BikePortland

ODOT report says state should make e-bikes easier to purchase

It’s been just over two years since we sounded the alarm that a major effort at the Oregon Department of Transportation to better understand the state’s electrification needs was missing a key ingredient: bicycles. Despite skyrocketing sales growth and vast potential to serve the mobility needs of many Oregonians, ODOT’s Transportation Electrification Infrastructure Needs Analysis (TEINA) initiative barely considered e-bikes at all. It gave just passing reference to them as “micromobility” devices and perpetuated the false idea that only cars and trucks can be EVs.

With the release today of the Electric Micromobility in Oregon (EMO) report, ODOT has taken a big step to remedy that oversight. BikePortland was given an early look at the report and we were able to ask one of its authors a few questions about it.

The report comes out of ODOT’s Climate Office. It was co-created for ODOT by Kittelson & Associates and the nonproft electric vehicle group, Forth. John MacArthur, a noted e-bike expert from Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) was also on the team that produced the report.

In addition to being the first and most supportive document on e-bikes ever produced by ODOT, the 40-page EMO report gives bike advocates and policymakers a lot to chew on. It considers the use of e-bikes and scooters both by individuals and as part of shared rental programs like Biketown. The report should also put wind in the sail of House Bill 2571, the e-bike rebate bill currently being considered by the Oregon Legislature (the bill’s first public hearing was recently postponed in part to give lawmakers and supporters time to digest this report.)

The report still categorizes bicycle EVs as “micromobility” alongside electric scooters, segways, and other devices. This is unfortunate because no one outside wonky bubbles knows what “micromobility” is, which makes it easy for policymakers to forget about and marginalize. (I prefer to not use that term because I want people to think of bicycles when they think of EVs (since bicycles are technically electric vehicles as per Oregon law), so I’m going to start using “micro-vehicles” and see how that fits. The report also gives a nod to electric freight delivery trikes, which are hardly “micro”. ) With this small framing quibble aside, the reports findings should help further ensconce electric bicycles into Oregon’s transportation policy framework.

In addition to giving elected officials, advocates, and policymakers an excellent overview of the e-bike market and its exciting potential, the report offers a solid list of recommendations and “actionable strategies” that will be necessary to reach it. Just as important as the solutions it outlines is how the report clearly lays out the challenges that face more widespread adoption.

In a finding that will surprise no one who’s been around the bike advocacy space for more than a week or so, the report states that, “By far the largest barrier to e-micromobility is the lack of safe and connected infrastructure.” This is a problem advocates have raised a flag about for many years in calling for wider and more protected lanes for e-bike and scooter use. The report calls out this lack of safe space specifically in a section titled, “Right-of-Way Allocation”:

The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Design Guide and ODOT’s Highway Design Manual specify that bike lanes and multiuse paths must be at least 4 feet and 10 feet wide, respectively. Neither document mentions e-micromobility devices (Oregon Department of Transportation, 2011) (Oregon Department of Transportation , 2023). Because they are often wider than standard bicycles, e-cargo bikes have trouble operating within these standards. In areas with limited space, the wider footprints and faster speeds associated with some e-micromobility devices can also cause safety and operational conflicts with other modes. Since e-cargo bikes can be as wide as 4 feet, Oregon’s minimum width standards for bike lanes and multiuse paths may not allow for safe passing opportunities.

According to the report, lack of space on the road is just one infrastructure problem we need to fix. The others are a lack of secure parking, a lack of integration with public transit (for shared systems), and the lack of charging. This last point is something we’ve harped on for years (only to have many folks tell us it’s not an issue because e-bikers can just charge at home), so it’s nice to see this issue spelled out in the report. “Not everyone can easily charge their device at home,” it reads. “People who make longer trips or use their e-bikes more frequently may also need access to public charging.”

Other major challenges listed in the report include: high purchase costs for micro-vehicles; the need for data from bike and scooter share providers; making sure access to them reaches underserved communities; a confusing regulatory environment; a lack of awareness of micro-vehicles in general, and a lack of funding to operate shared bike and scooter systems (especially for smaller cities)

Beyond the call for more road space for micro-vehicles, the other two major policy recommendations that caught our eyes were strong support for e-bike purchase incentives and a call for Oregon to establish “zero-emission delivery zones” to reduce congestion and emissions.

Jillian DiMedio is a senior transportation electrification analyst at ODOT’s Climate Office and was one of the report’s chief authors. Check out our Q & A with her below:

Why did ODOT commission this report?

In 2021, ODOT published its Transportation Electrification Infrastructure Needs Analysis (TEINA), which identified Oregon’s electric vehicle charging needs over the next 15 years as the state works to meet the zero emission vehicle goals outlined in Senate Bill 1044. While this study included electric micromobility as one of its nine transportation use cases, it became clear early on that this rapidly growing sector has its own unique benefits and barriers that needed to be more closely researched and understood by ODOT. This sentiment was echoed by the micromobility stakeholders that participated in TEINA listening sessions in the Spring of 2020.

