🚨 Please note that BikePortland slows down during this time of year as I have family in town and just need a break! Please don't expect typical volume of news stories and content. I'll be back in regular form after the new year. Thanks. - Jonathan 🙏
Celebrate a successful cyclocross season at Hopworks this Saturday. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Happy December, and welcome to the weekend. It’s probably going to be a cold and wet one, but luckily, the best antidote to winter blues is getting bundled up and riding your bike.
The Weekend Guide is made possible by our friends at Portland-based Showers Pass, who remind you that they’ve offered excellent and reliable rain gear and other apparel must-haves for 25 years!
Here’s our hand-picked selection of the best rides and events coming your way. For more suggestions, see the BikePortland Calendar.
Thursday, December 1st
Shift Social and TNR Prefunk – 5:15 – 7:30 pm at Lucky Lab on Hawthorne (SE) Get together with the Shift2Bikes crew at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. Learn more about the Shift calendar and forum and chat with some old Pedalpalooza friends! Anyone is welcome, and the group will head to the Thursday Night Ride after. More info here.
Saturday, December 3rd
PDX Coffee Outside – Location TBD The location always changes for the weekly park gathering of bike and coffee lovers. Check the group’s Instagram for location, which will be posted the day before. More info here.
PSU Farmer’s Market ride – 10 am at various locations (SE) Join Hami Ramani and friends on the the weekly journey to the PSU Farmer’s Market! More info here.
BikeLoud PDX SE/East Chapter Ride: Around and across inner Powell – 12:30 pm at Hampton Opera Center/Tilikum Crossing (SE) Learn about inner Powell Blvd by riding around it with the BikeLoud crew. BikeLoud member Josh Hetrick will lead the ride and talk about what advocates are doing to make Powell safer for riding a bike. More info here.
Cyclocross Crusade Party – 2:00 pm at Hopworks Urban Brewery (SE) Meet up with your Cyclocross Crusade friends for the last time this season at Hopworks this Saturday. They’ll have prizes and will give acknowledgements to the people who raced this year. Free drink tickets for racers will also be available, so don’t miss it! More info here.
Sunday, December 4th
WeBike Sock Drive Ride Help bring some winter warmth to people in need and join The Street Trust’s Madi Carlson on a WeBike ride to the annual Golden Pliers sock drive. WeBike events are intended for anyone who doesn’t benefit from cis male privilege. More info here.
See all upcoming events here. Promoting an event? Know about something we should boost? Please let us know and we’ll get it on the calendar.
Many of you have probably heard of the Community Cycling Center. It’s that plucky (or should I say scrappy) nonprofit known for their bike shop on NE Alberta Street, their summer camps, and more recently, a food delivery program.
But did you know they also recycle tons of scrap metal every year? 25 tons to be exact!
One of the things that powers the CCC programs and business model are the hundreds of bikes they receive as donations every year. They clean and repair as many of them as they can. Then they salvage all the usable parts. What’s left over is a messy combinations of plastic, rubber, and different types of metal that has no use to anyone. It can’t be used for cycling and it’s no good for recycling because it’s too mixed up. They offer some of it to the community via salvage sales where folks can rummage around for things to use in art projects, garden sculptures, for welding practice, and so on. But there’s still a ton of leftovers no one wants to eat.
That’s were CCC staff and volunteers come in. “We could take bikes and parts to the scrap yard without separating types of metal and removing plastic and rubber, but we want to do right by our donors, our community, and our industry,” the org said in an email today. “So we put in the extra effort to deliver clean scrap metal only. This ensures that the material will actually be recycled and used for years to come!”
This arduous process includes stripping frames, separating aluminum rims from steel spokes, separating tires, tubes, saddles, pedals and more. They estimate they recycle over 50,000 lbs of metal every year that would otherwise be taking up space in a landfill.
The bike lane on SW 2nd Avenue is buffered from other lanes by parked cars. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
“[That bike lane is a] death trap. It’s hazard after hazard.”
– Bicycle rider ticketed downtown
A woman riding a bike was pulled over and cited by a Portland Police officer Monday afternoon. It happened on Southwest 2nd Avenue as she rode north just after crossing SW Washington. Her offense? She was not riding in the bike lane.
