4/25: Hello readers and friends. I'm still recovering from a surgery I had on 4/11, so I'm unable to attend events and do typical coverage. See this post for the latest update. I'll work as I can and I'm improving every day! Thanks for all your support 🙏. - Jonathan Maus, BikePortland Publisher and Editor
Screenshot from a police dispatch tracker on Twitter.
A person told police they were robbed of their e-bike at gunpoint late Friday morning near the intersection of South Sheridan Street and S. Moody Avenue.
(UPDATE: We have since learned from multiple witnesses that the person who called police might not have been telling the truth about what happened. I’m working on an update to the story and will post it soon to help clear things up. – Jonathan)
The incident occurred around 11:30 AM under the numerous overpasses of the I-5/405 interchange, near Portland’s South Waterfront Park and the Knight Cancer Research Building of the Oregon Health & Science University. There have not been any arrests.
The Knight Cancer Institute warned their community about the incident via email yesterday afternoon as stipulated by the Clery Act which requires universities to report crimes in the vicinity of their campuses.
Here’s that email:
Clery Act Warning: Incident on South Waterfront
On March 17 at approximately 11:30 a.m., a person was robbed at gunpoint for their electric bike under the overpass near the intersection of S. Sheridan and S. Moody. No arrests were made, and the subject was described as a white male driving a grey BMW SUV.
Please be cautious, take advantage of Public Safety escorts as you need and take a moment to review safety reminders below.
If anyone has more details about what happened, please let us know.
UPDATE, 3/20 at 12:20 pm: We’ve learned more from the Portland Police Bureau about what happened. Here’s what they shared with us:
On March 17, 2023, at 11:34 a.m., Central Precinct officers responded to the intersection of South Sheridan Street and South Moody Avenue on the report of a robbery. An officer met with the victim, while others search the area. The victim told officers he was asleep in his tent under an overpass when he was made aware that someone was taking his bike. He tried to convince the suspect to leave the bike, but the suspect refused. The suspect warned the victim not to approach. The victim then approached in an attempt to get the license plate number of the suspect’s vehicle. The suspect produced a gun and showed it to the victim, after which the victim left. The victim told officers the bike had been stolen from his sister, so he was taking it back. Nobody was found.
In an effort to increase their chances of getting something passed this legislative session, sponsors of Oregon’s e-bike rebate bill have decided to give it an extreme makeover.
When House Bill 2571 was first released in November, it was hailed as an exciting step forward by e-bike advocates and bicycle retailers across Oregon. It was a relatively simple concept that would have given e-bike buyers up to a $1,200 rebate at the point of purchase for a standard bike or $1,700 for a cargo bike. The original bill was just two pages long and was widely praised and supported at its first public hearing last month.
But since that hearing, the bill’s chief sponsor, House Representative Dacia Grayber, along with a team of advocates and policy experts, have made significant changes. The new version of the bill is six pages long and has been almost entirely re-written. New features include a provision for people with lower incomes and a larger role for the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Summary of changes prepared by Rep. Grayber’s office.
In describing the changes, Rep. Grayber’s office said their two main goals were to make the e-bike rebate an extension of Oregon’s existing Clean Vehicle Rebate Program and, where possible, model it directly after Denver’s highly successful program.
One major addition is a tiered rebate structure to offer more benefits to low-income Oregonians — something the original bill lacked. Instead of a $1,200 to $1,700 rebate to all residents, the new bill will offer $400 for general residents and $1,200 for people who make 80% of the area median income. The total dollar amount being asked for in the bill is the same — $6 million for the first two years — but $2 million of that would be reserved for the low-income rebate.
This new funding model will double the number of people who can participate in the program. The original bill would have funded a total of 5,000 rebates. The bill can now fund 10,000 rebates.
Another interesting change is how they’ve expanded the definition of the pot of money that would be used for the rebates: the Electric Bicycle Incentive Fund. The new language says the fund could accept donations.
Beyond funding changes, the mechanics of the program have changed for both residents and qualifying retailers. The amendment calls for interested residents to fill out an application for a rebate voucher with the DEQ. All customer information will be kept in a DEQ database. The original bill required bike shop employees to gather demographic data at the point-of-sale. The bill also calls for the DEQ to include a (optional) survey question on the application that would capture the buyer’s anticipated usage and riding mileage.
This switch to a more DEQ-centric program will mean a longer timeline to get your money back (not a huge surprise for anyone that understands how government works). The original bill required retailers to supply the rebate within 30 days; the new bill gives DEQ 60 days.
Speaking of retailers, if they want to participate they’ll now have to apply with DEQ to become a qualified retailer. The program would be open only to brick-and-mortar stores in Oregon and each shop must provide in-store repairs of e-bikes. Before granting an application, each store must be approved by a DEQ employee after an in-person visit and inventory review. Once in the system, a retailer would be given computer access to DEQ software that handles transactions and processes vouchers.
The other thing you will no longer find in the bill is a requirement to own the bike for at least one year (which sponsors realized was unenforceable).
While it’s likely some Oregonians will be disappointed with the changes, the new approach gives the bill a much stronger footing in terms of governance structure. It should also provide a good runway into the 2025 legislative session where it’s very likely lawmakers will pass a large transportation funding package. If the e-bike rebate program has been a success, it’s likely supporters could angle for another large funding injection in that future bill.
We’ll get a sense of what lawmakers think of the new bill at the work session (and possible vote) in the House Committee On Climate, Energy, and Environment on April 3rd.
Note: The amendments have not posted to the Oregon Legislative Information Site yet. I’ll link to them when they do.
“I think everyone’s going to start to seeing significantly more cameras on the street this summer.”
– Dana Dickman, PBOT Traffic Safety Section manager
One of the most frustrating things about Portland’s current traffic culture crisis is that we have a proven tool that would go a long way toward fixing it, yet the City of Portland has been extremely slow to use it. I’m talking about automated traffic cameras, or what the Portland Bureau of Transportation refers to as “speed safety cameras.”
