BikePortland

Portland Clean Energy Fund draft plan includes $20 million e-bike rebate program

You might not expect to see big money moves out of Portland City Hall right now, considering the tight budget constraints most city bureaus are under. But when it comes to the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), it’s a different story — and the latest news out of this program should be very exciting to transportation advocates in Portland.

Among the investments proposed is $20 million for an electric bike rebate program.

Managed by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS), PCEF is funded by revenue the city collects from large retailers (1% tax on large retailers with $1 billion in national revenue and $500,000 in revenue in Portland) and is dedicated “community-led projects that reduce carbon emissions, create economic opportunity, and help make our city more resilient as we face a changing climate.”

In the past, the PCEF program hasn’t always paid very much attention to the importance of transportation as a climate action strategy. But last year, the program made some changes, dedicating a significant pot of money to transportation decarbonization efforts. The PCEF’s Climate Investment Plan Preliminary Draft released earlier this week gives us a first look of what kinds of projects this might fund.

Out of its $750 million total five-year budget, the PCEF has $100 million over the next five years (2023- 2028) to spend on projects related to transportation decarbonization. This money will be spent on both “strategic programs,” which are large-scale investments managed by the city and designed with input from community members and subject experts and “community responsive grants” awarded to community-based nonprofit organizations designing carbon emissions reduction projects.

The transportation decarbonization category is the second-biggest pot of money in the new PCEF plan. (Source: BPS)

A local e-bike rebate program

One of the strategic plans outlined in the draft plan is for an electric bike rebate program with $20 million of funding over the next five years. This would be separate from the $6 million statewide e-bike rebate program currently being debated at the Oregon Legislature. And it might turn out to be a crucial Plan B given that House Bill 2571 is very likely to be much smaller than advocates originally hoped (sponsors are working on new bill language that would include many significant compromises from the original version — more on that coming soon.)

It’s clear from the Climate Investment Plan that PCEF committee members are bullish on e-bikes: “E-bikes provide an efficient way to get around Portland, are not subject to vehicle congestion, do not require much physical exertion, offer trip flexibility, and save money and time with respect to parking,” the draft plan states. “Community education and incentives are needed to provide equitable access to e-bikes, as well as safety equipment, lighting, weatherproof gear, charging infrastructure, secure storage areas, and locks.”

This program would give income-qualified households rebates for e-bike and cargo e-bikes from local bike retailers. Local bike retailers will need to be physically located in Portland and provide bike repair services.

“The program will be conducted in parallel with education and outreach by community-based organizations to PCEF priority populations about the e-bike opportunity, including information about safe riding, route-finding, charging, and storage. Surveys and data will be collected about e-bike use, storage, and charging, including recommendations for a pilot program for allocating funds for safe e- bike storage and charging needs for existing multifamily properties,” the plan states.

PCEF planners also want to invest $25 million in an expansion of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s highly successful Transportation Wallet program, which offers transit passes and Biketown/scooter-share ride credits to income-qualified Portlanders. This would give PBOT the ability to issue transportation wallets to a lot more Portlanders.

$35 million of opportunity for local nonprofits

In addition to the two projects above, the plan would invest an additional $35 million in grants over the next five years to nonprofit organizations to help them “identify community mobility needs and solutions and prepare them to implement environmentally sustainable transportation projects.” According to the preliminary draft, these grants could support efforts in:

Community-driven transportation projects that reduce vehicle miles traveled.

Access to clean transportation through the electrification of fleet vehicles including shared vehicles managed by community organizations and electric bikes (e.g., e-bike libraries, e-cargo bikes).

Charging infrastructure that is equitable, convenient, reliable, affordable, and accessible.

Overcoming barriers to accessing clean transportation.

Providing outreach and education for clean transportation including new mobility options.

Building capacity of organizations to implement clean transportation projects.

Support workforce development and training programs that provide economic opportunities in the clean transportation sector.

So, transportation nonprofit people, it might be time to start thinking of grant application ideas that fit these criteria.

From here, the CIP must be recommended by the PCEF advisory committee to City Council later this summer. Then City Council will need to approve the CIP before solicitations for specific projects are released. BPS will host an in-person PCEF workshop this Saturday, March 18 at CORE – Collective Oregon Eateries on 82nd Ave from 1 to 4 pm (RSVP for the event here). There will also be a virtual public workshop on March 22 (info here). And an online survey is available to fill out until the end of the month, which you can find here.

Developers say bike parking rules are biggest reason for housing delays

City leaders are turning over every possible rock to find policies that will help them build more housing more quickly. Last month, Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio and the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) sent out a survey asking which building requirements the City of Portland should consider suspending or modifying to help them reach that goal.

The results of that survey came out Wednesday and the thing at the top of developers’ list of peeves — rules about the type and quantity of bicycle parking required in new building projects — raised a lot of eyebrows in transportation circles.

The survey was emailed to 3,100 people involved in the building permit process: those who had applied for construction permits in the past four years; non-profit organizations developing new housing; businesses and professionals involved in housing development; and city employees from the seven bureaus who review permits.

