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
Crossing SE Division near I-205. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Source: ODOT
Comparing the rise in pedestrian deaths to an epidemic that deserves a public health response similar to what we saw with Covid-19, the Portland based nonprofit The Street Trust has laid out a list of six steps Oregon should take to make streets safer.
“We need to tackle these rising death rates at the root (route) cause: the continued investment and prioritization of the automobile and driving alone at the expense of the health and well being of people, communities, the environment, and the economy,” wrote The Street Trust Executive Director Sarah Iannarone in an article released Thursday.
The article was cheekily titled, “What Oregon Can Do to End Traffic Deaths (Besides Close Crosswalks),” (a reference to ODOT’s recent move to close over 180 crosswalks in the Portland region as part of an ADA safety initiative).
The push from The Street Trust comes as the number of people who died while walking on Oregon highways was up about 45% in 2022 compared to the previous year (see chart at right). That statistic gives this issue added urgency. And The Street Trust’s focus is well-timed because the Oregon Department of Transportation is well aware of the problem and is actively looking for remedies.
ODOT slides
At a meeting of the Oregon Transportation Commission on March 9th, ODOT Public Transportation Division Administrator Karyn Criswell shared a presentation on the Bicycle Pedestrian Safety Action Program, a proposed new program that would look to streamline severe crash responses, speed up infrastructure solutions, and redirect funding from car and truck safety issues directly to more pedestrian-focused projects. “Severe and fatal crashes involving people walking and biking have been happening far too often and they are on the rise,” Criswell told OTC members in her pitch for the new program.
“The numbers demand an action and w’re prepared to move in that direction,” said ODOT Delivery and Operations Administrator Mac Lynde at the meeting.
The Street Trust wants to keep pushing ODOT to do more and they’ve come up with six things they think Oregon could do this year to bend the pedestrian death curve downward:
Redirect resources from driving alone toward walking, biking, rolling and using public transit.
Be honest when we talk about “safety” and align spending with road user injuries and fatalities.
Enforce reduced speeds with traffic cams and implement fines equitably.
Establish community-led Fatal Crash Review Commissions to examine the root causes of crashes.
Develop a statewide ‘Orphan Highways’ Improvement Strategy and Plan.
Establish a task force for a statewide public health campaign around street safety.
Iannarone said she doesn’t expect masses of Oregonians to give up driving until viable alternatives are more robust, but she thinks, “A stated commitment to safety from our elected officials, a focus on community engagement, and coordinated safety investments across our siloed governments and agencies would be a start on the right track.” (Read more from her article here.)
For ODOT’s part, they hope to formally launch the Bicycle Pedestrian Safety Action Program later this year.
One of the most powerful transportation policymakers in the state of Oregon is “skeptical” that actions taken by government can influence peoples’ decisions on how they get around.
Lee Beyer is the newest member of the powerful Oregon Transportation Commission, the five-person board appointed by the governor to oversee and set policy for the Oregon Department of Transportation. That alone makes Beyer a very important voice, but his stature goes well beyond the OTC. As a member of the Oregon House and Senate he served 20 years in the state legislature — and is a former co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation. In that capacity, Beyer was one of the main architects of the landmark transportation package known as HB 2017. (He was also a staunch supporter of the infamous Oregon bike tax.)
At a meeting of the Oregon Transportation Commission in Salem on Thursday, Beyer was listening from the dais during the public comment period when environmental advocate Bob Cortright from the nonprofit 350 Salem stepped up to speak. Cortright (not to be confused with his brother Joe, also an notable ODOT watchdog), used his time to make the case that the Oregon Transportation Plan (being released in draft form later this spring) won’t meet its targets unless it does more to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT).
Here’s the exchange (same as audio above):
Bob Cortright:
The draft plan won’t correct this problem, because it’s really silent about the scale of reductions in VMT and mode shift that are needed. Again, we need to double or triple the share of trips that are made by walking, cycling and transit and reduce VMT by 20%. So those should be clearly included in the OTP [Oregon Transportation Plan]. The draft plan won’t correct this. This is a recipe for an OTP that doesn’t make progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So again, I hope you make those changes as you go forward.
Lee Beyer:
Bob, I appreciate your concern. And the dilemma that I always see is, we can make it easier for people to walk or bike or whatever. And we can make it — I don’t know that we can make it easier for them to drive — But the issue is really self determination. I guess I’m a little skeptical. I come to believe that people are going to continue to do what they do what they want to do. And that it’s very hard to make that change. That’s more of a societal attitude issue rather than something that I think the [Oregon] Department [of Transportation] can do directly… We can make it easier… but my comment, or perspective is that I think as we move to less environmentally damaging cars, EVs or whatever, that people will continue to drive, because they like the freedom of personal mobility. That’s the frustration that I have with the system.
To have someone of Beyer’s stature say, essentially, that the state can have little influence on how many people will choose to drive or walk or bike or take transit, is very notable. Keep in mind that the room was full of top ODOT staff (including Director Kris Strickler).
One person I spoke to who was at the meeting said their jaw hit the floor when Beyer made his comments.
I reached out to Cortright after the meeting just to see if he was as surprised at Beyer’s comments as I was.
“I think it’s appropriate to be pretty shocked on several levels,” Cortright shared. “His comment pretty much denies and ignores the fact that public policy over the last 50-75 years has done boatloads to affect people’s transportation choices by the way we’ve built a very car dependent transportation system and then made driving essentially free.”
