Mere minutes from downtown Portland. The view of
Washington County from SW Fairmount Blvd.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Council Crest: If you live in Portland and like to ride bikes, chances are you’ve heard of this legendary destination. When I first heard about it, I recall how it garnered mythical status — as if its summit would rise above downtown Portland like a snow-capped Himalayan peak.
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“There’s not a lot of gathering places in the urban environment, you know,” said vocalist Michael Black, right.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Part of the reason you don’t expect to encounter Bobby Tower and Michael Black at the bus stop outside the Burlingame Fred Meyer is that you basically can’t hear them until you’re within a couple yards of them.

Even midday, their music is almost completely drowned out by the constant roar of traffic on Southwest Barbur Boulevard and, about a block away, the gully of Interstate 5.

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Finding my way around southwest Portland.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Yesterday was an epic day to kick off our SW Portland Week coverage. Riding in the area is challenging enough in nice weather, throw in strong winds and sheets of rain and things get very interesting. Despite the storm, it didn’t keep us from exploring the area’s bikeways.
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Who rides? Who drives? And what do residents think?
(Photo J Maus/BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Though you can’t truly understand any community from numbers alone, you can’t fully understand it without them, either. As we get into our week in this quadrant, we wanted to ground ourselves in the hard facts behind the photos we’re taking and the people we’re meeting.

Fortunately, the City of Portland does a project every year that goes a long way to understanding the culture of each quadrant.

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Jim Anderson
(Photos J. Maus/BikePortland)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Jim Anderson is like many southwest Portland residents who like to ride bikes: He’s a master at finding alternates routes.

“I know all the ways to avoid the major streets,” he shared with me during a chat at Baker & Spice Bakery in Hillsdale today. The bakery overlooks a sea of auto activity: a strip mall parking lot, then two-way traffic on SW Capitol Highway (a.k.a. State Route 10, which in this location carries the combined traffic of two highways — Capitol and Beaverton-Hillsdale), then more auto parking from a strip mall across the street.

It’s a daunting place to ride a bike.

Anderson — a 37-year-old freelance graphic designer, cycling event organizer, and president of the Team Oregon cycling club — says he never rides on the area’s highway streets unless he’s very late, or very tired. That’s because out here in southwest Portland, the flattest and most direct routes also happen to be the worst to ride on.
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Possible biking and walking projects that might accompany a transit line through Southwest Portland.
(Maps: Metro)

This post is part of our SW Portland Week.

Interstate Avenue owes its bike lanes to the Yellow Line MAX. The new Tilikum Crossing wouldn’t be standing without the Orange Line.

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Overlooking I-5 in southwest Portland.
(Photo J Maus/BikePortland)

As promised last month, all this week, Michael Andersen and I will be working and riding in Southwest Portland. The goal is to gain a better understanding of that part of our city (its people and places), and share what we learn and see with all of you.

The weather, topography, and distance from both of our houses (I live in north Portland, Michael lives in northeast) will make things a bit more challenging, but that’s all part of the experience.
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Rolling through Hillsdale.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

The second week of February (9-13) will be Southwest Portland Week here on BikePortland.

That entire week, News Editor Michael Andersen and I will be stationed in a secret bunker (probably a pub or coffee shop in Multnomah Village) where we’ll focus our editorial output on the issues, projects, businesses, and people of southwest Portland.

If you recall our East Portland Week last summer, you’ll have some idea of what to expect. The basic idea with these focused coverage events is to open our eyes to places that we don’t cover — or physically inhabit — as often as we’d like to. Sure, we have sources all over the region and we can cover places we never visit; but it’s just the not the same as being there.[Read more…]