Wake Gregg, owner of The E-Bike Store in north Portland, rides a Specialized Haul e-bike. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
A bill set to make its way into the short session of the Oregon Legislature that begins next month would create a new statewide task force on electric bikes, scooters, and other small, motorized vehicles.
Currently in draft form as LC 164 (“LC” stands for legislative council, where bills go for final edits and drafting before being given an official bill number), the bill was shared with advocates in Portland this week and was the topic of discussion at the monthly meeting of Electric Bikes For All, a coalition of e-bike advocates that meets monthly via Zoom.
According to minutes from that meeting, this bill will be sponsored by Rep. Hoa Nguyen, a Democrat who represents District 48 (outer southeast). You might remember Rep. Nguyen as the force behind the successful “Bike Bus Bill” that was signed into law last session.
LC 164 is considered a bill that will help lay educational and political groundwork for a more substantive electric bicycle bill that will be floated in the 2025 session. That bill will likely be some version of Eugene House Rep. Emerson Levy’s “Trenton’s Law” that we covered late last year. I’ve reached to both Nguyen and Levy for more background and comment on LC 164 but haven’t heard back.
If LC 164 passes, a new Task Force on Electric Micromobility would becreated. It would have 19 members appointed by the director of the Oregon Department of Transportation (currently Kris Strickler). Here’s how the membership would have to be broken down:
Two members who represent the Department of Transportation.
One member who represents the State Parks and Recreation Department.
Three members who represent electric micromobility device operators, manufacturers or businesses.
Two members who represent law enforcement and emergency medical services.
One member who represents a city transportation department.
One member who represents a county government. (g) One member who represents a metropolitan planning organization.
One member who represents a public university.
One member who represents the insurance industry.
One member who represents a nonprofit organization with statewide experience on transportation electrification and micromobility.
One member who represents roadway users with disabilities.
One member who represents roadway users.
Two members who represent active transportation organizations.
One member who represents off-road vehicle and trail users.
And here’s the charge of the task force:
Review the existing Oregon laws relating to micromobility and personal mobility devices;
Examine whether safety and education requirements should be required for motor vehicle users, electric micromobility device manufacturers, retailers and user groups;
Examine how electric micromobility devices can be best utilized to promote equity, safety and climate goals in the transportation sector;
Examine best practices for the use of electric micromobility devices, including but not limited to use on highways, bicycle paths, bicycle lanes, public lands, public spaces and mixed-use trails;
Examine statutory definitions of electric micromobility devices;
Address electric micromobility devices for commercial use;
Examine provided education and certification programs relating to electric micromobility devices; and
Seek input from a broad range of community partners, including but not limited to community partners from institutions of higher education, consumer advocacy groups and small, medium and large businesses.
Legislative concepts will be made public tomorrow (Friday, January 12th) and the session officially begins February 5th. In order for a bill to have a chance of passing, it must be pushed out of its originated committee by the end of the first week. The short session ends March 10th.
We got hammered with the fluffy white stuff in 2021. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
They say we might be in for some wild weather the next few days, so get your bikes ready for interesting times. If you head out in snow, lower your tire pressure a bit, watch those turns, and try to stay toasty! We’ve shared loads of wintry weather riding tips over the years and this post is a good place to start.
If you’re looking for community support and inspiration, and don’t feel like heading out on your own, check out the rides below.
PSU Farmers Market Ride – 10:00 am at SE Clinton & 41st (SE) Join a merry crew for this weekly jaunt from inner southeast, across the Tillikum Bridge, and into downtown to purchase and peruse wonderful food and other items at the market. More info here.
Sunday, January 14th
Ole Bolle Troll Ride – 9:30 am at Paulson’s Floor Coverings parking lot in Cedar Mill (West Side) The Portland Bicycling Club is on a mission to find and pay respects to the giant troll public art project by Thomas Dambo. Will they find it? You’ll only find out if you join them on this ride! More info here.
Ride for a Ceasefire – 12:00 pm at Blumenauer Bridge (NE) Ride organizers Rose City Indivisible say, “We are a group of multi-faith Portland riders who are demanding that Earl Blumenauer listen to his constituents and call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire, an end to the occupation, and an end to the US funding Israel’s military.” More info here.
Corvidae Second Sunday Funday Ride – 2:00 pm at Peninsula Park Gazebo (N) This fun-loving and welcoming bike club will brave whatever weather comes our way with a group ride to ring in the new year. More info here.
