BikePortland

City offers free tune-ups and Safe Routes to School trainings this month

Families join a PBOT traffic engineer
for a walkabout outside Trillium
Charter School on N. Interstate Ave.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation does a lot more than than just build bike infrastructure. They also have one of the best Safe Routes to Schools programs in the country and they do a bunch of free, bike-related outreach all year. Below are four events that you should take advantage of this month:

Safe Routes Discussions and Trainings

Panel Discussion: Promoting Active Transportation at School

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

TerraCycle Inc., a locally based designer, manufacturer, and retailer of specialty recumbent parts and accessories has acquired Windwrap Fairings.

Windwrap makes fairings (a.k.a. windscreens) out of Lexan plastic and is a well-known brand in the recumbent world. Mark Mueller, founder of the company that makes Windwrap Fairings, started the business in 1998 and has always maintained his day job as a transportation engineer for CalTrans. In a press release about the deal, Mueller said:

Year: 2007
Brand: Soma Cyclocross Frame/Shimano Components
Color:Faded Aqua
Stolen in Portland, OR 97266
Stolen:2010-01-5
Stolen From: The bike rack was cut off my car…
Neighborhood: Lents
Owner: Rachel Sterry
OwnerEmail: beav2781@yahoo.com
Description: small frame with rear rack and black fenders (with a BTA sticker). cork handlebar tape, odometer and rear light
This registrant has documented proof of ownership of this bike

Editorial: The bicycle insurance gap and what we can do about it

Russ Willis
(Photo © Elly Blue)

Before moving to Portland and ditching his car, Russ Willis was a founding board member of the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation. Russ is the author of the blog, Taking the Lane and this is his first editorial for BikePortland. This is the third article in a three-part series on The Bicycle Insurance Gap. See all three articles here.

Not very long ago, when I used to drive a car, I carried liability insurance against the possibility that I might injure or kill someone.

Read Lynn J. sent in an interesting bit of American transportation history she heard on The Writer’s Almanac this past Sunday.

Turns out that January 3rd, 1899, the New York Times published an editorial that included the first known usage of the word “automobile”. At that time, says the Almanac, cars were still new and hadn’t yet been mass produced.

Here’s the snip from the New York Times:

“There is something uncanny about these new-fangled vehicles. They are all unutterably ugly and never a one of them has been provided with a good, or even an endurable, name. The French, who are usually orthodox in their etymology if in nothing else, have evolved ‘automobile,’ which, being half Greek and half Latin, is so near to indecent that we print it with hesitation.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

A guide to bicycle insurance options

Problems arise when an uninsured motor vehicle operator and a person on a bike without auto insurance collide… Lack of insurance is also a problem in the case of single vehicle crashes, such as when you hit the light rail tracks at the wrong angle and go down.

As I reported in my first piece on bicycle insurance, there is currently no alternative form of automobile insurance for people who do not own cars. If you ride a bicycle and are not covered by car insurance, you should know your options in case of a single-vehicle crash, a hit and run, or a crash with an uninsured motorist.

At-fault motor vehicle operators who have their own auto insurance should be liable for any damages to you and your bike. If you have auto insurance it will most likely cover a crash that you cause, even if you are on your bike.

Problems arise when an uninsured motor vehicle operator and a person on a bike without auto insurance collide, or worse, in the case of a hit-and-run. Lack of insurance is also a problem in the case of single vehicle crashes, such as when you hit the light rail tracks at the wrong angle and go down.

Lindsay Caron

This story was written by contributing reporter Lindsay Caron. Ms. Caron took a break from working on a documentary about Canadian health insurance to focus on the issue of bicycling insurance. This is her first story for BikePortland. She has also compiled a list of existing insurance options as part of a three-part series on The Bicycle Insurance Gap.

It’s not an uncommon scenario: You’re riding down the street and are in a collision resulting in a trip to the hospital and a totaled bike. The person driving the car does not have insurance, and may suffer the legal penalty.

Either way, you are stuck with medical bills, a broken bike, time off work, and little recourse — unless you have your own car and auto insurance.

The Fanno Creek Trail in Tigard.
(Photos © J. Maus)

On January 27th, we’re heading to Tigard (about 10 miles southwest of Portland in Washington County) for our next Get Together event. Why Tigard? Why not?!

Tigard is a sweet little town of about 46,000 people with a lot going for it bike-wise (hear me out). I first learned of its charms during my tour of the West Side back in May. Jim Parsons (our correspondent in that neck of the woods) and I rolled along and came to downtown Tigard’s Main Street. Then, before us was a brew pub with bike parking right out front (cars have to park in the back and walk) just a few feet away from the awesome Fanno Creek Trail.

The race to replace Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman continues to get interesting. A week before Christmas, the former Director of Government Relations at Portland State University and a co-founder of the blog BlueOregon, Jesse Cornett, announced his candidacy.

Cornett’s decision adds an important element to this race, not just because of his impressive track record (even one of his fellow candidates said “The sh*t hit the fan” when a local newspaper reported about the decision) but because he is someone who regularly experiences the city from atop a bike saddle.

With their extensive plans for bike boulevards in the coming years (they’ve got 60 miles of them coming by 2013), it’s clear that the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation has made residential street safety a high priority.

Residential streets don’t garner the media attention that projects in commercials areas do, but according to PBOT they deserve priority because most trips start at home and 70% of Portland’s streets are residential.

Helmetless in the holy land, mountain bikes in Seattle, two-wheeled EMTs, carfree babies, how women park, Caribbean cargo trikes, and royal disapproval

Here’s the news that caught our eye this week:

– “There were just too many cars for the system,” was how an ODOT representative explained the worst car traffic backups that Portland has ever seen after an unexpected weekday afternoon snowstorm last week left 4 inches of snow on the ground just in time for the evening commute.

– Distracted driving is the new drunk driving, and a growing number of states are joining the charge led by new transpo sec’y LaHood to curb all manner of driving while texting and talking on the phone — though few are even discussing a crackdown on hands-free cell phone use.

– Communities across the US are starting to follow Virginia’s lead in eliminating cul-de-sac development. This article makes the case for why grid streets are safer and less of a drain on municipal resources and public goods.

Word from our friends at the Portland State University Bicycle Advocacy Collective (PSUBAC) is that they’re kicking off 2010 with free ‘Breakfast for Bikers’ every day this week.

From 9:00 to 11:00 am, you’ll be treated to pastries, coffee and other snacks: All you have to do is show up with your bike (and your own mug). They’ll be set up near the cycle track on SW Broadway at Harrison through Thursday and on Friday they’ll be at the newly opened PSU Bike Hub on the SW corner of SW 6th and Harrison.

City offers free tune-ups and Safe Routes to School trainings this month

Portland-based TerraCycle acquires Windwrap Fairings

Faded Aqua Soma Cyclocross Frame/Shimano Components 2007

Editorial: The bicycle insurance gap and what we can do about it

From 1889: Naming an “unutterably ugly” new-fangled vehicle

A guide to bicycle insurance options

Bicycle insurance: Coming to America in 2010?

Join us for a Get Together in Tigard (yes, Tigard)

Bike-riding former PSU staffer will vie for Council seat

Presentation on residential street safety next Monday

The Monday Roundup

Biking to PSU? Get free breakfast all week

Latest Headlines

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Podcast: City Council District 3 Candidate Brandon Mullen

Elevator closures on Bob Stacey Crossing frustrate users, while PBOT seeks funding for fixes

Lime adds new electric, seated ‘Glider’ to Portland fleet

From the Archives

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