In short, ODOT wanted to better understand a rapidly growing sector which will play an important and growing role in serving communities’ transportation needs and in reducing GHG emissions from transportation. The study sought to answer questions about the industry – its history and impact in Oregon, the benefits of and barriers to adoption and best practices and strategies for encouraging widespread use.

Where will this report live, administratively-speaking?

This study is not an official planning document but rather a research paper conducted to enhance understanding of a rapidly growing industry. ODOT’s Climate Office and Public Transportation Division, both of which work on micromobility, are developing an approach to implement the relevant recommendations in the study.

I do also want to note that ODOT just recently hired a new staff member in the Public Transportation Division (PTD) – a Micromobility and First/Last Mile Program Coordinator – that will be dedicated to promoting micromobility in Oregon. This person will develop and implement at statewide strategy for first/last mile connections with a focus on micromobility options, and will certainly be referring to the report’s findings and recommendations as part of this effort. She will also support ODOT’s existing Transportation Options program and the new Innovative Mobility Program, as well as PTD’s broader efforts to build an integrated, statewide public and active transportation network.

What was your goal with this report?

ODOT is committed to reducing emissions from the transportation sector. This means electrifying cars, trucks and buses and using cleaner fuels, and it means reducing the miles driven in Oregon by supporting transportation choices such as transit, biking and walking. The emergence of electric micromobility devices presents a unique opportunity to advance these efforts, as these devices are appealing to a broad range of users and have diverse applications. ODOT recognizes that the increased use of electric micromobility devices like e-bikes and e-scooters is an important tool in the toolkit for reducing the climate impacts of transportation.

With this in mind, the goal of the study was to do a deep dive into the electric micromobility industry – industry trends, the market potential, best practices from around the world in promoting adoption – so that we and other decision makers in Oregon could make educated decisions about how to design policy and programs to support continued rapid adoption.

What do you feel is the number one thing ODOT should prioritize from the report’s recommendations to encourage e-bike and scooter use?

What is clear from the study conclusions is that successfully promoting electric micromobility in Oregon will require a collaborative approach across many jurisdictions and stakeholders. There is a lot ODOT can do to facilitate the growth of this industry alongside our partners. As highlighted in the study, safe and connected infrastructure is a key factor in promoting and supporting the adoption of e-micromobility. ODOT will continue to prioritize the expansion of supportive infrastructure, as demonstrated by ODOT’s growing investments in programs like Great Streets, Safe Routes to School and the Innovative Mobility Program.

The study also highlights the need for a supportive ecosystem, which includes secure parking facilities, public charging, the availability of adaptive devices and equity-centered programs and policies. ODOT can serve as a convener for this supportive ecosystem. And we know that outreach and education are essential to shift the perception of e-bikes from one where they are used primarily as recreational devices to one where they are considered viable modes of transportation, for all sorts of activities. Lending libraries and shared micromobility programs can help shift the perception and ODOT will continue to promote these as well.

You can learn more by reading the full report or check out the executive summary if you are pressed for time.

Enjoy the Winter Light Festival by bike with these handy maps

Many of you have already figured out that the cure for the winter blues is getting out on your bike and riding in a group. It’s been wonderful to see so many groups hosting rides still happening each week through the cold, dark and wet winter.

But if the existing rides on the calendar aren’t enough to motivate you, then perhaps the annual Portland Winter Light Festival is. Affectionately abbreviated as PDXWLF, this free event is put on by the Willamette Light Brigade, a nonprofit arts organization that uses art and technology to bring people together. Last year, an estimated 189,000 people took part in the nine-day festival.

What is it? Imagine dozens of installations citywide full of imaginative light-based artwork that pops up (often unexpectedly) in all sorts of places — from public parks to storefronts and even backyards. There are interactive sculptures, live performances, projections onto buildings, and more. Think of it like Pedalpalooza, but instead of creative bike rides there are creative light displays.

Another way this reminds me of Pedalpalooza is that organizers encourage folks to ride to the exhibits. In fact, our friend (and BikePortland contributor) Tom Howe has worked with PDXWLF to create five bike routes specifically for the festival. Tom’s routes are on the event website and available for anyone to follow. You can print them out, import them into your GPS unit, view them on your phone, or whatever. Check them out below and set aside some time to get out there and see these by bike.

(Click on the “i” for information about each installation.)

PDXWLF kicks off February 3rd with an event at Pioneer Courthouse Square and goes through February 11th. If you want to welcome this event with a bang, consider rolling up to the PopCartPDX gathering on Friday the 3rd for some tunes and other fun stuff. See the official website for more details.

Comment of the Week: Tolling, trust, and ODOT

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

Comments came roaring back this week with strong reader discussion threads on our posts about spicy exchanges at the legislature and a new initiative on engagement from the City of Portland. We fielded several “comment of the week” nominations, and have chosen a winner…

The ODOT freeway tolling issue is complicated, but a commenter named Adam, in a colorful extended metaphor which emphasized the trust issue, compared ODOT to “used car salesmen” and made the point that tolling—how the money is used and how it is implemented—is essentially a political question. He called on lawmakers to put forth a vision.