Since the first one was installed in 2016, they’ve worked very well. But a variety of factors has led to a maddening lack of implementation. Fingers have been pointed at a problematic vendor, camera procurement problems, technical (electrical) issues, the bottleneck caused by the Portland Police Bureau’s involvement (an issue that is behind us thanks to recently passed legislation), and as we reported via a city audit in 2015 a lack of cross-bureau coordination might share also some of the blame.
Regardless of the reasons, Portland has only installed nine cameras at five intersections in the past eight years.
But there’s reason for optimism! Not only did PBOT Commissioner Mingus Mapps recently promise to double the number of cameras currently in use in the next year, but a high-level PBOT staffer revealed at a meeting Thursday that cameras will be coming to new locations including 82nd Avenue and Powell Blvd.
Here’s the story…
With frustrations over record traffic deaths, falling cycling rates (due in large part to fear of dangerous drivers), and a “revenue crisis” gripping PBOT (more on that later), it wasn’t a surprise when a member of the PBOT Bureau Budget Advisory Committee (BBAC) brought up the lack of progress on traffic cameras at their monthly meeting last night.
When BBAC member Josh Roll asked PBOT Traffic Safety Section Manager Dana Dickman for an update on the camera rollout, she gave the most thorough and candid response on this topic I’ve ever heard from a city staffer.
Listen to the full audio (or the edited text) below:
Roll:
“I’m really curious on what the status is on the speed cameras systems…I feel like what I just keep hearing is, ‘Oh, it’s procurement. No, it’s, supply-side stuff. So maybe that’s just still the answer. But once recent legislation has gone through some of the logjam on that side of the problem has been resolved, so I’m just curious for an update.”
Dickman:
“I would say things are getting better… All the things you mentioned — procurement, contractor issues, siting issues — all those are real. I think everyone’s going to start to seeing significantly more cameras on the street this summer. We feel like we’ve overcome some of those barriers. I’m hoping that for the expansion we have planned that we are going to have all the cameras installed by the end of this summer. That doesn’t mean all of them will be operational by then, but we should have all of the cameras out on the streets.
I feel like we’re gonna see a significant jump in the next four months. Like, things that we had hoped we were doing over two years, we’re literally going to be doing in six months; but that’s okay because we worked through some challenges. I feel like some of the logjams, so to speak, are really loosening up and we do have the authorization to use non-sworn officers and we’re working through what that’ll look like within PBOT.
We figured out some of the challenging issues with getting power to the new cameras and some of the other technical issues. And we’re going to be able to get some cameras on corridors that we’ve wanted for a long time like 82nd and Powell and some places where the community and PBOT has wanted some additional speed enforcement and intersection enforcement for a long time.”
This is a very helpful assessment of what has gone wrong and what we can expect going forward. It’s also the first time I’ve heard of cameras coming to 82nd Ave and to Powell Blvd. Let’s hope Dickman is right and PBOT is finally ready to move forward more quickly.
For more on PBOT’s traffic camera program, including a partial list of new camera locations, check out their website. And if you see new cameras pop up in the coming months, please drop me a line so we can continue to track this important program.
A bridge in Michigan shared as one example of a lift span by the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program.
— By Taylor Griggs and Jonathan Maus
The plan to expand the I-5 freeway between Portland and Vancouver, known as the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program (IBRP), has had some success over the last year or so. It has broad local political support and even got name-dropped by President Joe Biden. But that doesn’t mean it’s been all smooth sailing.
Speaking of boats…
Whether or not they can fit under the currently proposed design has suddenly become a much bigger deal. As reported by The Oregonian Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard is putting their foot down when it comes to their demands that the project do a more thorough review of a movable lift-span (drawbridge) option.
IBRP Administrator Greg Johnson told BikePortland via email this morning that the Coast Guard delivered a letter to the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration in February requesting a study of a design option that provides 178 feet of river clearance. “Including only one alternative in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) introduces risk that no permittable alternative will be evaluated in the SEIS,” reads the Coast Guard letter.
In response, Johnson told us, “To do this, the program is moving forward with studying a movable span as part of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review process.” He added that doing the study now is a “risk mitigation strategy” because it can be folded into the existing review process and could prevent more significant delays later in the process.
In his comments to BikePortland, Johnson was very careful to show unwavering support for the existing fixed-span design:
“The program understands that external stakeholders want to move forward with a fixed span. We appreciate the responsibilities that the Coast Guard oversees and acknowledge the need to better understand the full range of benefits and impacts associated with a replacement bridge across the Columbia River. Additionally, the program will continue conversations with potentially impacted fabricators and businesses, who have expressed support for the replacement of the bridge and interest in mitigation agreement discussions necessary for a fixed span.”
This all started in June of last year, when the Coast Guard informed the IBRP team that their plan for a 116-foot tall bridge across the Columbia River wasn’t going to fly. The Coast Guard wanted at least 178 feet of vertical space for ships to pass underneath. But the IBRP team was insistent that a lower bridge would work. They said a lift-span would be too expensive and complex and that it would be much cheaper and easier to simply work with a handful of individual ship operators to mitigate passage concerns. All the while, ODOT and WashDOT seemed to brush off the Coast Guard’s threats, even though the maritime agency made it clear they wouldn’t budge and some insiders rang alarm bells.
For now it looks like the Coast Guard has won this high stakes game of chicken. ODOT and WashDOT must now include a formal review of a movable span design in the federal environment review process. And keep in mind: delays are deadly for megaprojects, especially one that already died once and comes with a pricetag that could reach $7.5 billion.
Lawmakers are watching
“Does the Coast Guard have veto power?”
– Bill Hansell, Oregon senator
ODOT Director Kris Strickler faced questions about the bridge height at a March 13th legislative committee meeting.
“Yes… my hope is that it never constitutes a veto authority, though.”
– Kris Strickler, ODOT director
The former IBRP (the Columbia River Crossing) died because politicians backed away from it. Now, headlines about this latest design snafu have made their way to lawmakers in Salem.
