BikePortland

Let’s set the record straight on Portland’s new ‘zero emission delivery zone’

Freakout everyone! It’s a sinister plot! Rules for a few loading zones are changing!!

“We’re learning more about a controversial proposal that would reduce Portland’s carbon footprint while also adding an extra burden to struggling downtown Portland businesses.”
– KPTV news anchor

In their zeal to create controversy and feed their audience a narrative that makes the City of Portland look bad, many local media outlets have completely mischaracterized a new project launched by the Portland Bureau of Transportation on Wednesday. What is a relatively minor shift in how a few parking spaces will be regulated, is being framed as a sinister scheme by PBOT to ban trucks across a swath of downtown Portland and hurt local businesses at the same time.

As we were first to report on Friday, PBOT has won a $2 million federal grant to experiment with a “zero emission delivery zone.” Portland was selected as one of nine cities across America to partner with the US Department of Transportation on their new, Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grants program. We’re getting money from Uncle Sam to do something innovative that will improve air quality and make streets downtown safer. That’s it.

Before I critique the local media’s handling of this story, I’ll explain what we know so far about the project:

I have a hunch PBOT regrets showing this preliminary map on the official project page.

The details of the project are still being ironed out, but the basic gist is that PBOT will set aside a handful of loading zones outside three government buildings — the Portland Building, the Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, and the Multnomah County Courthouse — where only zero-emission delivery vehicles will be allowed to park. So far it looks like under a dozen loading zone parking spaces will be part of the pilot project, and all of them are in front of government buildings.

Also as part of the project, PBOT will work with B Line Urban Delivery (a company BikePortland readers are very familiar with) to encourage some freight companies to use B Line’s warehouse in the central eastside (on SE 7th) as a drop-off point where loads from larger, diesel and gas-powered trucks can transfer freight to smaller EVs (like B Line’s cargo trikes) before entering the central city. The other element of the project is that PBOT will use a bevy of new technology tools (“data from logistics companies, sensors, and third-party analytics companies”) to analyze and evaluate what happens at these zero-emission loading zones.

That’s pretty much it. But if you only caught a segment on a local network news TV station, you’d think PBOT was banning trucks downtown.

“We’re learning more about a controversial proposal that would reduce Portland’s carbon footprint while also adding an extra burden to struggling downtown Portland businesses,” said a very concerned-looking KPTV anchor. “One business owner is concerned this might cause financial impacts that could drive businesses out of the area.” KPTV (Portland’s Fox affiliate) interviewed two different business owners who panned the idea — neither of whom’s businesses will be remotely impacted by the project.

The Oregonian headline said, the City of Portland would be, “restricting truck parking.” Their story was fine and straightforward, but that headline isn’t really accurate because trucks aren’t restricted at all — just gas and dieseled-powered ones.

KGW got it totally wrong. Their headline blared, “No one has done this” and then their lede stated, “The 16-block zone will be off limits to traditional, gas-powered delivery vehicles.” Both of those statements are false. A city in Los Angeles piloted a zero emission delivery zone a few years ago. (It is a bit confusing that PBOT is saying this is a “first” in the nation; but I think they’re claiming that it’s the first “regulated zone,” or one that will actually be enforced with citations (the L.A. pilot didn’t have an enforcement element)).

KGW was so eager to gin up opposition to the idea they did a second story about it where they gave the president of the Oregon Trucking Association, Jana Jarvis, a platform to pan both PBOT and the project. Jarvis is the most influential trucking advocate in Portland and the state of Oregon. She chairs the PBOT Freight Advisory Committee (despite being termed out and serving long after new city rules allow) and is a member of the ODOT’s Mobility Advisory Committee (the rogue committee that has repeatedly overstepped its authority).

Here’s the exchange with Jarvis in the KGW story:

And some groups are already raising concerns about the impacts of the plan.

2040 Freight Plan where it mentions zero emission delivery zones.

“We still don’t know what the zero-emission delivery zone parameters are or who will be affected by this unilateral decision, but we do know that zero-emission vehicles are not available for broad application in the trucking industry,” Jana Jarvis, President & CEO of the Oregon Trucking Association, said in a statement.

Jarvis, who is also chair of the Portland Freight Committee, said that the city applied for the grant last fall, but it was never mentioned in any committee meetings since then.

“The trucking industry is deeply disappointed by the lack of transparency from the City of Portland, and is very concerned about the impact this will have on the movement of products in the still undefined area,” Jarvis said.