— Don’t see an event? Please tell us about what’s going on in your neighborhood by filling out our contact form!
PBOT Director Millicent Williams outside City Hall in August 2023. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is facing three of its most daunting challenges ever, and they’re all happening at the same time: the bureau’s budget is structurally unsound and they face major cuts and layoffs if nothing changes; their reputation (and resulting staff morale) is in the toilet as distrust of government continues to grow and PBOT has alienated many of its allies due to various avoidable controversies, and; PBOT faces hard questions about the record number of people who continue to be killed on our roads year after year — despite a much-ballyhooed commitment to Vision Zero.
So when the current PBOT Director Millicent Williams gets interviewed on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud show, we should all pay attention.
Williams joined venerable host Dave Miller on Monday’s program and he asked her questions about all three of the aforementioned challenges. You can listen to the entire interview on OPB’s website, or check my edited version of the main takeaways:
Dave Miller, OPB:
Last year, the highest number in three decades despite so much focus on safety on Vision Zero. How do you explain this?
Millicent Williams, PBOT:
It’s a really hard question to answer. There are any number of factors… The increase is not unique to Portland. I attribute it to a number of things… Some of the width of the roadways are also challenges. And and we focus on education and ensuring that people understand what their responsibilities are as they’re traversing the city… We have to make sure that we’re enforcing, we have to make sure that we’re causing people to slow down, we have to ensure that we’re considering some of the other societal challenges that we have right now… It’s a staggering number, but one that we can trace back to certain things: distraction, intoxication, or otherwise impaired — all those things are our factors.
Dave Miller:
Traffic deaths dropped something like 10% last year, while they went up in Portland. Do you think something is different in Portland?
Millicent Williams:
The way that the city is designed is different. The way that the population has grown is different… As we see the population continue to grow and shift the way that people are using the roadways is shifting. We anticipate that we’ll continue to need to address those challenges in really systematic ways… The numbers do reflect a difference in the ways that cities are built and designed. We have a really intricate network of streets and sidewalks and roadways that sometimes lend themselves to people showing up in ways that are less than helpful… We’re really working to make sure that we’re educating users of all modes in ways that help us to bring those numbers down, but I do think a lot has to do with the way that the city is populated, the way the city is designed, and the size of the city.
Dave Miller:
What are you doing to focus on particularly vulnerable populations?
Millicent Williams:
We use an equity matrix to help to inform where we make investments and build projects, because we recognize that every community needs to be served and served well… As it relates to those who are unhoused, I think the challenge we have as a city, and as a county, and as a country, is to make sure we’re treating people with dignity, and helping them to find options that move them away from the roadway… I don’t want to suggest that I’m blaming anyone for their condition or their situation; but what we can do is work hand-in-hand with community members to make sure that we are providing them with safe passage, that they have wide enough sidewalks, that they are able to go to places that are safe and clean and protected from potential vehicular traffic that would potentially be a fatal crash for them.
Dave Miller:
Your bureau did a number of surveys of Portland residents and PBOT employees and different constituent groups this year… What’s your top priority?
Millicent Williams:
My top priority is making sure that as the leader for the Bureau of Transportation, we’re serving all communities well. I do think it is important for us to be able to, quote unquote get “back to basics” — make sure that the city is clean, that is well maintained, that we are promoting livability and the ways that we’re promoting and delivering our work… We receive significant funding from outside of the city — federal funding, state funding and other funding to do that innovative work — but it’s important to me that that innovative work have has as its foundation, safe passable roads, clean bike lanes, connected sidewalks, crossings that are connected from one side to the other, that there are signals in place, there’s lighting in place. Those are things that are important to me. I’ve been saying here lately: “We’ve got to get things done, we’ve got to get them done right, and we’ve got to get them done well.”… Maintenance is safety, maintenance is asset management, maintenance is livability… And so we have to focus on all of those things… So that we can do some of that more futuristic thinking about how we can transform our city for what’s coming ahead.
Dave Miller:
What do you see as a long-term solution [to the budget problems]?
