BikePortland

Opinion: My thoughts on the cycling decline and a list of theories to explain it

Traffic on North Williams Avenue, May 20th, 2020. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

There are a ton of reasons why cycling is down in Portland these days. Anyone who thinks the answer is short or simple has not taken the time to fully grasp what has happened in the past decade and what continues to happen today.

We need to acknowledge the problems that got us here and get everything out in the open. That’s what this post is about (and it’s long, so get comfortable).

I’ve read hundreds of comments and emails, have had many conversations, and have spent countless hours thinking about this decline. And it’s far from a new concept. We first reported that Portland’s cycling boom was over and that something fundamental about the culture of this town had shifted in a story our former news editor Michael Andersen wrote way back in May 2014 (that was part of a “Portland’s Cycling Stagnation” series we published mid-2013). Michael wrote that story because I just wasn’t able to get the words out of my brain. That’s common on issues like this — big, multi-layered ones I feel deep in my bones but have so much emotion wrapped into they’re hard to put into words. After listening to me rant for days in the office about it, Michael finally just said, “Let me write it.” And he absolutely nailed it.

The fact that the city happened to be painting over the huge “Welcome to America’s Bicycle Capital” mural downtown was a perfect coincidence and Michael’s idea to splice the article around a time-lapse of it was brilliant. We went on to publish 12 stories in a series we hoped would help get Portland back on its pedals. It didn’t work.

Personally, although I shared my thoughts on Portland’s cycling complacency and political crisis in 2015, I never fully reckoned with our decline in cycling after that. There were a lot of reasons why: I always figured it’d be a temporary blip; I’d staked my professional life on Portland being a great cycling city, so it was hard to acknowledge we were anything but; I didn’t want to demoralize the community with too much negativity; and I wanted to make space for a lot of other very important issues — like racism in urban planning, police brutality, gun violence, housing affordability and related homelessness — that began to dominate the local discourse and City Council meetings.

As a white dude with a lot of privilege and who many just think of as “the bike guy,” I knew the optics of me shaking my fist at the sky and saying, “But what about bikes?!” would not be great. So I mostly kept my head down, mentioned my concerns about the decline here and there, and worked hard to keep the cycling flame lit.

The new bicycle count report from PBOT (the first one they’ve published since 2014, unfortunately), forces me — and all of us — to fully reckon with these facts and speak out. Some folks say the report might have undercounted cyclists, and there is probably some truth to that (bicycle counting methods are notoriously flawed). But overall, the trend is real and it would be a grave mistake to keep our heads in the sand about it.

Cycling is too important to Portland for us to just sit back and hope things turn around.

As we continue to cover the decline and publish stories and content that push us forward, I want to share a list of theories I’ve heard and thought about thus far. Getting all this into the open is an important step, and I hope we can soon stop talking about why it happened, and start talking about what we will do to reverse the trend.

So buckle in. Below is my attempt at a full list of reasons why cycling has declined in Portland…

A socio-political-cultural shift

Too many of us took our cycling culture for granted. Between 2002 and 2012 or so, Portland had the greatest cycling culture in the world. No, we are not Amsterdam, but they can only dream of the bike culture we had (the head of bike planning for Copenhagen told me as much during my visit in 2013). It is no coincidence that our once-vaunted culture declined at the same time cycling rates began to plateau and then drop. (City Cast PDX podcast host Claudia Meza and I talked more about this in an episode that came out Tuesday.)

The hard truth is that Portland walked away from cycling around 2012. It’s a shift in culture that has troubled me for years. Some of the creative cultural elements — like the Sprockettes, BikeCrafters, and custom bike builders — waned because all cultural moments eventually fade away. But in Portland, we fanned the flames of this shift because city leaders and advocates began to lose confidence in cycling when it hit some tough times.

This doubt crept in around 2010 and the result was a new silence around cycling that is still happening today.

Remember when PBOT decided to change the name of “bicycle boulevards” to “neighborhood greenways”? Remember when PBOT embarked on the North Williams Avenue project in 2011? It was going to be called the Williams Bikeway Development Project. But they changed the name to Williams Avenue Traffic Safety and Operations Project. Or how about in 2016 when the nonprofit Bicycle Transportation Alliance changed their name to The Street Trust? Remember the Bike Commute Challenge? Now it’s called the Move More Challenge. Or the time in 2020 when City Council was poised to get re-educated on several key bike issues, then PBOT and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly got cold feet and removed the presentation from the agenda?

That presentation was scuttled because of one of the biggest reasons for the silence around cycling at City Hall and PBOT: That it’s too white and to prioritize it goes against the City’s new focus on racial equity. That’s a dangerous miscalculation. “Cycling” the noun definitely has some too-white problems (which I address below), but “cycling” the verb does not. That’s a distinction I don’t think enough local leaders understand or appreciate.

City Cast PDX host Claudia Meza and I talked about this in our conversation Tuesday (at around the 11 minute mark). “I feel like [the City is] just all about inclusivity and DEI [Diversity Equity and Inclusion] and all this stuff, but they are just not wrapping that around biking,” Meza said. “As a person of color who’s been in the Northwest for like over 20 years, cycling is not white.”

When you walk away from cycling due to misplaced fears about racial equity, you not only slow progress, you also erase all the people of color who love to ride bikes, who rely on it as a form of transportation, and who want it to be safer. And when you systematically erase cycling from your city, you should not be surprised when it disappears.

We also got complacent. For years Portland was adored by the media and the urban planning industrial complex. All that attention went to our heads and we lost our edge.

Now we’re in a chicken-or-egg scenario: We’ve lost our major cycling champions in City Hall and we have a PBOT work force that has lost confidence in cycling at the same time the culture has weakened; but we need a strong culture to (re)create those champions and get our City staffer swagger back.

The bike scene is still too white and too centrally located

Portland will never reach its potential until it reaches into every neighborhood in the city. I’m talking about both hard (concrete) and soft (cultural) infrastructure. We need safer streets near the Gresham border and the hills of southwest, and our advocacy organizing needs to go way beyond wealthy white people.

There are some great success stories here. There’s a vibrant, Spanish-speaking advocacy group in the Cully neighborhood and since the tragic murder of George Floyd by police officers and resulting protests, we’ve seen growth in local groups like Black Girls Do Bike, BikePOC PNW and others. But the struggle to expand the circle of bike activism beyond the usual suspects is still in its awkward tween years.

WTF WFH (Work From Home)

The work from home phenomenon is both powerful and recent, so a lot of people are talking about it. Recent U.S. Census data shows that Portlanders who work mostly from home spiked nearly fourfold between 2019 and 2021 — not surprising due to the pandemic (although the upward telecommute trend began in 2014).