Believe it or not, Oregon has a law that requires bicycle users to use a bike lane whenever one is available. ORS 814.420 states, “a person commits the offense of failure to use a bicycle lane or path if the person operates a bicycle on any portion of a roadway that is not a bicycle lane or bicycle path when a bicycle lane or bicycle path is adjacent to or near the roadway.”
It’s a type of law — known as a “mandatory sidepath rule” — many states have moved away from. The national nonprofit League of American Bicyclists vehemently opposes laws like this and has fought against them at the federal level. They’ve also specifically called-out this law in Oregon as a reason for notching us down several rungs in national bike-friendly state rankings.
The ticket.
A big problem with mandatory sidepath laws is that they leave enforcement open to discretion of police officers — some of whom are unsympathetic to bicycle riders, don’t fully understand bike-related law and don’t have any bicycling experience themselves. It’s also just a waste of resources to pull someone over for operating their bicycle in a general purpose lane in downtown Portland where speeds and volumes are relatively low and bicycle riders travel at the same speed as other road users (and of course there are rampant, illegal, dangerous, yet harder-to-see-because-it’s-so-normalized-and-ubiquitous, behaviors by car and truck drivers).
The woman ticketed Monday said SW 2nd Avenue has been her regular commute route home for the past eight years. She usually avoids the bike lanes because they are “a death trap.” “That entire stretch is hazard after hazard,” she shared with me this week. “I wish the police would refocus their efforts to ticketing the 5-10 cars parked in the bike lanes I come across on my 1.5 mile commute.”
Adding to the frustration around this incident, it happened in a location where the bike lane is arguably less safe than other lanes (another reason this is a bad law).
Bike riders will often opt out of using bike lanes because they are so often full of debris, potholes, or inherent engineering hazards that make bike lanes less safe than other lanes. The 2nd Avenue bike lane specifically is also known to be full of puddles and leaves this time of year. This matters because ORS 814.420 includes an exception that says a person is not required to use the bike lane if they are, “Avoiding debris or other hazardous conditions.”
Back in July, BikePortland reader crazytraffic99 posted a video to YouTube that clearly captured one of these hazardous conditions:
While tickets for not using the bike lane are “very rare” and “not useful” according to Portland bike lawyer Mark Ginsberg, who specializes in helping people with these type of infractions, unfortunately they are still being written.
In this case, the woman who received the ticket reports that the officer who pulled her over didn’t talk much during the stop. She said he seemed like, “just a typical cyclist hating driver.” When asked to describe more about their conversation, she said the officer stated that he first noticed her while she rode eastbound on SW Alder, in the left lane outside of the new bike/bus lane. She did this because she was turning left at SW 2nd (a clearly legal thing to do according to ORS814.420). Here’s more from her account of their conversation:
“He wasn’t happy I was riding down Alder on the left side (since I was turning left on 2nd and not crossing the Morrison Bridge). So after I turned onto 2nd and moved to the outside of the left lane to eventually turn right onto the Burnside Bridge, he turned on his lights and pulled me over at 2nd and Washington. He stated that there was a bike lane on 2nd and I was required to be in it, because motorists weren’t expecting me to be in their lane.”
The bicycle rider says she plans to contest the ticket when her day in court comes up in December 2023. “I will fight it,” she said, “If I don’t die in the next 13 months.”
NW Bridge Road. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Portland’s long-awaited dream to manage its own speed limits has finally come true. This week the Oregon Department of Transportation made it official that Portland — along with 240 other cities statewide, as well as Multnomah and Clackamas County — can set its own speed limits without needing state approval.
Before this change, ODOT controlled all speed limit change requests. If a city like Portland wanted to reduce one, they had to make a request of ODOT’s Speed Zone Review Panel, then sit back and wait until it worked its way through red tape. It was a process that could take 6-12 months because ODOT had only one engineer qualified to investigate the requests for each of Oregon’s five ODOT regions. Then at the end of the process, the state traffic engineer had final say on whether the request should be granted. Beyond the bureaucratic backlog, there would sometimes be a difference of opinion between what speed state and local engineers felt was safe.
In the system now in effect, local road authorities like the Portland Bureau of Transportation will be more in charge of their own destiny when it comes to speed limit changes. It’s a significant departure that Portland has lobbied for for well over a decade. In 2009, then PBOT Commissioner Sam Adams urged ODOT to give cities this control. PBOT then spent several legislative sessions chipping away at ODOT’s grip in what we began to call the “war on speed.”
