🚨 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 🙏
“The problem is that cyclists are throwing themselves into lanes of traffic that should really be reserved for people who can afford cars.”
– The Cleveland Onion
How bad have things gotten for the Oregon Department of Transportation and their reputation for mismanagement of urban arterials?
The agency has been made the subject of a satirical news post from high school journalism students.
The Cleveland Onion is an Instagram account created by students from Cleveland High School. It’s a nod to The Onion and is a satirical companion to the school’s official newspaper. Cleveland High sits on the corner of Southeast Powell Blvd (ODOT’s Highway 26) and SE 26th Avenue — just across the street from where many students and staff witnessed the horrific killing of Sarah Pliner when she was hit by a truck driver during their school lunch period on October 4th.
And the Pliner tragedy was not the first time Cleveland has faced the reality of violent traffic outside their school. In 2018 their principal had to issue a traffic safety warning to students ahead of a planned walkout.
“The problem as we see it is that all these cyclists are throwing themselves into lanes of traffic that should really be reserved for people who can afford cars.” said ODOT in a statement this morning. “The fact is that many cars and semi trucks rely on being able to drive 50 miles per hour through a school zone to complete their daily commutes. We can’t just change the rules and layouts of our roads to accommodate the lives of pedestrians and cyclists. We have decided that in order to keep all these unwanted obstructions from getting in the way of gas-paying commuters, it would be best to expand the highway into Powell park and shave a little bit off Cleveland high school.”
This post is a stinging indictment of ODOT and shows how their reputation has transcended the realm of transportation advocates and is now part of popular culture. The post works, because like any good satire, it contains a shred of believability and allows us to lean on humor to deal with a tragic topic. Well done Cleveland students!
Just a few of the many amazing places I’ve explored with confidence thanks to Ride With GPS.
The world’s best tool for planning and sharing bike routes online celebrates their 15th birthday this week. And yes, I am biased because the company that makes this tool — Ride With GPS — is based right here in Portland.
After I first met the co-founders of the company, wide-eyed Oregon State students Zach Ham and Cullen King, at the Oregon Bike Summit in 2010, I had a strong feeling they’d go on to do something great. Since posting the very first route on November 14th, 2007, Ride With GPS has evolved and improved their offerings and is now a dominant player in the crowded field of online route planning.
One reason Ride With GPS is still alive and well is because they consistently add new, useful features. Check out the images below for a before and after. Note how they’ve added detail and capability in the current version, yet the interface is still clean and accessible.
Nerd out fellow route planning friends!
As a user myself, I can vouch that it’s so full of cool features and is so simple to use, it actually inspires me to explore. There have been so many times when I plopped down into a new city and used the route search feature to find good bike routes near my hotel or house rental. I used Ride With GPS to map out all my Cycle Exploregon adventures and have saved many of my favorite routes on the BikePortland ambassador page. One of my favorite features are the turn-by-turn directions I can get on my phone. Hearing that voice while out on a big adventure ride in unknown territory is often such a huge comfort.
To celebrate their birthday, Ride With GPS is giving away one-year subscriptions to their Premium service offering. All you’ve got to do is follow them on Instagram and answer a trivia question. If you’re a fellow route-planning nerd, don’t miss this recent post on their website to learn more about how this product has evolved over the years.
Happy Birthday and a huge “thank you!” to the entire RWGPS team. Your product has given us so much joy over the years and we are proud to have you in Portland!
Me and my new electric bike. (Photo: Dagny Daniel/BikePortland)
I was late to everything and felt like I was going to need an early knee replacement, but that’s the way I liked it!
It’s been about a year since I first wrote about my goal to buy an electric bike. At the time, I was a complete newbie to the scene, but since then I’ve learned so much about the world of Portland biking and transportation and have become a staunch advocate for electric bikes. I’ve seen how they change people’s lives and firmly believe they are going to be a big part of the cure for our societal car dependency. I evangelized about the e-bike to anyone who would listen, and some people actually did!