Here’s what Adam wrote:

No one trusts ODOT because its leaders and spokespeople speak and behave like used car salesmen. They’re hacks who use obvious cloak and dagger tricks to placate and obfuscate and muddle and tire out their “customers,” until they buy the lemon as is, with that TruCoat included.

ODOT is supposed to be managed and staffed by professional civil servants who do the bidding of elected officials, like Governor Kotek, and the Legislative Assembly. These officials need to be telling ODOT what the vision for tolling is and crafting laws based on that vision. If that vision is that tolling can only be used to fund new freeways and the maintenance of existing freeways, so be it, if the voters don’t mind. But treating ODOT like it’s some thinktank of innovative transportation policies and multi-modal solutions is foolhardy. ODOT builds roads for cars and trucks. That’s it. They’re not really qualified to do anything else. They can’t even manage a highway construction budget consistently well.

Asking this ODOT to get back to you with reliable data and analysis of anything other than how many lanes they think the ideal freeway ought to have, is like asking Jerry Lundegaard to speak with his manager about removing that TruCoat charge from the price of the car.

Lawmakers need to develop their tolling vision and strategy on their own and hope ODOT can follow their directions whenever the time comes to implement the tolling plan.

Thank you Adam! You can find Adam’s comment and lively discussion under the original post.

Monday Roundup: Good car tech, free bikes, e-car reality check, and more

Welcome to the week. Hope you are staying warm out there!

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

E-bike safety: California coastal cities are struggling to find the balance between encouraging e-bike use and making sure they don’t lead to safety problems for users and people around them. (L.A. Times)

Shot…: It’s almost as if cars themselves are the problem, not what powers them. This new research should give local, state, and national leaders reason to make their EV policies and statements more inclusive of other (non-car) vehicles. (The Guardian)

…Chaser: The U.S. government has a golden opportunity to think beyond cars when it embarks on the EV era — and it’s clear the right thing to do is promote a wider mixture of vehicles because their current car-centric focus is “an environmental disaster.” (Curbed)

Trans athletes: A survey of existing studies found that trans women don’t have a biomedical advantage when competing against other women. (Cycling Weekly)

Free bikes: A bill in the Hawaii legislature would establish a bicycle grant program and give students a $2,000 subsidy to buy a new bike. (Cycling Industry News)

Good car tech: Turns out we have the technology to limit the speed of cars and an important pilot in New York City worked very well. We can’t wait for this to spread far and wide! (Smart Cities Drive)

Cycle-logy: It’s important to understand how bias and psychology work when it comes to why so many business owners oppose bike lanes. (Wired)

Legislative action: Lawmakers in Olympia and Salem hope this session results in more legal tools to improve road safety. (OPB)

Be careful what you wish for: Author Angie Schmitt wants transportation reformers to keep in mind who their low-car policy goals might leave behind. (Planetizen)

Thanks to everyone who shared links this week.

Carfree bridges, bike lanes, and public spaces in Bilbao

Someone riding one of Bilbao’s bike share bikes on a grade-separated “bizikletak” (cycle-track).
(Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)

— This post is part of BikePortland Staff Writer Taylor Griggs’ trip through Europe. See previous dispatches here.

Now that you have some background on Bilbao, Spain and its history of urban renewal via the Guggenheim Foundation, I want to share a bit more about this city. Like I said in the last story, Bilbao’s revitalization came with a hefty investment in public and active transportation and carfree public space across the city, which is evident to anyone walking around it today.

Here’s what I’ve stumbled upon in Bilbao so far.

The Zuziburi bridge, which opened in 1997.

Carfree bridges

The Zuziburi pedestrian bridge had its grand opening in Bilbao around the same time the Guggenheim Museum was completed, adding another architecturally distinctive element to the small city’s skyline. Like the museum, the bridge came with some controversy when it first opened. In this case, it was because it had a glass deck that caused people to slip and slide whenever it rained. But now it has a non-slip surface, making it much safer, if a bit less aesthetically appealing than its designer had in mind.

There’s also the wood-lined Pedro Arrupe Footbridge not far from the Zuziburi serving as another way for people walking and biking to get across the Nervión river to the other side of town.

Pedestrian traffic is hopping at school pick-up time.

Getting around

Bilbao is huge on walking — about 62% of all trips are made on foot. But there’s a growing population of cyclists here, too. The city has a bike share program, Bilbaobizi, but it’s only available to residents and getting access requires an in-person appointment. There’s also an impressive network of bike lanes, often grade-separated from car traffic and sometimes even accompanied by Dutch-style bicycle roundabouts at intersections.

The city’s public transit network includes buses, a metro system and trams — including an inclined tram for getting up the city’s mountainous areas. (Can you imagine an incline up Portland’s hilly westside?)

A very interesting net playground outside the Guggenheim.