Asked to rank the top five most burdensome regulations out of a list of 22, over a third of the the 600 respondents chose bike parking requirements as a top-five priority standing in the way of more quickly producing housing. It got more top-five votes than any other requirement, although System Development Charges beat bike parking as the absolute number one requirement needing attention. (A formatted presentation of survey results and next steps is available here.)

Portland passed a major update to its bike parking code in 2019, the first overhaul of requirements since 1996. The code upped the minimum quantity required, added theft prevention rules, addressed accessibility concerns, ended a loophole that allowed developers to put a hook inside a unit to fulfill the long-term parking requirement, and more.

Rubio is commissioner-in-charge of BDS and the Portland Housing Bureau, and she also heads Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency. With that portfolio, she sits at the crux of the housing affordability and supply crises that Portland and the state face.

And there is pressure coming from the state to do something. One of Governor Tina Kotek’s first actions in office was to declare a state of emergency because of homelessness and to sign an executive order creating the Governor’s Housing Production Advisory Council with the goal of building 36,000 homes per year.

Commissioner Rubio is well-placed to help meet those goals. Today’s survey is a first step in streamlining Portland’s processes and policies with an eye toward building more housing.

The slowness and complexity of Portland’s permitting system has been the subject of many reports and audits over the past several years. The 2021 report from the City Auditor, in particular, reads like a supporting document for replacing the commission form of government with a city manager:

The commission form of government and fragmented permitting authority across seven bureaus has resulted in no one entity empowered to resolve these long-standing Citywide problems. This is exacerbated by leadership turnover – both with bureau directors and Commissioner assignments – that results in changed priorities, focus areas, and funding decisions. As a result, each bureau director and their Commissioner-in-charge remains focused on their own bureau and not on the City permitting process as a whole.

“The next step is to do further research to see if any changes related to a specific process or policy would help to increase housing production.”
– Jillian Schoene, chief of staff for Commissioner Rubio

Given the governance inefficiencies pointed out by the audit, and the effect they have had on the permitting process, I reached out to Commissioner Rubio’s office to see if they had a sense of whether it was the actual regulations themselves that were slowing down housing production, or if the culprit might be the confusion caused by having permitting authority spread across seven different independent bureaus. Rubio’s Chief of staff Jillian Schoene responded. “Now that we have the initial feedback [from the survey], the next step is to do further research to see if any changes related to a specific process or policy would help to increase housing production,” she said.

Another source of confusion the 2021 audit details has been conflicts between new and existing regulations. The City Council stopped funding annual regulatory improvement reviews in 2017, and no reconciliation process has been in effect since.

Commissioner Rubio, says Schoene, in partnership with BDS and the Permit Task Force, has set up a Regulatory Workgroup tasked with “designing a new process for the city to follow for code development,” with the goal that for any new regulation “there is front-end vetting to learn early where conflicts may arise.”

The survey had a box for additional comments, and those make for bracing reading (even rivaling BikePortland comments). Several of them jumped out for different reasons, including number 26, in all caps:

PLEASE KEEP THE PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS! THESE INVESTMENTS ARE IMPORTANT TO THE FUTURE OF OUR CITY AND PLANET BY MAKING MORE WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS.

Or this one:

You don’t need suspending or modifying [of requirements] to support increased housing production, you need to have staff return phone calls and email and speed up the processing part of the permit. I just had a townhouse project that took over a month just to intake. Pre-Covid this would have been completed in one day. And permits in pre-issuance for weeks is not acceptable. I typically have no problems with the regulations or fees. It’s the weeks of no response from staff.

This survey is a first step in the significant overhaul of the building permitting process which the city is undertaking. Other recent efforts have included the work of commissioners Dan Ryan and Mingus Mapps on the Permit Metric Dashboard, and also with the Permitting Improvement Task Force.

Much of Portland’s built environment relies on improvements to the public space made by, and required of, new development — things like new bike racks. BikePortland will be following this process as it unfolds.

Lyft drops Motivate as operator of Biketown system

This morning the team of workers who keep Portland’s Biketown bike share system up and running were greeted with an email that informed them they might not have a job come May 1st.

That’s the date when a new company will take over the maintenance duties of the Biketown fleet from Motivate LLC. According to workers employed by Motivate who have reached out to BikePortland in the past two days, Lyft, the company that owns Motivate and holds the bike share contract with the City of Portland, has chosen a new maintenance vendor. That puts about 20 full time employees who currently repair and maintain Portland’s bike fleet in limbo.

“We deeply appreciate the hard work from the Portland team over the years and everyone who has contributed to the organization,” read this morning’s email from Motivate CEO Matthew Parker. “We will be working with the new vendor to place as many of the current Portland staff as possible and create as smooth of a transition as possible for those impacted.”

“It was kind of a shock to me,” said Hazel Light in an interview Wednesday. Light has worked on Biketown for Motivate since 2018. She’s also the station chair for Transit Workers Union Local 320. “It’s an anti-union move in my opinion,” she added.