First, Jarvis can’t claim to be blindsided by this project because it was included in the PBOT 2040 Freight Plan (on page 6 of this PDF) which was developed by the PBOT Freight Advisory Committee she chairs and discussed numerous times at meetings she attended.

And again, PBOT has simply announced a grant award and all they’ve shared is a basic outline of what the project might look like. So of course all of its impacts are unknown. To say however, that PBOT hasn’t been transparent and to share criticisms like this at this stage just seems very unfair.

KGW has a history of terrible transportation stories. Recall back in December when they followed the same formula in their outrageous hit piece on the new protected bike lanes on SW Broadway?

Another problem with how this project was covered by local media is that only one outlet (The Oregonian) even mentioned one of the biggest reasons it’s being done: safety. Drivers and their large trucks have claimed the lives of many Portlanders over the years. Reducing the size of trucks — especially downtown — has been the focus of numerous advocacy efforts over the years.

At yesterday’s press conference, Senior Advisor of Research & Technology at USDOT Ben Levine said, “Projects like these show that addressing safety priorities and addressing climate priorities are the same are two sides of the same coin…. This project asks and answers a critical question. How can our cities and communities best use public space to serve the needs of their residents in fostering safe places to move healthy places to live and vibrant places to be?”

And PBOT Commissioner Mingus Mapps (at his second positive news press conference for PBOT in as many weeks) got it right during in his speech in front of City Hall yesterday: “Electrifying our transportation system — from bikes, to personal vehicles and freight trucks — is critical… and will make our city healthier and will fight climate change. The closer freight operators get to zero emissions, the better it is for everybody. The safer streets will be, the less congestion we will have, and the less pollution we will breathe.”

So let’s get it straight: The sky isn’t falling, it’s just getting less toxic.

Note: I will say that the PBOT communications team didn’t do themselves any favors with how they rolled this project out. I feel like they might have rushed it to coincide with two transportation-related conferences that were in town yesterday an the fact that some USDOT staff were in attendance. Stay tuned for more coverage as this project gets fleshed out. There are some very interesting details I’m eager to learn and share more about.

ODOT wants to help bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees build power statewide

The Portland metro area is home to many transportation advisory committees. In addition to the City of Portland’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees, there are similar ones in other cities across the region, there are committees housed in Metro and Multnomah County, and dozens at the Oregon Department of Transportation.

This is the case throughout the entire state — from the coast to the high desert. But even though many of these groups are working toward similar goals, most of them are currently disconnected from one another. The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC) wants to change that.

On Monday night, as part of The Street Trust’s Oregon Active Transportation Summit, members of OBPAC led a conversation between representatives from some of these different advisory groups. The conversation was conducted by Jessica Horning, the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Program Manager, and two OBPAC members: Beth Young, a planner in the City of Newport who serves as the committee’s local government/land use planning representative, and The Street Trust’s André Lightsey-Walker, an at-large member of the committee.

Meeting attendees included Joe Perez and Tiel Jackson, the respective co-chairs of Portland’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees; Emma Porricolo, a planner in the City of Canby; Multnomah County transportation planner MaryJo Andersen and Multnomah County Bicycle and Pedestrian Community Advisory Committee chair Andrew Holtz. Another attendee, David Philbrick, is a member of the Salem Bicycling Club looking to find more advocacy opportunities locally.

“These [bike and pedestrian advisory] programs don’t have a lot of resources,” Horning said. Most of the members on these active transportation committees are volunteers, whereas groups like the Mobility Advisory Committee (effectively Oregon’s freight advisory committee) are made up of experienced business owners who participate in committee work while on the clock.

To begin the discussion, Horning shared a bit about how OBPAC came to be. This committee was formed as the Oregon Bicycle Committee in 1973, shortly after the Oregon Bicycle Bill was passed. According to the statute recognizing this committee (ORS 366.112), the purpose of OBPAC is to “advise the department regarding the regulation of bicycle traffic and the establishment of bicycle lanes and paths.”

ODOT has a number of other advisory committees, that cover everything from motorcycle safety to public transit. But the influence these groups are able to exert varies. While the moneyed statewide freight advisory committee has demonstrated an ability to impact Oregon transportation plans according to their preferences, OBPAC hasn’t wielded that same power — and neither have other city or county active transportation advisory committees. (This is part of the reason the Portland Bureau of Transportation is looking to reform their modal committee structure.)