At a meeting of the Joint Committee On Ways and Means Subcommittee On Transportation and Economic Development Monday, Oregon Department of Transportation Director Kris Strickler was asked about the bridge height issue by Senator Bill Hansell (R-29).
“I just heard today… that the federal government had some issue with our design… care to comment on that?” Sen. Hansell asked.
“At the macro scale, the design is pretty well-formed,” Strickler replied. “But when you look at the details of the bridge itself, we are still looking at the movable span portion.” Then, without being asked about the cost, he added, “Would it cost more? Absolutely. I can tell you unequivocally that the cost of a moveable span is more than the cost of a fixed span. We don’t know how much more yet, but it could be upwards of $500 million, just for the bridge portion alone.” (Strickler also took the opportunity to remind lawmakers that a drawbridge that would be raised about 400 times per year would have a negative impact on light rail headways.)
In his comments Wednesday, Strickler tried to keep things lighthearted. “The Coast Guard is one of the federal cooperating agencies that partners with FTA and FHWA through this process,” he said at one point. “So it’s not like we’re in a position where we can tell them, ‘We’re just not going to evaluate your concept’.”
Then Sen. Hansell got right to the point on everyone’s mind: “Does the Coast Guard have veto power?”
And Strickler, always careful with his comments, replied. “I’ll define that by saying yes, because they have a bridge permit that we have to get in order for us to enter into construction. So my hope is that it never constitutes a veto authority, though.”
Tunnel vision
As we’ve covered in the past, Vancouver-based engineer Bob Ortblad has been ardently advocating for the IBRP to consider an immersed tube tunnel connection between Vancouver and Portland for a long time, saying it would be safer and more visually pleasing to the city skylines than a steep, hulking bridge. This idea has received little in the way of institutional support, but last week one person of note joined the tunnel team: Vancouver Mayor Pro Tem Ty Stober.
In a March 10th Facebook post, Stober expressed his disappointment with the IBR program hurdles, saying “the economy of Southwest Washington needs an updated crossing as soon as possible” and urging them to look for alternatives.
“It would be a tragedy to replace one draw bridge on Interstate 5 with another one,” Stober wrote. “I am calling on the IBR team to do a fresh, complete study of a tunnel. The benefit would be to reconnect downtown Vancouver to Fort Vancouver and open the skyline.”
On the Oregon side, House Rep. Mark Gamba brought up the tunnel at Wednesday’s legislative meeting. He asked Strickler why it hadn’t been given more consideration.
After saying one reason they don’t like the tunnel idea is because it would requiring “a significant amount of material waste… we’re talking millions of cubic yards,” Strickler said he doesn’t think a tunnel would provide adequate access to freeway interchanges used by the ports of Oregon and Washington. “… The tunnel idea provides complications in providing access to each of those [interchanges] in a way that makes it something that is technically, relatively infeasible,” he said.
What’s next?
(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The IBR planners don’t want a moveable span bridge, and they really don’t want a tunnel. But they’re not going to get the federal support they need for the project if they don’t play ball with the Coast Guard. Now they have to hope the additional review goes quickly and comes out in a way that proves a lift-span isn’t a good option.
“I feel pretty confident that we’ll get a fair evaluation and we’ll come up with what’s right for the community,” Strickler said.
IBRP Administrator says now that a movable span is officially in the NEPA review process, the public will get a chance to provide public input once the EIS comes out later this year.
On the advocacy side, in a press release from Just Crossing Alliance (JCA), a coalition of organizations who want a “right sized” project, member Brett Morgan with 1000 Friends of Oregon indicated this is a moment for the IBRP to make things right:
“One ‘alternative’ is not really a choice,” Morgan wrote in a statement. “And isn’t responsive to partners. The JCA has been saying since the early days of the project reboot that we need to bring along multiple alternatives.”
Keith Liden riding on the SW 6th Avenue bike lane over I-405 toward SW Jackson.
Green line is SW 6th Ave.
Keith Liden is not your average bike advocate. As we shared in our profile last fall, he’s been a thorn in the side of Portland Bureau of Transportation staffers for 30 years — many of them as a member of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.
A few weeks ago I met up with Liden to take a closer look at one of his many personal advocacy quests: closing gaps on Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard. Terwilliger is very important street. It’s one of the two main veins that connect southwest Portlanders to downtown and other destinations. It’s also much lower stress than its parallel, state-owned cousin, SW Barbur. Terwilliger is classified as a “major city bikeway” in Portland’s Transportation System Plan and provides a direct connection to the VA Hospital and other medical buildings. Beyond its utility, it’s a beautiful parkway with views of the Willamette River (and far beyond) that was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Compared to many other important bike route streets in Portland, Terwilliger is in fine shape. Liden knows that. He just has a few quibbles that, if addressed properly, could take Terwilliger from good to great. And he’s got a good point. Portland has a lot of good bikeways, but very few great ones (which might be one reason why our ridership numbers have fallen).
Looking north on SW 6th toward Broadway (Google Streetview)Looking south on northeast corner of SW 6th and Broadway.Looking north on 6th. Median separates freeway off-ramp (on the right) from other lanes on 6th.Looking south on 6th. Off-ramp lanes on the left.Bike lane on SW 6th on I-405 overpass.(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
In November 2022 Liden sent a 9-page memo to PBOT planners titled, “Terwilliger gaps – time to fix them!” “Terwilliger is one of the most heavily used bike routes in SW Portland,” he wrote. “The existing gaps have been identified as a high priority in virtually every transportation-related plan since the mid-90s, but oddly, correcting the gaps has received relatively little attention over the past quarter century.”
Liden’s memo detailed the existing conditions and his proposed solution to four gaps. Today l’ll focus only on the one at SW Broadway (Terwilliger turns into SW 6th just south of this intersection).
“This one’s personal for me,” Liden shared as we waited in a green bike box at a red signal headed northbound on SW 6th at Broadway. As drivers roared by, it felt like we were standing on a tiny island atop a tumultuous sea. “I got hit by somebody taking an illegal right hand turn right here [where no right turns are allowed]. The guy took me by surprise. I did a cartwheel right out in the middle of the intersection. Luckily I had a helmet on.”