According to Lyft Communications Director Jordan Levine, Motivate was involved in a competitive procurement process and “given serious consideration.” In the end, Lyft chose Shift Transit instead. “We were most impressed with Shift Transit’s ability to provide service levels that meet PBOT’s and Lyft’s expectations,” Levine said.

Shift Transit already manages bike share fleets in Toronto, Tucson, Chattanooga, and Detroit. They also run the Biketown system at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton. On their website, Shift Transit claims to be the leading bike share operator in North America with a portfolio that includes more than 15,000 docks and 8,500 bikes. It’s also notable that some employees of bike share systems managed by Shift Transit, like MoGo in Detroit, are already TWU members.

For her part, Light says she and her fellow employees, “Feel like the rug got pulled out from under them.” She worries that if the former Motivate workers aren’t rehired by Shift Transit, Biketown will suffer. “You would lose a lot of that knowledge, degrade service and it will result in fewer bikes on the street. It would really be a setback for bike share in the city,” she added.

According to Lyft, the move will also consolidate the maintenance and rebalancing contracts into one instead of two companies. Currently Motivate has the contract for maintenance and First Transit does the rebalancing work. Shift Transit will now take on both jobs, which Lyft says will result in “operations and staffing efficiencies.”

The move comes at a time when Biketown is outperforming expectations and continues to post strong ridership numbers — despite an aging fleet that hasn’t been increased in size since it launched in September 2020. Meanwhile, both cycling ridership numbers and traffic fatalities are headed in the wrong direction. Having a stronger Biketown fleet — especially in parts of town where new bike infrastructure sits relatively empty — could be the antidote to Portland’s biking blues.

Bike lanes on 82nd Ave? PBOT explores the options

Slide shown at Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, Tuesday March 14th.

“There’s nothing out there today for bikes on that street, and we are a city that cares deeply about bikes and wants to advance our goals around bicycle use, so we wanted to look at it.”
-Mike Serritella, PBOT

The jurisdictional transfer of 82nd Avenue from state to city hands last spring — and subsequent influx of funding for infrastructure changes — has opened up a world of new possibilities for the street. The Portland Bureau of Transportation released details on some of the initial draft designs for 82nd earlier this month, but none of the plans so far have been specific about the future of dedicated bike infrastructure on the street.

That changed at Tuesday night’s joint meeting of the Portland bicycle and pedestrian advisory committees where we got our first clue into what dedicated bike facilities on 82nd Ave could look like. According to PBOT planner Mike Serritella, they probably won’t look like the protected bike lanes of our dreams, but at least the conversation is happening.

Serritella briefed committee members on 82nd Ave planning efforts and the possibility of including dedicated bike lanes in the plans. In the past, the idea of bikeways has taken a backseat to talks about significant changes to the walking and transit infrastructure on 82nd. Given that, we were surprised to see Serritella’s presentation.

PBOT says they want to right the past wrongs on 82nd Ave. (Source: PBOT)

“I think if anyone travels on 82nd Ave regularly, they can attest that the status quo of what’s out there today has consistently prioritized cars and the movement of cars over people walking, biking and taking transit,” Serritella said. “It hasn’t historically been a huge part of the conversation and focus around 82nd Avenue which is focused primarily on pedestrian space and transit…but there’s nothing out there today for bikes on that street, and we are a city that cares deeply about bikes and wants to advance our goals around bicycle use, so we wanted to look at it.”

Serritella said PBOT has a limited amount of space to use on 82nd. Even though the street may seem wide, it’s comparatively more narrow (56-60 feet) than other arterials in east Portland, like 122nd Ave or SE Stark St.

“It’s a constrained corridor…so planning for the future of [82nd Ave] requires us to grapple with trade-offs, because there’s just simply not enough space for us to really adequately serve all the modes that are out there today,” Serritella said.

In looking at options for creating a designated space for cycling on 82nd Ave, Serritella indicated it became clear that there wasn’t going to be enough room to repurpose a full vehicle travel lane to create a continuous protected bike lane that would be comfortable for people to use. This would require all car, freight and transit traffic to share one lane in each direction, which Serritella said would have particularly negative impacts for people taking the 72 bus on 82nd Ave — the busiest bus in the TriMet system. Ultimately, PBOT has an interest in pursuing a bus rapid transit project on 82nd Ave similar to TriMet’s FX line on Division St, which would likely take priority over including bike facilities on the street.

“Our initial analysis [of the protected bike lane option] is that it would create roughly a 50% delay to transit users on the corridor, which has a major impact. In addition, there would be tens of thousands of diverted vehicles of all kind throughout the system,” he said. “So this isn’t an easy decision, but it’s something that makes us think that this type of treatment on 82nd Ave is not something we want to move forward with at this time.”

Serritella said that instead, PBOT is recommending broader bike network improvements rather than a continuous dedicated on-street facility. This might be something like a shared bike-bus lane on a stretch of 82nd, and potentially a sidewalk-level bike facility behind the curb on off-street sections of the corridor.

Carol Hasenberg, a BAC member who lives in east Portland, said she would prefer to see a bus rapid transit line on 82nd and a parallel neighborhood greenway nearby for people biking to use.