Millicent Williams:
… If we do our jobs, well, we do put ourselves out of business. If we create the opportunity for people to use different options to get around town, we do kind of make the gas tax null and void. So we do have to look at alternatives to ensuring that we’re funding the bureau and we’ve had a series of conversations internal to the bureau with city partners about what we might do differently… parking management, we’re going to be looking at VMT, vehicle miles traveled, as an option for funding and how we attach fees to that, there is a utility licensing fee that was established 35 years ago. Right now the transportation bureau is not receiving any of that funding. However, if we have the opportunity to begin to recoup some of the funding — the percentage of that funding that has been reallocated to other interests in the city — we would be able to fill at least some of those gaps…
Dave Miller:
Soon after you became the head of PBOT, the bureau got a lot of flack for an effort to revert a section of protected bike lane on Broadway… There were a lot of bad feelings from from cyclists and other members of the community at the time. What are you doing to build back trust?
Millicent Williams:
That was a challenging moment for me personally, and for the bureau. I recognize that it did cause harm. One of the things that I’m doing is connecting directly with the folks who are most affected, continuing to have the conversations and continuing to show up and be in the spaces that are important. I don’t fear having conversations. I don’t fear conflict and I recognize that we won’t always agree on things. But the way that we get to resolution is through coming together, and so that’s what I’m committed to doing. That’s what the bureau is committed to doing.
And I know I have plenty of work to do to continue to restore the faith and trust. But that’s what I’m here to do.
What are your takeaways from this?
To me, it was notable she mentioned a possible VMT tax. The idea of charging Portland road users by the mile was one of the considerations in PBOT’s 2021 Pricing Options for Equitable Mobility report, but I don’t think we’ve heard it offered as an actual possibility in this type of higher-level context. Is PBOT actually working on it? I also love that she mentioned the ULF revenue that other bureaus have stolen away from PBOT over the years. It’s long overdue for some of those funds to come back to transportation.
I also think her explanation of a “back to basics” mindset is noteworthy. That’s a sensitive topic, because in the past I think most folks have seen maintenance spending and new project spending as a binary, zero-sum conversation. As in, we either take care of roads, or we improve the network. It’s clear Williams is putting herself squarely behind taking care of the roads first, so it remains to be seen how she’ll balance the necessity for doing “innovative work” (which in my opinion could be a euphemism for big bike and bus projects) at the same time.
And finally, her response to what is causing all the deaths was interesting to me. I felt like most of her answer was blaming users of the road, and didn’t make any suggestion that how the roads are designed could play a factor. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I think given the terrible conduct of more people these days we do need to shift the narrative toward personal responsibility a bit more, but to reverse bad trends Williams must confront the fact that some of PBOT’s decisions play a role in creating the dysfunctional traffic culture she points her finger at.
StreetsPDX is up and running! And to be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings.
All that information I spent years and hundreds of hours poking around internet for—street classifications, the public works review process, early assistance, required development improvements—is now conveniently and attractively packaged in one location. Hey, I had to earn that knowledge the hard way! Now, any Joe Blow can easily access it.
Joking aside, StreetsPDX (formerly called Streets 2035) is great. A web page for people who wonder how decisions about using the right-of-way are made. Why no street trees here? Can’t a sidewalk go there? How about a median?
It’s a decision framework that establishes priorities for what goes in the right-of-way. Its audience, the people who would care about any of this, are mainly city employees, developers and neighborhood advocates. But the site is so well-designed that I think it could be handy for a lot of people, even just as a nice map.
W Burnside and 10th AveSuggested cross sectionsHow to proceed for private devlopment
About that map, find your street, see its classification. What are the options for its street cross section? How wide is it? (No longer will I have to throw a tape measure across a street or run one of those wheel things to get a street width, those days are gone.)
As an example, let’s look at West Burnside at 10th Avenue, right outside Powell’s Books (see figure at left). The road is 44 feet wide, its street classifications are listed on the left and you can find suggested street cross sections by clicking the link. On the top menu bar are guidelines for city staff regarding how to proceed through a sea of city code and policy, depending on whether the proposed development is a city or private project (see code guiding private development at right).
PBOT launched the website last July, and in December I listened to Project Manager Mathew Berkow present it to the SWNI (Southwest Neighborhood’s Inc) Transportation Committee. Also attending that meeting was Kurt Kruger who came to “support Matt.”
StreetsPDX can be viewed as a brain dump of everything Kruger needs to take into consideration to do his job. After years of leading PBOT’s Development Review section, he now heads the public infrastructure permitting team that city council created last year as part of government restructuring and regulatory reform.