But all along, I’ve held a secret close to my chest. After seeking the advice of BikePortland commenters and people from all corners of the internet about which bike to buy, I was overcome with decision paralysis. I expected to make the jump after I sold my car, but even after the car was long gone, I still couldn’t make up my mind. Filled with anxiety about all the different considerations I needed to make before buying my new bike, I concluded that my non-electric bike was serving me fine and exhaled as I closed out all the tabs of e-bike research I’d amassed on my computer.
Over the next few months, I put thousands of miles on my non-electric bike, and typically didn’t feel constrained by a lack of electricity on my commute. On days I really didn’t feel up to an intensive ride I could rent a Biketown bike (this ended up costing me quite a pretty penny) or just stay close to home. Sure, there were times when I was huffing and puffing up the Alameda ridge or climbing up the west side of the Broadway Bridge when I wanted nothing more for a small boost, whether from a well-timed gust of wind or an electric battery. But once I reached my location and my heart rate slowed down, I usually forgot about those woes.
A couple weeks ago, however, I got an offer I couldn’t really refuse (try as I might). BikePortland co-owner Mike Perham took advantage of the big Rad Power sale in October and had a Rad Mission bike he wanted to donate. He asked if I was in the market for one, and though I was grateful for the consideration, I acted coy. Me? I felt unworthy. I’d been surviving perfectly fine with my regular bike! Sure, I was late to everything and felt like I was going to need an early knee replacement, but that’s the way I liked it!
Ultimately, I couldn’t deny it anymore: I wanted an e-bike. So, after a year of back and forth, I am now the proud owner of a Radmission bike that was very generously gifted to me. It really helped that I didn’t have to decide which bike to get, removing the whole agonizing decision-making process that caused me so much stress at the beginning of this process.
I’ve only had the bike for a week, but I already have some thoughts to share. These thoughts are particularly aimed at those of us who already ride bikes for transportation and wouldn’t be buying an e-bike as a car replacement, which is a demographic I think gets overlooked much of the time in these conversations.
Here are my takeaways so far.
(Oh, and quick note: the astute reader will recall that I very recently wrote about my roommate Dagny’s struggles with her Rad Power bike, which may have come across as an indictment of the bikes themselves. However, Dagny was able to fix her bike just by reconnecting a few of the cables and hasn’t had any problems since. I believe there still might be a reason someone might want to invest in a bike they can easily get serviced at a local shop, but we are both back in the pro-Rad Power camp, especially considering the accessible price point.)
1. Electric bikes can be game changers even for people who’ve already ditched their cars
A lot of e-bike advocacy (rightfully) focuses on how battery-boosted bikes can be total game changers for bike-hesitant people and shift the mode share away from cars and toward a decarbonized transportation system. I think people should certainly continue sharing this message far and wide. But what if your life is already oriented around riding a bike for transportation?
Personally, with or without e-bikes, I have no plans to ever own a car again. But now that I have this new bike, I’ve realized the benefits I was missing out on by insisting I didn’t need an electric option. Which leads me to my next point…
2. True freedom of mobility includes comfort
Sure, I might have been able to go pretty much wherever I needed to go without much constraint using my old bike. But sometimes the trip to my destination was a little less mundane than I would’ve liked. I don’t find it comfortable or relaxing to drive a car for a lot of reasons – traffic is a nightmare, and I don’t like the responsibility of operating extremely heavy and dangerous machinery – but a quick drive doesn’t tend to wear people out physically. If you’re in a car, you don’t have to mentally and physically prepare yourself to drive up that hill that’s on your way home or worry about your ice cream melting on the journey to your freezer.
I think everyone should be able to get where they need to go without needing a car and without feeling exhausted upon arrival. E-bikes are the solution to that problem.
3. The joy of riding a bike is translatable
Despite my best efforts to filter out snobbery and pretension, I have to admit I’ve internalized a bit of bike puritanism. It comes from a good place: as much as I am passionate about biking on a policy level to curb carbon emissions and make our cities more liveable, I genuinely love bicycling as an activity more than almost anything this world has to offer. I was a bit worried about tainting the experience by adding a battery.
But it turns out that being out in the fresh air, flying down hills, forming camaraderie with people biking by and even getting those thrilling endorphin rushes – that’s all possible on an e-bike, too.