“I tend to want to separate bikes and cars as much as possible, like veins and arteries,” Hasenberg said.

This perspective reflects an important philosophical debate in the bike infrastructure world. Many people, including Portland Bike Coordinator Roger Geller, have lamented how many of Portland’s bikeways are hidden off of main streets. People who wanted PBOT to install a dedicated bike lane on Hawthorne Blvd, for instance, were not happy with the city’s reasoning that they could use parallel greenways instead. This could be a cause of contention on 82nd Ave as well.

Serritella said PBOT wants to build two parallel routes to 82nd that’s within a quarter mile of the corridor top to bottom. Right now, the 80s greenway running between 82nd and 92nd only runs south of I-84, but the funded 70s greenway is expected to be constructed this summer. Additionally, they plan to build “a series of frequent and evenly spaced bike-friendly crossings” all throughout the corridor for people traveling east-west across 82nd Ave.

This presentation was just the start of a conversation that will take place over the next year or so. Stay tuned for more updates as the discussion continues to play out.

City counts reveal data behind Portland’s precipitous drop in cycling

More bike infrastructure has not always led to more bike riders. This is the new bike/bus lane on SW Main at 4th in downtown Portland. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

It’s no secret that bicycle ridership in Portland has decreased in recent years; but just how much was anyone’s guess. Thankfully the Portland Bureau of Transportation just released their first bicycle count report since 2014.

The good news is we now have more data to help us understand cycling trends in the city. The bad news is, based on PBOT’s 2022 counts, biking in Portland has dropped back to levels not seen since 2006. “That a decline is occurring in both numbers of people bicycling and in mode split is undeniable. Why it is happening is difficult to determine,” states the report.

To get their numbers, PBOT relied on a tried-and-true method they’ve used for about three decades: an army of volunteers with clipboards who count every bicycle rider they see at hundreds of locations citywide over a two-hour period. They then extrapolate those counts to come up with a daily traffic number. In addition to these 105 volunteer counts (at 234 locations), PBOT used automated counts from fixed pneumatic hoses at 74 locations. The final ingredient are commute-to-work survey data collected by the U.S. Census.

Instead of sharing a raw number from their 2022 count, PBOT has decided to compare the data of three, four-year time periods: 2013 to 2016, 2016 to 2019, and 2019 to 2022. Those three periods take us from our plateau (0.5% increase), the beginning of the downward decline (10% decrease citywide), and then the cliff of the final period when PBOT says bicycling dropped by 34.9% between 2019 and 2022.

*(Charts from the 2022 Portland Bicycle Counts report)*

To put a finer point on the decline since 2019, just nine years ago (in 2013) PBOT says there were 3,478 people riding bikes in the central city. During the counts last summer, there were just 1,122 people on bikes — a 45.9% drop. Across 184 count locations, PBOT tallied 17,579 people biking in 2022, a 37% drop from the 27,782 counted at the same locations in 2019.

According to the Census, Portland’s bike-to-work percentage plummeted to just 2.8% in 2021 — down by almost half from the 5.4% in 2020 and well off our nation-leading peak of 7.2% in 2014. That Census number has long been criticized because it focuses only on the work trip and the lack of trust in the Census more broadly in recent years makes its data even more suspect. But it remains an important tally because of its longevity and its influence on federal funding and policy decisions.

While this news is deflating, at least we’re not alone. All other big U.S. cities have seen similar declines. And even at 2.8% we’re still tops.

The Census numbers also mirror Portland’s own counts, which have shown a steady decline since 2014. So far, PBOT says they have no idea why this is happening.

In the report, PBOT details how they’ve continued to build out the city’s bikeway network (77 of it miles since 2014), the majority of which were either neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes or off-street paths. Here’s PBOT making their case that the biking drop isn’t because of bad infrastructure:

“It is easy to argue that Portland’s bikeway network is of higher quality and reaches into more parts of the city than in 2014- 2015 when bicycle commute mode split and the number of people biking to work peaked. Despite these efforts, bicycle use—as reflected in both commute data and the city’s annual counts— has continued to drop. The pandemic can explain much of the recent, precipitous drop in biking, but it does not explain the downward trend before 2020.”

The report also breaks the counts down by geographic area, gender, and helmet use.

Not surprising, the area with the lowest average number of riders was east of I-205 and the area with the highest average was southeast Portland. That lack of ridership in east Portland is a huge problem for PBOT — especially since they’ve spent many millions in recent years installing new bike infrastructure. The lack of people using the bikeways just fuels the anti-bike fires and the sooner we get folks on two wheels the better (which is why I’m convinced the answer is to drop 1,000 or so new Biketown bikes east of I-205).

Perhaps building on the case that public safety concerns are top-of-mind for many people when it comes their choice to ride a bike, the counts revealed the first significant drop in 13 years in the number of riders who were identified as women. Just 28% of bike riders counted citywide were identified as women, down from the usual 31-32%. Volunteers counted the fewest riders marked down as women, 18%, and the lowest rate of helmet use, 56%, in east Portland.