If you have ever attended a SWNI Transportation Committee meeting, it’s obvious why a city employee might want to come with support. This is where the old lions of southwest transportation advocacy sit, and where the young come to get trained. It’s an experienced group with a very long memory.
The conversation between Kruger and a few committee members following Berkow’s presentation was quite substantive, and deserving of a separate post of it own. So stay tuned for Part II later this week. Until then, poke around with the StreetsPDX map, it’s fun!
Yes, the transformation of North Willamette Boulevard is something I’m very excited about. And yes, I’ll admit it’s partly because it’s a key bike street in my neighborhood and my family, friends, and I will be among the many people who use it.
I know I’ve done two posts about it in the past few months — one about newly released designs, the other about some project elements that will break ground this year — but it’s time for another. Why? Because at last night’s monthly meeting of the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Capital Project Manager David Backes shared a sneak peek of newer “60%” designs and overlayed them on a Google Map to give us a detailed look at what’s coming.
Backes (who happens to live in St. Johns and rides/walks/drives on Willamette a lot) said the designs and map he shared last night were completed a few weeks ago and haven’t been made public yet. I was watching the meeting and happened to record my screen while he explained the designs (and rationale behind them) to BAC members. Beyond the exciting changes Backes revealed, it’s a fascinating look at some of the thought processes PBOT goes through to arrive at design decisions.
What we see in the video above is Backes going through major elements of the project starting from the corner of N Willamette and Rosa Parks.
At Rosa Parks, he reveals PBOT will actually widen the road in order to make room for full concrete protection of the bikeway. Then he moves north to the expansive intersections of N Liberty/Oatman and N Vincent/Saratoga — both of which will be severely necked down as part of this project. Next stop is the intersection of Willamette and Bryant, where big changes are in store for the bus stops and the awkward diagonal connection with a major east-west greenway. Then we hear about changes at N Chautauqua, where PBOT will add curb extensions to shorten crossing distances and cut into the bluff for the bike lane. Further north, at N Olin and Harvard we learn about plans to close Olin to drivers. Backes also shares plans for the bike lane at the University of Portland entrance and N Ida just beyond the railroad cut.
Pretty exciting stuff huh? And BAC members were thrilled and thanked Backes and the other PBOT staffer in attendance for their work thus far. Let’s just hope PBOT is taking care of the public process in a way that assures we’ll actually see these changes come to fruition.
On that note, remember that PBOT won’t begin major construction on this project until 2025; but we’ll see big changes to the striping as early as this spring when PBOT tags onto a planned repaving project to lay out the new bike lanes as the plans call for. The bike lanes will get wider, we’ll see removal of on-street parking, ADA curb ramps, and lots of other changes coming this year. Then, when the federally-funded project gets going in 2025-2026, PBOT will come back and add the concrete curbs, medians, and other major elements.
Looking northwest on NE 33rd where PBOT has installed a new, two-way bikeway between Mason (on the left) and Skidmore (upper right) along Wilshire Park. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Over the weekend I finally got a chance to take a closer look at the new protected bike crossing and bike lanes on the Mason-Skidmore Greenway. It’s a welcome addition that makes getting across Northeast 33rd much easier and helps make an important connection in the bike network.
To refresh your memory, the Portland Bureau of Transportation took advantage of a repaving project on NE 33rd over the summer (the same one that led to the big bike lane removal controversy about one mile north) to make improvements for bicycling. With an east-west neighborhood greenway route planned on NE Mason and Skidmore, PBOT needed to do something about the offset crossing of Mason where it dead-ends into Wilshire Park at 33rd and they wanted to create a stronger connection between existing greenways on 32nd and 37th. Their solution was to put two separate projects together and do the 33rd crossing and the Skidmore bike lanes at the same time.
Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.Looking west on Skidmore toward 33rd.Looking south on 33rd from Skidmore.Looking north on 33rd at Skidmore.Riding south on 33rd just before Mason.Looking north on 33rd at Mason.View west on Mason from 33rd.View west on Mason from 33rd.Looking northwest on 33rd from just south of Mason.Looking north on 33rd from just south of Mason.Looking north on 33rd from just south of Mason.Looking north on 33rd at Mason.Looking north on 33rd at Mason.Looking north on 33rd at Mason.From the park, looking north at corner of 33rd and Skidmore.Riding east on Skidmore toward 34th.