(Charts: Created for BikePortland by Kyle Walls)

WFH decimated commute trips and it had a disproportionate impact on bicycle riders (see charts above). When we look at Census numbers and take WFH folks out of the equation, there’s a big increase in drive-alone commuters and a related decrease in bike commuters. I’d surmise that this has a lot to do with the erosion of public safety, increased skepticism of strangers and general isolationism many people have taken to since the pandemic.

Before Covid, I recall city staff extolling the virtues of WFH as a welcome weapon against climate change and congestion. Now, as downtown struggles and no one wants to return to offices, they might be changing their tune.

Erosion of public safety

This is a big one. Another thing that started in 2014 was massive encampments of people living in tents along popular bike paths. Ever since those camps on the Springwater Corridor, and the decision by local leaders to not address it, I’ve heard from readers that they simply do not feel safe riding on multi-use paths. In 2016, we reported on the leader of a bike summer camp who cancelled their activities due to these fears. And by 2019, before the pandemic started, it reached a boiling point.

These paths were the lifeblood of many people’s riding habit. When they fell off the map due to these real and/or perceived issues, it was a massive loss.

Fear of bad interactions with people on paths is just one part of this. The general sense of lawlessness in public spaces brought on by rampant drug use and many people in need of mental health care, combined with the reluctance and/or inability of our government to do its job and keep people safe, has been a knockout blow.

Infrastructure & traffic safety fears

Way too many Portlanders are afraid to use our streets without a car, and I can’t blame them. Our infrastructure has not kept up with our rhetoric and people can only be disappointed so many times before they simply give up.

Our streets are filled with people on their phones, people who use massively oversized and dangerous vehicles for doing everyday things, people whose brains are hijacked by motonormativity, and people who have been told repeatedly by the Portland Police Bureau that they are not likely to get caught if they break traffic laws.

At the same time, our bike infrastructure is not nearly as good as folks in the Portland Building and City Hall think it is. PBOT Bike Coordinator Roger Geller recently said “Our strategy of ‘build it and they will come’ is just not working anymore.” That’s only half true. If we actually built excellent and connected bikeways and safe, welcoming streets, people would come (see this 2016 BikePortland op-ed, If we’re serious about cycling, let’s get serious about cycling infrastructure). Look what happens at Sunday Parkways: We tame drivers with redundant diversion and the presence of enforcement, and thousands of people walk and bike with joy and freedom.

We could have Sunday Parkways (in some places) every day, but too often we build projects that are politically safe instead of building truly safe streets.

It’s 2023 and Portland still does not have a single fully-protected, signal-prioritized, “8-80 safe” bike corridor that gets people from homes to destinations without a spike in fear.

Our bike network is full of gaps, we lack an effective maintenance strategy to keep them clean, and we still cater too much to drivers and the powerful voices who defend them. (We can return to 2014 for an example of this: We had a chance to install a bike lane along a popular commercial area of SE 28th, but after some business owners got in the City’s ear, PBOT scrapped the plan.)

I’ve been a broken record on this point: When it comes to street design and network connectivity, we are simply not doing enough to counter the rising threat of drivers and their cars. The gap between that threat and our anemic reaction to it is where people die and/or decide to drive.

We can’t only blame users of the system, we must also expect more from the architects of it.

The enforcement problem

Local transportation officials and advocates (I’ll include myself in this) have gotten enforcement wrong. It was right for us to be wary of the role of armed police officers in traffic stops, but the reflex to distance ourselves from enforcement entirely has left us in a bad place. As we sought to protect vulnerable people from police, we never communicated or implemented an alternative plan to enforce traffic laws.

The message was, “We don’t trust the police, so we are moving away from enforcement.” The message should have been, “We don’t trust the police, so here’s what we’re doing instead.”

The alternatives are right in front of us: automated enforcement cameras, bolder street designs that encourage safer driving, and a larger role for PBOT and non-armed civil servants to enforce some traffic laws. We’ve made some progress on all three, but not nearly enough.

Driving is too easy

It’s not enough to make incremental progress for cycling, we must simultaneously reverse progress for driving. As a driver myself, I would happily trade less convenience for a healthier, more humane city (which I did by supporting a diverter at the end of my block). PBOT has made some strides on this, but we must do more, and more quickly.

Currently there are numerous key cycling arteries that are dangerous only because of the presence of drivers and a lack of physical protection between their cars and bicycle riders. SE 7th, N Interstate, SE Foster, SE 122nd, NE Marine Drive, NE Lombard, SW Barbur Blvd — we could place concrete barriers on all those streets today and they’d be much more appealing to bike riders tomorrow.

We could also make driving much more expensive, but because Portland officials haven’t figured out how to decouple equity concerns from transportation planning efforts, we are still stuck in the mud. Higher gas taxes, EV charging fees, parking prices, congestion charges — there are a lot more ways to create revenue from our transportation system. We should try more of them.

Bike facility maintenance (and lack thereof)

@PBOTinfo portland should be bikeable year round, but building bike lanes that flood makes that impossible. (Division and 142nd) pic.twitter.com/fvTajbrMh6
— B Rosen (@NotThatBenRosen) April 5, 2023

It’s not actually a bike lane if it’s covered in debris, trash and/or a large puddle most of the time.

ODOT simply doesn’t care enough to keep bikeways on their roads clean and passable, and PBOT has cut funding for maintenance crews for years and has struggled to keep enough workers on the job. And with more protected bike lanes in the network, PBOT still hasn’t figured out how to sweep them efficiently.

Whatever the official excuse is, the amount of leaves, gravel, snow, mud, water, trash, cars, glass, and so on and so forth, is unacceptable. Neglected bikeways send a clear signal to the people: We don’t respect cycling and we don’t expect anyone to use these spaces. That signal has been heard and people have reacted accordingly.

Gas is too cheap

(Source: Top: Michael Andersen for BikePortland; Bottom: Statista)

I know a few smart people who say the best way to predict cycling rates in the U.S. is to look at gas prices. The correlation between high gas prices and high bike ridership — and vice versa — has long been a solid argument. But I would posit that the correlation will weaken going forward in large part due to the forces I’ve laid out in this article. As people get even more fearful of others, inequity and selfishness grows, and as long as options to driving are not as attractive, most Americans will simply pay whatever it takes to keep driving.