To build back Portland’s once-vaunted base of bike riders will take time and a concentrated effort to change the narrative (and the reality) about safety. As I shared yesterday in our annual accounting of traffic deaths, the vulnerability felt by all bike riders when it comes to their personal safety can easily trump any good news about new infrastructure. Things like incentives and public events to build community were at the foundation of Portland’s rise as a cycling capitol and we’d be smart to keep those going as well.

One interesting thing I noticed recently in looking at traffic fatality data is that when more people biked in Portland, a lot fewer people died. Just 20 people died while using Portland roads in 2008 when our bicycling rates made a massive leap. And the recent rise in traffic fatalities began in 2014, the same year Portland’s bicycling rates began to fall.

Learn more about PBOT’s bike counts on their website and download a PDF of the 2022 Bike Count Report here.

PBOT wants your feedback on bike-friendly speed bumps

On Friday, the City of Portland published a website and launched a survey to garner more public feedback on bike-friendly speed bumps. Depending on what they hear, they might change the design of the bumps, or decide they aren’t worth the trouble.

The site comes just a few days after our story about the bumps that pointed out the wide variety of opinions on the treatment and how many riders are confused by them. Ever since the transportation bureau first installed these on southeast Clinton in 2018, we’ve heard from people who love them and people who hate them.

PBOT has heard those opinions too. Now they want help to make the bumps as effective as possible — or determine if they should keep installing them at all. “Speed bumps are one tool to maintain low speeds, but they can also be inconvenient to people biking, potentially discouraging more bicycle trips,” reads their website.

PBOT also wants to clear up confusion about how bike-friendly bumps differ from emergency vehicle-friendly bumps. The giveaway is this: If they are intended for emergency vehicles they’ll have three channels — including one in the centerline of the roadway. Bike-friendly ones have just two channels.

The survey asks riders if they prefer going over the hump or through the channel. They also have a question to gauge opinions on whether or not the 10% increase in cost associated with the bike-friendly bumps is worth the benefits.

In addition to the survey, PBOT says they will do field-testing and observations about how the bumps are being used.

Check PBOT’s new website and take the survey here. (Below is a new PBOT map showing bike-friendly speed bump locations.)

History: School parents formed human chain to highlight Powell Blvd dangers in 1958

In the fall of 1958, parents of kids attending Creston Elementary School near Southeast Powell Blvd and Foster Road decided they were tired of the excuses. They wanted their kids to be able to cross Powell safely to get to school or to Creston Park, and they were going to put their bodies on the line to make it happen.

Almost 65 years later, after many serious crashes on Powell that have claimed the lives and limbs of people trying to walk or bike across the street, advocates are still trying to get the message across. And thanks to a remarkable piece of transportation history we’ve just learned about from reader Dave Binnig, we now know that those parents used similar tactics to a protest on Powell late last year.

Binnig, who’s representing BikeLoud PDX in a workgroup formed after the death of Sarah Pliner last year, compiled old articles from The Oregonian about the protests near Creston Elementary and handed them out to attendees at the group’s recent meeting at Cleveland High School.

These articles tell a story that will seem very familiar to anyone involved in today’s efforts to make Portland’s streets safer for vulnerable road users. Binnig is hopeful that this time around we might see real changes on Powell, but he said the fact that we’ve made so little progress since 1958 is troubling.

A 1958 photo from the human chain event. (Photo: Portland Archives)

“On the one hand it’s inspiring to see parents a couple generations ago were so committed to making Powell safer for their kids. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that 65 years later Creston parents are still asking for the same thing.”
– David Binnig

“On the one hand it’s inspiring to see parents a couple generations ago were so committed to making Powell safer for their kids. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that 65 years later Creston parents are still asking for the same thing,” Binnig said in an email to BikePortland.

The Creston parents — mostly moms from the Parent-Teacher Association — asked officials from the state, city and school district to help improve a crossing at Powell and SE 47th Ave, where kids were getting injured while trying to cross the street.

“A couple of additional amber safety blinkers have been installed at the intersection, but the mothers’ group does not think this sufficient. The crossing has a stop and go signal system which can be activated by the patrol boys whenever children cross,” an article in The Oregonian (PDF) written at the time states. “The well-traveled street carries a great amount of traffic, and there have been injuries to children at the crossing, mothers contend. The mothers’ group in the past has indicated it would like an elevated crossing or some other safety precaution.”

Since these changes didn’t come, the parents decided to protest by forming a human chain to block car traffic on Powell. They stayed there during crossing times for multiple days in a row until the city agreed to a plan to make the crossing safer. Judging from the articles, it seems like the parents first ran into bureaucratic challenges: one article states that then-Portland Mayor Terry Schrunk said “the city had no funds for safety improvements for the crossing and suggested the parents assess themselves to provide the extra facilities wanted.”