Public play places (for all ages)

I pointed out my fondness for the carfree plazas, parks and playgrounds I saw in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, and the trend continues here in Bilbao. The importance of these public spaces is one of the key things I’ve learned on this trip. They’re so crucial to a city’s livability for residents and are tourist crowd-pleasers, too.

Overall, I have been very impressed by this city. Tomorrow I’m off to Barcelona, in part to ride with the bicíbus, and then I’ll be back in Portland next week! Thanks for following along, it’s been fun to be able to share this with you.

Oregon’s upgraded biker campsites will get you excited to ride

Covered areas with charging plugs, air pumps and lockable storage lockers are just some of the amenities at these sites. Pictured: Devils Lake State Park. More photos below. (Photos: Oregon Parks Forever)

“People tell us these are the best hiker/biker sites on the coast — much better than anything in Washington or California.”
– Seth Miller, Oregon Parks Forever

The State of Oregon’s efforts to make bicycle touring more comfortable continues to reach new heights.

We’ve been covering the bicycle tourism beat for a long time and one of the coolest initiatives Oregon Parks Forever (a nonprofit that raises money for state projects) has taken on over the past decade or so is a strategy to upgrade and expand hiker/biker campsites at popular parks. As bicycle camping has become more popular and has spread to a wider range of riders over the years, Oregon has upped its game to meet demand.

Not content to simply offer a special place to sleep for carfree campers, the bar has been raised to include covered shelters, USB charging ports (e-bike riders can charge batteries in bathrooms), fix-it stations, and even gear and food storage lockers. After a full day on the bike, having a bit of extra comfort — and the ability to get your body and your gear off the (sometimes wet) ground and onto a dry, covered spot, means everything.

We know of at least 10 of these upgraded sites statewide and there are a few dozen planned. In 2014 we reported that Oregon Parks wanted to build 19 of them along popular cycling routes across the state. In 2015 they made good on those plans and added major upgrades to hiker/biker sites at Milo McIver, Champoeg, and Bullards Beach state parks.

Oregon Parks Forever (formerly Oregon State Parks Foundation), a nonprofit that raises money for state parks, has been instrumental in funding these hiker-biker pods. In 2020, they made a $39,875 donation (thanks to their members and grants from Juan Young Trust, REI, and Travel Oregon) to pay for installing new pods at three more locations — including Honeyman State Park just south of Florence on the Oregon Coast.

According to Oregon Parks Forever, the new pod at Honeyman includes a charging station, lockers, water filling station, repair station with an air pump, seating areas, and a new fire pit. Communal gathering spaces are also a big part of the design. This is the seventh hiker-biker pod they’ve funded on the Oregon Coast and it joins existing ones at Fort Stevens, Devil’s Lake, Cape Blanco, Harris Beach, Cape Lookout and Nehalem Bay. “Expanding services for recreational bicyclists from around the world will promote increased physical activity, decrease car traffic, and contribute to economic development by attracting more bicycle tourism,” reads a post on the Oregon Parks Forever website.

Oregon Parks Forever Executive Director told me yesterday that two more pods will be installed by this June at South Beach and Beverly Beach and their current plan includes nine pods, each costing about $16,000. “They’ve gotten tremendous feedback,” Miller said. “People tell us these are the best hiker/biker sites on the coast — much better than anything in Washington or California.”

These amenities can often make-or-break a bike trip. It feels great to know the State of Oregon cares about bicycle travelers. Thanks to everyone involved in building these. We can’t wait to see more them!

(Note: Remember that even when a State Parks campground is “full,” bike riders are still allowed to camp. And fees for these sites are only $5 to $6 per night. Miller also strongly recommends bringing a padlock to keep your stuff safe in the provided lockers. Learn more at this helpful page on Travel Oregon’s website.)

Oregon’s e-bike rebate bill set for first legislative hearing

UPDATE, 1/27 at 8:20 am: The e-bike rebate bill has been pulled from the agenda. Scroll to end of post for details.

A bill that could usher in an exciting new era for mobility statewide will receive its first public hearing in the Oregon Legislature next week. House Bill 2571 will be heard at the House Committee On Climate, Energy, and Environment on Monday at 3:00 pm.

As we first shared back in November, this is the bill that would give purchasers of electric bicycles an instant rebate of up to $1,200 for a standard model and $1,700 for a cargo bike. To pay for the rebate, the bill seeks $6 million out of the state’s general fund to be placed into a program administered by the Department of Environmental Quality. According to a forthcoming report about e-bikes from the Oregon Department of Transportation, 65 localities in the United States currently offer some form of rebate toward purchasing an e-bike (as of July 2022).

E-bike use and purchases have skyrocketed in Oregon in the past few years. Statewide sales numbers aren’t available, but data from cycling industry experts NPD Group show that e-bike sales more than quadrupled between 2019 and 2021. NPD Group analyst Dick Sorenson has been tracking e-bike sales for eight years and wrote in late 2021 that, “The growth of e-bikes should come as little surprise, as these bicycles address the needs of an aging U.S. population, provide easy access to a family-friendly outdoor activity, and address some of the need for commuting in denser population centers.”