Beyond the very dubious merits of Beyer’s comment from a policy standpoint, Cortright feels words like that will serve to tamp down enthusiasm among ODOT rank-and-file. “It’s a bit fatalistic, it excuses the OTC and ODOT from any responsibility, and his skepticism sends a powerful message to ODOT staff that the OTC thinks all these efforts to reduce VMT aren’t worth it and what we need to do is just continue to make driving easier.”
Zak, a CCC PDX rider, let me tag along on a delivery route yesterday. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
Where are all the delivery bikers in Portland?
This is a question I asked myself upon returning from my recent trip to New York and several European cities where bike delivery riders inundate the streets, carrying large insulated bags on their backs or bike racks with food in tow. I hadn’t thought of it much before, but after my trip, Portland’s lack of bicycle delivery riders was striking to me. During the pandemic, food delivery rose massively in popularity, and it’s not going away anytime soon. So how can we make sure more of these trips are taking place by bike?
An e-bike delivery rider in Manhattan. The perfect Domino’s delivery vehicle in Utrecht, NL.
“There are a lot of really great local restaurant owners who are frustrated dealing with apps and see the value in working with a local company.”
– Ponce Christie, CCC PDX founder
Cascadian Courier Collective (the other CCC)
CCC PDX began in Eugene a decade ago and started operations in Portland in 2017. But the company grew substantially during the pandemic, when demand for home deliveries skyrocketed and created a new need for delivery by bike. According to owner Ponce Christie, customers and business owners using delivery apps like Uber Eats and Grubhub discovered the limitations of these services, which charge high fees to both consumers and restaurants.
The fees got so out of control that the City of Portland placed a temporary cap on what third-party apps could charge restaurants — 10% of the total order cost — but this rule was not always heeded. In January, Portland City Council approved a permanent fee cap of 15% of a food delivery order total. But CCC PDX can do you one better: Christie said they’ve always had a fee of 10% and they have no plans to raise it.
“All the sudden, everybody was trying out delivery apps for the first time and finding out how awful they are,” Christie told BikePortland on a phone call earlier this week. “I think our business increased by something like 1000%, which is obviously very crazy because we’re a small business. It was difficult to adapt to.”
But they did adapt, hiring dozens of new couriers and cultivating relationships with restaurants who like its local vibe, low fees and eco-friendly approach to food delivery.
“There are a lot of really great local restaurant owners who are frustrated dealing with apps and see the value in working with a local company,” Christie said. “And in general, our customers are pretty loyal. Once they find out about us, they seem to be pretty stoked on the idea, and are down to come back and try again.”
More scenes from my ride with Zak.
“If I was delivering with a car, all the money I made would just go back into the car.”
– Zak, CCC employee
Out for delivery
Yesterday afternoon I rode around northeast Portland with Zak, who’s been doing bike delivery with CCC PDX for about six months. The job was to deliver packages from the meal kit company Farm to Fit to people’s residences, and Zak upgraded from the standard road bike he takes on smaller deliveries to one of CCC’s Bullitt cargo bikes in order to fit everything. The bike didn’t have an electric assist, but Zak impressively maneuvered it up through the busy streets in the Hollywood neighborhood and then up the Alameda Ridge, dropping off packages as we went.
For many of the same reasons a bike is a great tool for everyday transportation, it’s also a very practical delivery device. You can avoid traffic and the time-consuming hassle of finding parking outside the restaurants and delivery residences. It’s also enjoyable to bike around all day: you get a lot of exercise and can connect with your community. But I think the most convincing reason to deliver by bike instead of car is that you get to keep more of the money you make when you don’t have to pay for gas or car maintenance.
“It’s been nice not paying attention to gas prices for the last six months,” Zak told me. “If I was delivering with a car, all the money I made would just go back into the car.”
It was fun to ride around with Zak, although I have to admit I didn’t envy his position of carrying so much stuff around, especially on a non-electric bike. But Zak was in good spirits the whole time.
“I haven’t had a lot of jobs that I liked,” Zak said. “But I really like doing this one.”
I asked my roommate Patrick Riley, who used to drive for DoorDash, about his time delivering, and he had quite a different perspective.
“It’s not an enjoyable job,” Patrick said. “Most of it is trying to figure out where to park and going somewhere else and figuring out where to park there.”
“I think it’s wrong to be able to order food from a place five-plus miles away anytime you want at the click of a button because the app says it’s convenient.”
The cost of convenience
One of the core beliefs within CCC’s business philosophy is that people don’t always need everything immediately. But that’s a tricky business model in the age of Amazon Prime’s same-day deliveries and 20-minute Uber Eats wait times. People aren’t used to waiting anymore. But Christie pointed out that when you’re delivering within a mile or two, going by bike can often be faster than taking a car.
“I think a lot of people’s argument against bike delivery is that it takes so long. But most of the time, it takes about the same amount of time for us to do the delivery as it would in a car,” he said.
With CCC, Christie also wants to encourage people to look at the options closer to home, within reasonable range for bike delivery.
“I think it’s wrong to be able to order food from a place five-plus miles away anytime you want at the click of a button because the app says it’s convenient,” Christie said. “If you live in Portland, there are probably 20 other restaurants you could be supporting within a mile of you. That’s one of the great things about it here.”
While CCC hasn’t added e-bikes to their fleet, in cities like New York, the bike delivery industry is flourishing largely because of e-bikes (though this has caused contention after several inexpensive e-bike batteries have unfortunately caught on fire while charging in apartment complexes). If more people had access to e-bikes in Portland, I think it would open up the career path to people who are less enthusiastic about pedaling a heavy cargo bike full of packages up Portland’s steepest hills. Perhaps if an e-bike rebate bill is passed in Oregon, we’ll enter a new era of bike couriers?