“This one’s personal for me. I got hit by somebody taking an illegal right hand turn right here.”
When I shared a video about this intersection last week (above), a lot of folks chimed in to say how terrible it is. Set on a diagonal, and with four-to-five wide lines in all directions, the widest section of SW 6th and Broadway is about 165 feet from curb-to-curb. Adding to the stress is that it’s adjacent to I-405 freeway onramps. And if you make it the 104-feet across Broadway, you enter a narrow, unprotected bike lane on the freeway overpass. Then, just as you begin to enter downtown and begin to breathe easy, the bike lane ends just before SW Jackson. Then, as you try to decide what to do, you realize there’s a freeway off-ramp lane on your right and you’re dumped in the middle of the street sharing lanes with drivers. And those drivers on your right? Many of them want to merge across two lanes (including the one you’re in) to go left at SW College. It’s a complete “F-you” to bike riders.
Seriously? This is how we welcome people into our great city?
To their credit, PBOT knows about the problem. They identified it in the Southwest in Motion plan (Top Tier BP-02) and the Transportation System Plan (projects #20168 and #20167). One of the proposals would extend the bike lane to Jackson by removing some on-street car parking spaces on the west side of 6th.
For an estimated $15,000, PBOT says they could do this (from SW in Motion plan):
(Source: PBOT 2019 SW In Motion Plan)
Liden says that change would be welcome, and is long overdue, but here’s what else he’d like to see:
1. On the south end of the 6th Ave. bridge, illegal right turns at Broadway [where he was hit] need to be addressed. I believe part of the problem relates to drivers who are not familiar with this area (OHSU visitors). Once they see they’re about to get sucked into downtown, they turn right to escape. They could be helped with a directional sign before Sheridan saying something like “To Ross Is. Br. /26 East & Barbur Next Right.” Directional arrows on the 6th Ave. pavement just south of the bike box could also help, and/or the overhead signage could be made more obvious
2. Provide green dashed markings connecting the south bike box with the striped bike lane on the bridge (Figure 2).
3. To complement #2 above, eliminate the curved travel lane striping immediately south of the bridge that guides NB motorists to drift right into the bicyclists’ path when it’s not necessary.
(Source: Keith Liden)
4. Shift vehicle lanes west and enhance and extend the existing bike lane (as proposed in SWIM project BP-02).
5. Prohibit the left merge from the 6th ramp between Jackson and College. Motorists intending to turn left at College typically look at traffic on their left rather than pedestrians crossing in front of them. This traffic only would need to go one more block to Hall to turn left, and it would help mitigate the crazy merging that occurs between Jackson and College.
6. Visually extend the bike lane ending at Jackson with green skip striping to College.
PBOT has done some of the preliminary planning work on this gap, but funding challenges mean it likely won’t get attention any time soon. At a budget work session today, Interim PBOT Director Tara Wasiak told Mayor Ted Wheeler and the other commissioners that her agency is in a “revenue crisis” with a 5-year forecast that demands a $60 million cut in discretionary resources and a plan to cut $6.3 million and 16 staff positions from their 2023-2024 budget.
Liden says his suggestions aren’t expensive because they’re mostly just pavement markings, striping, and signs (and he acknowledges it would take a much larger investment to bring the crossing up to ADA standards). He understands the perilous budget situation and has heard PBOT talk about it for many years. But for advocates like Liden hope and persistence is part of the job and he feels where there’s a will, there’s a way.
“This condition has persisted for way too long,” he says, “but let’s start somewhere.”
It’s true. And it could be getting a lot more affordable. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
You might not expect to see big money moves out of Portland City Hall right now, considering the tight budget constraints most city bureaus are under. But when it comes to the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), it’s a different story — and the latest news out of this program should be very exciting to transportation advocates in Portland.
Among the investments proposed is $20 million for an electric bike rebate program.
Managed by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS), PCEF is funded by revenue the city collects from large retailers (1% tax on large retailers with $1 billion in national revenue and $500,000 in revenue in Portland) and is dedicated “community-led projects that reduce carbon emissions, create economic opportunity, and help make our city more resilient as we face a changing climate.”
Out of its $750 million total five-year budget, the PCEF has $100 million over the next five years (2023- 2028) to spend on projects related to transportation decarbonization. This money will be spent on both “strategic programs,” which are large-scale investments managed by the city and designed with input from community members and subject experts and “community responsive grants” awarded to community-based nonprofit organizations designing carbon emissions reduction projects.
The transportation decarbonization category is the second-biggest pot of money in the new PCEF plan. (Source: BPS)
A local e-bike rebate program
One of the strategic plans outlined in the draft plan is for an electric bike rebate program with $20 million of funding over the next five years. This would be separate from the $6 million statewide e-bike rebate program currently being debated at the Oregon Legislature. And it might turn out to be a crucial Plan B given that House Bill 2571 is very likely to be much smaller than advocates originally hoped (sponsors are working on new bill language that would include many significant compromises from the original version — more on that coming soon.)
It’s clear from the Climate Investment Plan that PCEF committee members are bullish on e-bikes: “E-bikes provide an efficient way to get around Portland, are not subject to vehicle congestion, do not require much physical exertion, offer trip flexibility, and save money and time with respect to parking,” the draft plan states. “Community education and incentives are needed to provide equitable access to e-bikes, as well as safety equipment, lighting, weatherproof gear, charging infrastructure, secure storage areas, and locks.”
This program would give income-qualified households rebates for e-bike and cargo e-bikes from local bike retailers. Local bike retailers will need to be physically located in Portland and provide bike repair services.
“The program will be conducted in parallel with education and outreach by community-based organizations to PCEF priority populations about the e-bike opportunity, including information about safe riding, route-finding, charging, and storage. Surveys and data will be collected about e-bike use, storage, and charging, including recommendations for a pilot program for allocating funds for safe e- bike storage and charging needs for existing multifamily properties,” the plan states.