4. Martyrdom isn’t a virtue
There are a lot of things that people who rely on biking to get around can rightfully gripe about. Near-misses with distracted car drivers, crumbling or nonexistent bike infrastructure – and how about the generally inaccessible price of most electric bikes, which aren’t given the respect they deserve as sustainable transportation alternatives compared to electric cars? A self-imposed abstinence from e-bikes for no good reason, however, isn’t really a valid complaint.
Biking should not be difficult. It shouldn’t be an arduous task based in a sense of moral superiority and a victim complex. So, this is all to say: if you want an e-bike and can afford one, get one, and let yourself enjoy the extra boost. You don’t have anything to prove.
Tom Miller in 2012. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
A familiar name has taken a top job for incoming Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez: Tom Miller.
A reporter who works for The Oregonian reported via Twitter today that Miller will be in charge of the Gonzalez transition team. Gonzalez won a seat on city council last week and will take over for ousted incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty on January 1st, 2023.
Shortly after taking on the PBOT director role, Miller told me in an interview: “Your transportation director understands bike issues. I know bicycling’s place in the urban context and I understand that bicycling has arrived… I believe separated facilities are the only way to get the concerned cyclist riding more.”
Miller initially rose to prominence at City Hall as the man behind an effort to build a network of skateboard parks throughout the city. As we reported in September, he still found a way to be involved with that cause as a member of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s staff.
In addition to riding skateboards, Miller is also a notable cycling advocate. Many people think that former Mayor Sam Adams’ political focus on cycling (his most memorable campaign video depicted him biking to work) was a result of Miller’s influence. A good example of that was how Miller was such a big booster of bike share. Adams was one of the early adopters of the idea in the United States and wanted Portland to become the first city to have a bike share system. In 2008 Miller wrote a six-part series about bike share for BikePortland.
Miller and Adams were reunited in the office of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler where both currently have top advisory roles — Miller as director of livability and Adams as director of strategic innovations. Wheeler instituted a ban on camping alongside dangerous roadways and on sidewalks near schools during their time on his staff.
During his campaign, Gonzalez used slogans like “restore Portland.” By choosing a veteran political insider like Miller, we are getting our first glimpse of what version of Portland he hopes to restore.
Last Wednesday (11/9), 33-year-old Bre Fry was walking across Southeast Powell Blvd when she was hit by a driver who fled the scene. Police say it happened just after 10:00 pm at the intersection with SE 64th.
According to a friend that has launched a fundraising effort on her behalf, Fry was walking her dog, “when a vehicle estimated to be traveling more than 70 mph struck her, left the scene and left her for dead. She was thrown several yards into the bushes but initial responders were able to find her due to her dog barking.”
Thanks to the GoFundMe page set up for Fry, we now know that she was taken off life support just two hours after the collision. Her husband and family thought she was dead. But miraculously, she started breathing again. “She is heavily sedated and ventilated but breathing and responding appropriately to stimuli,” writes Desiree D’Agostino, the person who manages the page which has raised over $19,000 in less than one day.
According to our Fatality Tracker there have been 10 fatal traffic crashes on SE Powell between 24th and 62nd since 2017. We can only hope that Fry will not join that list and that she makes a solid recovery.
This collision should add urgency to local and state efforts to tame traffic on this notorious road. Powell currently holds so many of us hostage due to its inherent dangers. On a Reddit post about this latest tragedy, people flooded the comments with their own experiences.
Powell Is a death trap for pedestrians and cyclists. Terrible road design.
an absolute nightmare and failure in city planning.
This stroad needs to be significantly redesigned.
The more we prioritize cars over people the more of these we will see. Shame on ODOT.
Coincidentally, the morning after this collision, ODOT issued a press release to update what they’ve done to meet their promises following the death of Sarah Pliner last month. So far ODOT has installed new school zone and 20 mph speed limit signs near Cleveland High School (at SE 26th), and have completed “crosswalk improvements” at 24th, 26th, 28th, 31st, 34th, 42nd, and 69th avenues. Still to come are speed reader signs that will tell drivers how fast they’re going and leading pedestrian intervals at signalized crossings to give walkers a head start through intersections. ODOT has also promised to install photo radar enforcement cameras and do a study to analyze a road diet.