Most of the progress toward this change was made in 2020. Then in the 2021 session, the final lift came with the passage of House Bill 3055, an omnibus transportation bill that included the language to enact this new speed limit designation process stuffed into one paragraph on page 28 of the 77-page bill. ODOT then spent several months translating the law changes into corresponding Oregon Administrative Rules (OARs) before the law could go into effect. They also had to clarify the process local road agencies must go through to gain this new power.
Before we get into what happens next, keep in mind there are two types of speed limits: statutory and designated. Statutory speeds are governed by state law and include things like 20 mph in School Zones and 65 mph on most interstate highways. Designated speeds can change depending on what an engineer deems is appropriate for the context. This new authority only gives cities the ability to change to designated speeds.
So, what does PBOT need to do in order to take advantage of these new powers?
According to the process laid out it in OAR 734-020-0013, a “road authority” like PBOT would still have to jump through a few ODOT hoops. For starters they’d have to notify the state highway engineer and then:
(A) The road authority must participate in training provided by the Department on the criteria and speed zoning practices.
(B) The road authority must designate one qualified registered Professional Engineer to be responsible for decision making and assuring all methods and procedures in this rule are followed.
(C) The road authority must prepare and submit to the Department a quality control plan for assuring compliance with program rules and procedures.
It’s clear from the OAR that ODOT wants to keep a close eye on speed limit changes — even if they’ve delegated the decision-making power. For example, even after a road authority is granted the authority, ODOT says they want to check the work of the first engineering study to make sure it meets muster. And if a city doesn’t do good work, ODOT can take back control of the process.
Suffice it to say, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
I asked PBOT to share what their new internal process will be going forward. Will they set up a new internal engineering staff or committee to handle speed zone requests? If so, what will that look like?
PBOT Public Information Officer Dylan Rivera told me today that, “We’ve been eagerly awaiting this new authority.” I’ll share an update once I hear back about those larger questions. Stay tuned.
I am very happy to announce that you can now buy a print of the most amazing vintage Portland bike map in existence. Yes, that 1896 Cyclists’ Road Map of Portland District that we’ve shared on TikTok and here on the Front Page is now available for purchase on BikePortland.
This remarkable map was first printed in 1896 (that’s not a typo) and was endorsed by the Multnomah Wheelmen cycling club. It was sold at the Oregon Historical Society gift store in the 1970s and then sold for a few years by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (now The Street Trust) before it went out of print sometime in the 2000s. There’s so much to love about this map, but perhaps the coolest thing is how it illustrates the cultural prominence and popularity of bicycling in our region nearly two decades before cars were even sold.
Map details
BikePortland has resurrected this map. We’ve teamed up with Portland-based map seller Transit Maps to complete a few minor digital restorations and can now offer quality, archival prints of this special piece of history. Buy one today for just $40 and get free shipping.
The map includes several amazing details that give you a window into Portland bike culture at the turn of the 19th century. It’s a perfect gift or splurge for: transportation nerds (you know who you are!), map geeks, bike advocates, bike lovers, or anyone who appreciates forgotten history.
Specs:
24″ tall by 30″ wide.
Map highlights include: location of taverns marked, ads targeting cyclists, Vancouver Ferry information, “Information for Wheelmen” sidebar, and more.
Each poster is printed on-demand using fully archival, UltraChrome inks on Moab Lasal Matte, a beautiful, brilliant white, 230gsm (11 mil) alpha cellulose paper which is acid- and lignin-free.
Each print is carefully inspected, wrapped in pH-neutral paper, then rolled and placed in a sturdy chipboard tube for shipping.
[Scientists] discovered a toxin called 6PPD-quinone produced when the common tire preservative 6PPD mixes with oxygen. As tires age, the rubber starts to peel off leaving bits and pieces in their path. When it rains anything that doesn’t soak into soil becomes stormwater pollution, eventually ending up in local waterways where every fall Coho salmon return to spawn.
(Source: US Tire Manufacturers Assocation)
I’m no expert, but I can tell from a cursory bit of research that the science around this finding is not in dispute. It is 100% clear that little bits of car tires (and other major rubber sources) are killing coho and damaging our water sources. The fact that there isn’t more urgency around the issue is not surprising, since most people have accepted every other negative trade-off that comes with our car-centric system.