Still, OBPAC has more resources than a lot of the local advisory committees around the state, and there’s power in numbers and connectivity. Horning said OBPAC wants to be able to provide educational resources to people who volunteer on active transportation committees and might benefit from some extra training in order to create more effective advisory groups statewide.

“These [bike and pedestrian advisory] programs don’t have a lot of resources,” Horning said. Most of the members on these active transportation committees are volunteers, whereas groups like the Mobility Advisory Committee (effectively Oregon’s freight advisory committee) are made up of experienced business owners who participate in committee work while on the clock.

Even with the strong culture of transportation advocacy that exists in Portland, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees struggle to get local officials to listen to them. You can imagine, then, what an uphill battle people in more suburban or rural communities without that same advocacy network or history of active transportation investment are dealing with. But people all across the state deserve to be able to walk and bike in their cities safely. This might be where OBPAC can step in as a leader.

So, what would advisory committee members like help with from OBPAC? Attendees had some ideas, which they wrote on sticky notes for the group to discuss. Here’s a selection of thoughts:

“Give guidance on how our BPAC [bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee] can get our city council to listen to us.”

“Tell BPACs across the state about new policies/regulations coming from the state (like the Climate Friendly Equitable Mobility program).”

“Bring experts and new innovation guest speakers to BPACs.”

“Help BPAC members understand their role in securing funding…keep a running list of current grant opportunities and basic info about

grants on OBPACs page.”

“Compile BPAC contacts and host info shares occasionally.”

One of the things that might limit OBPAC’s ability to preside over this work? People don’t trust ODOT, the agency where the committee is housed. (Even OBPAC members themselves have expressed feeling out of the loop about statewide bike and transportation projects.) Jackson voiced her concerns about this at the meeting.

“I can’t say I trust ODOT to support BPACs statewide,” Jackson said. “I don’t have that level of trust.”

Perhaps BPAC members will have to rely on each other, then — if they can find one another. Horning revealed that ODOT doesn’t track all the local advisory committees throughout the state, which will make collaboration difficult. The first step, then, is getting this information.

Horning said OPBAC plans to hold more listening sessions like this one in the future to further engagement with bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees statewide. If you’re a member of one of these organizations and want to connect, you can find more about OBPAC at their website.

This story is part of our coverage of the 2023 Oregon Active Transportation Summit. See more stories here.

Big steps forward for carfree path — and future MAX line? — between Forest Grove and Hillsboro

This abandoned railway off NW 341st Avenue in Cornelius could be a future bike path.

There’s been important progress on a project that will build a carfree path on a six-mile stretch of an abandoned railroad line between Hillsboro, Cornelius and Forest Grove. The Council Creek Regional Trail has been a dream for decades and planning began in earnest after Metro published a master plan in 2015. Now Washington County has opened an open house for the project and hopes to add public feedback to ongoing discussions about the project by local elected officials and agency staff via various advisory committees.

On March 20th, the project’s Elected Officials Steering Committee (EOSC) decided on an alignment for the project. They’ve chosen to run a public path ride along the center of the existing railroad right-of-way. The path itself will vary between 10 and 16-feet or so (depending on the segment) and it will feel very similar to other regional paths like the nearby Banks-Vernonia State Trail.

The alignment is just a quarter-mile north of Tualatin-Valley Highway, a major east-west arterial that has a terrible record of traffic deaths and injuries. While there are many efforts afoot to make TV Hwy safer and its transit offerings, TriMet also wants to make sure the rail corridor — and its full 60-feet of usable right-of-way — will also be available for them to extend the MAX from Hillsboro in the future.

At the January 23rd meeting of the EOSC, TriMet’s Director of Government Relations Tom Markgraf said, “I think you all know, TriMet’s interested. When a corridor becomes available, it’s really important to grab it quick and hold it for the future, and make sure that any improvements you make don’t jeopardize the ability to turn it into a transit corridor later on.” Metro Councilor Juan Carlos Gonzalez echoed that sentiment. “I think it is important for us to be able to act swiftly; to be able to preserve that future opportunity,” he said. “There’s strong alignment at Metro with this project.”

But any MAX extension is a long way off. The near-term plans are for a walking and rolling path that spur active travel and community development along the entire corridor (and also offer people an alternative to TV Hwy.) So far, $19 million has been committed to the project and the total price tag is estimated at around $28 million.