A peek inside CCC headquarters.
I would love to see a renewed culture of bike delivery in Portland. It would mean fewer cars on the streets (and fewer Uber Eats drivers parking in bike lanes, which I see on a fairly regular basis) and connecting with our amazing local restaurants would be a great way to reinvigorate Portland’s bike scene.
In order to encourage this, I think the most important step is to simply make it easier to bike around the city for any purpose — the places where bike delivery works the best around the world are also the places where biking is the most ubiquitous. And as the Portland Bureau of Transportation works on its 2040 Freight Plan, perhaps they can consider ways to incentivize last-mile and food delivery by bike.
Larch Mountain Road (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
One of the most iconic cycling routes in the region will close for entire year. Multnomah County announced today that Larch Mountain Road will close sometime in May and won’t reopen again until next spring.
Larch is one of the most beautiful and challenging climbs in Oregon. With most of its length shrouded in dark, quiet forests, the road rises from the Columbia River to about 4,000 feet in 14 miles of winding pavement. The parking lot at the top is a connection point to several great trails and a walk up to Sherrard Point with its expansive views of several Cascade peaks is usually enough of a awe-inspiring moment to make the pain of the climb a bit more palatable.
Unfortunately, this year we’ll lose about seven months of access to the road. That’s the bad news. The good news is that when it opens up, we’ll have a safer road with smoother pavement.
(Map: BikePortland)
Multnomah County plans to spend $5.1 million to repair and repave the road between milepost 7 to the top. The closure will begin east of SE Red Elder Drive, which is about two miles past the intersection with SE Brower Road (good news for folks who like to do the Brower-Haines-Alex Barr loop!).
It’s a bummer to not have this section of Larch open once the peak riding seasons starts in a few months. But it will be very nice to have a smoother descent. I recall a few times where my hands were so cold coming down it was hard to avoid some of the dangerous potholes and cracks.
Pedestrian walks down SW Gibbs Street in front of new 43-unit apartment building. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)
Last week BikePortland wrote about the Homestead neighborhood’s struggle to get a sidewalk built on the frontage of a new 43-unit apartment building under construction on SW Gibbs Street near OHSU. Neighborhood advocates were surprised to discover that the City of Portland does not count pedestrians and cyclists when determining the traffic impacts of developments which trigger a Land Use review.
This situation is interesting in that the developer is working cooperatively with the neighborhood association, and was willing to build a sidewalk, but could not get the permission from the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). This brings up a larger issue about how Portland will ever build the sidewalks (or bikeways for that matter) we need in this and other parts of town.
This case on Gibbs is such an important illustration of a problem that we felt it deserved a closer look. So take your blood pressure pill and get ready for some wonkery as this article dives deeper into what happens when the city only counts car traffic.
This loophole calls into question how sidewalks and bike routes will ever be built in the areas of town that don’t already have them, like in southwest and east Portland.
Background
First a little wonky background about getting permission to build. Zoning changes, land divisions and new buildings which will increase the density of people living in an area require a Traffic Impact Study (TIS). It is provided and paid for by the developer, who contracts the work out to a traffic engineering consultant. (Keep in mind the consultant’s compensation is not independent of the developer, so there is a possible incentive for the engineer to present information in a way that is favorable to the person paying them.)
The next step in the process is that PBOT reviews and signs off on the consultant’s transportation study, and delivers its report to the Bureau of Development Services, which collects reviews from up to seven bureaus as part of the building permit application process. The review and sign-off are the responsibility of PBOT’s Development Review section.
The Gibbs case
Let’s take a peek at the Gibbs case specifically. The analyses of car traffic for the TIS are most certainly correct, but when it comes to walking and biking, the errors of omission in the overall report are — well, grab that pill.
The consultant applied standard Trip Generation formulas to determine how many more cars would be on the roads due to the 43 new units. The impact of the additional cars is measured by how much longer drivers will have to wait at nearby intersections.
Specifically, impact is defined by administrative rule TRN-10.27, which states that the added cars from a new development shouldn’t degrade the Level of Service (LOS) at nearby signalized or stop-controlled intersections below LOS “D” and “E,” respectively. Roughly, that means that a driver should not have to wait longer than a minute at an intersection. If a new development adds enough cars to the road to degrade service to unacceptable levels, then the city requires the developer to mitigate the impact.
The Gibbs TIS concluded that the additional car trips generated by the new building wouldn’t push the LOS at nearby intersections below the D and E level. Development Review concurred:
. . . the applicant submitted a Transportation Impact Study (TIS), professionally prepared by ———, to support the transportation-related approval criteria, in which PBOT reviewed and agreed with the conclusions that the transportation-related approval criteria are satisfied.
Beyond the TIS, however, the developer must also show that the area transportation system is “capable of supporting the proposed development in addition to the existing uses in the area,” (Section 33.641.020 of city code) Although that section of code lists evaluation factors which do include impacts to pedestrian and cyclists, it was modified in 2018 to introduce a giant loophole:
At top are the pre-2018 evaluation factors of the transportation system. The text at bottom is the new, 2018, criterion.
See the loophole? (It’s underlined in red.) Basically, if the area doesn’t already have bike and pedestrian facilities, it’s not the fault of the new guy on the block, and he is allowed to fail along with everyone else.
Pedestrians walk to work on SW Gibbs Street.