Eventually, the city agreed to a plan that included installing a push-button signal at the crossing (not a raised crosswalk) and the mayor presented the Creston PTA with flowers for their hard work. Today, however, people are still demanding changes be made to Powell Blvd so it’s safe for vulnerable road users to walk and bike across the street, and they feel like they’re in the same boat as these parents 65 years ago. In many ways, the situation has become even more dire.

But the coalition of advocates is broader now, and the message more far-reaching, even though many of the tactics they’re using to accomplish their goals are similar.

In the aftermath of the collision that killed Sarah Pliner in October, activists protested by forming a human-protected bike lane at the intersection. The images from that demonstration look very reminiscent of the human chain formed by Creston parents about 20 blocks east in 1958.

Dave Binnig (Photo courtesy Dave Binnig)

“And the dynamics are familiar, with the department of transportation (then the Oregon State Highway Department) saying these are complicated engineering questions, and a city government without enough money to take action on its own,” Binnig said. “In some ways we’re worse off now: in 1958 Powell in the Creston school area was a 4-lane road with a 20 mph school speed zone; now it’s a 5-lane road with no school speed zone.”

Binnig lives near Creston Elementary School, and frequently visits the school park with his young child. This has made the issue of safety on Powell all the more salient to him, and he sees how important parents are in the fight for safer streets. Powell Blvd is home to several schools, including Cleveland, Kellogg Middle School, St. Ignatius School and Creston, and parents of kids who attend these schools have been some of the most outspoken advocates for change in the last few months.

“In the course of serving on the Powell workgroup I’ve been more systematically focused on safety and usability challenges on SE Powell, and I think the school PTAs are some of the most compelling voices on the need to make changes,” Binnig said.

Thanks in part to the reaction from parents after Pliner’s death, the Oregon Department of Transportation implemented a school zone on the stretch of Powell near Cleveland High in October. ODOT is also conducting a new speed zone and lane realignment study of Powell in the Creston area, which activists hope will have a similar result. And with some state policymakers on their side, advocates believe this could be the time for real change on Powell. If it happens 65 years late, it will still be better than nothing.

Portland’s 2022 traffic death toll underscores failures and threats

The Portland Bureau of Transportation released their annual deadly traffic crash report on Monday. According to their tally, 63 people died while using Portland roads in 2022 — equal to the 2021 amount. While the overall number is flat, 63 deaths is an 80% jump from the 35 total deaths Portland had in 2018 and it continues an extremely troubling rise in pedestrian fatalities that underscores how dangerous our streets have become and undermines our stated commitments to get serious about it.

The BikePortland tally is even worse. By cross-referencing PBOT’s list and a list provided to us by the Portland Police Bureau, we counted 70 people who died on our streets last year (down from 73 in 2021).

Here are their names:

(Source: BikePortland – Note: Seven deaths not included on the city’s tally are in blue. They include three suicides, two homicides, one MAX collision, and one unknown cause. I include these deaths because they illustrate the imminent threat posed by our system that’s dominated by large, deadly vehicles and people who can too easily abuse them. Vulnerable road users are in green.)

(Data: City of Portland – Graphic – BikePortland)

Think about all those people for a moment. Not just who they were, but how many names are on that list. In 2008 — which happened to be the year we became the first large city in America to earn a “Platinum” designation from the League of American Bicyclists — we had 20 total traffic fatalities (with five pedestrian fatalities). In 2022, there were 31 people killed while walking alone.

When Portland leaders unanimously adopted our Vision Zero plan in 2015, they committed to the elimination of all traffic deaths by 2025. That leaves us less than three years to take back our streets and dramatically shift this trend. In fact, if you listen to the Portland city commissioner currently in charge of PBOT, Mingus Mapps, we have only two years left. That’s because he thinks we can only reduce fatalities by 10% this year. Asked about Vision Zero on the City Cast PDX podcast last week Mapps said, “Vision Zero is alive and well. Obviously, in many ways. It’s aspirational… It’s going to take us a while to get to zero. I think we could bring that down by 10% this year through investments and better infrastructure, and the bringing back some enforcement.”

The year 2025 was nowhere to be found in PBOT’s press release yesterday. Instead of a clear-eyed embrace of the challenge and an acknowledgment that we are not meeting the moment, their statement read: PBOT urges the public to slow down, as speed, impairment keep pedestrian deaths at historic high level in Portland, across U.S. in 2022.

“This is a PR masterpiece that makes me disappointed and sad,” wrote local traffic safety advocate Scott Kocher in an email with the press release he forwarded to me yesterday.

The Street Trust Executive Director Sarah Iannarone said in a statement yesterday that, “Telling people to ‘slow down,’ or calling for more policing when the PPB is decrying staffing shortages simply won’t work. We need an innovative, intergovernmental, public health-informed approach if we’re going to reverse this epidemic across our region and state.”

I realize PBOT is doing a lot of good and important work around Vision Zero and this statement and report are just a relatively small piece of it. But given all the headlines this receives, it’s an important opportunity to set course correct, lay out a vision, and set the right tone. Eight years into our Vision Zero initiative we deserve a candid and serious assessment of the problem and a bold plan to solve it. We are far beyond the point of making polite requests or excuses; but that seems to be a big part of the strategy we’ve chosen.