Demographic forces

Portland home prices, 2013 – 2021. (Source: RMLS)

This topic is beyond my area of expertise (actually all of these are, but why stop now?!). I include it on this list because I’ve heard it brought up many times: The combination of new Portland residents moving here in droves around 2012, and higher housing prices brought on by a lack of supply, has forced younger, lower-income people out of the most bikeable inner neighborhoods and into less-bikeable ones. This was a double-whammy because those bike-oriented people now have longer trips and less safe infrastructure to ride on; while those new residents have more money and are less likely to have cycling play a large role in their everyday life.

Those younger residents that helped create the fertile comedy grounds that the hit show Portlandia germinated from, had less money, but they also had fewer life responsibilities (no mortgage, no kids, and jobs that fit their lifestyle) and more time to create, organize, and advocate around cycling. When they grew up and left, they were replaced by folks who had a different relationship to Portland and to cycling.

The local advocacy ecosystem

In 2014, two years before the BTA changed their name to The Street Trust, there was already talk about how the group had stopped being a loud voice for cycling in Portland. In a comment to a BikePortland story that was part of a series intended to help us break through the stagnation, the co-founder of then-BTA, Rex Burkholder, couldn’t stay quiet any longer. He felt the organization had lost their voice and wrote, “It’s time for the BTA to return to its roots, or step aside.”

One week after that comment, we reported on how the BTA had made an intentional shift in strategy to move way from bicycling and toward something they felt would be more appealing to business interests and suburban partners. The BTA changed their name to The Street Trust two years later and has drifted further away from cycling ever since. Two weeks after we reported on the BTA’s shift, activists saw the writing on the wall and launched Bike Loud PDX. That group has been growing ever since, but still has no paid staff and doesn’t have the resources or legacy to wield major influence.

The BTA was a force to be reckoned with in its early years. Today, The Street Trust continues that legacy, still does vital advocacy work, and celebrated their 30th anniversary last year — but their shift away from cycling has come at a cost. One source inside City Hall told me this week that, “Bike advocates have no presence or political capital in city hall at the moment.”

It’s also notable to me that The Street Trust hasn’t made any statement about the counts report or the decline in cycling since it was released over two weeks ago.

Another element of this topic (unrelated to The Street Trust) is the demoralization of many bike activists. The past decade has been tough on Portland’s legendary bike advocacy volunteer troops. From the lack of urgency on the 2030 Bike Plan, to the myriad decisions where Portland leaders followed the path of least resistance instead of sticking to our velo-centric values, some activists just got fed up and moved on.

Bike theft

The bike theft problem has plagued Portland for a very long time. And it persists, despite our best efforts to do something about it. Regardless of stolen bike statistics, many people simply don’t think their bike will be secure if it’s locked-up outside. Heck, thieves even target locked bike storage rooms in apartment and condo complexes! Until we reverse the perception around this issue and are able to show that the City of Portland is making a sustained effort to remedy the problem (similar to the effort they’re making for stolen cars), it will continue to dampen enthusiasm for cycling.

The rise of carsharing and micromobility

Remember when Uber and their drivers forced their way onto Portland streets, despite not having a permit? When Uber and Lyft burst onto the scene, they likely ate up some bike trips and might have gobbled up some on-the-fence bike riders. And other types of non-car vehicles have also gained a toehold in the bike lanes in recent years. E-scooters, one-wheels, and e-unicycles have all contributed to the erosion of the cycling habit for some Portlanders.

So now what?

We need to continue to learn and share information, then we need to use that knowledge to course-correct and get back on track. For my part, I’ve been soaking up perspectives and feedback since the count report came out two weeks ago. We’ve published several stories about it, I’ve done two podcasts so far (ours and I was on the City Cast PDX pod Tuesday), and tonight (Weds, 4/5) we kick-off a new Bike Talk Happy Hour event we co-organized with three businesses on SE Ankeny and 28th.

Everyone has a role in this rebuilding process. Getting mad and pointing fingers is helpful only up to a point, then it becomes detrimental.

I believe Portland is “The City That Works… Better With Bikes.” If you believe that too, let’s work together. I don’t want to return to the “old days.” I want us to build something that reflects lessons learned in the past decade and that is even more exciting and beautiful than we could have ever imagined.

If anyone wants to talk about this, I’ll be at Gorges Beer Co on SE Ankeny just before 28th from 3-6 pm. Come join us at the inaugural Bike Talk Happy Hour.

Not all heroes wear capes, but some of them wear rain ponchos

“What do you do when it’s raining?”

It’s a common refrain directed at people who bike for transportation all year in our notoriously rainy Portland. It’s also something that has come up in a lot of conversations about why biking in the city taken a dip — even though Portland’s winters were just as rainy back when there was gridlock bike traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge every morning.

But it’s possible the rain has become something like the final straw on a camel’s back for some people who now opt for different modes of transportation. If you’re already reluctant to bike because you’re worried about traffic safety, bike theft, or another issue, you probably aren’t going to be convinced to dust off the pedals if it’s pouring rain out. However, there are plenty of people who brave the rain on their bikes all the time, and they’ve figured out that with the right gear, almost any weather is manageable to cycle through.

Some of those people attended last night’s ‘Clever’ ride co-hosted by Portland bike shop Clever Cycles, Rhode Island-based rainwear company Cleverhood and Portland bike advocate and TikTok influencer Jenna Phillips. We experienced a range of weather on the ride: it briefly hailed during my bike ride over to Clever Cycles, then it was mostly light drizzle and sunshine for the rest of the evening. But there was no complaining form anyone donning the right gear.

If Cleverhood sounds familiar to you, it might be because they’re a major advertiser on the very popular War on Cars podcast or because of the special ‘Bike Bus’ design they came out with to support kids riding their bikes to school. Susan Mocarski, Cleverhood’s founder and designer, is in town from Providence, RI for a sustainable fabric conference, and she wanted to host an event to meet some of her West Coast fans while she was here.

The ride consisted of about a dozen people, including Mocarski (who rode in the covered bucket of Sam Balto’s Urban Arrow cargo bike) and Clever Cycles co-owner Eva Frazier. Jenna led the way, guiding us from Clever Cycles on inner SE Hawthorne across the Willamette River to Tom McCall Waterfront Park to get some photos with the cherry blossoms. It was fun to show Mocarski around during what’s arguably the most beautiful time of year in Portland, when you can’t go a minute without seeing something spectacular in bloom.

Mocarski told me she started the company after a rain cape she made for herself started getting a lot of attention and she realized there was a need for more gear like it. She said she thinks good rainwear is a crucial part of getting more people to bike and walk in all weather.

“I just want to get more people out in their neighborhood by foot or by bike, regardless of the weather,” Mocarski said. “A lot of people don’t commit to an everyday cycling or walking routine because of weather. Sometimes if you have one thing that makes you more comfortable, it helps.”