The responses to the problem are very telling. There’s a lot of talk about how to make the tires less toxic and about the need for tougher environmental regulations for makers and sellers of them. What about the tire industry? They can’t refute the science (although I’m sure they have tried), so they’ve got websites and other PR messaging to keep the profits coming. They admit the chemical they use, 6PPD, kills fish and pollutes streams and rivers, but they want you to know that it also keeps drivers safe (see image at right). And hey, it makes your tires last longer so you save money! Isn’t that great? Dead fish be damned.
Unfortunately, most of the news stories I’ve read about this mass coho die-off never mention the one thing that would solve it: less driving and/or bans on driving in watersheds. (And last time I checked, electric car tires have tires too.)
Another innocent victim of car dependency. (Photo: Puget Sound Institute)
This is an immense problem that will take decades to solve if we go about it through the standard procedure of incremental reforms. It’s the duty of policymakers and city leaders to muster the political support and courage to quicken the pace of change. If we address the root problem of car dependency and driving abuse, we can save much more than coho.
“We’re in a place where we see that our city has failed us.” – Nic Cota, BikeLoud PDX
— By BikeLoud PDX Board Member Nic Cota (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
People in the Portland bike advocacy scene are sometimes known for making vague threats to sue the city for this or that transgression. These warnings are often made in jest, without serious plans to follow through. For more than a year, however, board members of BikeLoud PDX have been completely sincere about this issue, and we ultimately decided to take legal action against the City of Portland for failing to meet the requirements of the Oregon Bike Bill.
This decision to sue the City of Portland did not come lightly to a single member of the BikeLoud board. As a cautious person, I was among the most hesitant of the group. When it came my time to vote on the motion to sue last November, I froze. It was a major decision that would determine the entire future of this organization and potentially transportation throughout the entire state.
I had many concerns, ranging from the security of my job as a civil engineer, to BikeLoud’s relatively scant resources. But the biggest discomfort for me was the fear I would jeopardize the relationships I’ve built. Usually, I don’t lambast city employees or elected officials, who are often our biggest supporters as we push for safer streets and multimodal access. After all, these staffers come on rides, they talk about visions for the city, they agree that our streets are too dangerous. They dream the same dream. Was it worth potentially unraveling those relationships?
“Do we need a bike-supporting populace that’s willing to prioritize bikes, walking, and transit? Or does the infrastructure need to come first?”
But I had to ask: given all the passion from so many city staffers, why has there been such a lack of action? Where are the bike lanes the city claims to want to build in their plans? Where are all these people on bikes? Where’s that 25% of trips made by bike we are supposed to get to in seven years?
As I thought about my vote, I thought about where we’re going wrong in Portland. My cynical first reaction was that maybe, instead of pushing the status quo, too many Portlanders have quietly fallen back in love with the comfort of it all. Cars are convenient, cars are freedom, cars are ubiquitous: we’ve gotten complacent. We’ve accepted our fate that we all should afford cars, insurance, gas, and just crank the AC a little higher when the next heat dome comes.
My second reaction is that maybe people just don’t know how good it is here. Much of our city is easily accessible by biking and walking, unlike the suburbs and exurbs where many of Portland’s transplants come from. This new generation of Portlanders just doesn’t know how unique this city is. And since our biggest additions to bike infrastructure in recent years have been neighborhood greenways, much of our infrastructure is hidden to the vast majority of potential new riders.
My central dilemma about the lawsuit came down to the classic chicken-or-the-egg problem: Do we need a bike-supporting populace that’s willing to prioritize bikes, walking, and transit? Or does the infrastructure need to come first in order to support that populace in the first place?
After a lot of growth, a lot of listening, and a lot of time biking: I think we need to start prodding the egg to hatch. We’re in a place where we see that our city has failed us.
So, in the end, I voted yes, and the board unanimously agreed to be the plaintiff in a suit against the very city we live in. And a year later, I can confidently say: we’re ready. The time to demand better bike infrastructure is now, for the sake of our future as a sustainable and equitable city. And we have the law on our side. There is no Oregon law that mandates cities to maintain a flow of cars driving on our streets and dedicate space for them to park wherever they like. There is, however, a law that requires planners give bike and pedestrian infrastructure their due: the 1971 Oregon Bike Bill.