While the corridor is already designated as a high capacity transit route in Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan, there are already signs that some people who live along it will oppose any public access.

At that January meeting, Washington County Planner Julie Sosnovske revealed her team has heard that an attorney has already sent letters to people who live adjacent to the rail corridor, “Telling them that they may have reversionary rights and telling them that the right‐of‐way is theirs.” “We don’t believe that’s true; we believe that ODOT owns the right‐of‐way, but there are people receiving advice from an attorney and being signed on to a lawsuit,” Sosnovske continued.

It will be very interesting to see how this project evolves in the coming months and years. For now, you should consider spending a few minutes with the online open house and be sure to click to the last part where Washington County asks for your specific feedback about how you’d use the trail, what type of features you’d like to see, where trail access points should go, and so on. Comments will be accepted through May 14th.

If all goes according to plan, the project will finish design and engineering in 2024 and construction would begin in 2025. Washington County says they are shooting for an opening date in 2029.

Down but not out: Bike activists plan city hall rally Friday

(Background photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland. Flyer: BikeLoud PDX)

Local bike activists want everyone to know that the rumors of Portland’s bike decline have been greatly exaggerated.

BikeLoud PDX plans to host a rally this Friday (April 28th) to hammer that point home. Dubbed the “Bikes are Still the Future!” rally, BikeLoud says they will meet at Salmon Street Springs at 5:00 pm and then roll as a group over to the plaza in front of Portland City Hall. It’s an effort to counter whispers in city hall that perhaps, as the city faces steep budget cuts, investing in bikes is no longer good politics.

“When the 2022 Bike Counts were released in March 2023, BikeLoud PDX members weren’t dismayed or shocked by the falling numbers,” reads a statement from BikeLoud. “We were shocked by the City’s statement that they are no longer committed to people who bike by honoring a promise to‘build it and they will come’.” That’s a reference to comments made by Portland Bureau of Transportation Bike Coordinator Roger Geller, who said at a meeting back in June that perhaps the oft-repeated mantra that if bike infrastructure was built, people would ride in it, “just wasn’t working anymore.”

That worries BikeLoud because they’ve staked their entire organizational mission on the goal adopted in the Bike Plan for 2030 that calls for 25% of all trips to be made by bike by 2030. “BikeLoud PDX believes making safe space for biking is the only way we can get more Portlanders to choose to bike on our increasingly dangerous streets,” they maintain.

Here’s another excerpt from their statement:

We are here to say: we are Portlanders who ride bikes and we are still here. BikeLoud PDX wants to support the Portland Bureau of Transportation and our elected leaders to prioritize biking in the future. This is for our children’s future, this is for our climate future, this is for being proud of Portland: America’s Biking City. Rally with your friends and family on April 28 to Keep Portland Biking! We will celebrate, not as a disappointed group of people who bike, but as a group of folks who still love biking, every day, every year, before and after the pandemic, because we believe: Bikes are still the future!

At the rally, BikeLoud will host an open mic where anyone can step up and share what biking means to them and “what it means to the future of Portland.” Gather at Salmon Street Springs at 5:00 or city hall at 5:30. More information here.

Hoboken leader shares secret sauce for vision zero success

Ryan Sharp at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

When Ryan Sharp was a planning school student in the late 2000s, he was deeply inspired by Portland. On Tuesday, 13 years after landing a job with the City of Hoboken, he experienced quite a role reversal when he found himself on-stage in Portland with dozens of planners and advocates looking up at him for inspiration.

Coming to Portland, Sharp said at the outset of his keynote at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit Tuesday morning, “Was like a pilgrimage for me in a lot of ways.”

Sharp is Hoboken’s director of transportation and parking and is in demand as a speaker because of one startling statistic: this small city in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Manhattan has not had a fatal traffic crash for six years. At a time when vision zero has become the top transportation goal in hundreds of cities across the country, Hoboken is the only one to actually achieve it.

While Hoboken has very obvious and important differences from Portland — public transit is plentiful and popular, it has only 60,000 residents and is less than two square miles in size — Sharp believes it can have an outsized influence. His invitation to the summit is testament to that belief.

Sharp’s goal with a speech at a conference 2,891 miles away from home was to pay back some of that inspirational momentum to advocates and leaders from Portland and across Oregon who’ve been battered by humbling headlines of record traffic deaths and declining use of transit and bicycles.

The presentation Sharp shared was part pep talk and part recipe for success.