Seven-year-old Eliza was the star of the evening in her adorable light blue Cleverhood cape. Eliza is well-known in the Portland bike scene for her hardy, upbeat attitude, rain or shine. She and her dad bike everywhere, and she told me never wishes she was in a car instead.

“I really like [biking in the rain],” Eliza said. “You can have fun in the rain [when you’re] not in a car and you can see much more on a bike.”

Plus, all those miserable days are worth it when we are finally blessed with the reward of gorgeous weather. I think it feels better to soak up the sun on a late spring afternoon when you’ve had to work for it a little bit. So while we’re all very excited for the fruits of spring and summer, you don’t have to wait for the perfect day to go on a ride.

The Dutch, famous for biking through cold and rainy Northern European winters, have a phrase to get people to toughen up and bike in the rain: “You’re not made of sugar.” Unless you’re the Wicked Witch of the West, a little water won’t melt you. Jenna said she thinks we could develop a more resilient culture if we were willing to do things like bike in the rain.

“There are things you can do to make yourself more comfortable, but you can survive exposure to the elements,” she said. “It’s a mindset shift.”

Community Cycling Center is first Portland bike shop to unionize

Staff of the nonprofit Community Cycling Center have voted to join a union and the organization’s Board of Directors have voted unanimously to recognize it. Sources say the Board voted in favor of the union less than 48 hours after they received the request.

CCC workers have joined ILWU Local 5 and they are now the first bike shop in Portland to become unionized. ILWU Local 5 also represents workers at Powell’s Books, the Oregon Historical Society, Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice, and several other local organizations.

“We, the workers of the Community Cycling Center (CCC), are proud to announce that we have unionized,” reads a statement from the organizing committee.

Here’s more:

“The Community Cycling Center Workers Union is made up of workers in Community Programs, Youth Programs, shop mechanics, and retail staff. As the first union bike shop in Portland, we hope to show what is possible when workers act collectively. We are excited to be taking this historic step for workers in the cycling industry, and honored to join the thousands of non-profit workers unionized across the country. We are looking forward to building a future in which worker solidarity improves working conditions across the bike and non-profit industries. Together, we can create meaningful and positive change from the ground up.”

The CCC’s Interim Executive Director Steph Routh said the move is, “A step forward in building the trusting partnership among all members of our staff and Board, to better show up with and for our communities to broaden access to bicycling and its benefits.”

While the CCC is the first traditional bike shop whose workers have joined a union, the repair and maintenance crew who look after the Biketown bike share system are also unionized. Portland also has a worker-owned shop, Citybikes Co-op.

ILWU Local 5 President Ryan Van Winkle said his group embraces bikes. “From negotiating for bike subsidies in contracts to organizing bike posse events for members to participate, we see bikes help make our cities livable for all.”

The next step in the process is to negotiate a contract.

Let’s talk bikes at bike-friendly businesses on a bike-friendly street

Wednesdays, 3-6 pm
– Rainbow Road Promenade, SE Ankeny & 28th
– Gorges Beer Co, Crema, Ankeny Tap & Table
– $2 off all drinks (including non-alcoholic & coffee!)

Several weeks ago, the owner of Gorges Beer Co. and Ankeny Tap & Table, Travis Preece, reached out to me. Travis wanted some advice on making his brewery on Southeast Ankeny near 28th more welcoming for bike riders. He also wanted more people to know that his establishments are ready to embrace people who ride.

I was happy to help! A great cycling city needs great cycling-centric businesses. We talked about all sorts of ways Travis could roll out the red carpet for folks who show up by bike. We put together a cycling first aid kit to help folks in need, he’s experimenting with one of those new Dero bike racks with an integrated electric outlet to charge e-bikes, he’s got some ideas on cool new patio tables with a neat bike-oriented surprise I don’t want to spill the beans on yet, and more.

And now I’m happy to share that another one of the results of our conversations is the weekly Bike Talk Happy Hour that starts this Wednesday, April 5th (yes that’s tomorrow!).

From 3:00 – 6:00 pm anyone who shows up by bike to Gorges Beer Co, Ankeny Tap & Table, or Crema Coffee + Bakery will get $2 off all drinks (including non-alcoholic and coffee). Just make sure to use the promo code “BikePortland.”

Why these three places? Because Travis owns two of them and because they are all on the Rainbow Road street plaza — the same one we deemed the best new outdoor carfree dining street in the city during the pandemic. I’ve been impressed with Travis because he is hustling on this. He too is bummed that our cycling numbers are down and he wants to organize in any way he can to do something about it.

If we want Portland to return to its glory days of cycling, we need efforts this. Lots of them. Citywide (as in, not just inner southeast!).

So grab some friends or just show up and meet some. I’ll be at Gorges from 3-6 and once the weather gets better we’ll be spilling out into the carfree street to remind everyone that a great bike city is (re)built business-by-business, block-by-block, bicyclist-by-bicyclist!

Feel free to share!

Profile: Portland’s ‘Global Nomad’ shares high and lows of adventurous life

*(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland) 1989 newspaper clip in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, courtesy Tom Haig.*

“The more I stayed on the bike, the more positive minutes I would have in my day… I was like, ‘alright, the way through this is the way you got into it. It’s through the bike.'”
-Tom Haig

Whether diving into water from a 150-foot perch or facing the reality of a bike crash that left him paralyzed, Portlander Tom Haig’s life has been defined by decisive seconds and an embrace of challenges.

Haig has experienced as many highs and lows as he has adventures across the globe — and you can now read all about them in his new book Global Nomad, My Travels through Diving, Tragedy, and Rebirth (2022, WSU Press). I recently chatted with Haig, who is now a communications specialist with the Portland Bureau of Transportation, to hear about his book and learn more about his epic story.

Haig started his thrill seeking career as a competitive cliff diver and member of a touring circus high dive troupe. (No joke.) When he wasn’t plunging into water headfirst from 70 feet in the air, he was riding his bike: through the humid air in the Ozarks, in the foothills of the French Alps — or once, all the way from Wisconsin to Mexico for an Acapulco cliff diving competition. Those escapades were all more than 30 years ago, but Haig isn’t done yet.

However, his adventures look a little different these days.

En route to the Tibetan government complex in Dharamsala, India.

After traveling the world, Haig decided to settle down in Portland in the early 1990s — in part because of the great cycling opportunities. After getting used to scaling the countryside in the French Alps on his bike, Haig needed to live somewhere with some elevation.

“You can do anything here. If you want to ride flats for 50 miles, you can do it. If you want medium hills, go to the Coast Range, and if you want big ones, you have the Cascades,” Haig told me. “So I just fell in love. I became a cycling nut.”