What this lawsuit determines will impact not just Portlanders, but people who live throughout the state of Oregon. The roads we are building now will one day be used by our kids and grandkids, and they should reflect the urgent need to change our habits to meet Oregon’s climate goals.
Imagine a future where your kids can easily opt to ride a bike or an e-bike within and between any destination in Oregon and get there safely, comfortably, and with dedicated space for all ages and abilities. I’d like to think that’s what the writers of the Bicycle Bill intended, and I hope the courts will see it that way, too.
If you believe holding the city accountable is a right step, you can help us by making a donation to BikeLoud so we can finally get off the ground with a paid staff member in the near future.
BikeLoud is a grassroots organization that stays active through monthly rides and meetups that are free and open to all. We help elevate policy like the new e-bike legislation, we collaborate with other nonprofits, and we do as much as possible to get more people involved with biking (for instance, with our brand new ‘Bike Buddy’ program). And there’s more we could do to get Portland to a 25% bike mode share by 2030 — but we need your help. We need all the help we can get to get folks out of their cars and onto a bike of their own.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is currently in the process of updating the Oregon Transportation Plan, which will map out our state’s transportation system through the year 2050. ODOT wants to take a more hands-on approach to getting Oregonians involved this time around — so they’ve made a quiz to test your knowledge of the plan. (It’s pretty easy to get all the answers right, just in case you need a little win today.)
ODOT embarked on the majority of its public feedback process for the OTP update last year, using the input they received to come up with six goal areas for the plan. These goals are as follows:
Economic and Community Vitality – Improve prosperity, opportunity, and livability for all people who live, work, and recreate in Oregon.
Social equity – Improve access to safe and affordable transportation for all, recognizing the unmet mobility needs of people who have systemically excluded and underserved. Create an equitable and transparent engagement and communications decision-making structure that builds public trust.
Mobility – Create a resilient multimodal transportation system that enables the diverse range of community members and businesses with different needs to get where’re they need to go safely, reliably, and affordably, and with minimal environmental impact.
Stewardship of Public Resources – Guided by open, data-driven decision-making processes, secure sufficient and reliable revenue for transportation funding and invest public resources to achieve a resilient and sustainable multimodal transportation system.
Safety – Enable safe travel for al people, regardless of their age, ability, race, income, or mode of transportation.
Sustainability and climate action – Minimize transportation’s negative role in climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for all sectors of transportation, while also reducing air toxics, noise pollution, water toxics, and habitat loss.
Now, ODOT is looking for feedback about which funding scenario they should follow to best meet these goals. They provide four different possibilities with space for public comment. These funding scenarios are:
Scenario 1: Focus on Equity and Climate Change
Scenario one prioritizes investments for walking and biking, transit, and fleet electrification with a focus on providing low-cost transportation options, especially in urban areas. The goal of this scenario is to reduce negative climate impacts of transportation and reduce costs for transportation.
Scenario 2: State of Good Repair
Scenario two prioritizes investment in our existing infrastructure to make it more resilient and effective. Our roadways, rail, and transportation infrastructure are being improved with more bridges, are being seismically retrofitted, and are less likely to be closed due to storm events. Culverts are being replaced, reducing the likelihood of washouts, and innovative infrastructure helps get the most out of the infrastructure we have today.
Scenario 3: Travel Options
Scenario three maximizes non-auto options through increasing investments in more frequent and convenient transit both with inter- and intra-city travel as well as biking, walking, and electrification of infrastructure.
Scenario 4: Balanced
Scenario four would balance the many different priorities equally, resulting in improvements in many modes.
But wait — there’s more! If you want to learn even more about the OTP, there are more than a dozen videos on ODOT’s YouTube channel where you a range of Oregonians will break it down for you and explain how it connects to their personal lives. BikePortland readers may recognize a familiar face in one of these videos which features The Street Trust’s André Lightsey-Walker.
You can take the quiz and give ODOT your thoughts on funding scenarios by going to the Explore OTP webpage. There will also be a chance to submit public comment before the next ODOT Policy Coordinating Committee meeting on December 14th — find out more here.