First, he said going six years without a fatal crash is largely thanks to, “A lot of damn good fortune.” “There’s always going to be things outside of our control,” he added, knowing he was speaking to a room full of agency staffers and advocates, “I think we have to acknowledge that and accept that as part of that process so we’re not too hard on ourselves. Because at the end of the day how many deaths have been prevented that we’ll never be able to know about because of the work that you guys all been doing?”

Then it was time to share the nitty-gritty secrets of success.

Examples of quick, cheap changes to streets shared by Sharp in his presentation Tuesday.

Hoboken had the fortune (or misfortune) of being able to do a hard reset on its city government in the late aughts. Political scandals and corruption led to a clean sweep of top elected officials and a new mayor came into office in 2009. Vast distrust of government from the public was countered by fresh faces in city hall eager to put the past in the rear view mirror. Transportation got a huge shot in the arm when Dawn Zimmer became mayor. Sharp said she was an active transportation advocate and a daily bike rider.

Zimmer also understood the power of modeling — something we’ve seen almost none of from our local elected officials.

“[Zimmer’s] first act as mayor,” Sharp shared. “Was an executive order that allowed city employees to park their bicycles inside of city hall. So that was a statement of intent.” (In contrast, Portland’s city hall has gone in the opposition direction. After having multiple bike parking corrals in the plaza outside the building for years, that parking was removed in 2018 and was never replaced.)

I learned Tuesday that Hoboken didn’t even have a full-fledged transportation engineering or planning department until 2009, so they could create something from scratch. They began with a bicycle and pedestrian plan in 2010 and went about making small changes on a very small budget. There were no bike lanes in Hoboken at that time, and Sharp said city crews had to teach themselves how to paint bike symbols. “Our [bike marking] stencils were a little bit off… the lines are a little wavy, but whatever we got it done,” Sharp recalled.

The lack of city funds for transportation projects at the outset meant Sharp and his team had to be very efficient and stick to the basics: A few cones in the middle of the street acted as a mini-roundabout; Two plastic delineator wands at a corner to prevent parking and “daylight” the intersection; bike racks in the street to encourage cycling.

They also had to be cognizant of the public pushback against change. “A lot of the things that are in [our bike and pedestrian plan] are things that hadn’t happened in Hoboken before, like creating a citywide bicycle network. So Sharp leaned heavily on pilot projects. “They’ve been devastatingly effective,” he said, in large part because they disarm people who might have concerns:

“You may not believe bike lanes are needed. You may not believe you need to build out curb extensions, to shorten a pedestrian crossing distance or make it easier for people of all ages and abilities to cross the street safely. You may not believe we have the ability to even implement a project like that because of the distrust, and so forth that had been permeating the community for some time. So let’s try it. Let’s see if it works.”

On-street bike parking corrals (plans for which Sharp said he stole directly from Portland), intersection daylighting, a small bike share system, replacing curbside parking with a bike lane — these were all started as pilot projects. And they all turned out to be very popular with the public, a fact that the city knows because they surveyed people about them.

Hoboken’s efforts took a huge leap in 2011 when they began to implement their complete streets policy because it allowed them to institutionalize these pilots and other new approaches. And Sharp explained that it wasn’t just a plan that sat on a shelf and gathered dust. It had real impact because the components of the plan were required in projects. “This was not something that, you know, if we had extra money we would do or look into it, and maybe it’s feasible, maybe not. The goal was to make complete streets components as fundamental as a centerline or an ADA ramp.”

One aspect of Hoboken’s complete streets policy stood way out in my mind: How they approach “pavement management,” a.k.a. how they prioritize paving projects in their capital project budget. Sharp said they “turned that on its head a little bit” by re-orienting the program away from a car-centric approach that prioritizes investments solely on pavement condition. Instead of ranking and scoring streets for repaving investments based on pavement condition and things like traffic volumes (which is how Portland and ODOT and most every other DOT does it), Hoboken expanded the approach to give more weight to non-driving metrics. “If it’s a bike route or a future bike route, it gets a bonus point,” Sharp explained. “Does the street go through a lower income census block? Okay. You get a bonus point. Is it a transit route? Is it adjacent to a park or a senior building? You get a bonus point.”

Sharp also shared a very relevant story about a major project on one of their marquee streets. He and his team at the DOT proposed a $20 million plan to remake Washington Street with curb extensions, safer crossings, narrower driving lanes, and physically protected bike lanes. At the last minute however, city council members didn’t support the protected lanes (because of pushback from business owners worried about parking access); but Sharp didn’t let that stop them.