PCEF planners also want to invest $25 million in an expansion of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s highly successful Transportation Wallet program, which offers transit passes and Biketown/scooter-share ride credits to income-qualified Portlanders. This would give PBOT the ability to issue transportation wallets to a lot more Portlanders.
$35 million of opportunity for local nonprofits
In addition to the two projects above, the plan would invest an additional $35 million in grants over the next five years to nonprofit organizations to help them “identify community mobility needs and solutions and prepare them to implement environmentally sustainable transportation projects.” According to the preliminary draft, these grants could support efforts in:
Community-driven transportation projects that reduce vehicle miles traveled.
Access to clean transportation through the electrification of fleet vehicles including shared vehicles managed by community organizations and electric bikes (e.g., e-bike libraries, e-cargo bikes).
Charging infrastructure that is equitable, convenient, reliable, affordable, and accessible.
Overcoming barriers to accessing clean transportation.
Providing outreach and education for clean transportation including new mobility options.
Building capacity of organizations to implement clean transportation projects.
Support workforce development and training programs that provide economic opportunities in the clean transportation sector.
So, transportation nonprofit people, it might be time to start thinking of grant application ideas that fit these criteria.
From here, the CIP must be recommended by the PCEF advisory committee to City Council later this summer. Then City Council will need to approve the CIP before solicitations for specific projects are released. BPS will host an in-person PCEF workshop this Saturday, March 18 at CORE – Collective Oregon Eateries on 82nd Ave from 1 to 4 pm (RSVP for the event here). There will also be a virtual public workshop on March 22 (info here). And an online survey is available to fill out until the end of the month, which you can find here.
City leaders are turning over every possible rock to find policies that will help them build more housing more quickly. Last month, Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio and the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) sent out a survey asking which building requirements the City of Portland should consider suspending or modifying to help them reach that goal.
The results of that survey came out Wednesday and the thing at the top of developers’ list of peeves — rules about the type and quantity of bicycle parking required in new building projects — raised a lot of eyebrows in transportation circles.
The survey was emailed to 3,100 people involved in the building permit process: those who had applied for construction permits in the past four years; non-profit organizations developing new housing; businesses and professionals involved in housing development; and city employees from the seven bureaus who review permits.
Asked to rank the top five most burdensome regulations out of a list of 22, over a third of the the 600 respondents chose bike parking requirements as a top-five priority standing in the way of more quickly producing housing. It got more top-five votes than any other requirement, although System Development Charges beat bike parking as the absolute number one requirement needing attention. (A formatted presentation of survey results and next steps is available here.)
Portland passed a major update to its bike parking code in 2019, the first overhaul of requirements since 1996. The code upped the minimum quantity required, added theft prevention rules, addressed accessibility concerns, ended a loophole that allowed developers to put a hook inside a unit to fulfill the long-term parking requirement, and more.
Rubio is commissioner-in-charge of BDS and the Portland Housing Bureau, and she also heads Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency. With that portfolio, she sits at the crux of the housing affordability and supply crises that Portland and the state face.
And there is pressure coming from the state to do something. One of Governor Tina Kotek’s first actions in office was to declare a state of emergency because of homelessness and to sign an executive order creating the Governor’s Housing Production Advisory Council with the goal of building 36,000 homes per year.
Commissioner Rubio is well-placed to help meet those goals. Today’s survey is a first step in streamlining Portland’s processes and policies with an eye toward building more housing.
The slowness and complexity of Portland’s permitting system has been the subject of many reports and audits over the past several years. The 2021 report from the City Auditor, in particular, reads like a supporting document for replacing the commission form of government with a city manager:
The commission form of government and fragmented permitting authority across seven bureaus has resulted in no one entity empowered to resolve these long-standing Citywide problems. This is exacerbated by leadership turnover – both with bureau directors and Commissioner assignments – that results in changed priorities, focus areas, and funding decisions. As a result, each bureau director and their Commissioner-in-charge remains focused on their own bureau and not on the City permitting process as a whole.
“The next step is to do further research to see if any changes related to a specific process or policy would help to increase housing production.”
– Jillian Schoene, chief of staff for Commissioner Rubio
Given the governance inefficiencies pointed out by the audit, and the effect they have had on the permitting process, I reached out to Commissioner Rubio’s office to see if they had a sense of whether it was the actual regulations themselves that were slowing down housing production, or if the culprit might be the confusion caused by having permitting authority spread across seven different independent bureaus. Rubio’s Chief of staff Jillian Schoene responded. “Now that we have the initial feedback [from the survey], the next step is to do further research to see if any changes related to a specific process or policy would help to increase housing production,” she said.
Another source of confusion the 2021 audit details has been conflicts between new and existing regulations. The City Council stopped funding annual regulatory improvement reviews in 2017, and no reconciliation process has been in effect since.
Commissioner Rubio, says Schoene, in partnership with BDS and the Permit Task Force, has set up a Regulatory Workgroup tasked with “designing a new process for the city to follow for code development,” with the goal that for any new regulation “there is front-end vetting to learn early where conflicts may arise.”
The survey had a box for additional comments, and those make for bracing reading (even rivaling BikePortland comments). Several of them jumped out for different reasons, including number 26, in all caps:
PLEASE KEEP THE PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS! THESE INVESTMENTS ARE IMPORTANT TO THE FUTURE OF OUR CITY AND PLANET BY MAKING MORE WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS.
Or this one:
You don’t need suspending or modifying [of requirements] to support increased housing production, you need to have staff return phone calls and email and speed up the processing part of the permit. I just had a townhouse project that took over a month just to intake. Pre-Covid this would have been completed in one day. And permits in pre-issuance for weeks is not acceptable. I typically have no problems with the regulations or fees. It’s the weeks of no response from staff.
This survey is a first step in the significant overhaul of the building permitting process which the city is undertaking. Other recent efforts have included the work of commissioners Dan Ryan and Mingus Mapps on the Permit Metric Dashboard, and also with the Permitting Improvement Task Force.