“I wasn’t feeling pain. I was watching the first 35 years of my life vanish with every passing second.”

Throughout his journeys, Haig had several dramatic brushes with danger: a car crash in Taipei, an encounter with the police in Abu Dhabi and nearly cracking his head open on the cliffs of Acapulco while practicing a never-before-seen diving feat. But it was a standard, run-of-the-mill bike ride on a Sunday morning in Portland that would prove to have the biggest impact on Haig’s life.

Haig has an astonishingly clear recollection of what happened on that Sunday morning in 1996. As he describes it, he was “riding hard” on his road bike down SE Sandy Blvd where it turns into 7th Ave at Stark. A driver busted through a stop sign and Haig turned around to tell her off, losing sight of the 24-foot truck ahead.

“I was a pretty good bike handler, I’d ridden in pretty crappy conditions,” Haig said. “But as I went for my brake, my brake cable snapped. And instead of a controlled slide off my bike, I went falling. My head bounced off his bumper and my butt hit the road — it was a compression fracture. I knew almost instantly that I had a spinal cord injury.”

In his book, Haig writes that he wasn’t feeling pain in this moment. Instead, he was “watching the first 35 years of [his] life vanish with every passing second.”

“I seriously think for a person with a disability, Portland is the most progressive town I’ve ever been to in my life. That’s one of the biggest reasons I’m here.”

As it turns out, Haig did have a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Haig said that everything he knew about his life so far was gone, and in the months that followed, he doubted whether or not he wanted to keep living.

“I was like, ‘I want out,'” Haig said. “I wanted no part of living in a wheelchair.”

Haig shared that a major saving grace for him ended up being hand cycling. After his injury, his old diving teammates got together to raise $2,400 for a Lightning handcycle. It was tough to figure out at first, but he didn’t stop trying, and eventually he was a pro with the recumbent bike.

“Gradually, the more I stayed on the bike, the more positive minutes I would have in my day,” Haig said. “It took quite a while before the demons started going away…but I was like, ‘alright, the way through this is the way you got into it. It’s through the bike.'”

From there, Haig became a competitive hand cyclist, and he resumed his old vagabond lifestyle too. As he traveled the world again — this time needing to navigate the world quite differently than in the past — he realized how unaccommodating so much of the world is for people with disabilities.

Haig and his brother Andrew (who just so happens to be the director of the University of Michigan’s Spine Center), started a nonprofit called the International Rehabilitation Forum to “bring together people and institutions to build rehabilitation medicine in low-resource and isolated countries.” Through this program, Haig has travelled to countries like Albania, Ghana, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Senegal, embedding himself in disability communities and documenting the experiences through short films.

While he’s committed to a nomadic lifestyle, Haig remains a proud Portlander. He says there’s no better place to be, especially for someone with a disability.

“I seriously think for a person with a disability, Portland is the most progressive town I’ve ever been to in my life. That’s one of the biggest reasons I’m here,” Haig said. While he added that things could always be better, he said Portland stands out in comparison to other cities around the country and across the world.

One of the reasons for this is our transportation system. Haig gave a shoutout to Adaptive Biketown, the Portland adaptive bike rental program co-run by Biketown and Kerr Bikes.

“They’re fantastic. Anyone who’s not comfortable with a regular bike can reserve a bike free for an hour,” Haig said. “And they have so many different types of bikes over there. Once people start going there, then they just keep going back and back. One of my favorite things about working with the city is working with Adaptive Biketown.”

One piece of wisdom Haig has to offer people? If you can, get on your bike.

“It’s such a precious thing to be able to be a bike rider in our town, so take advantage of it,” Haig said. “Get on your bike and ride for fun, ride to work, just ride. That’s coming from someone who lost their ability to walk because he rode so much.”

This is only a small taste of the story Haig tells in Global Nomad, an entertaining read that bursts with fun details and inspiring energy. Learn more about Haig and his work at his website. You can order his book here.

Oregon Senate bill seeks to strengthen bicycle passing law

“The lack of clarity is endangering bicyclists.”
– Doug Parrow, former bicycle lobbyist

Despite our best efforts to stay in front of all the cycling and transportation-related bills at the legislature this session, one managed to sneak away.

Senate Bill 895 seeks to strengthen and clarify Oregon Revised Statute 811.420, the law that governs passing obstructions in no passing zones. Specifically, the bill would require drivers to slow down when passing an obstruction on their right and would amend the definition of obstruction to include someone riding a bicycle or any other person in a vehicle that’s traveling at a much slower speed.

The bill’s chief sponsor is Eugene-area Democrat Floyd Prozanski (D-4). (Those of you who’ve followed bike advocacy in Oregon for a while might recall that this is the same lawmaker who passed Oregon’s current bicycle safe passing law back in 2007.) According to the Oregon Legislative Information Service (OLIS), Sen. Prozanski introduced the bill on behalf of two constituents: Richard Hughes and Doug Parrow. Parrow is not just any Oregonian, he is the former chair of The Street Trust’s legislative committee (back when they had one and were known as the Bicycle Transportation Alliance) and he was a board member of the nonprofit for 13 years. Parrow resigned from The Street Trust in 2010.

The problem Parrow and other backers of this bill are trying to solve is that many drivers — as many police officers — are not aware that crossing over the centerline to pass a bicycle rider is actually already legal. Oregon’s bicycle safe passing law (ORS 811.065) states that, “The driver of a motor vehicle may drive to the left of the center of a roadway to pass a person operating a bicycle proceeding in the same direction.”

But Parrow and others worry that people don’t understand the law and that current ODOT and Department of Motor Vehicle training materials lack clarity. They feel this leads to dangerous passes and/or anger toward bicycle riders.

“The lack of clarity is endangering bicyclists,” Parrow shared with members of the Judiciary Committee (which Prozanski chairs) at a public hearing for the bill on March 8th. “Some motorists have cited the ‘prohibition’ on crossing the centerline as the reason that they have passed bicyclists too closely. Other motorists have followed too closely and otherwise harassed bicyclists instead of safely passing.”

The problem is particularly acute on low-traffic, rural roads where no passing zones can stretch for miles. This means automobile drivers are presented with a quandary: follow behind the bicycle rider(s) for a long time, commit what they think is an illegal move, or make a dangerous pass. SB 895 would make the no passing zone law more explicit when it comes to bicycle riders and Parrow says it should prompt ODOT and the DMV to update its driver education materials accordingly.

Another provision in SB 895 would require people to drive at least five miles under the speed limit while making the pass.