“We said, okay, that’s fine, we’re going to put in these really bright green bike lanes, then they’re going to attract a lot of people to ride in the street. And we’re going to do the best we can to make it as safe as possible. And if it works, then great. That’s a big victory. If it doesn’t work, well, then we’re going to have a huge new group of supporters and advocates who have experienced the bike lanes first-hand, and the next time Washington Street is up for repaving that support is probably going to be there because there’s going to be an overwhelming amount of people putting pressure on their elected officials to make that change to correct what didn’t happen the first time around.

And that’s already happening. There are already council members that voted against the protected bike lanes just a few years ago, that now publicly come out in support of changing them the next time there’s an opportunity. So these things can happen in phases, you may not always get everything you want the first time you redesign a street… But if we build momentum, and we can play that long game over time, good things can happen.”

Sharp believes in getting wins, but he also plays the “long game.” “Not every community has to be the Michael Jordan of complete streets,” he said, making a basketball reference centered around Tim Duncan, a player known for his humble, basic approach to the game who nonetheless won five championships, “We don’t have to constantly reinvent everything. We just have to keep doing the things that work, well.”

Sharp wrapped up by rubbing salve over the wounded egos in the room that have been battered by negative headlines. “The work you guys are doing has led to everything I just showed you, and now communities are following Hoboken. And so that’s your legacy… You’re still inspiring communities across the country that are a long way from the Pacific Northwest. So I think the future is bright.”

Want to be the director of Portland’s transportation bureau? Here are the job requirements

PBOT Directors since 2005. (Photos and graphic: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The hunt for the next leader of the Portland Bureau of Transportation has begun in earnest.

As we shared back in January, former PBOT Director Chris Warner jumped ship for a job in Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s office. Since then we’ve pondered what we think PBOT should look for in the next leader. But what does PBOT want? What qualifications will the director need to possess to even be in the running for this important position that oversees over 1,000 position and an annual budget of about $570 million?

Well, now we know because the job description was just posted last week.

The commissioner-in-charge of PBOT at the moment is Mingus Mapps. The new director will report directly to Commissioner Mapps, and Mapps will have hire/fire authority through 2024. Starting in 2025, Portland will have a new form of government, so the PBOT director will report to the new city manager position, “through a different organizational structure that has yet to be determined,” the job posting states.

Anyone hoping to score an interview must demonstrate that they can lead a bureau in a city that is, “committed to anti-racism, equity, transparency, communication, collaboration, and fiscal responsibility.” When it comes to PBOT specifically, here’s how the posting frames the position:

This is a critical and dynamic time for transportation and for the future of Portland. Through its scope, variety of services, and key role in regional relations and more, the transportation department plays an important part in ensuring a bright future for the City of Portland. The Director will be someone whose experience enables them to set a positive vision and manage to those outcomes, in order to create an effective transportation future for the City of Portland. The Director will successfully manage the Office of the Director and the bureau leadership team towards those outcomes.

The successful candidate must know how to evaluate data, navigate the battle against climate change, understand the need for strong “equity, diversity, and inclusion” principles, be good and helping people manage change, and so on.

The stakes are high, not just because of how important smart use of streets can be toward fomenting a Portland renaissance, but because we’ll be paying this new director between $162,000 and $260,000 a year to do it. Thankfully, we’ll have some of the best and brightest minds on the selection panel. In recent weeks I’ve heard PBOT ask members of their Bureau Pedestrian Advisory Committee and their Bicycle Advisory Committee to serve on the panel.

When can we expect to find out who the next director is? PBOT and Commissioner Mapps plan to do interviews the final two weeks of May or beginning of June. The finalist will meet with Mapps in early June and if they sign a contract we will likely hear the name around that time.

I encourage everyone who’s willing and worthy to apply! Good luck!

Job: Customer Service – Stages Cycling

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Customer Service

Company / Organization

Stages Cycling

Job Description

Stages Cycling offers you the opportunity to work within the bike industry in an environment of like-minded people. We are looking for great people to join our team who are committed to living out our core values – Creative, Listening, Intelligent, Agile, and Passionate, all in an innovative environment.

Apply through our Career Portal at www.stagescycling.com/careers.