For the crossing, PBOT has installed a mix of signal upgrades, colored bike lanes, and concrete medians and curbs to create a short section of two-way protected bike lanes on the east side of 33rd between Mason and Skidmore. PBOT then continued the two-way bike lanes one block on Skidmore to 34th, where they dump back into a shared-street environment via a sharrow marking.
PBOT still needs to install some sort of signal actuators for bike riders to cross 33rd, but otherwise the new infrastructure worked well during my short visit. It was intuitive and I felt relatively safe.
Riding westbound on Skidmore, the design requires you to merge across the road to enter the protected (via flexi-posts) bike lane. I can imagine that being stressful for some riders. Merging across a road to turn left isn’t a big deal, but at this location (which is essentially mid-block) where other road users aren’t expecting that behavior, it could be confusing and a bit more dangerous. Thankfully, PBOT has also added a speed bump on Skidmore just east of 33rd right where the bike lanes end.
The left turn from Skidmore onto 33rd is a bit of an adrenaline rush, since you’re suddenly going head-on against drivers on a relatively busy collector street (33rd is a major north-south artery in the car network).
On 33rd, I was happy to see that PBOT used full concrete medians instead of just “paint and post” (they must have known that with the heavy traffic on 33rd, they needed something more robust than just plastic). They fit the bike lanes on 33rd by taking space from what used to be infrequently used on-street car parking lanes.
“Community members had mixed reactions to the initial design. The updated design allows future projects to consider a range of options, including a shared street neighborhood greenway with full traffic calming improvements or a multi-use path along the park. Multiple options remain available for a future capital project.”
We’ll have to hold them to that promise and see what the future holds.
Perrin Smith in The Shed. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland) Inset map: Smith’s Strava heat map.
43-year-old North Portland resident Perrin Smith has done something extraordinary. In a quest that was part of his life for nearly three years, he walked every single street and alleyway in the City of Portland. That’s about 2,100 miles of pavement, gravel, grass, mud, and sidewalks.
Born and raised in rural New Jersey, he “escaped” the East Coast and came to Portland in 2006 after graduating from Northern Arizona University. A veteran of competitive running, Smith was geared up for a big season in 2020 when Covid hit and everything changed.
“I was bummed and really needed something to do,” he told me in an interview Monday for the BikePortland Podcast. “I started following people on Instagram who were running every single street and it looked like fun. And I thought, ‘Sure. Why not? I’ll do it’.” (Smith was inspired by Rickey Gates, an author and notable endurance runner who popularized the “Every Single Street” movement.)
Smith fired up his Strava app and, since he was still in competitive-mode, started his challenge running all the miles. When an injury struck, he switched to walking and the real journey began. “I started to realize that I liked walking even more, because I was going slower. I was stopping to take photos, I was looking at graffiti, or someone’s weird artwork in their front yard. And I just I kind of slowed down life and I looked around more, which is not something that I ever did. I was always so focused on running, but it became more about exploring and learning.”
“And ever since then I have done everything that I was doing, slower.”
His day job as a pizza cook didn’t require him to explore Portland, so he found himself navigating new neighborhoods with fresh eyes. At the start, he’d drive across town to start a walk. But a harrowing car crash in August 2022 led him to stop driving. Then he decided to not renew his license, has been carfree for over a year now, and used his bike or public transit to get across town and fill in new parts of the map.
The scariest place he walked? Marine Drive or Airport Way were both “pretty terrifying” he shared. (Note: If there was an off-street bike path adjacent to a street, he would not take it. He felt walking on the street was a required part of the challenge.)
Smith’s Instagram has scenes from his walks and maps of his progress.
His favorite place to walk? Southwest hills: Hillsdale, Maplewood and Markham neighborhoods especially. “It’s so much quieter down there. It’s like a totally different town.”
In one neighborhood he found a bunch of houses that had strange, artistic mailboxes. One of them, jokingly marked “Air Mail” was on a pole, 20-feet off the ground. He also walked with a group of friendly peacocks in southeast near Johnson Creek. One time a guy chased him down and angrily demanded to know what he was doing. “I’m just walking on the street! What’s the problem?” Smith remembers thinking.
But it’s the rich memories of every nook and cranny of Portland and everything he learned along the way that he’ll remember most. “I miss it. I really miss it,” Smith said. “I’d do it again.”