“The bill will just put common sense back into to the law,” said bike advocate Richard Hughes at the public hearing.

SB 895 passed out of the Judiciary Committee on March 20th by a vote of 4-0 (with one excused) and is now on the Senate floor.

Check out the bill overview on OLIS.

PBOT hires polling firm to help understand cycling decrease

The Portland Bureau of Transportation isn’t sitting idly by while their once-heralded bike ridership numbers head in the wrong direction.

As we’ve reported, a recent report from PBOT found that bicycling in Portland dropped by 34.9% between 2019 and 2022. The news was not a surprise, but finally having the data (since it was the first bike count report the city released since 2014) to back up our hunches has crystallized the issue and adds urgency to calls to reverse the trend. For our part, we have hosted conversations about what’s behind the drop and have read hundreds of your comments and emails.

Despite behavior changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so far the City of Portland hasn’t offered any official rationale about what might be behind the numbers. A PBOT staffer shared some of his views at a recent Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, but it was based solely on only well-informed speculation and anecdotal evidence.

Now PBOT wants more direct input about what might be going on.

PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schafer shared with us last week that one step they have already taken is to contract with a well-known pollster to find out more. “We’re working with the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center to put a poll into the field soon,” Schafer wrote in an email to BikePortland. “It will include a couple open-ended questions as well as a few yes/no questions that are designed to determine what Portlanders at this time freely associate with “bicycling,” the number of bicyclists for any purpose, and the reasons why bicyclists are riding less than in the past.”

The Oregon Values and Beliefs Center is a nonprofit that describes their work as, “accurate, inclusive opinion research” that is, “independent and nonpartisan; representative of rural Oregon and communities of color; valid and statistically reliable; and quantitative and qualitative.”

It will be interesting to see what OVBC comes up with. One thing we’ve learned is that there are myriad overlapping reasons behind the decline. Socio-political changes, the rise of tele-commuting, dangerous drivers, vast public safety concerns, and a lack of traffic enforcement are just some of the concerns we’ve heard about most.

Once the poll is completed, OVBC will process the data and provide a report to PBOT. “Once we have that information,” Schafer says. “We’ll use it to inform future steps.”

We’ll get another chance to hear from PBOT about the decline on April 18th. According to the agenda for the Bicycle Advisory Committee that was just released, PBOT Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller will present on the 2022 counts report and then, “present some thoughts on factors contributing to the decline.”

Comment of the Week: I-5 Interstate Bridge project explained in one short list

Welcome to the Comment of the Week, where we highlight good comments in order to inspire more of them. You can help us choose our next one by replying with “comment of the week” to any comment you think deserves recognition. Please note: These selections are not endorsements.

I try really hard to stay well-informed but, try as I may, grasping the ins and outs of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program usually gets the best of me. That is why I was so happy when one BikePortland commenter wrote up a handy cheat sheet for all of the conflicting interests. I keep mine on the refrigerator.

But you could also print it out in a really small font, laminate it, and keep it in your wallet.

Whatever you decide to do with it, enjoy John D’s wry comment in response to our most recent IBRP post, Beg, borrow, and deal: Lawmakers float $1 billion I-5 freeway expansion funding plan:

Yes, they are trying to solve all the competing transportation challenges with a single project. Hence why the common sense alternative proposal is so appealing.

The bridge can’t be too high, or the FAA won’t approve it due to Pierson [sic] Field.

The bridge can’t be too low, or the Coast Guard won’t approve it without a draw bridge.

The DoTs don’t want to stop freeway traffic for bridge lifts.

Clark County doesn’t want transit.

Portland won’t support it without transit.

They have to accommodate interstate traffic traveling long distances.

They have to provide local connections for downtown Vancouver, Hayden Island, and the industrial areas.

Clearly all of those would be better serves by a series of smaller, focused projects, not a single one, but that’s not how our funding system is set up. Instead of long term, sustainable (financial and environmental) thinking, we throw billions at giant capital projects, but not at maintaining them once they’re built. We just assume that in another 50 years there will be another mega-project that will replace the current mega-project.

But wait!!! There’s more! Apparently John D left something out. Luckily Chris caught the oversight.

You forgot one, the Coast Guard doesn’t want additional bridge piers between the existing I-5 bridge and the railroad bridge. It will further complicate the currents for ships.

Thank you John D and Chris! You can find John D’s comment , and Chris’s too, under the original post.

Monday Roundup: Bad drivers, speed cameras, MAMIL research, and more

Welcome to the week. Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers have come across in the past seven days…

The truth hurts: It makes me very happy to see a driver-centric outlet frame infrastructure complaints in a way that centers bad driving. (Jalopnik)

Portland and Paris: I’m scanning everything I read for lessons for Portland and this deep dive on how Paris has reduced cars in its central city — and the influence of its history and politics — offers some important ones. (Slate)

Just install the damn things, would ya;?!: While we continue to wait for the City of Portland to install long-awaited automated enforcement cameras, here’s an article that explains why traffic engineers in Canada are in love with them. (CBC)

With friends like these: Washington Democrats want to fund a highway megaproject because they say it will decrease emissions and provide jobs. Hmm, where have we heard that before? (KREM)

Driving costs: We often hear that anti-driving policies hurt the poor, but missing from that debate is just how extremely expensive cars have become in recent years. If we care about lower-income people, we need to reduce reliance on cars. (CNN)

Carmageddon: Author of a new book on the vast impact of cars on our lives says their cultural impact is on the wane and now is the time to ween American off of them. (Esquire)

Mind the gaps: A new bill introduced by U.S. House Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Jame Raskin (D-MD) would make it easier for cities and counties to get federal funding to fill bikeway network gaps. (Streetsblog USA)

Pretty please: Japan has a new national law they hope will lead to more helmet use; but enforcement will only be a warning. (Japan Today)

MAMIL study: A new bit of research found that middle-aged men who ride bikes have major benefits in terms of muscle mass and ageing; but the catch is you’ve got to get a lot of miles in. (Cycling Weekly)

Thanks to everyone who shared links this week.

ODOT seeks two new members of state bike/ped advisory committee

(Official announcement here)

The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee has two openings for people passionate about supporting active modes of travel. The committee is seeking a new youth/student member and a new at-large member to advise ODOT on bicycle and pedestrian issues across the state.

All Oregon residents are eligible to apply. To be eligible for the youth/student position, you must be under the age of 21 (at time of appointment to the committee). Appointments are non-binding, and appointees may serve a maximum of two 4-year terms. Appointees are eligible for a stipend and travel reimbursements for their service on the committee.

