudPDX (the all-volunteer activism group I co-chair) in August 2018, I began to feel conflicted about my bike activism. I still had moments of excitement and interest that had drawn me to the group and this kind of work in the first place, but I was feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated, and sometimes resentful and angry.
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It didn’t just happen.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Story by BikePortland Contributor Catie Gould

On May 17th, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) issued a press release to announce a reconfiguration of SW Madison Street aimed at faster bus service. “The upgrade of SW Madison is the first Central City in Motion project to be implemented, just six months after the plan was passed by Portland City Council,” the press release touted. Five days later it was done.

But for a handful of transportation advocates, the work began two years earlier. Today we’re peeling back the curtain to share what went on behind the scenes.
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