The inconsistency is that Portland city code Title 17.28.020 states that developers are responsible for “constructing, reconstructing, maintaining and repairing the sidewalks, curbs, driveways” on the streets that abut their property. But the new, “balanced” wording of Title 33.641.010 lets property owners off the hook. This new wording calls into question how sidewalks and bike routes will ever be built in the areas of town that don’t already have them, like in southwest and east Portland.
This absence of specific requirements for pedestrian and bike facilities leads to motivated reasoning in the resulting transportation system analysis. I’ll pick one of several possible examples from the Gibbs transportation report:
Sidewalks are partially complete along nearby area roadways. When sidewalks are not available along local streets, roadways speeds (posted and statutory speeds of 20 mph to 25 mph) and traffic volumes are generally lower, allowing pedestrians the ability to safely and comfortably walk along roadway shoulders when necessary.
In truth, 2018 and 2014 PBOT traffic counts on SW Marquam Hill Rd (just uphill from the development) reported traffic volumes between 3,000 and 4,000 vehicles per day, with 87% of the downhill vehicles traveling above the posted speed of 25 mph, and the 85th percentile traveling at 33 mph.
The full case file presented to the Hearings Officer shows that Ed Fischer, the president of the Homestead Neighborhood Association, contacted a PBOT planner who works outside of the Development Review section. The planner told him that “this is definitely in the range of traffic where we’d like to see a separated walkway to support pedestrian travel.”
Moreover, this street segment has been identified as needing a sidewalk by PedPDX, the citywide pedestrian master plan. It is also Southwest in Motion project BP-07 and Transportation System Plan project 90049.2. In other words, at least two different groups of transportation professionals have recognized the need for active transportation infrastructure at this location.
None of that—the existing traffic counts and speeds, the project lists—made it into the Gibbs Transportation Report (although neighbors brought some of this up, so that information is part of the record).
Nevertheless, the PBOT review concluded that
Therefore, based on the evidence included in the record, the applicant has demonstrated to PBOT’s satisfaction that the transportation system is capable of supporting the proposed use in addition to the existing uses in the area
What it all means
Summary of existing conditions in southwest Portland. (Source: PBOT)
Southwest has the least sidewalk coverage of any area in Portland, and also the highest percentage of uncompleted bike network. Although PBOT has not openly stated it, the de facto sidewalk requirement for new development in southwest appears to have become a six-foot wide gravel shoulder at-grade with the roadway.
There are reasons why this is so. As the Streets 2035 plan points out, the southwest has the narrowest roads in the city, and also lacks formal stormwater facilities (the Big Pipe does not serve southwest past downtown). Sidewalks need to drain their stormwater runoff into a pipe, holding tank or treatment facility, and those are not available in most of southwest Portland.
It would be helpful, and serve to avoid a lot of conflict, and probably speed up the building permit process, if the City of Portland would clearly and proactively state how it plans to safely accommodate people on foot and on bike in the southwest region and other areas of town which currently lack critical transportation infrastructure.
Next week: BikePortland talks to Commissioner Carmen Rubio’s office about the work they are doing to streamline the building permit process.
Nice road huh? Let’s keep it open for cycling. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)If River View closes, here’s what the cycling route will become.
If you’re new to riding bikes in Portland — or if you’re new to BikePortland — I have a very important message for you about River View Cemetery: Riding bicycles through the cemetery is a privilege, not a right. And public access could be revoked at any time.
I share this now because I just received a troubling note that once again thrusts this issue into the spotlight. I say once again because I’ve written almost two dozen stories about River View Cemetery access since first sharing a threat of it being closed to bikes in 2006.
And when it comes to riding through the cemetery, if you know, you know: it is a fantastic route that connects the west end of the Sellwood Bridge (via the bridge and the Willamette Greenway path) to SW Terwilliger and Lewis & Clark College. The unfortunate fact is that the road through River View Cemetery is private. It’s only open to public access thanks to the goodwill of the River View board of trustees and leadership. The other unfortunate fact is that the City of Portland doesn’t provide people any other alternative that is remotely safe or accessible. The only other route that would even merit consideration would be South Taylors Ferry Road, which (as you can see in the photo above) has very little space for cycling and is a relatively high speed arterial that is scary to ride on for 99% of the cycling population.
Which brings me to that troubling note. It comes from (yet another) person who claims to have had a very negative interaction with a bicycle rider during a visit to the cemetery. Here’s what they shared with BikePortland:
Jonathan,
My 27 year old daughter was buried yesterday at Riverview, and I returned to the cemetery this morning in search of her gravesite. I encountered many bikers, most of who were respectful, until I encountered an entitled one who wasn’t.
This one nearly ran into me, while he sped downhill making a right turn onto a no bike road, and not visible to me until after I started a left turn onto that road. The biker first started screaming at me. I made the mistake of opening my window and letting him know of both the speed limit and no bike road, and asking him to be respectful of the dead. I added that I was looking for my daughter’s grave.
He called me a dumb ass, told me I was driving on a bike path, and said he was thankful for my loss. He made aggressive maneuvers toward me, at which point I found it necessary to abandon my search and leave the cemetery.
I have reported this to cemetery management, and encouraging them to enact a permanent ban on cyclists through this private property. I understand there have been multiple previous complaints from grieving families.
People are people. Some are jerks, some are respectful. The actions of one person don’t define an entire group. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
The fact is policies are often set because of emotional reactions to one situation that adds to a broader narrative — whether it’s fair or not.