Members of No More Freeways (NMF), one of the primary anti-I-5 expansion groups in Portland, have been mobilizing advocates against the project for years. Now they want to demonstrate widespread opposition to the project in the form of comments that will go directly to ODOT.
In order to simplify the process for people who want to comment, NMF created a public comment generator site that feeds directly into ODOT’s records. On the site, they ask people writing comments to share personal stories about how the proposed freeway expansion would harm them and/or their community.
NMF graphic.
They encourage creativity from commenters, but want to hammer home three main points:
Lids, not lanes.
NMF says ODOT can fulfill their promise to reconnect the lower Albina neighborhood (once a thriving community of Black Portlanders) by capping the freeway without expanding it.
“We strongly support continued investment in the Albina neighborhood including the freeway lids, affordable housing and safer streets without also adding additional cars and air pollution into the neighborhood brought about by the significant freeway expansion below the surface level streets,” NMF states.
The need for a full Environmental Impact Statement to study alternatives to expansion.
NMF has pursued legal action against ODOT on the grounds they are neglecting their due diligence by failing to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement looking at other ways to solve traffic congestion, like tolling.
“ODOT must conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to fully understand the direct impacts this proposed freeway expansion would have to the neighborhood streets, our children’s lungs, and the planet they stand to inherit,” NMF says.
Concerns about ODOT’s transparency.
Rose Quarter project critics are concerned about several instances where ODOT has not been straightforward about their intentions and findings in order to make a case for the necessity of the lane expansion.
“ODOT has a terrible record with accountability and transparency to the public with the Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion,” NMF states.
They point to how the agency handled public records requests about project impacts, which Portland attorney Alan Kessler successfully took them to court for earlier this year. The judge who ruled against ODOT in this case determined the transportation department had acted with negligence, eroding public faith in government.
Since they launched their public comment generator last week, Brown said they’ve received over 100 responses drawing on these arguments. NMF has been sharing some highlights on Twitter. Here are a few of note:
“I have lived next to the freeway for 19 years! my whole life I have suffered from the pollution, the noise, and the gash down the middle of my neighborhood that left it unwalkable. freeway expansions have been proven over and over again to be ineffective in reducing traffic and lead to an increase in emissions. So what exactly are you spending all this money for?? Who benefits? Certainly not the people of Portland. Not the planet. Not the kids like me whose future is scarred by the fear of climate change. Invest in public transportation, clean energy, and PEOPLE!! Or if you insist on continuing this project out of greed and unwillingness to consider creative options, at least be honest about it.”
“I bicycle through the Rose Quarter area on my commute between downtown and NE Portland. I’m very concerned about the impact of ODOT’s Rose Quarter proposals on bicycle commuting, in particular the addition of a new off-ramp to N Williams that will make it even riskier to bike there than it is today. More broadly, it is essential that ODOT prepare a detailed Environmental Impact Statement that compares the costs and benefits of congestion tolling on the existing lanes with the costs and benefits of building additional freeway lanes and changing ramps. If congestion tolling can produce comparable or better congestion relief in a shorter timeframe at a substantially lower cost than widening the freeway, that needs to be placed side-by-side with freeway expansion for comparison.”
“In this time of extreme weather events brought about by unprecedented global warming, it is deeply irresponsible – and immoral, frankly – to continue spending billions of public funding dollars developing transportation infrastructure centered around driving. Your single highest priority for every single project in your portfolio should be reducing vehicle miles traveled. Spending vast amounts of money to widen freeways is literally madness, especially when you look at the data which shows that you can’t “solve” congestion by adding more capacity (you just move the bottlenecks to other places). You must do the full environmental impact study which will support everything in the above paragraph. This is for OUR future as Oregonians, get out of your ODOT bubble and do the right thing.”
NMF members know they’re fighting Goliath. But they say a demonstration of mass protest against the project in the form of public comments will set a standard for how people, including mainstream news outlets and elected officials, talk about it.
“The more comments submitted from everyday Portlanders demanding ODOT conduct an EIS, the more that elected officials will feel empowered to join us in demanding ODOT meaningfully study alternatives to expansion that don’t cost over a billion dollars and creat more traffic and air pollution,” Aaron Brown, a leader of NMF, told me.