The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, or OBPAC, strives to have committee representation that reflects the diverse geography, demographics, and abilities of everyone who walks, bikes, or rolls in Oregon. The committee encourages individuals with an interest or background in disability rights and accessibility, racial equity, climate justice, and active transportation to apply. OBPAC envisions Oregon as a state in which people of all identities, including age, income, race, and ability, can access destinations in urban and rural areas on comfortable, safe, and well-connected active transportation infrastructure.

TO APPLY

Complete the Advisory Committee Interest Form. This form is linked from our website.

Materials must be submitted before April 16, 2023 to be considered in the first review. OBPAC will invite selected candidates to participate in a Q & A session with committee members and staff prior to making a final recommendation to the Governor’s Office. Finalists will be asked to complete a full board/commission application in Workday.

Please forward this announcement to your friends, family and colleagues!

About the committee

The Oregon Bicycle Committee was first formed by Oregon Statute 366.112, a bill passed in the 1973 Oregon Legislature. In 1995, the Oregon Transportation Commission officially recognized the committee’s additional role in pedestrian issues, and the group became the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. The eight-member committee, appointed by the governor, acts as a liaison between the public and ODOT. It advises ODOT in the regulation of bicycle and pedestrian traffic and the establishment of bikeways and walkways. Members serve four-year terms.

As a member of the committee, you help inform policy and investment decisions to implement the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan and improve conditions for people walking and biking throughout the state. The committee meets up to six times per year, with primarily virtual meetings held from 1:00 – 4:00 pm on the 4th Tuesday of odd months. The Committee also participates in one overnight travel meeting each year hosted in locations across the state. Committee members are reimbursed for travel expenses and paid per diem for meals. Committee members that are not reimbursed by an employer for their participation on the committee are also eligible for a cash stipend.

Throughout the year, the committee gathers input from residents, officials and ODOT staff as it considers bicycle and pedestrian transportation-related issues. Upcoming work items include advising on use of funding from the new federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, selecting projects for funding through the Oregon Community Paths grant program, and informing decisions related to the Safe Routes to School program, Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan implementation, urban design guidance updates, and other policies. OBPAC’s work plan and other background materials are available on the committee’s website: https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Get-Involved/Pages/OBPAC.aspx.

For questions about the committee, contact:

Jessica Horning, ODOT Pedestrian & Bicycle Program Manager, 503-910-7178obpac@odot.state.or.us

Podcast: Royal Johnson and Timberwolves Cycle Recovery

“There’s not a lot of funding towards actual services in Portland that would provide a more reasonable way of handling this situation than just being active in the community.”
– Royal Johnson

Our story last week about a bike theft incident under the freeway overpasses in the South Waterfront district, created more questions than answers. I tried to clean it up with a separate post explaining what we learned after our initial story, but for one group in town — and one person in particular — damage had been done.

Portlander Royal Johnson and his crew behind Timberwolves Cycle Recovery felt the story connected them to the incident in an unfair way. Yes, Royal was involved in the incident, but he says the person who reported it to police was not only in possession of a stolen bicycle, but they made false claims about a gun being present. He also says someone in the community who has it out for him seized on the opportunity to tarnish Royal’s reputation.

Royal, who is Black, posted online this week saying it was all just another example of racism in the cycling community — something he has dealt with many times since moving here in 2014.

So Royal and I decided to sit down in the Shed and talk it out. He rolled up with two other leaders of the T’wolves, Laura Dallago and Rich Baker.

Laura Dallago, Royal Johnson (center), and Rich Baker in the BikePortland Shed on Thursday, March 30th. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“I’ve literally been called the N word, like, just on a TNR [Thursday Night Ride]… I’m not perfect, but I’m loud, I have fun… there is no reason why a person should be persecuted for being who they are… I am persecuted by individuals in the cycling community. And I am probably the only person who looks like me.”
– Royal Johnson

Known by some as the Sith Lord Vader Squadron Timberwolves, this grassroots, all-volunteer group has taken the law into their own hands to recover stolen bicycles.

Royal started the group in Austin, Texas in 2011 and he maintains a chapter of the group there, as well as one in Los Angeles, Colorado, and Houston. Their modus operandi is to enlist people to help them spot stolen bikes, research online to find out of it the bike is indeed stolen, and then if it is, hit the streets and try to recover it.

As you can imagine, when a group of people decide to fight crime — especially when they often interact with and accuse homeless Portlanders of stealing bikes — things can get messy.

In this episode, you’ll hear how the Timberwolves approach their work as professionals who are simply doing the job of an inadequate police force because they want to end the epidemic of bike theft in Portland. We talk about the inherent risks of what they’re doing, what Royal says really happened in that South Waterfront incident, how they interact with unhoused people, racism in Portland’s cycling scene, and more.

Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. View a full transcript below:

pod-timberwolves Download

The BikePortland Podcast is a production of Pedaltown Media, Inc. If you liked this episode, subscribe and browse our archives for past shows, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, and tell your friends about it. BikePortland is a community media source that relies on individual subscribers to stay in business. Please sign up today if you aren’t a subscriber already.

Early decisions in PBOT process baked-in SW Gibbs sidewalk fate

If you can’t get a sidewalk built here, you probably can’t get one built anywhere in southwest.

Yes, I realize this is my fourth post about a new 43-unit apartment building going up on SW Gibbs Street on Marquam Hill near the OHSU campus. I appreciate you coming along on what I’ll admit is something of a personal journey. I keep coming back to this project because it exemplifies how walking and biking interests get short-changed in Portland’s building permit process, at least in the southwest.

What’s controversial about the building is that the city is not allowing the developer to put in a sidewalk on the site’s frontage.

This post focuses on decisions the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) made early in the design phase — decisions which ended up determining the fate of bike lanes and sidewalks long before the public was even aware of what was happening.

Previous stories in this series:

The Gibbs scenario is important because it happens repeatedly in southwest Portland, and maybe in other areas of the city too. However, the southwest’s standing as last in the city for sidewalk coverage and bikeway completion is not improving with growth. New development is not bringing active transportation infrastructure to the area.

When I looked into the permitting of the Gibbs building, it struck me that no one from the city was vigorously advocating for active transportation interests. By the time random neighbors or the Neighborhood Association weighed in for safety, the application was nearing completion and everything had already been planned out and decided.

This particular development is a tell tale for me: If you can’t get a sidewalk built here, you probably can’t get one built anywhere in the southwest.

So, why no sidewalk?

Public right-of-way on the shoulder of SW Gibbs Street, looking east. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

I confess to having gotten obsessed with discovering why PBOT thought that shoulder-widening would provide safe pedestrian passage along this banked, blind curve. On a street which sees 3,000-4,000 vehicle trips daily, and where speed monitoring just uphill clocked people driving 10 mph over the posted 25 mph limit.