If you don’t believe the person who sent me the note above, take it from River View Cemetery Executive Director Rachel Essig (an ally of cycling who’s helped stave off bans). “Over the years our staff and our families have experienced verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. We’ve had rider disrupts graveside services with loud talking, laughter and even using profanity at mourners,” she shared with me via email this morning. “We also experience ‘near misses’ with cyclists as we operate a lot of heavy equipment to conduct interments, we have had riders get in the way of our employees work to serve our client families.”
I’ve learned over the years that the River View board of trustees has long considered a closing the cemetery to bike access and it has only been maintained because cemetery staff like Essig (and her predecessor) have stepped in and promised they can manage the situation. Interactions like the one above make it harder for staff to keep that promise.
River View hosts over 350 funerals every year. On any given day they are serving at least two families who have just lost a loved one. Please keep that in mind — and remember that your access to those roads is a privilege, not a right — every time you roll through those cemetery gates.
— Learn more about the rules for riding through River View in this video.
NOTE: Comments are now closed on this story. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Who we are: At Vvolt we create micro-mobility solutions that empower more people to leave their car behind. We’ve launched with a range of simple ebikes that look sharp and are easy to maintain. Going forward, we’re excited about increasing our offerings to make e-mobility more accessible for more people with a wide range of needs – ebikes aren’t the answer for everyone! Some of us are experienced bike riders and daily commuters and some are excited to help design the perfect e-vehicle for themselves.
Who we are looking for: Vvolt is seeking an enthusiastic and detail-oriented individual to join our team as a Quality Assurance Associate. Your primary responsibility will be checking ebikes before shipment to ensure safe delivery to customers. Experience working on ebikes or bicycles is not required. If you are the type or person who is curious about how to solve problems, you’ll fit in well with our team. One of our guiding principles is to be hungry for feedback – we strive to foster an environment where criticism is encouraged from everyone in the organization. We hope to bring in new folks who challenge and push the organization and respond well to feedback. If that describes you and you’re excited about micro-mobility, you should apply! We’re excited to train an applicant who adds to the culture we’re creating.
Our QA team is integral to helping Vvolt deliver a different online ebike purchase experience. Your careful attention to detail and accurate implementation of processes will ensure that our bikes are incredibly easy for the customer to assemble and be ready to ride out of the box! As a team member who sees and works on many of the bikes that we sell, we want your curiosity and critical eye to highlight improvements and updates to products. While we don’t expect any experience working on bikes, enthusiasm for micro-mobility and ebikes is a must!
Requirements/expectations:
This role is based in our workshop and headquarters at 2101 SE 6th Ave Portland, a facility that we share with our sibling brand Showers Pass.
The schedule is a Monday through Friday, 40-hour work week with office hours generally from 8-4.
You’ll use various hand tools during your working day – we’ll train you how to use individual tools but general manual dexterity is required as is continued use of those tools throughout a shift.
The position requires standing for most of the shift.
You need to be able to consistently lift 60 lbs to shoulder height in order to get ebikes into the work stand.
While you will be trained and supervised by the operations manager, be prepared to spend some work days alone and with minimal supervision.
Benefits/perks/salary:
$45,000 annual salary to start
100% paid medical insurance within 30 days
15 days of paid vacation/personal leave
13 paid holidays
401k with 4% employer match after 1st year
Free Vvolt ebike after 90 days (access to loaner for 1st 90 days)
Transportation wallet with ($200 HOP card and Biketown membership)
Access to discounted bike parts and accessories through our suppliers
Access to employee pricing on Showers Pass gear
DEI statement: Vvolt sits at the intersection of the bicycle and tech industries, in which white and male people have historically been overrepresented. We are endeavoring to change this through our hiring, internal policies, and ensuring that decision making at Vvolt is filtered through a DEI lens – we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
How to Apply
To Apply: Fill out the form here (https://airtable.com/shr6Ilekd7Nx9fkmI)! Applications accepted until the role is filled – we will reach out to applicants on a rolling basis.
Portland’s B-Line Urban Delivery is fast approaching its 15th birthday. This cool local company has been on our radar since it first opened in 2008 because of their commitment to doing freight delivery differently: Instead of big, stinky, loud, dangerous trucks, they use pedal-powered, electric cargo trikes.
In doing so they’ve replaced over 320,000 truck miles and have prevented well over a half million pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Beyond being eco and human-friendly, B-Line’s mission is also to support our local economy by giving a leg-up to small food and product vendors who need help with last-mile logistics and distribution.
I ran into B-Line’s Dispatch Lead Tegan Valo at an event recently (he testified against the I-5 Rose Quarter project, a freeway expansion being pushed by ODOT and rural Oregon legislators largely because of its role as a trucking route) and we thought it’d be fun to connect for a look behind the scenes of their operation. Of course while I was at their Central Eastside warehouse Tuesday, I also tagged along with Tegan for a delivery to a local New Seasons Market.
In this podcast episode, you’ll learn more about B-Line and you’ll get the inside scoop on the bikes and business practices that make this company so worth shining a light on.
Listen to the episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Also be sure to check out the audio slideshow below:
Biking through a speed bump on the North Michigan Ave Greenway. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
An unintended use of these speed bump channels.
Speed bumps on Portland’s neighborhood greenways are a double-edged sword. They’re effective tools for slowing car traffic, making it safer and more comfortable to ride a bike on a street shared with cars. On the other hand, they can be unpleasant for people riding bikes to navigate over, adding some unfortunate nuisance to a bike trip on a greenway.
Recently, the issue came up again in the comments section of a BikePortland Instagram post about new bike-friendly speed bumps on NE Alameda. The consensus from naysayers seems to be that these gaps tempt drivers to dangerously shoot through them so they can avoid hitting the speed bump.
