According to an experience this morning by a reader, a potentially significant and positive change has been made at the Portland Police Bureau: a new directive that says all bike-related collisions will be investigated. I share his story below (more analysis follows): ___ A little after 8:00 am this morning, Jasun Wurster was riding his … Read more
KATU, Portland’s ABC affiliate, ran a special “On Your Side” report last night on the fixed-gear bicycle brake issue. The story was given the headline of “Are brakeless bikes safe to ride?”. Of course “brakeless” bikes are not safe. But are fixed-geared bikes technically brakeless? That depends on your definition of brake and it seems … Read more
Karl Rohde(Photo © Jonathan Maus) Karl Rohde, the BTA’s head of public affairs and governmental relations, reports on the BTA blog that he had a “productive meeting” with Captain Vince Jarmer of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division yesterday. They met to discuss the many enforcement-related issues that the BTA (and many in the community) … Read more
The “Enforcement” slide from a presentation by PDOT at last night’s bike safety forum.View entire presentation here Last night in the Portland Building, Commissioner Adams and his Bike Safety Committee heard public testimony on bike safety issues and gave a presentation titled “Bike Safety in Portland” (view presentation). From all reports (I was not able … Read more
Press conference Friday, 12:30 at City Hall. Rally Saturday, 12 noon at Salmon Street Fountain. More info here. In the wake of a tragic October that revealed chinks in Portland’s bike-friendly armor, community members have come together and planned a press conference and rally under the banner of “We are all traffic”. On Friday there … Read more
Last Friday at City Hall, Commissioner Sam Adams hosted a meeting to discuss the enforcement issues that have caused frustration and outrage in the bike community and a public relations crisis for the Police Bureau. At the table were representatives from the Police Bureau including both Chief Sizer and Assistant Chief Lynnae Berg, along with … Read more
[Updated: 11:28am] “The driver said the civilian investigation seems like a ‘vigilante’ move that won’t fix anything.”–From a story on KGW The Oregonian and KGW have picked up the story about an effort by a local lawyer to work toward a citation against the driver in Tuesday’s collision. Today’s Oregonian also features a forceful opinion … Read more
Scott Bricker, the Executive Director of the BTA, has posted an update on what he has been doing in light of ongoing community discussion surrounding enforcement issues. Here are excerpts from his post:
“There just has to be some consequences for drivers who plow into cyclists.”–Julie Rawls, a witness to yesterday’s collision. The frustration of many people in the community has reached a boiling point. The well over one-hundred comments on this site (and others), emails and phone calls I’ve received, and messages on local email lists leave … Read more
A large crowd in City Hall.Slideshow below(Photos © Jonathan Maus) Just four days after the second fatal bicycle crash in as many weeks, City Commissioner Sam Adams called together an “emergency meeting” to discuss the issues and brainstorm solutions to improve bike safety in our city. Following the meeting was a press conference that was … Read more
Why were the truck drivers not given a citation for failure to yield to a bicycle in a bike lane?
With all the discussion going on about how to make bike travel safer on crowded downtown streets, I thought we should take a closer look at some of the options on the table. The first one has to do with signage and how legislation, enforcement, and engineering deal with non-motorized vehicle travel lanes (previously known … Read more