In their 2020 report, PBOT said the 54 people who were killed in traffic (then the highest total since 1996) was “unusual and tragic.” In news interviews and official statements, PBOT urged us to not be alarmed because one year doesn’t make a trend. Then in 2021, PBOT said homeless individuals, the Covid-19 pandemic, “and its tremendous impact on American life,” were contributing factors in the (record) 63 traffic deaths. For 2022 we see a new boogeyman: darkness. Light conditions aren’t mentioned in the previous two reports, but in this most recent one PBOT says, “74% of all traffic deaths occurred in darker conditions… Of pedestrian deaths, 93% occurred in darker conditions…”

Here are some other key takeaways from the latest report:

21 deaths occurred on state-owned streets (compared to 32 in 2021 and 20 in 2020)
67% of all deaths were in areas that score high on PBOT’s equity matrix for low-incomes and high rates of residents that identify as people of color (compared to 76% in 2021 and 57% in 2020)
Houseless people made up 19% of traffic deaths in 2022 (compared to 33% in 2021)
17 people died in hit-and-run crashes in 2022 (compared to 14 in 2021 and 7 in 2020)

PBOT says another big part of the problem are people who drive too fast and/or drive under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol (with many of those hit-and-runs by impaired drivers). This problem of general lawlessness from more drivers than ever has come under sharper focus with new reporting out this week from The Oregonian that details how the Portland Police Bureau have “failed” to investigate and “alarming number” DUII cases, thus making the cases hard and/or impossible for the District Attorney’s office to prosecute.

A memo obtained by The Oregonian shows that over a two-month span in 2021, PPB did not perform necessary blood draws or breath tests on 22% of people they pulled over for DUIIs. Of the 141 DUII arrests by five policing agencies who patrol the metro area, 25 of them were not fully investigated — and 24 of those were by the PPB.

This story should alarm Commissioner Mapps, who has said he wants to fund more police officers for traffic enforcement and has mentioned his concern about a lack of DUI arrests in both interviews I’ve done with him. Just last week he told me, “I would like drunk drivers to be pulled over and taken off the streets.” Asked about The Oregonian story today, Commissioner Mapps said via email, “There have been breakdowns in every aspect of our public safety and criminal justice system over the last several years. As PBOT Commissioner, my highest priority is public safety on our streets, sidewalks, and transit system. I cannot do this alone; I will need the partnership of the police and the district attorney’s office to intervene in impaired driving and hold people accountable under our laws.”

Regardless of what anyone says or promises, the facts are clear: Our increasingly lawless streets, feckless and disjointed leadership, lack of progress on enforcement, and outdated road designs are no match for the scourge of dangerous streets and irresponsible people who use them.

— Download a PDF of the report here.

PBOT’s new freight plan calls for cargo bike pilot program

We could do a lot with a lot less. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

We have lived with the impacts of large commercial trucks in our city for many years. Now, would-be reformers finally have a golden opportunity to weigh in on the official city freight plan.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation has been working on the 2040 Freight Plan, an update to the city’s Freight Master Plan adopted by City Council in 2006, for several years now. Recently, they released a draft plan for review, which includes actions PBOT wants to take in the first 10 years after the plan’s adoption to make urban freight safer, cleaner and more equitable.

The draft plan is expansive and some parts are quite technical, but it also touches on several key problems with urban freight in Portland that are relevant to people who bike and walk in the city. One of these potential solutions posed in the plan involves embracing a mode shift from vans to cargo bikes for last-mile delivery via an “enhanced Commercial Cargo Bike Pilot Program” for “accommodating pedal and electric-assist cargo bikes as a means for reducing last-mile truck delivery trips.”

Map of 2040 Freight projects in Portland. (Source: PBOT)

It’s not clear exactly what PBOT’s cargo bike pilot program would look like, but it’s good to see the city endorse it as a viable alternative to other delivery vehicles. There are lots of examples showing that bikes can be a very useful tool for urban freight transport solutions. Local company B-Line Urban Delivery uses electric cargo trikes to deliver goods around the city, saving gas and reducing the dangers that trucks pose on city streets. Other cities around the world that have embraced smaller vehicles for freight delivery are showing that it’s a safer, more eco-friendly and often quicker option than relying on a fleet of trucks or vans.

Another priority listed in the draft plan is safety, acknowledging the danger that commercial trucks pose to people walking and biking on Portland’s streets. In the plan, PBOT points out that truck crashes in Portland are increasing, and that the majority of the victims in these crashes that have resulted in severe or fatal injury have been people walking or biking. This is something they want to address by “improving visibility” and “implementing safety countermeasures for vulnerable users, such as separated facilities for bicyclists, clear signage, or providing for alternate parallel routes.”

The plan also includes a list of freight projects PBOT wants to implement within the next 20 years, many of which BikePortland has covered in the past because of their active transportation elements. These projects do not necessarily have designated funding yet, but being placed on the Freight Plan gives them more legitimacy to find funding in the future. One high priority item on the list is the $17.5 million N Burgard St viaduct replacement on N Lombard St, which would include grade-separated bike lanes. A $5.5 million plan to find access solutions in the freight train-plagued Central Eastside is also listed, but not as a project that will be prioritized for funding.