“I feel these encourage cars to veer from their lane and cause erratic, unpredictable behavior,” one commenter said.
“I watched no fewer than six people crash in a single Pedalpalooza ride when they haphazardly installed the NE 28th ones,” someone else wrote. “I have always wondered how these are supposed to work. I have ridden my bike thru the dip but it put me towards the middle of the road and resulted in getting honked and yelled at by a car. Are they supposed to be for bikes to avoid the hump?”
Lots of questions. And a bit of confusion and concern. So we reached out to PBOT to find out what’s up…
According to the Portland Bureau of Transportation, there are two different types of speed bump gaps on Portland’s streets. The first were designed in response to complaints from emergency vehicle operators who said these traffic calming measures were slowing down emergency response times. These speed bump channels split the speed bump into multiple “cushions” narrow enough that a fire truck driver can bypass hitting the bump. The second type — the “bike-friendly gaps” — were developed later as a variation of the emergency response vehicle speed bump treatment.
“The fire-friendly speed bumps were created to slow people who speed on local and small collector streets without sacrificing emergency response time,” PBOT Public Information Officer Dylan Rivera said in an email to BikePortland. “Having received complaints from people biking about the speed bumps, dating back to when we first began installing them, we thought a different design with a channel in a different location could be a desired improvement for neighborhood greenways.”
Rivera said that so far, PBOT has had “good results on speed reduction” on the neighborhood greenways where they’ve installed these speed bumps
“Their intention is to provide a more convenient trip for cyclists, prioritizing their positioning on the road without sacrificing speed reduction,” Rivera said. “So these days, Portland has fire-friendly and bike-friendly speed bumps.”
A fire truck using the speed bump gaps. (Photo: PBOT)
I was personally surprised to discover how controversial these speed bump gaps are. I immediately noticed the treatment upon beginning to bike around Portland, and I always thought it was a nice idea. I invariably groan a bit whenever I have to roll over a speed bump (especially when on an e-bike with its higher speeds), so I’ll always aim for the gap if one is available.
I agree that too many car drivers swerve to use the gaps even though they aren’t supposed to. After all, speed bumps are installed to force drivers to slow down, and when so many of our streets were built to allow people in cars to go as fast as possible, this can be a hard pill for some people to swallow.
This is a tricky problem to solve. In my opinion, the solution isn’t to completely get rid of treatments like this. Instead, it needs to be more apparent to people driving that neighborhood greenways are meant to prioritize bicycling. This could be accomplished with more traffic diverters and signage that, hopefully, would change behavior over time and make greenways more comfortable and safer for people biking and using active transportation. Maybe one day, drivers will be so calm that speed bumps are no longer necessary!
Luckily for everyone who isn’t such a big fan of these “bike-friendly” speed bumps, it doesn’t look like PBOT will be installing them just everywhere yet.
“They’re not yet a standard tool. We are in the process of learning what we can, both about effectiveness and design,” Rivera said.
So, what do you think about the speed bump gaps? Are they helpful or do you think they just cause more problems?
Looking north on NE 7th just south of Alberta. Cars can now be parked on both sides of the street, and the center striping is gone. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
After finishing up the hotly contested treatments at the NE 7th and Tillamook intersection last fall, PBOT is moving onto other stretches of 7th. And one of the treatments they’re trying out in hopes of reducing car traffic speeds may raise some eyebrows amongst critics of on-street parking.
In order to reduce car traffic speeds outside Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, PBOT has added street parking to the west side of NE 7th between Alberta and Prescott where it previously wasn’t allowed. On-street parking has been shown to reduce driving speeds by narrowing a street — when cars are parked on either side of a street, there’s less room for through car traffic to pass, forcing people in cars to slow down.
But on-street parking creates other problems, too. A line of parked cars creates a visibility barrier between people using the sidewalk and car drivers, and more street parking also increases the likelihood of a bike rider getting “doored” by someone getting out of their car. The additional, free parking also may incentivize more people to drive on this stretch of NE 7th.
These safety concerns are especially pertinent considering the proximity of an elementary school to this street. But PBOT says the additional car parking will be helpful for traffic calming, and the visibility concern won’t be an issue because they’ve removed parking near the intersections on NE 7th to ensure people are clearly visible when getting ready to cross the street.
PBOT currently has other plans in the works that will reduce on-street parking, like the plan to build a protected bike lane on NE Skidmore near Wilshire Park. They’re also looking at an initiative to plant trees in the curb zone, which has all the traffic calming benefits of street parking without the cars. There are many ways PBOT attempts to reduce car driving speeds other than opening up more space to cars, so this seems like a missed opportunity to try something else.
PBOT crews are in the process of removing the center striping on NE 7th.
Another aspect of this project is the removal of the center line striping on 7th from Alberta all the way south to NE Schuyler, just north of the Lloyd neighborhood. This is another tactic to promote slower car traffic speeds: research has shown that removing centerlines makes people more hesitant and cautious about how fast they’re driving.
According to PBOT, NE 7th will also soon be equipped with upgraded lighting at several intersections, and new lighting will also be installed at several intersections on NE 9th in between Prescott and Ainsworth streets. This will be done within the next few weeks.
Right now, it’s hard to tell how the changes on NE 7th will impact the feeling on the street. When I rolled over there earlier today, there weren’t a lot of cars in the new parking zone, so I wasn’t able to get a sense of how it would feel if all the spots were utilized. But in the places where the center line striping has been removed, 7th does already feel more like a neighborhood street and less like a busy throughway. It’s very interesting how a little bit of paint (or a lack thereof) can make a difference.