Much of Portland’s built environment relies on improvements to the public space made by, and required of, new development — things like new bike racks. BikePortland will be following this process as it unfolds.
This morning the team of workers who keep Portland’s Biketown bike share system up and running were greeted with an email that informed them they might not have a job come May 1st.
That’s the date when a new company will take over the maintenance duties of the Biketown fleet from Motivate LLC. According to workers employed by Motivate who have reached out to BikePortland in the past two days, Lyft, the company that owns Motivate and holds the bike share contract with the City of Portland, has chosen a new maintenance vendor. That puts about 20 full time employees who currently repair and maintain Portland’s bike fleet in limbo.
“We deeply appreciate the hard work from the Portland team over the years and everyone who has contributed to the organization,” read this morning’s email from Motivate CEO Matthew Parker. “We will be working with the new vendor to place as many of the current Portland staff as possible and create as smooth of a transition as possible for those impacted.”
“It was kind of a shock to me,” said Hazel Light in an interview Wednesday. Light has worked on Biketown for Motivate since 2018. She’s also the station chair for Transit Workers Union Local 320. “It’s an anti-union move in my opinion,” she added.
According to Lyft Communications Director Jordan Levine, Motivate was involved in a competitive procurement process and “given serious consideration.” In the end, Lyft chose Shift Transit instead. “We were most impressed with Shift Transit’s ability to provide service levels that meet PBOT’s and Lyft’s expectations,” Levine said.
Shift Transit already manages bike share fleets in Toronto, Tucson, Chattanooga, and Detroit. They also run the Biketown system at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton. On their website, Shift Transit claims to be the leading bike share operator in North America with a portfolio that includes more than 15,000 docks and 8,500 bikes. It’s also notable that some employees of bike share systems managed by Shift Transit, like MoGo in Detroit, are already TWU members.
For her part, Light says she and her fellow employees, “Feel like the rug got pulled out from under them.” She worries that if the former Motivate workers aren’t rehired by Shift Transit, Biketown will suffer. “You would lose a lot of that knowledge, degrade service and it will result in fewer bikes on the street. It would really be a setback for bike share in the city,” she added.
According to Lyft, the move will also consolidate the maintenance and rebalancing contracts into one instead of two companies. Currently Motivate has the contract for maintenance and First Transit does the rebalancing work. Shift Transit will now take on both jobs, which Lyft says will result in “operations and staffing efficiencies.”
The move comes at a time when Biketown is outperforming expectations and continues to post strong ridership numbers — despite an aging fleet that hasn’t been increased in size since it launched in September 2020. Meanwhile, both cycling ridership numbers and traffic fatalities are headed in the wrong direction. Having a stronger Biketown fleet — especially in parts of town where new bike infrastructure sits relatively empty — could be the antidote to Portland’s biking blues.
Slide shown at Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, Tuesday March 14th.
“There’s nothing out there today for bikes on that street, and we are a city that cares deeply about bikes and wants to advance our goals around bicycle use, so we wanted to look at it.”
-Mike Serritella, PBOT
The jurisdictional transfer of 82nd Avenue from state to city hands last spring — and subsequent influx of funding for infrastructure changes — has opened up a world of new possibilities for the street. The Portland Bureau of Transportation released details on some of the initial draft designs for 82nd earlier this month, but none of the plans so far have been specific about the future of dedicated bike infrastructure on the street.
That changed at Tuesday night’s joint meeting of the Portland bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees where we got our first clue into what dedicated bike facilities on 82nd Ave could look like. According to PBOT planner Mike Serritella, they probably won’t look like the protected bike lanes of our dreams, but at least the conversation is happening.
Serritella briefed committee members on 82nd Ave planning efforts and the possibility of including dedicated bike lanes in the plans. In the past, the idea of bikeways has taken a backseat to talks about significant changes to the walking and transit infrastructure on 82nd. Given that, we were surprised to see Serritella’s presentation.
PBOT says they want to right the past wrongs on 82nd Ave. (Source: PBOT)
“I think if anyone travels on 82nd Ave regularly, they can attest that the status quo of what’s out there today has consistently prioritized cars and the movement of cars over people walking, biking and taking transit,” Serritella said. “It hasn’t historically been a huge part of the conversation and focus around 82nd Avenue which is focused primarily on pedestrian space and transit…but there’s nothing out there today for bikes on that street, and we are a city that cares deeply about bikes and wants to advance our goals around bicycle use, so we wanted to look at it.”
Serritella said PBOT has a limited amount of space to use on 82nd. Even though the street may seem wide, it’s comparatively more narrow (56-60 feet) than other arterials in east Portland, like 122nd Ave or SE Stark St.
“It’s a constrained corridor…so planning for the future of [82nd Ave] requires us to grapple with trade-offs, because there’s just simply not enough space for us to really adequately serve all the modes that are out there today,” Serritella said.
In looking at options for creating a designated space for cycling on 82nd Ave, Serritella indicated it became clear that there wasn’t going to be enough room to repurpose a full vehicle travel lane to create a continuous protected bike lane that would be comfortable for people to use. This would require all car, freight and transit traffic to share one lane in each direction, which Serritella said would have particularly negative impacts for people taking the 72 bus on 82nd Ave — the busiest bus in the TriMet system. Ultimately, PBOT has an interest in pursuing a bus rapid transit project on 82nd Ave similar to TriMet’s FX line on Division St, which would likely take priority over including bike facilities on the street.
Slides from the PBOT presentation.
“Our initial analysis [of the protected bike lane option] is that it would create roughly a 50% delay to transit users on the corridor, which has a major impact. In addition, there would be tens of thousands of diverted vehicles of all kind throughout the system,” he said. “So this isn’t an easy decision, but it’s something that makes us think that this type of treatment on 82nd Ave is not something we want to move forward with at this time.”