The approved plan (drawings below) has people walking on six feet of asphalt between a fog line and a guardrail. It enforces this with assertive landscaping which will prevent pedestrians from walking in back of the guardrail. It’s as if the guardrail is there to protect the plants from the pedestrians.

Site plan for 1325 SW Gibbs St showing new guardrail location and the widened six-ft shoulder. (Steelhead Architecture for Winterbrook Planning)

So I began a journey through building permit documents in search of the first mention of shoulder-widening in hopes that there would be some technical explanation for why the PBOT engineers nixed a sidewalk. Several city record requests later, I think I found that first mention, in the notes from an “early assistance” conference.

“Early assistance” is a meeting between representatives from each of the seven reviewing bureaus and the developer. It’s a chance for the bureaus to tell the developer what they will be requiring—in advance of the developer’s architectural and site planning. This particular conference happened in the spring of 2019.

Here’s what PBOT wanted along the frontage:

Given the potential complexity of the proposed project and some uncertainty with regard to the placement of the primary new building on the site, along with the topography of the site in proximity to edge of the existing SW Gibb [sic] /SW Marquam Hill Rd roadway pavement, and the “recreational trail” designation along the street, at this time, PBOT’s [sic] informs the applicant of the following frontage improvement requirements:

The applicant shall provide a minimum 6-ft wide paved shoulder widening.

On-street parking must be removed.

The existing guardrail must be replaced with current AASHTO-compliant guardrail.

And that’s it. “Potential complexity” and “topography,” but missing a specific explanation for no sidewalk.

Over the course of the following year, designs and requirements solidified around the 6-ft widening. It became baked into the plans, with no one questioning PBOT’s decision.

Finally, a year later in 2020, the city approved the building permit with the widened shoulder. A couple of neighbors raised concerns about pedestrian safety, but they were not savvy to the quasi-judicial structure of the approval hearing, in which a “pro” and “con” side present arguments to a Hearings Officer. Neighbors neglected to cite relevant city code and their concerns did not end up carrying much weight.

So, in the face of inadequate neighborhood opposition, PBOT’s decision to disregard its numerous policies about pedestrian safety (and even plans specific to this site) held. PBOT’s development review office had decided against a sidewalk early in the process, and that was that.

On site with Don Baack

Don Baack in front of 1325 SW Gibbs St. (Lisa Caballero/Bike Portland)

Cross-section comparison. (Graphic: BikePortland)

Given that construction was nearing completion, I met with SW Trails founder Don Baack on the Gibbs site earlier this week to see if he had any 11th-hour ideas to salvage pedestrian safety. Don knows the site well. The 4-T trail passes along Marquam Hill Rd/Gibbs St, and where that street changes name is a trailhead for SWTrail #1.

He was quick with a solution, “I don’t have a problem with a six-foot asphalt widening, but it needs to be in back of the guardrail. Place the guardrail near the fog line. There’s probably a rule against it, but who cares?” The idea seems feasible. Cyclists could possibly use it too, there is even an exit back to the road on the west end, at the building’s driveway.

Don is a practical man, but I’m more like a dog with a bone to pick. I still wanted to find out why PBOT didn’t consider a sidewalk.

Trying to get to the bottom of it all

As I went through hundreds of pages of documents, I came across a review which caught my attention. Did PBOT tip its hand a little too far?

Apparently the PBOT review was about to be held up by an outstanding Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) “special circumstances” request to use the stormwater pipe under Gibbs to convey run-off from the 6-foot shoulder widening.

You have to squint hard, and read deep between the lines, but it looks like PBOT was becoming exasperated with its sister bureau. (The bureaus are tracked for “timeliness” and BES was about to mess up PBOT’s stats.) So PBOT went ahead and wrote its review without waiting for the BES decision. Here is part of what they wrote (the underlines and highlights are mine):

The applicant has submitted the required Public Works Permit(s) for the above referenced required improvements … The review process has been ongoing since July of last year – to date, the applicant has not yet obtained Public Works Concept Development phase (30% plans) approval. 

PBOT typically requires an applicant to obtain this approval prior to a decision being rendered  on the associated land use request. This has historically been required because of potential complications related to public stormwater management facilities associated with work in the r.o.w. – property dedication is often required to accommodate the necessary stormwater management facility and said dedication could have implications with on-site requirements.

In this case, the shoulder paving/widening requirement triggers compliance with the City’s Stormwater Management Manual. However, there is nearly 18-ft of public r.o.w. at the eastern end of the site frontage and approximately 90-ft of public r.o.w. at the western end of the site frontage. Regardless of any type of stormwater management facility the applicant’s civil engineer may design in this case, there will not be a requirement for any property dedication – there is more than adequate existing public r.o.w. to accommodate any designed stormwater management facility.

Moreover, PBOT is aware that the applicant’s civil engineer has submitted a “Special Circumstances” request with BES, that, if approved, may allow the applicant to pay a fee in lieu of constructing a stormwater management facility.

Given that there is “more than adequate existing public r.o.w. [right of way] to accommodate any designed stormwater management facility,” and that the building sits only three feet from its property line, (leaving a swath of public land between the building and the street) I found myself wondering why a sidewalk couldn’t go in.

I never did get to the bottom of that, even after a few emails to the PBOT press office. None of my questions received more than a boilerplate reply about constraints. As I was working on this, I realized that the story had shifted, it was no longer about the reason this particular street wasn’t getting a sidewalk. It became, “why is it so hard to find out why this street isn’t getting a sidewalk.” In other words, it became about transparency.

A car-centric conclusion

It appears to me that packed gravel or asphalt on a six-foot shoulder has become PBOT’s de facto frontage requirement in southwest Portland. I have even seen the required shoulder width reduced to three feet. The justification is always lack of stormwater facilities and/or topographical constraints. And those things are sometimes true.

But those constraints never seem to prevent the feats of engineering which allow the buildings to go up in the first place. Why, in those same constrained locations, are frontage improvements expected to be inexpensive? Why is this six-foot shoulder policy in the southwest de facto? Why not shout it from the rooftops? It takes keeping an eye on land use cases for several years to even notice what is happening.

The way things are going — with little existing active transportation infrastructure in the southwest and none being required of new development, and with TriMet’s Forward Together plans cutting the area’s bus service — each new housing unit in southwest Portland will just put more cars on the road. Everyone in the city will feel that.

The complete case file for this project from the December, 2022 is available here. The original hearing from 2020 can be found here.