All of this is part of phase 1 of implementing the Lloyd to Woodlawn Neighborhood Greenway project. Once the first phase is complete, PBOT hopes to begin work on the next round of plans for the greenway project construction, but this second phase is currently unfunded.
The exchange with Dave Miller (of Think Out Loud fame) came in response to a question he asked Kotek on behalf of Sarah Iannarone, a former Portland mayoral candidate and current executive director of transportation advocacy nonprofit The Street Trust.
Iannarone submitted a question to OPB that referenced Oregon’s woeful track record of pedestrian fatalities, high household transportation costs, and the relative absence of any focus on these topics by Kotek (either in her campaign or her public statements thus far).
In her answer, Kotek pivoted to TriMet.
Here’s the exchange:
Dave Miller: Sarah Iannarone, a former mayoral candidate who is now the head of the Street Trust, sent us this question: “Oregon was in the top 10 states for pedestrian fatalities in the latter half of 2022. Transportation is the second highest household cost after housing for many people. Yet our mobility isn’t much talked about in the governor’s agenda. What are Tina Kotek’s plans to get Oregonians moving safely and affordably?”
Tina Kotek: Thank you for the question, Sarah. In the 2017 transportation package we did, for the first time, have a statewide payroll tax to help local transit. Again, I haven’t been in office very long, but one of the questions I would have for the Department of Transportation and our local transit districts is: “How are they using that money effectively to improve lines and the pricing?” I don’t think we’ve paid enough attention to how TriMet is doing their business, and so having conversations with them will be important.
Dave Miller: What are the questions that you are most eager to ask them?
Tina Kotek: Well, are we really focusing on making it as easy as possible to move people, make that option of public transit a real option? As you know, I lived in and represented North and Northeast Portland for years, and it wasn’t easy to get on the bus and get where you need to go, and the Max was too slow, multiple stops, right? How do you really have a conversation about changing behavior? It has to be easier, has to be affordable, and TriMet plays a big role in the metro area, and I’m going to ask them what they need and see if we have to do something differently so they can do a better job serving the community.
It’s notable that Kotek zeroed in on TriMet here. There was nothing in the question that even referenced transit, yet this is what popped into the Governor’s mind. Why is it notable? Because for many years, advocates have grumbled about the lack of accountability at TriMet, and despite its reputation compared to other transit agencies in America, using the bus and MAX in our region is still not as easy or attractive to people as it should be (especially compared to driving a car).
One reason it’s difficult to hold TriMet accountable (and thus, push them to be more bold) is because their board is chosen by the governor. That means even though TriMet is funded primarily by payroll taxes and fares from the Portland region, it’s governance is controlled by lawmakers in Salem who might have never set foot on a TriMet bus.
Not only is Kotek different because she has lived experience using TriMet (and she had constituents in north Portland as a state legislator who relied on it as their primary form of transportation), she has now made public her concerns about whether or not it’s doing enough of the right things.
“Basic principle 100 of good governance is that those who are most effected, those who pay the bills, that’s who should be in charge. So, who pays for TriMet? It’s the people who live in this region who pay the payroll tax and who pay the fares. And while that is enabled by the state, it is not a statewide revenue source, it is a revenue source in this region and most effects this region, and those are the people who should be in charge.
… Absolutely TriMet should be under regional control… The idea that there the board should be appointed by a governor, you know, and then confirmed by state senators from Burns or Klamath Falls absolutely makes zero sense. And it’s not fiscally responsible…”
For the first time in a long time, we have a governor who understands our region from a transportation perspective and has questions for TriMet. This is definitely something to keep an eye on.
A recipient of one of Colorado’s several e-bike rebate programs. (Photo: Bicycle Colorado)
At a time when Portland’s bike ridership numbers are falling, we can look to Denver where electric bikes are bringing new people into the fold.
House Bill 2571, a.k.a. the e-bike rebate bill, is currently working its way through the Oregon legislature with strong support from activists statewide who know just how transformative e-bikes can be for getting people out of their cars and lowering carbon emissions from the transportation sector. Now, thanks to a report released out of Denver last week, these advocates have more data to back up their stance on the efficacy of e-bike rebate programs.
After launching its wildly successful e-bike voucher program last April, the city of Denver, Colorado has become an exemplar for why it works to give people money for electric bikes. Denver’s initiative allows any resident to access a $400 e-bike voucher, while income-qualified residents can access up to $1,200, with an additional $500 for the more expensive e-cargo bikes. Every time these vouchers have been offered, Denver residents have snatched them up like hotcakes: more than 4,700 Denver residents became e-bike owners in 2022, and an additional 860 people benefited from the latest round of vouchers offered in January.
The report is co-authored by multiple organizations including the advocacy non-profits PeopleForBikes and Bicycle Colorado, sustainability research organization Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), the City and County of Denver and Portland-based ride tracking company Ride Report. Each group digs into a different pertinent topic, like how often these new e-bike owners are using their bikes, what kinds of trips they use them for and how other cities and states should create their own e-bike rebate programs. Here are a few key insights gleaned from the report.
People use their electric bikes as car replacements
Although many people who own electric bikes can tell you how life-changing they are for getting around without a car, some e-bike rebate skeptics have expressed concern that people will use public funding to buy bikes they never use. The Denver report refutes this idea, showing data that suggests people use their new electric bikes a lot.