For more about his amazing feat, don’t miss our conversation in the latest episode of the BikePortland Podcast (above or wherever you get your podcasts). Follow Smith on Instagram at @geographically_inclined. You can also follow another Portlander, @slipoker, who’s currently documenting their #everysinglestreet effort.
There was the usual anger and frustration when Rob Galanakis shared an incident of driver road rage with a group of bike advocates online last Wednesday. Portland bike riders have become numb to the bad behavior and disrespect shown to them by many drivers. But Rob’s story was different: He was not only raged at, but physically assaulted by a driver — and it happened as he led a weekly “bike bus” ride!
Bike buses are group bike rides to school where kids (and some parent leaders) meet at pre-determined spots and ride to school together. Rob leads the Glencoe Bike Bus, which swings by several schools in southeast Portland.
Last Wednesday Rob posted to the BikeLoud PDX Slack looking for advice. He wanted to know how best to follow up after experiencing road rage on his ride. “We had a driver tailing within a couple feet and honking… He was yelling he’s a special ed teacher and was late,” Rob wrote. “He got out of his car, grabbed my bike, threw it down, and tried to rush back into his car and drive past me.”
Rob, the kids, and a few other parents were riding north on SE 61st Avenue and were about to cross E Burnside when he first heard the honking from behind. He immediately swung into action and engaged the driver in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. Rob credits his experience doing “corking” (when riders stand in front of drivers at intersections to let large groups pass through intersections together) for giving him the training that led to a mostly positive outcome on Wednesday.
“I just cannot get over how absurd this whole situation is,” he shared in our conversation.
When asked if he’ll use this situation as a teachable moment for the kids, Rob said no. “I want to teach them to love being outside and being active and being a good citizen. And this is just teaching them to be afraid. And I don’t want to teach them to be afraid. And I do believe as long as they are smart and prepared, then they don’t need to be afraid.”
While Rob was sanguine about what happened to him, his experience at the hands of impatient/rude/dangerous river is something we hear about far too often. As bike buses have multiplied throughout Portland, a nascent advocacy coalition has formed to lobby the City of Portland for safer streets. They want more diverters to discourage cut-through traffic, more cameras to catch dangerous drivers, lower speeds on neighborhood greenways, and more.
I talked to Rob via video on Friday to learn more and I’ve shared an edited version of our conversation in the video above. In it, you’ll hear what happened and Rob’s advice for other bike bus leaders who might experience the same thing.
— You can also listen to a version of this interview on our podcast. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.
It was a short comment, but it had the urgency of an epiphany. And it was thought-provoking.
I spent a lot of minutes wondering if the comment was just simple, or if it crossed over into being simplistic. I mean, did these stroads ever work well? Maybe when they were first built? I ask because the neighborhood I grew up in, in another city, half a century ago, is silly with four-lane roads, and they were safe for a kid to walk and even bike on. I walked to school on them, crossing at the light was not a problem. Drivers stopped at red lights, driving like an idiot was unusual.
Here’s the comment that sent me down memory lane. Fred wrote it, in response to another commenter, under last week’s comment of the week:
What you’re missing here is how the street design affords – and actually rewards – aggressive driving behavior.
Because four-lane urban highways are ubiquitous in Portland and the USA generally, many drivers today expect to be able to speed around cars that are obeying the speed limit – and there are absolutely no repercussions for bad behavior. In fact, there are rewards: drive dangerously, with no regard for anyone outside of your vehicle, and you get where you’re going faster.
The design of Naito and other four-lane urban highways creates the conditions that promote anti-social behaviors.
What’s your take?
Thank you Fred, and also to those commenters who worked overtime last week. We appreciate your contributions and they are an important part of BikePortland.