Role and Responsibilities

As part of the Customer Service Team at Stages Cycling, Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) will be trained and certified on one or more product based on individual skillsets and current business needs. Within certified product categories, CSRs will provide pre- and post- sales technical support for Stages Cycling, Stages Indoor Cycling, and/or Stages Indoor Home Cycling products to domestic consumer and International consumer and distributor accounts.

Customer Technical Support

Provide sales and technical support to our domestic consumer and dealer accounts for designated/certified products

Respond to customer service “tickets” submitted via email, the website, and occasionally social media

Provide exceptional customer experience in all communications with customers

Support customers through troubleshooting processes

Communicate with customers, technicians, and/or distributors via inbound and outbound phone calls

Communicate concerns or issue trends to relevant Customer Service Lead and/or Manager

Stay up to date on internal communication regarding our product updates, relevant competitor products, industry developments, internal processes, customer facing processes, warranty and other technical support processes, trouble-shooting techniques, and other relevant information

Participate in Customer Service team meetings and trainings

Process Orders to Support Customer Needs

Respond to warranty needs as dictated by customer needs and/or as directed by Customer Service Manager

Issue parts orders for warranty replacements

Place orders for parts via the ERP system

Provide technical support to field technicians with any questions related to installation, maintenance, trouble-shooting and any other questions related to the Stages Indoor Cycling bike, power meter, Stages Flight system, and any other future Stages Indoor Cycling products.

Create work orders and purchase orders for third party field service technicians and work with accounting to ensure payments are completed in a timely manner

Place orders for parts as requested by the Service Technicians and approved by the Service Director.

Other tasks and projects as assigned

Designates non-essential job responsibilities

Qualifications and Education Requirements

High level of organizational skills.

High level of flexibility and creative problem solving.

Ability to work independently and self-manage duties and tasks.

Ability to use customer management and order processing systems, with training.

High level communication and interpersonal skills, including high-volume telephone and written correspondence.

Intermediate communication skills: Ability to read and interpret documents such as safety rules, operating and maintenance instructions, and procedure manuals. Ability to write routine reports and correspondence. Ability to speak effectively with customers or employees of Foundation Fitness/Stages Cycling.

Intermediate math skills: Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts and percentages. Ability to apply concepts of basic math.

High reasoning skills: Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.

Employment will be contingent upon the results of background checks. See below for additional details

Preferred Skills

Experience with Customer Service communicating via phone and email, experience with word, spreadsheet, and inventory software.

Supervisory Responsibility

This position does not have any supervisory responsibility

Work Environment

This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Foundation Fitness will make reasonable accommodations requested.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to sit or stand; use hands to finger or handle objects, tools or controls; reach with hands and arms; talk and hear; read and see near objects. The employee must occasionally lift or move office products and supplies, up to 20 pounds.

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work

This is a full-time in-office position (currently working remote with no ETA for transition to office). Core office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This position may require overtime.

Travel

Travel is not required for this role.

Background Checks

Offers of employment will be contingent upon the results of background checks. Background checks will be completed only after a contingent offer of employment has been accepted. Background checks include social security verification, prior employment verification, personal and professional reference verification, criminal history check, and potentially additional checks. Evaluations of criminal history will take into consideration the nature of the crime and its relation to the position, the time since the conviction, the number of convictions, and relevant risk to the business and related parties.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer a competitive pay and benefits package. Starting pay is $18 per hour with evaluation for an increase to $19 per hours at 6 months. Benefits offered include medical, dental, vision, FSA, HSA, HRA, and Long Term Disability coverage. We also have a retirement savings plan with 401(k) matching, Paid time off and holidays, and access to industry discounts.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We encourage all interested applicants to apply and welcome applicants of any race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or genetics. We are committed to evaluating candidates based on job qualifications. We will make reasonable accommodations as requested.

How to Apply

Apply through our Career Portal at www.stagescycling.com/careers.

Exploring Washington County with Ride Westside (Video)

All great movements start with a few people who decide to show up and work together.

A movement is afoot to make bicycling better in Washington County and it was on full display in a parking lot across from the Beaverton Public Library on Sunday morning. I stood and watched as rider after rider rolled up and was greeted with smiles and fist-bumps from a very welcoming crew. It was the first ride of the 2023 season hosted by Ride Westside, a burgeoning new group of advocates that want to mix social rides with advocacy to start moving the wheels of progress.