Rep. Pham and her electric cargo bike. (Photo from a Pham fundraiser)

Oregon’s e-bike rebate bill is sponsored by House Reps Dacia Grayber and Mark Gamba. Neither of them are members of the House Climate, Energy and Environment Committee, but one of the bills co-sponsors, Rep. Khanh Pham is. As an e-cargo bike owner herself, she’ll be a strong voice of support for the bill.

Oregon bike shop owners are also going to line up behind this. One of them told us recently he expects his business to double overnight if this bill passes. Brook McKee at Pedego Electric Bikes on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, is also excited about how this bill will impact her business. “I think it would be very beneficial for us. We’re trying to give people a mode of transportation they need, without having to worry about buying a car,” she shared on the phone this morning. “And price is a big issue, especially for our younger customers.”

A typical e-bike at Pedego that would be a good car replacement will set you back around $2,500 to $3,500. That’s inexpensive compared to other shops around town who stock urban commuting and utility models that can easily set you back $5,000 to $6,000. The very popular Urban Arrow cargo bike with a large bin in the front (like in the photo above) costs $7,000 to $8,000 at Clever Cycles.

The State of Oregon already offers a wide variety of generous financial incentives and rebates for anyone who wants to buy an electric car. Given the vast potential of electric bikes, it’s both fair and sensible to extend that type of policy to other types of EVs. That forthcoming report on e-bike use that ODOT is set to release next month makes a strong recommendation that the time is right for Oregon to create an e-bike incentive program.

If you own a bike shop or are a potential beneficiary of an e-bike rebate, you can register to testify online or in-person for Monday’s meeting here. You can also click here to submit written testimony that will be uploaded to the committee website and be made available to committee members prior to the hearing.

UPDATE, 1/27 at 11:00 am: We have confirmed that HB 2571 has been pulled from the agenda. Sponsor Rep. Grayber said it was a welcome development because the postponement will give e-bike advocates a bit more time to prepare for the hearing. Part of the reason might also have to do with a forthcoming ODOT report about e-bike use that isn’t set to be released until February 1. That report will be very relevant for bill sponsors and advocates because it includes a recommendation for e-bike purchase incentives. A new committee hearing date for the bill has not yet been scheduled.

A plan for ‘Better Bus’ on 82nd Avenue begins (again)

Metro High Capacity Transit Corridors map (bright green are Tier 1).

A plan to bring faster and more reliable bus service to 82nd Avenue has started in earnest. The effort will be led by Metro in partnership with the City of Portland. Initial planning stages are underway and Metro says they have an eye toward bringing a version of TriMet’s new Frequent Express (FX) service to this former state highway (you might recall that the City of Portland became the official owner of 82nd Avenue when the jurisdictional transfer from the State of Oregon was completed in April 2022).

82nd Avenue is home to TriMet Line 72, which has the highest ridership of any bus line in the Portland area. It carries an estimated 8,500 riders on an average weekday and runs from Clackamas Town Center to northeast Portland’s Roseway and Sumner neighborhoods. Improving bus service on 82nd has been identified as a top priority in the Regional Transportation Plan and Metro’s High Capacity Transit strategy lists an FX-style bus (like the one TriMet just opened on SE Division) alongside four other Tier 1 projects: Southwest Corridor MAX, Tualatin-Valley Highway FX bus, Interstate Bridge MAX and Montgomery Park streetcar.

If this feels like deja-vu that’s because we’ve been here before. There was a serious look at bus rapid transit on 82nd as part of the initial plans for the Division Transit Project in 2016 (back then it was called the Powell-Division Transit and Development Project). But it was scrapped at that time because ODOT wasn’t ready to restrict driving capacity on 82nd that would have been necessary to speed up buses (and the options to widen the street were consider too expensive or politically infeasible).

Now we’ve got another chance to do something big on 82nd. And this time around, ODOT won’t have nearly as much say in the matter since they only own the portion of 82nd from the Clackamas Town Center to the city limits.

TriMet conceptual drawings from their 2016 proposal for bus rapid transit on 82nd Avenue.

In a factsheet published back in October, Metro wrote:

Bus rapid transit service would significantly improve travel time, reliability, and comfort by allowing the bus to separate from or bypass other vehicle traffic in key areas along the route and improving stations.

Metro’s High Capacity Transit strategy specifically calls out projects that “provide better alternatives to driving that encourage new ridership in support of the region’s climate goals.” Metro, which thinks of high capacity transit as the “backbone” of our regional transportation and growth plans, has been putting the pieces in place for major transit investments since 2009 when they adopted their Regional High Capacity Transit (HCT) System Plan. In an update of the 2018 Regional Transportation Plan they introduced the Enhanced Transit Concept, which they now call “Better Bus.”

The “better bus” project on 82nd has even more momentum right now because it’s being timed to take advantage of the $185 million pledged by ODOT and the Portland Bureau of Transportation as part of their Building a Better 82nd Avenue plan.