“ODOT has such a powerful, well-funded PR machine…they’re going to do all kinds of things to manufacture consent for this project by downplaying dissent and hiding the truth about the congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions this expansion invariably will bring to the neighborhood. The more that we can demonstrate Portland supports restoring Albina by adding freeway caps without adding the air pollution inherent in more lanes, the less legitimacy ODOT will have insisting the projects must be linked.”
In addition to the public comment period, ODOT plans to host a Rose Quarter virtual public hearing on December 14. Brown told me NMF is planning a separate forum for people to share their thoughts in person, hopefully with elected officials present. The details are still being worked out, but stay tuned for more information.
Believe it or not it has been over six years since we hosted a social gathering. Wait, is that right? That cannot be true!
Regardless, it’s been too long. So let’s get together and talk and learn from each other. Please join us for the BikePortland Pitch & Bitch next Wednesday, December 7th from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Migration Brewing (3947 N Williams).
In addition to the usual socializing and merry-making, I have some specific things I’d like to do. It’s not like me to go for cute names of things, but I couldn’t resist this one when it popped into my head. And it gets at what I’d like to do at the event.
“Pitch” in this context is an idea for a story or a project. Since BikePortland is here to serve you, we want to hear your ideas:
What stories should we cover?
Is there an issue in your neighborhood/on your bike route that deserves attention?
Need help for your advocacy idea? Give us your 30-second elevator pitch.
Are you or someone you know doing something cool or controversial?
“Bitch” in this context is us saying, “We want to hear your feedback about our work, or about anything else that’s on your mind.”
Did we get a story wrong? Let us hear about it
If you were boss of BikePortland, what would you change?
Is there an issue you’d like to get off your chest? Venting is healthy! (But don’t worry, we will moderate the conversation so things stay productive.)
Sarah Iannarone and Timur Ender at a BikePortland Wonk Night in 2016.
If you remember our Get Togethers (2011) or our Wonk Nights (2015 – 2019), you’ll know what to expect at a BP event. Pitch & Bitch will be an informal, group discussion moderated by yours truly where the goal will be to make our community stronger through building connections to each other, exposing ourselves to new perspectives, and increasing awareness of important projects, policies, and people.
We might even have a special guest or two!
The event will also include:
Fire! We’ll meet at Migration’s covered back patio where they’ve got warm heaters and even a fireplace (if it’s dry).
Working activists will get 30 seconds to share their elevator pitch and recruit volunteers to their cause.
An AMA (Ask Me Anything) session where I’ll try to answer your questions about anything bike-related in Portland. Anyone who can stump me will win a prize.
Support of a local business and community space (places like Migration need our love these days!).
Free drinks for the first 20 people who show up and limited amount of free appetizers (thanks to Mike Perham/Perham Family Foundation).
We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday, December 7th at 5:00 pm! (Please stay home if you are sick. The patio is well-ventilated and please feel free to wear a mask.)
When most people think of Portland’s bike industry they think of bike shops. But those are only a small part of the local bicycle industrial complex. Here are some updates from just a few of the many bike businesses based in Portland…
North St. Bags
Latest from North St. Bags.
We’ve been big supporters of North St. since the very beginning. When founder Curtis Williams showed up at our BikeCraft event in 2009, it was clear he had the right mix of ambition and passion to make his business fly. These days North St.’s panniers are so ubiquitous they’ve become a signature Portland accessory.
Earlier this month the company launched a new line of upcycled bags with a neat origin story. North St.’s new Upcycled Collection is made from tents and banners used at major endurance events. Using fabric and materials donated by event organizer Life Time and component maker SRAM, they’ve added four new products to their lineup: a hip pack, daypack, grocery pannier and a “micro” pannier. North St. says the new bags will save over half a ton of waste from the landfill this year. And like all North St. products, they’re made right here in Portland! — NorthStBags.com (Learn more about North St. Bags in our archives.)
Portland Design Works
Loot Bag (L) and BYOB Light
Another local company I’ve loved watching grow since its founder Erik Olson moved to Portland to set up shop in 2008 is Portland Design Works. PDW has set itself apart in the crowded bike accessory market by coming up with a consistent string of hits. Their Portland-inspired product designs are backed up by an attractive mix of quality, value, form and function — and I’d say this even if they weren’t a BikePortland advertiser!