According to one of Ride Westside’s founders, Tina Ricks (who you might recall from our video last summer), the group came together when her and a few other advocates wanted to help organize a ride they hoped would get a bike-friendly politician elected to the Beaverton City Council last year.

That politician, Kevin Teater, won his election. And fittingly, he also showed up for Sunday’s ride.

After the election, Ricks says they kept riding every month starting last summer. It went so well, they’ve decided to formalize things a bit this year. Now the group meets regularly, has a Slack channel to communicate, and, “This year we finally got a name and a logo,” Ricks shared with me on Sunday.

Stephanie Gerrish (left) and Tina Ricks (right).

Ride Westside has members on key transportation advisory committees throughout Washington County and I expect them to have a greater influence on politics and decision-making as time goes on. For now, Ricks said the focus will remain on hosting monthly rides that are easy, close to MAX lines (to encourage folks from around the region to join in), and very welcoming to no matter who shows up.

Mick Orlosky moved to Beaverton from north Portland just last year. “When I moved, I had all these preconceived notions… I thought my riding days were over, that there was no riding out here,” he told me as we waited for the ride to start. “I was so wrong. I was so wrong! I just love riding in Beaverton. I love the west side and I like the these people and the community around here.”

Noah Langenwalter showed up with his family: his 2 year-old son Hugo and partner Stephanie Gerrish. As little Hugo ran around the park, Noah said, “We got an Urban Arrow [electric cargo bike] last year around Easter and we started biking all over Beaverton. We loved it. Then we started learning the routes that were safe around town, got a group of people together and ended up doing a bunch of rides.” Now, as one of the founders and leaders of Ride Westside, Noah wants to spread the urbanism gospel throughout Washington County and do more to make it possible for people to get around without a car.

People like Omar Ahmad, who moved to Beaverton from Houston, Texas in 2018. He said the bike infrastructure in his previous town was “terrible” and he was pleasantly surprised to find “all this cool stuff in the Portland ‘burbs.” For him, the group is a way to find better, safer bike routes.

Note the extremely wide variety of infrastructure types we encountered!

Our 10-mile route for the day (below) would take us west of central Beaverton on a loop toward Aloha. Our leader for the day was Nate Sjol. As we pedaled through a neighborhood, he said, “We’re just trying to give people a way to find their way around town safely… the low-impact streets that connect to different routes in the bike infrastructure out here — and have a good time while doing it!”

It’s easy to have fun riding in Washington County if you know where to ride. Yes there are big, scary arterial highways; but there are also amazing little gems that are often hidden from plain sight and many places where you cannot go with a car. The thing about riding on the west side is that if you want to find the good stuff, you just have to get on your bike and start exploring.

That’s where groups like Ride Westside come in (and if you want a faster group, check out Westside Wednesday). With their help I rode through many places I would have never gone otherwise. We went off-road in Tualatin Hills Nature Park and through Nike Woods, we rolled through parks and a few sections of the Westside Trail. We hopped onto sidewalks in key places and found little cut-throughs you’d never find unless you knew where to look.

“A lot of them I just haven’t known they existed, even if I’ve been searching for them. I haven’t been able to find them until now,” quipped the aforementioned Beaverton City Councilor Kevin Teater, who learned a few new routes on Sunday. I caught up with Teater as we waited for a signal at an intersection he knows all too well: where SW 160th, Millikan Way, and Tualatin-Valley Highway converge. “This is a pretty great bike route into downtown Beaverton, but it’s also hectic, messy, and full of cars,” he said over the hum of traffic. “It’s a break in the infrastructure, so it’d be great to see this improve someday.”

Stephanie Gerrish would love to see safer intersections, especially since her 2-year-old son is riding with her. “It takes a bit of effort to figure out where you’re going to and feel safe,” she said while pedaling along Sunday, “But once you figure out what route works best for you, it’s really easy to get around whether it’s joy-riding in parks or grocery shopping.” When she comes to more stressful roads, she will often just roll up onto the sidewalk. Overall, she has fallen head-over-heels in love with her big white cargo bike. “We just hit 1,500 miles in the first year!” Gerrish shared at the end of the ride.

As the group gathered at BG Food Cartel for post-ride food and drinks, Ricks said they are eager to meet new people and grow the cycling constituency in Washington County. “Come out and join us. Come and have fun. Look on Shift… We’ll have all the rides posted throughout the summer.”

Follow Ride Westside on Instagram and/or Twitter. For more great rides, check out the Shift Calendar.