The timeline is to develop the design concept now through this spring and then a steering committee will identify a locally preferred alternative this summer. Local and regional governments will be asked to adopt the project this coming summer and fall. Metro will apply for federal grants and begin the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process will in 2024 and it is scheduled to open in 2029.

Get plugged into the planning effort and learn more at Metro’s website.

What Portland could learn from the ‘Bilbao Effect’

The Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)

— This post is part of BikePortland Staff Writer Taylor Griggs’ trip through Europe. See previous dispatches here.

Bilbao’s renewal was accompanied by a new public transit networks that spread all around the city as well as a citywide commitment to biking and walking infrastructure.

The Spanish city of Bilbao is home to about 350,000 residents, is the biggest metropolis in northern Spain’s Basque Country, and its natural beauty and unique history should be attractive to European travelers looking for something a little different. But it’s the armchair urbanists who will really find a treasure trove of riches in Bilbao.

Alright, maybe I’m just late to the game. After all, Bilbao is well-known enough amongst city planning aficionados to have an architectural concept named after it. The “Bilbao Effect” is a term coined after the 1997 construction of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao structure: an eye-catching and critically-renowned piece of contemporary architecture that launched designer Frank Gehry into “starchitect” status à la Frank Lloyd Wright (who, of course, designed the famous Guggenheim building in New York).

While the Guggenheim Bilbao is notable for its world-class contemporary art collection, it’s the building that really sold it as an attraction worth traveling to Basque Country for. This is exactly what Bilbao politicians wanted when they appealed to the Guggenheim Foundation to build their next museum in their city, considering it their one great shot at revitalization after years of economic turmoil. And it worked, heralding substantial urban development projects like a robust Metro and tram system, beautiful parks and public spaces and more. But was there a cost?

A 2017 Guardian retrospective on the Gehry Guggenheim building includes a quote conveying the architect’s unease upon seeing his bright, extravagant building in Bilbao for the first time: “I went over the hill and saw it shining there. I thought: ‘What the fuck have I done to these people?”

I started learning about Bilbao in bits and pieces only recently, when my sister moved here to teach English for a year. I had never given much thought to visiting Basque Country, and I was very surprised to hear about how prevalent Basque culture and language is in this city.

When the Guggenheim opened in 1997, some Basque separatists violently protested. Other detractors thought of the museum as an example of American globalism, calling it “McGuggenheim.” Guggenheim naysayers feared that Bilbao’s shiny new tourist attraction and subsequent urban renewal would come at their their city’s authenticity, affordability and perhaps even the future possibility of an independent Basque Country.

From what I can tell, however, the consensus now is that the museum had a positive effect on the city, including for its Basque population. But this is only because Bilbao’s government worked hard to make sure the entire city was able to reap the Guggenheim rewards and its impact wasn’t isolated to a small, touristy area of the city where visitors would stay. If not done thoughtfully and with long-term planning, big tourist installments like this can wreak complete havoc on a city’s inhabitants — think what can happen in short-sighted cities after they host the Olympics.

Closer to home, debates about gentrification and urban renewal projects play out on a smaller scale all the time. The discourse can be hard to keep track of. (For instance: I have no idea what the temperature is on Portland’s new Ritz-Carlton, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.) People whose worldviews are otherwise aligned can find themselves in uproarious arguments (usually on Twitter) about whether or not luxury condos or new fine dining restaurant establishments are useful to solving the affordable housing crisis or revamping Portland’s economy.

What I’ve learned from Bilbao is that a city is worth a lot more than its most “impressive” structure. It’s going to be tempting to use the existence of new luxury buildings or tourist attractions as a “gotcha” against accusations that Portland is dying, but we’re not going to get very far with that. To me, Portland’s joie de vivre is best embodied by grassroots community activities like Pedalpalooza, the Secret Roller Disco and even the fledgling local arts movement happening at the Lloyd Center.

Like I mentioned, Bilbao’s renewal was accompanied by a new public transit networks that spread all around the city as well as a citywide commitment to biking and walking infrastructure. Now, this city is topping national lists for its high pedestrian mode share (62% of all trips are taken on foot!) encouraged by the government with carfree streets in the city center and gorgeous pedestrian bridges. Bilbao isn’t necessarily known for its bike-friendliness, but I’ve been impressed by the grade-separated bike path network extending throughout its neighborhoods. If Portland’s so-called “rebirth” came with a similar move away from car infrastructure — a strategy with proven economic benefits — I think we could have a similar trajectory.

In Bilbao, beauty extends far beyond Gehry’s building. If the Guggenheim’s titanium panels — and even the Jeff Koons’ ‘Puppy’ installation on the lawn — were to suddenly disappear without a trace, the city would still be worth visiting. More importantly, it would still have resources for the people who actually call this place their home. That’s the part of the “Bilbao Effect” we need to emulate. Of course, the world-class, deconstructionist movement architecture and access to famous contemporary art is cool, too…but it’s not everything.