Serritella said that instead, PBOT is recommending broader bike network improvements rather than a continuous dedicated on-street facility. This might be something like a shared bike-bus lane on a stretch of 82nd, and potentially a sidewalk-level bike facility behind the curb on off-street sections of the corridor.
Carol Hasenberg, a BAC member who lives in east Portland, said she would prefer to see a bus rapid transit line on 82nd and a parallel neighborhood greenway nearby for people biking to use.
“I tend to want to separate bikes and cars as much as possible, like veins and arteries,” Hasenberg said.
This perspective reflects an important philosophical debate in the bike infrastructure world. Many people, including Portland Bike Coordinator Roger Geller, have lamented how many of Portland’s bikeways are hidden off of main streets. People who wanted PBOT to install a dedicated bike lane on Hawthorne Blvd, for instance, were not happy with the city’s reasoning that they could use parallel greenways instead. This could be a cause of contention on 82nd Ave as well.
Serritella said PBOT wants to build two parallel routes to 82nd that’s within a quarter mile of the corridor top to bottom. Right now, the 80s greenway running between 82nd and 92nd only runs south of I-84, but the funded 70s greenway is expected to be constructed this summer. Additionally, they plan to build “a series of frequent and evenly spaced bike-friendly crossings” all throughout the corridor for people traveling east-west across 82nd Ave.
This presentation was just the start of a conversation that will take place over the next year or so. Stay tuned for more updates as the discussion continues to play out.
More bike infrastructure has not always led to more bike riders. This is the new bike/bus lane on SW Main at 4th in downtown Portland. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Cover of the report.
It’s no secret that bicycle ridership in Portland has decreased in recent years; but just how much was anyone’s guess. Thankfully the Portland Bureau of Transportation just released their first bicycle count report since 2014.
The good news is we now have more data to help us understand cycling trends in the city. The bad news is, based on PBOT’s 2022 counts, biking in Portland has dropped back to levels not seen since 2006. “That a decline is occurring in both numbers of people bicycling and in mode split is undeniable. Why it is happening is difficult to determine,” states the report.
To get their numbers, PBOT relied on a tried-and-true method they’ve used for about three decades: an army of volunteers with clipboards who count every bicycle rider they see at hundreds of locations citywide over a two-hour period. They then extrapolate those counts to come up with a daily traffic number. In addition to these 105 volunteer counts (at 234 locations), PBOT used automated counts from fixed pneumatic hoses at 74 locations. The final ingredient are commute-to-work survey data collected by the U.S. Census.
Instead of sharing a raw number from their 2022 count, PBOT has decided to compare the data of three, four-year time periods: 2013 to 2016, 2016 to 2019, and 2019 to 2022. Those three periods take us from our plateau (0.5% increase), the beginning of the downward decline (10% decrease citywide), and then the cliff of the final period when PBOT says bicycling dropped by 34.9% between 2019 and 2022.
(Charts from the 2022 Portland Bicycle Counts report)
To put a finer point on the decline since 2019, just nine years ago (in 2013) PBOT says there were 3,478 people riding bikes in the central city. During the counts last summer, there were just 1,122 people on bikes — a 45.9% drop. Across 184 count locations, PBOT tallied 17,579 people biking in 2022, a 37% drop from the 27,782 counted at the same locations in 2019.
According to the Census, Portland’s bike-to-work percentage plummeted to just 2.8% in 2021 — down by almost half from the 5.4% in 2020 and well off our nation-leading peak of 7.2% in 2014. That Census number has long been criticized because it focuses only on the work trip and the lack of trust in the Census more broadly in recent years makes its data even more suspect. But it remains an important tally because of its longevity and its influence on federal funding and policy decisions.
While this news is deflating, at least we’re not alone. All other big U.S. cities have seen similar declines. And even at 2.8% we’re still tops.
The Census numbers also mirror Portland’s own counts, which have shown a steady decline since 2014. So far, PBOT says they have no idea why this is happening.
In the report, PBOT details how they’ve continued to build out the city’s bikeway network (77 of it miles since 2014), the majority of which were either neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes or off-street paths. Here’s PBOT making their case that the biking drop isn’t because of bad infrastructure:
“It is easy to argue that Portland’s bikeway network is of higher quality and reaches into more parts of the city than in 2014- 2015 when bicycle commute mode split and the number of people biking to work peaked. Despite these efforts, bicycle use—as reflected in both commute data and the city’s annual counts— has continued to drop. The pandemic can explain much of the recent, precipitous drop in biking, but it does not explain the downward trend before 2020.”
The report also breaks the counts down by geographic area, gender, and helmet use.
Not surprising, the area with the lowest average number of riders was east of I-205 and the area with the highest average was southeast Portland. That lack of ridership in east Portland is a huge problem for PBOT — especially since they’ve spent many millions in recent years installing new bike infrastructure. The lack of people using the bikeways just fuels the anti-bike fires and the sooner we get folks on two wheels the better (which is why I’m convinced the answer is to drop 1,000 or so new Biketown bikes east of I-205).
Perhaps building on the case that public safety concerns are top-of-mind for many people when it comes their choice to ride a bike, the counts revealed the first significant drop in 13 years in the number of riders who were identified as women. Just 28% of bike riders counted citywide were identified as women, down from the usual 31-32%. Volunteers counted the fewest riders marked down as women, 18%, and the lowest rate of helmet use, 56%, in east Portland.
To build back Portland’s once-vaunted base of bike riders will take time and a concentrated effort to change the narrative (and the reality) about safety. As I shared yesterday in our annual accounting of traffic deaths, the vulnerability felt by all bike riders when it comes to their personal safety can easily trump any good news about new infrastructure. Things like incentives and public events to build community were at the foundation of Portland’s rise as a cycling capitol and we’d be smart to keep those going as well.
One interesting thing I noticed recently in looking at traffic fatality data is that when more people biked in Portland, a lot fewer people died. Just 20 people died while using Portland roads in 2008 when our bicycling rates made a massive leap. And the recent rise in traffic fatalities began in 2014, the same year Portland’s bicycling rates began to fall.