Here are the most notable stories our community came across in the past seven days…
Blazing a trail for US cycling: American crit racing owes a huge debt to teams like the Miami Blazers, who are adding excitement and fresh energy to the sport, and who also happen to be the most diverse team in professional cycling. (Rouleur)
Dead weight on cities: It gives me warm fuzzies to know that the elimination of minimum car parking rules has become a mainstream idea and now cities that don’t do it are the weird ones. (NPR)
The present and future of Vancouver, WA: Excellent deep dive into the transformation of the ‘Couve from urbanist punchline to popular destination thanks to amazing waterfront development. (The Urbanist)
Vision Zero isn’t the problem: When it comes to preventing traffic deaths, VZ advocates say cities need to do more (and do it faster), and must stop letting “failure” define the narrative. (Vision Zero Network)
“Strategic misrepresentation”: With news that the Interstate Bridge Replacement and I-5 widening project will soon announce another cost increase, activist and economist Joe Cortright accuses DOTs of a bait-and-switch. (Clark County Today)
Freeway anxiety: A fascinating window into a condition that apparently many Los Angelenos suffer from: Fear of driving on freeways. The fact that this is considered a bad thing (to be cured) tells you how much driving is woven into the life of many. (LA Times)
Gravel grumblings: The SBT GRVL, one of the largest gravel races in America, is facing pushback from ranchers who say some cyclists don’t respect the land and the economic boost isn’t worth the trouble. (Colorado Sun)
We are the bad example: In case you’re one of the dozen or so people who have yet to listen, one of America’s most popular podcasts took on the issue of pedestrian deaths and they used Portland’s stroads as an example of why so many people are dying. (NY Times – also a transcript via Happy Scribe)
Daylighting: California gets a lot of sun, but officials there still want more light at intersections because they know it makes roads safer. And now they’re starting to enforce an intersection daylighting law. Question is: Where is Portland’s enforcement of this issue, which is also law in Oregon? (SF Chronicle)
Novel bullying tactic: A cyclist who was passed dangerously was threatened with legal action by the company of the driver since a logo appeared in a video the rider uploaded to YouTube. Seriously. (Road.cc)
Eva Frazier and I are back with another episode of “In The Shed.” This episode was recorded earlier today in the BikePortland Shed a few blocks from Peninsula Park in north Portland.
As per usual, Eva and I had a fun chat about a wide range of stuff:
Book: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Street takeovers on NYE and an idea to prevent them
Coming soon: The Portland who has walked every street in the city
New paved bike paths being built in Troutdale near Sandy River
Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Brock Dittus of Sprocket Podcast fame for our fantastic theme music. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Better bike lanes coming soon! (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The much-anticipated North Willamette Boulevard Active Transportation Corridor project won’t be finished until 2026. While it’s a buzzkill to wait a few more years for three new miles of physically-protected bike lane between North Rosa Parks Way and Richmond Ave, we don’t have to wait much longer to realize many of its benefits.
The reason for the long timeframe between public outreach (summer 2021) and completion (2026) of this project is because it was mostly funded ($4.5 of its $6.1 million price tag) from federal grants. All that US DOT red tape takes a long time to cut through. But the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) often tries advance projects like this as quickly as possible, and in this case their opportunism means we’ll actually be riding on new, safer bike lanes before the end of this year!
PBOT says they’ll take advantage of a repaving project slated for this spring on Willamette from Portsmouth (at the Chiles Center) to N Carey (entrance to Peninsula Crossing Trail at “the cut”) to re-stripe the road in the way that mimics the dimensions for the 2025 project. In other words, instead of the narrow, door-zone bike lane we have now, they’ll replace the striping with a 10-foot wide bike lane (seven-feet and a three-foot buffer) and two, 10-foot wide general lanes. Doing this now means they won’t have to grind off paint and damage the new pavement later on.
And PBOT will also add the wider bike lanes to another important section of Willamette: between Alma (where the bike lanes currently end) and Richmond (the northern terminus of the project in St. Johns). The city’s rationale for doing this as a “quick build” in advance of the larger project is because, “this missing piece of the bike network was identified as a strong community desire during the North Portland in Motion planning process.”
In both cases, PBOT will return in 2025-2026 and add concrete traffic separators in the bike lane buffer zones.
And in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, this means lanes of on-street car parking on both sides of a 1.4 mile stretch of Willamette Blvd will be removed to make room for the wider bike lanes.
When all is said and done, on-street parking will be removed from the entire project area (except for a one-block cut-out near University of Portland student housing north of Portsmouth). Before you start to worry about neighborhood opposition to this large-scale ban on on-street parking, consider that PBOT has already completed a parking occupancy study (see above). “The parking study indicates that the number of cars currently parking along Willamette Blvd can be easily accommodated on the side streets on the adjacent blocks,” reads a study summary. “In other words, there is substantial spare on-street parking capacity on the closest streets to Willamette Blvd. This means most residents on Willamette Blvd will only need to park roughly one block further away than they are accustomed to currently.”
How’s that for excellent news to start off the new year? Stay tuned for an updated schedule on when we can expect these first two pieces of new bike lane striping to be installed and check the PBOT project website for more information.