After a walker is killed, BikeLoud says city should improve safety near Lents Park

SE Holgate just west of 92nd, where someone was killed while walking this week.

A nonprofit that pushes for safer cycling has swung into action following a traffic collision on Southeast Holgate that left someone dead early Monday morning.

According to the Portland Police Bureau, they responded to a call just after 3:00 am on Holgate just west of SE 92nd Avenue. They found a person in the road with severe injuries and a car driver who had stopped to see what happened. The injured person, who police say was a pedestrian, died shortly after at the hospital. It was the third person killed while using this intersection since 2016.

This stretch of Holgate is adjacent to Lents Park and has a tragic history of deaths and injuries. The Portland Bureau of Transportation ranks it ninth citywide on its list of high crash intersections. Between 2015 and 2019, two people were killed, five people were seriously injured and 44 other people suffered minor injuries due to traffic crashes at this location.

BikeLoud PDX is dismayed that the street outside Lents Park is so dangerous. In a letter sent Wednesday to PBOT Commissioner Mingus Mapps, PBOT Interim Director Tara Wasiak, and members of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, BikeLoud Chair Kiel Johnson wrote, “We ask for an immediate traffic safety solution at SE Holgate and 92nd and a plan to extend the bike lanes from the Holgate Transit Station to the neighborhood greenway on 87th Avenue.”

In 2009, PBOT installed buffered bike lanes on Holgate from SE 122nd to the I-205 bike path, but the lanes end about one block east of 92nd. BikeLoud wants PBOT to extend the bike lanes about 0.3 miles west to an existing neighborhood greenway on 87th. In their letter, they argue that buffered bike lanes also offer pedestrians a safe space and can improve visibility for people trying to cross the street.

We don’t yet know what exactly happened early Monday morning, but when PBOT first installed the bike lanes on Holgate they reported a 19% decrease in the number of people driving over the speed limit.

Johnson and BikeLoud are calling on PBOT to live up to their Vision Zero commitments which call on the city to respond to every fatal crash with an evaluation of how it happened and to determine what safety changes are needed. “Where feasible,” reads PBOT’s Vision Zero website, “put swift, temporary traffic and operational changes in place.”

“The section of Holgate where this crash occurred is dominated by space for cars,” Johnson writes in his letter. “It took two months for PBOT to reinstall the green bike boxes at SE Powell and 26th after Sarah Pliner was killed. We hope that PBOT can work just as quickly to extend the Holgate bike lanes and make this stretch of Holgate safer for all road users.”

So far this year, three people have been killed while walking on Portland streets. Just last night someone was hit by a driver and killed while walking across SE Powell and Foster Road.

PBOT maintenance staff could strike as soon as next week

City of Portland sweeper operator cleans a bike lane on North Rosa Parks Way. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“We’re making plans to be able to provide core emergency response services, but it will be a challenge without the staff that does the work day in and day out.”
— City of Portland maintenance worker

Labor contract negotiations between the City of Portland and employees represented by Laborers Local 483’s Portland City Laborers (PCL) contract have been underway for months to no avail. Now, citing insufficient concessions from the city, PCL workers have made it officials: they plan to strike as soon as next week.

According to NW Labor Press, 630 parks, environmental services and transportation bureau workers are ready to walk out.

The PCL contract includes Portland Bureau of Transportation maintenance workers who are in charge of street upkeep, striping bike lanes and crosswalks and more. The union says these employees have been working under poor conditions for years now, but the pandemic and subsequent economic inflation exacerbated the situation — and this is getting in the way of their ability to keep up with the very important work of maintaining our streets.

“Union workers under the PCL contract took nearly 2.5 million dollars in concessions at the beginning of the pandemic. They delayed negotiating a new contract for a year to accommodate the City of Portland in its time of need. In response, City decision makers have treated their safety and financial security as a low priority,” a Tuesday press release from Local 483 states. “These workers run our sewer systems, build our roads, maintain our parks, and much more. They are the workers who showed up, in person, throughout the pandemic to keep our City running.”

A Local 483 graphic depicting current pay for PCL members compared to rising inflation.

According to an article posted yesterday by The Oregonian, the City of Portland has proposed a 4-year, $39-million contract with a 12% wage increase by July, which would include a retroactive cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 5% and a 1% retroactive across-the-board pay raise.

Local 483 says this proposal is inadequate. The union wants a 3.5% across-the-board pay raise for all members and is asking the city to remove its 5% COLA cap, which doesn’t keep up with inflation. Anything less amounts to a “pay cut” under our current 6.5% inflation rate, Local 483 leaders wrote in a December bargaining update.

They’re not buying the city’s excuses for why they can’t meet those demands.

“The City continues to plead poverty. The PCL Bargaining team has been unconvinced by the City’s argument given the facts as we understand them. Portland’s budget assessment process has consistently “found” tens of millions of dollars, every 6 months, for years,” another recent bargaining update states.

As recent BikePortland stories have touched on, the maintenance issues on our streets have become more and more evident recently — especially for active transportation users. From hazardous, invisible ice on the streets and sidewalks to lake-sized puddles in bike lanes, there’s a lot someone walking or biking needs to look out for when trying to get around the city.