Learn more about PBOT’s bike counts on their website and download a PDF of the 2022 Bike Count Report here.
On Friday, the City of Portland published a website and launched a survey to garner more public feedback on bike-friendly speed bumps. Depending on what they hear, they might change the design of the bumps, or decide they aren’t worth the trouble.
The site comes just a few days after our story about the bumps that pointed out the wide variety of opinions on the treatment and how many riders are confused by them. Ever since the transportation bureau first installed these on southeast Clinton in 2018, we’ve heard from people who love them and people who hate them.
PBOT has heard those opinions too. Now they want help to make the bumps as effective as possible — or determine if they should keep installing them at all. “Speed bumps are one tool to maintain low speeds, but they can also be inconvenient to people biking, potentially discouraging more bicycle trips,” reads their website.
Now you know! (Source: PBOT)
PBOT also wants to clear up confusion about how bike-friendly bumps differ from emergency vehicle-friendly bumps. The giveaway is this: If they are intended for emergency vehicles they’ll have three channels — including one in the centerline of the roadway. Bike-friendly ones have just two channels.
The survey asks riders if they prefer going over the hump or through the channel. They also have a question to gauge opinions on whether or not the 10% increase in cost associated with the bike-friendly bumps is worth the benefits.
In addition to the survey, PBOT says they will do field-testing and observations about how the bumps are being used.
Check PBOT’s new website and take the survey here. (Below is a new PBOT map showing bike-friendly speed bump locations.)
Photo: Oregonian archives (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)Advocates putting their bodies on the line for safer conditions on SE Powell Blvd: 1958 vs 2022.
In the fall of 1958, parents of kids attending Creston Elementary School near Southeast Powell Blvd and Foster Road decided they were tired of the excuses. They wanted their kids to be able to cross Powell safely to get to school or to Creston Park, and they were going to put their bodies on the line to make it happen.
Almost 65 years later, after many serious crashes on Powell that have claimed the lives and limbs of people trying to walk or bike across the street, advocates are still trying to get the message across. And thanks to a remarkable piece of transportation history we’ve just learned about from reader Dave Binnig, we now know that those parents used similar tactics to a protest on Powell late last year.
These articles tell a story that will seem very familiar to anyone involved in today’s efforts to make Portland’s streets safer for vulnerable road users. Binnig is hopeful that this time around we might see real changes on Powell, but he said the fact that we’ve made so little progress since 1958 is troubling.
A 1958 photo from the human chain event. (Photo: Portland Archives)
“On the one hand it’s inspiring to see parents a couple generations ago were so committed to making Powell safer for their kids. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that 65 years later Creston parents are still asking for the same thing.”
– David Binnig
“On the one hand it’s inspiring to see parents a couple generations ago were so committed to making Powell safer for their kids. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that 65 years later Creston parents are still asking for the same thing,” Binnig said in an email to BikePortland.
The Creston parents — mostly moms from the Parent-Teacher Association — asked officials from the state, city and school district to help improve a crossing at Powell and SE 47th Ave, where kids were getting injured while trying to cross the street.
“A couple of additional amber safety blinkers have been installed at the intersection, but the mothers’ group does not think this sufficient. The crossing has a stop and go signal system which can be activated by the patrol boys whenever children cross,” an article in The Oregonian (PDF) written at the time states. “The well-traveled street carries a great amount of traffic, and there have been injuries to children at the crossing, mothers contend. The mothers’ group in the past has indicated it would like an elevated crossing or some other safety precaution.”
Since these changes didn’t come, the parents decided to protest by forming a human chain to block car traffic on Powell. They stayed there during crossing times for multiple days in a row until the city agreed to a plan to make the crossing safer. Judging from the articles, it seems like the parents first ran into bureaucratic challenges: one article states that then-Portland Mayor Terry Schrunk said “the city had no funds for safety improvements for the crossing and suggested the parents assess themselves to provide the extra facilities wanted.”
Eventually, the city agreed to a plan that included installing a push-button signal at the crossing (not a raised crosswalk) and the mayor presented the Creston PTA with flowers for their hard work. Today, however, people are still demanding changes be made to Powell Blvd so it’s safe for vulnerable road users to walk and bike across the street, and they feel like they’re in the same boat as these parents 65 years ago. In many ways, the situation has become even more dire.
But the coalition of advocates is broader now, and the message more far-reaching, even though many of the tactics they’re using to accomplish their goals are similar.
In the aftermath of the collision that killed Sarah Pliner in October, activists protested by forming a human-protected bike lane at the intersection. The images from that demonstration look very reminiscent of the human chain formed by Creston parents about 20 blocks east in 1958.
Dave Binnig (Photo courtesy Dave Binnig)
“And the dynamics are familiar, with the department of transportation (then the Oregon State Highway Department) saying these are complicated engineering questions, and a city government without enough money to take action on its own,” Binnig said. “In some ways we’re worse off now: in 1958 Powell in the Creston school area was a 4-lane road with a 20 mph school speed zone; now it’s a 5-lane road with no school speed zone.”
Binnig lives near Creston Elementary School, and frequently visits the school park with his young child. This has made the issue of safety on Powell all the more salient to him, and he sees how important parents are in the fight for safer streets. Powell Blvd is home to several schools, including Cleveland, Kellogg Middle School, St. Ignatius School and Creston, and parents of kids who attend these schools have been some of the most outspoken advocates for change in the last few months.
“In the course of serving on the Powell workgroup I’ve been more systematically focused on safety and usability challenges on SE Powell, and I think the school PTAs are some of the most compelling voices on the need to make changes,” Binnig said.
Thanks in part to the reaction from parents after Pliner’s death, the Oregon Department of Transportation implemented a school zone on the stretch of Powell near Cleveland High in October. ODOT is also conducting a new speed zone and lane realignment study of Powell in the Creston area, which activists hope will have a similar result. And with some state policymakers on their side, advocates believe this could be the time for real change on Powell. If it happens 65 years late, it will still be better than nothing.