Somehow the bright minds at PDW always come up with new twists on products that make me think, “Woah, that’s an awesome idea!” Cases in point are their two newest products: the Loot Bag ($95) and the BYOB Light ($79.99). The Loot Bag is made to fit two of the most popular front cargo racks from Wald (if you know, you know) and it comes with all the design details you’d want. The BYOB Light is ingenious in that it’s in between a typical battery-powered headlight and a fully-wired generator light. It can mount to your fork for that rechargeable light look, and it comes with a integrated USB cord you can plug into any powerbank. — RidePDW.com (Learn more about PDW in our archives.)
Gracie’s Wrench
(Photo: Gracie’s Wrench)
The only constant in our local bike industry is change. As some companies grow, others go. That’s sadly the case with Gracie’s Wrench, the bike education business started by Portlander Tori Bortman in 2007. Tori’s welcoming approach to riding and maintenance lessons helped hundreds of people become more confident around bikes (including me!). She also filled a major need in our community by teaching adults how to ride a bike. She also shared her secrets in the Optimize Your Ride column she wrote for us back in 2011.
Now Tori is moving on. In an email last week she told her fans she’ll close up shop at the end of this year.
“Gracie’s Wrench has had the impact on my own life and the community beyond what I could have imagined when I started,” Tori wrote. “At least three of my students have opened their own bicycle shops, many more have been empowered to take cycling adventures of a lifetime, I’ve had the opportunity to get my first book published to help beginner riders, and there are now hundreds of more new riders on two wheels that I’ve had the honor and pure joy of teaching to ride bicycles for the first time.”
Join us in wishing Tori luck in her new endeavor — nursing school at OHSU!
Got local bike business news to share? Drop us a line and we’ll include it in an upcoming roundup.
Rebate recipients will be granted up to $1,200 to purchase a non-cargo e-bike or up to $1,700 to purchase a cargo e-bike
Outgoing Oregon State Representative Karin Power (D-41 Milwaukie) has made her affinity for electric bicycles known. She’s also made it clear she thinks the state should offer financial incentives to other Oregonians who want to take advantage of this convenient, fun, environmentally-friendly transportation option.
Power has delivered on her promise: In the 2023 legislative session, Oregon will have the opportunity to enact a government-funding e-bike purchase incentive program.
Legislative Concept (LC) 1994 (PDF), “directs [the Oregon] Department of Environmental Quality to establish program for providing rebates to qualifying individuals who purchase electric assisted bicycles or cargo electric bicycles and qualifying equipment.” Qualifying equipment can include a helmet, “safety vest,” light, or lock.
LC 1994 was prepared by Power and her staff and has since been handed off to Representative Dacia Grayber (D- 35 Tigard), who will sponsor the bill this coming session.
Carrie Leonard, a former Power staffer who helped write this draft, said the proposal is based on Benton County’s e-bike rebate program implemented in 2020. This program was led by the Corvallis Benton County Economic Development Office in partnership with Pacific Power and the Oregon Clean Fuels Program, and offered up to $1,200 for selected people living on low-incomes to buy electric bikes from local businesses. Like other e-bike rebate programs across the country have been, this initiative was a success, proving there is a serious demand for e-bikes — especially when they’re available at a discount.
“We felt, after speaking with the utility company and the project managers at the City of Corvallis, that they had successfully beta tested a robust incentive program that could be used as a model for a state-wide program,” Leonard told BikePortland in a recent email.
LC 1994 would be led by the state Department of Environmental Quality, which would be granted $6 million from the state general fund starting July 1, 2023 to distribute the rebates. Assuming some of the $6 million budget would go toward administrative costs, there should be enough left for several thousand Oregonians to receive subsidies, but it will probably be a competitive program.
Rebate recipients will be granted up to $1,200 to purchase a non-cargo e-bike or up to $1,700 to purchase a cargo e-bike, plus qualifying equipment. The bikes must have a minimum retail sales price of $950.
Even though this proposal was drafted with the Benton County program in mind, the text currently distinguishes itself in that it doesn’t include income requirements to qualify for the rebate: the only requirement is that recipients are Oregon residents and over the age of 16.
One of the rules included in the draft text is that recipients must maintain ownership of the bike for at least a year after receiving the rebate, presumably to discourage people reselling the bike they bought with state funds.