PBOT officials cite the bureau’s $4.4 billion maintenance backlog as the reason they can’t get these problems under control, and say they’re working to develop a new funding structure that would allow them to get ahead of it.

But Local 483 leaders say nothing will change until maintenance employees are respected. And if that means going on strike, so be it.

“We view this contract as an opportunity for the City to honor the sacrifices of workers who have shown up through recent years of crisis. Additionally, money spent on the PCL contract is a sound financial investment. It resources necessary work that provides real value for the people of Portland,” the Tuesday press release reads. “Without that investment, it is likely that the City will see substantial costs associated with the inability to recruit and retain the people needed to avoid catastrophic failures.”

“We’re making plans to be able to provide core emergency response services, but it will be a challenge without the staff that does the work day in and day out,” said one maintenance staffer who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity.

Local 483 will hold a gathering for PCL union workers this Saturday, January 28th from 12 to 3 pm in Terry Schrunk Plaza outside Portland City Hall to ask the city to meet their demands. They invite the public to attend and show their support. You can find out more about the event and the PCL bargaining process at the Local 483 website.

(We have also heard that remaining City of Portland non-represented staffers who aren’t members of Local 483 are planning to form a union of their own. According to the website of the City of Portland Professional Workers Union, 321 non-represented city workers have joined so far.)

The cure for our too-mini van is a family bike bus

Five kids in the box (one is hard to see), Mom at the pedals, two kids on their own bikes.

I never thought biking could actually be the mobility solution to one of our big family’s real mobility problems: too many kids for our minivan.

We have a big family. Two adults and five children. That maxes out the seating in our seven passenger minivan. We can’t pick up friends or volunteer to drive another kid home. If our family grows any bigger, or if we are hosting a niece or nephew, or babysitting for friends, we don’t have a car that can carry us all.

As a result, we’ve been shopping around for a way to meet our big family transportation needs. We’ve been looking at old shuttle vans, Ford Transits, Chevy Expresses, actual shuttle buses, half buses and even old school buses. But it’s a potential purchase that I’m particularly unhappy about. I loathe the idea of driving a bigger vehicle (so much so, that I looked into importing a smaller-sized Japanese vehicle that could seat more folks in a smaller footprint with a much lower vehicle weight, and at a much lower cost – but that’s another story). And I practically want to launch a campaign against heavy super-sized and often unneeded SUVs and their threat to children and the people outside of them. The last thing I want to do is drive one myself!

Long rant short: I love children. I loathe extra-large vehicles for carrying them.

Then when the Alameda Bike Bus made headlines it got me thinking. That’s a whole lot of kids, way more than I’ll ever have, all riding along on one giant bike bus. Could that be the transportation solution for our big family?

I never thought biking could actually be the mobility solution to one of our big family’s real mobility problems: too many kids for our minivan. Perhaps that’s because the common image I have of family biking looks like one grown-up with one or two kids in child seats or a two-seater trailer. (Those trailers don’t come any bigger!) Perhaps that’s because I don’t see a lot of big families out biking. Or perhaps I am still so heavily influenced by car culture that I can’t see past it, even when the bike is sitting right in front of me.

I am the happy owner of a large electric cargo trike. I can seat at least four kids in my cargo box, or even five or six if they are small toddler-sized people willing to squish a bit. After that, when it comes to independent kid riders, I can take as many as I feel comfortable shepherding. There isn’t a strict maximum. With kids riding their own bikes, we don’t run out of seats. We don’t outgrow the bike bus.

Our first trip on the family bike bus took off today. I was babysitting two extra kiddos, putting the total at seven kids and one grown-up, which is too many for our seven-seat minivan. That would mean we would have to stay home (all day with seven children under age ten, no thank you!) or we could make our own bike bus ride to the park.

Thus, the Johnson Family Bike Bus went on its very first ride. Five kids in the cargo box with me at the pedals (thank you e-assist!), and two kids riding on their own. In the middle of January no less!

It was fabulous. Which is saying a lot, when one is spending the day with seven children. We needed the bike bus today. We needed to be able to go to the park and run around and yell. And our minivan couldn’t take us there. But with bikes, we could.

And for those with even bigger families, check out the Bunch Bike Preschool (or big family) model, which seats six little people in the cargo box. It will seat as many as a minivan, with a much smaller footprint and price tag, and it looks like so much more fun.

Normally, we bike because we want to. Today, we biked because we couldn’t drive. And now, I can see us doing a lot more of that, like bike pick-ups of friends and riding together for outings and playdates, because whoever can ride their bike can join us, no car seats required.

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Carfree bridges

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What Portland could learn from the ‘Bilbao Effect’

After a walker is killed, BikeLoud says city should improve safety near Lents Park

PBOT maintenance staff could strike as soon as next week

The cure for our too-mini van is a family bike bus

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From the Archives

With six kids and no car, this mom does it all by bike