The City of Denver’s office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency (CASR) sent out a survey to rebate recipients to gauge some of their travel habits. Through the roughly 1,000 people responded to the survey, CASR gleaned that respondents are riding their e-bikes an average of 26 miles each week, replacing 3.4 car round trips. In total, CASR estimates the new e-bikes replace 100,000 vehicle miles traveled each week.
Additionally, Ride Report has been studying data from a smaller pool of Denver e-bike rebate recipients who used their ride tracking app to record how they used their new e-bikes. Ride Report wanted to know if “rebate recipients actually ride their new ebikes” or if they “sit dormant in the garage collecting dust,” and their findings indicate the former result. 65% of e-bike rebate recipients who downloaded the Ride App were riding their e-bike daily, and 90% were riding weekly.
Interestingly, the report indicates that income-qualified residents use their e-bikes nearly 50% more than standard voucher recipients, perhaps because they didn’t have a reliable transportation method before getting their electric bikes. Oregon’s proposed e-bike bill currently doesn’t include means-testing: regardless of income, all Oregonians would be able to access the same voucher amount.
One particularly notable data point is that nearly 30% of survey respondents indicated they were new bike riders. At a time when Portland’s bike ridership numbers are falling, we can look to Denver where electric bikes are bringing new people into the fold.
There’s a process to getting these programs right
The report gives a rundown on how Denver started its e-bike rebate program and why other cities are embracing these incentives, offering some advice for designing similar initiatives.
“Electric bicycles reduce barriers to bicycling by helping people ride more often and for longer distances…[e-bike incentives] create low-cost, accessible, and efficient solutions for achieving our nation’s climate, sustainability, health, and transportation goals,” Ashley Seaward and Not Banayan from PeopleForBikes write. “In the United States, the transportation sector accounts for nearly a third of total carbon emissions. Electric bicycle incentive programs target this specific segment of carbon emissions by making this emerging technology more available to Americans seeking affordable mobility solutions that reduce their emissions and better connect them with their communities.”
Denver’s e-bike rebate program is funded through the city’s Climate Protection Fund, which uses a $0.25 sales tax to pay for local climate mitigation projects including the vouchers. After nine months of the program, the city had spent $4.7 million on e-bike rebates.
The City of Denver has several tips for cities and states organizing their own e-bike incentive programs.
Budget accordingly
Keep the resident application process simple and easy
If e-cargo bikes receive a different level of incentive, try to make the definition of e-cargo bike as objective as possible
Make the incentive applicable at the time of purchase
Build relationships and work with local bike shops
Lead early and genuine outreach in lower income neighborhoods
Make a plan for how to collect data from individuals once they have purchased the ebike
Think holistically about inducing demand for biking in your region by prioritizing investment in safe infrastructure
E-bike rebates don’t remove the need for shared micromobility systems
The report states that in order for e-bike rebate programs to be as effective as possible for reducing car use in a city, they must work in tandem with bike and scooter share programs. Denver saw their highest ridership of shared electric bikes this past summer during the e-bike subsidy program, “indicating that the rebates are a complement to the shared program and vice versa.”
According to research from Ride Report, the average trip length on a subsidized e-bike is 3.3 miles, while the average trip distance on a shared e-bike is 1.6 miles.
“The data indicates that the owned ebikes purchased through the rebate program are for longer and more frequent trips, and during commuting type times compared to shared ebikes. This again is an indicator of the distinct and complementary nature of shared and owned ebikes, both of which are encouraged through public policies and programs from the City and County of Denver,” the report states.
The carbon emissions savings are real
RMI’s calculation of how the e-bike incentive will reduce car use over the next 8 years. (Source: RMI)
How valuable are e-bikes as a tool for climate action? While anecdotal evidence is positive, this hasn’t been fully hashed out yet.
“While ebikes are very popular with users, their full economic and climate benefits are not fully understood. It can be difficult to assess the impact that shifting trips from ICE and electric vehicles to ebikes will have on transportation emissions, making it difficult for policymakers to incorporate them into climate policy,” the report states.
According to RMI’s research on how e-bike subsidies help combat climate change, this program saved 94 lb CO2e per dollar spent, for a total of 2,040 metric tons of CO2e avoided emissions per year. RMI’s research shows that e-bikes aren’t just superior to internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, but they’re also more effective for avoiding carbon emissions than electric cars, which currently receive the vast majority of government subsidies and rebates. If an ICE vehicle produces .54 metric tons (MT) of CO2 emissions, an electric vehicle produces .19 MT and an e-bike produces .01 MT — a huge difference.
RMI concludes that “establishing a program similar to Denver’s ebike rebate program would likely reduce GHG emissions from transportation in cities and save residents money” but ” until this point, the exact impact of the program on cities’ climate goals has been hard to determine.” RMI’s carbon savings calculator “can arm advocacy groups and cities with firm numbers to quantify impacts and help officials understand and assess the value of adopting a similar program.”
More benefits
Some other outcomes of the e-bike rebate program are more tangential, and can be difficult to quantify. One such advantage that the report didn’t touch on is how the rebates are creating a broader coalition of bike advocates, resulting in improved bike infrastructure even for people who didn’t receive a voucher.
A recent CityLab article looks at how residents getting their “first taste of the joys and anxieties of navigating their city on two wheels” after buying an e-bike through the rebate program may be compelled to “add their voice to those already clamoring for better bike accommodations.”
The Denver report contains more information about the e-bike rebate program and is a very helpful document for understanding the benefits of such initiatives. You can find the full report here, and stay tuned for more updates on Oregon’s e-bike bill.