The survey will be open for public input until April 9th, and on March 23 at 6:00 pm, PBOT will host a virtual open house for the freight plan. You can find the full 2040 Freight draft plan here.

Three bike swaps and sales coming this month

(Background photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Get your wallets ready for three big bike swaps and sales coming this month. I love a good bike swap and when I noticed three being planned in the next two weeks I figured it was worth sharing here on the front page.

With warmer and dryer temps finally on the horizon, this is a great time to start scheming and dreaming about the perfect rig to help you make the most of it. Or maybe you’re like me and being surrounded by piles of cool old parts and bikes, and the people who have stories to tell about them, is your happy place? Or maybe you’ve god a good stash of used stuff you’d like to convert to cash?

If so, here are the details on the events…

End of Winter Bike Swap

March 18th, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm
Baerlic Brewing, 2239 SE 11th
No vendor spots left (but maybe DM the organizer for the waitlist?) – Free to enter
Link

Huge Bicycle Sale – WashCo Bikes

March 18 – 19th, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Summerlin Center, 1750 Blankenship Road in West Linn
1,800 bikes and loads of accessories – Live music – Proceeds benefit WashCo Bikes and Free Bikes for Kidz
Link

Portland Bike Swap – Community Cycling Center

March 26th, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Lloyd Center Mall, 2nd Floor of Marshalls (1405 Lloyd Center)
All proceeds support Community Cycling Center’s Low Income Commuter Services! – Free entry – $20 for vendor space
Link – Vendor registration – Contact pax@communitycyclingcenter.org

Have fun! And tag us on social with your finds.

Jobs of the Week: Cycle Portland, Ride With GPS, Vvolt, ODOT

Need a new job? Want a better job?

We’ve got six excellent opportunities for you to consider. Learn more about each one via the links below…

For a complete list of available jobs, click here.

Be the first to know about new job opportunities by signing up for our daily Job Listings email or by following @BikePortland on Twitter.

These are paid listings. And they work! If you’d like to post a job on the Portland region’s most popular bike and transportation news platform, you can purchase a listing online for just $75. Learn more at our Job Listings page.

Job: Training Program Coordinator – Oregon Department of Transportation

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Training Program Coordinator

Company / Organization

Oregon Department of Transportation

Job Description

Operations & Policy Analyst 2 – Training Program Coordinator
Oregon Department of Transportation
Public Transportation Division
Policy and Strategic Investment Unit
Salem/Remote

The role:
We are looking for someone who is organized and focused on success to join our team in the Public Transit Section. In this role you will be responsible for coordinating a training program for staff and our partners, as well as administering the Public Transportation Advisory Committee. You will have opportunities to work with a broad range of people from staff to the public to legislators and agency administrators. Apply today to work in this pivotal role!
We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply for our positions and hope you will join us on our path to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are an agency that embraces social equity through our values, strategic planning, and actions. Leaning into our equity priorities means we continually examine what we do, the impact we have, and our progress toward weaving social equity into who we are. To learn more about our social equity commitments, visit our Social Equity website.

A day in the life:
• Design and implement an annual training plan to support the needs of the Public Transportation Division programs.
• Conduct training needs assessments to identify skill or knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. Design and develop training programs to meet the needs.
• Assess training program effectiveness and determine the impact of training on knowledge gap. Collect and analyze feedback and use to implement improvements to the program.
• Market trainings to partners, providing communications through external channels.
• Stay up to date on new training methods and techniques.
• Coordinate advisory committee work including developing workplans, calendars, databases, and other documentation for the Public Transportation Advisory Committee (PTAC).
• Serve as primary point of contact of all official PTAC communications. Ensure compliance with public records and meeting laws.
• Provide administrative support, invitations, agenda development, note taking, and action item coordination for all PTAC meetings.
• Work is performed in a standard or virtual office environment. Some travel is required. Work may include conflicting requirements and tight deadlines. Some overtime may be required to manage deadlines.
• Must be able to drive or be able to provide efficient and effective means of transportation as needed to perform job duties.

What we need:
• Any combination of experience and education equivalent to five years of experience that typically supports the knowledge and skills for the classification
• OR
• A bachelor’s degree in business or public administration, behavioral or social sciences, finance, political science or any degree demonstrating the capacity for the knowledge and skills; AND two years professional-level evaluative, analytical and planning work.
Learn more and apply!
• This recruitment will close March 30th, 2023.
• Click here to learn more and to apply! Please note that we can only accept applications and/or resumes through our website.
• For questions about the job announcement or online application, call 503-586-6863 or email ODOTRecruitmentNH@odot.oregon.gov.
ODOT is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer.

How to Apply

To apply, please visit: https://oregon.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/SOR_External_Career_Site/job/Salem–ODOT–Mill-Creek-Building/Training-Program-Coordinator_REQ-122685