“This effort will include development of a new rapid response bicycle and pedestrian safety program…”
Kevin Glenn, ODOT
Those measures are not nearly enough says the Portland Bureau of Transportation Bicycle Advisory Committee. The day before Fry was hit they sent a letter (PDF) to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and the four other commissioners, as well as top ODOT leadership. It was a scathing indictment of ODOT’s negligence and complicity in how they manage Powell and other urban highways.
“ODOT lacks sufficient oversight, safety goals, and direction to responsibly manage urban roadways,” reads the letter, co-signed by BAC Chair Ally Holmqvist and Vice Chair Joseph Perez. “While we are encouraged by ODOT Director Kris Strickler’s statement that ‘ODOT will be prepared to discuss ways we can make swift and meaningful changes to Powell Boulevard,’ this is too little, too late; it is feckless, banal and patronizing… We are tired of these avoidable traffic deaths and ODOT’s indifference to them.”
When the Oregon Transportation Commission meets this Thursday, Powell Blvd will be on the agenda. Looking through the meeting materials, one item about Powell in particular caught my eye. It relates directly to ODOT’s ability to quickly fund and build cycling and walking-related safety upgrades. “Over the past year,” reads the agenda item (PDF), “ODOT has been developing a program and with dedicated funding in order to be able to more quickly implement immediate pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on state facilities with emerging active transportation safety needs.”
I followed up with ODOT to learn more and heard back from Communications Director Kevin Glenn. “Our current process for pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements is too slow,” he said. Glenn added that ODOT plans to bring outlines of a new funding program to the OTC “early next year.” “This effort will include development of a new rapid response bicycle and pedestrian safety program, modifications and revisions to existing programs to better incorporate social equity, and adoption of improved data practices from other state DOT’s and FHWA,” he added. “Our intention is that by reforming our methods, we can more rapidly and equitably increase safety for people biking and walking on the state highway system.”
That’s hopeful. But ODOT has made and broken many past promises, so we’ll have to wait and see. And given the way people are driving on these deadly highways, let’s hope we don’t have to wait much longer.
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.
Last week was a pretty boring one in the BikePortland comments section, wouldn’t you agree? (Ha, ha!)
For those just tuning in, a quick recap: earlier this month, a woman in southeast Portland woke up to find the tires on her SUV deflated in an apparent act of climate activism attributed to UK-based climate activism group Tyre Extinguishers. I saw several local news stories about this situation framed in a way I disagreed with, and I had a rebuttal to the common narrative I wanted to share. So I wrote up my op-ed, and watched as the comments started rolling in.
Going into this, I knew my piece was likely to draw some ire, but I thought the topic was important enough to risk the backlash. And I hoped that by writing this piece I could start a nuanced, respectful dialogue that I wasn’t able to find about the subject on sites like Reddit and Twitter. I was genuinely interested in how people would respond.
Well, respond they did. This article drew almost 200 comments in a day before we decided to freeze the comments section to loosen the tension a bit (and give our comment moderators a break!). While I did not believe all the comments were conducive to a quality, productive conversation, there were quite a few that I found thoughtful and well-reasoned (even if they didn’t agree with my conclusion).
So here are my picks for comments of the week. Two diametrically opposed viewpoints, both rational and thought-provoking.
From SD, who used sarcasm to good effect to emphasize the points I was trying to make in the article:
Wow!!! I have to admit, I almost didn’t read this article because I kinda thought it was old news (Sorry BP). But, now I am so glad that I read it and the COMMENTS! Ms. Griggs opened a magic portal between BP and NextDoor that sucked in all this high-octane moral panic about the deflation of our beautiful way of life. People that were sleep-walking toward the collapse of our life-sustaining ecosystem forgot about their catalytic converters and the unsightliness of poverty for long enough to write about the catastrophic harm caused to people who had to put air back into their tires. Even better, I learned that it is the people who are protesting climate change that cause other people to make climate change even worse. Who knew?
As an avid driver, I understand how what appears to be small inconveniences are actually the ravenous moths eating at the very social fabric that makes life worth living. When someone appears to slow down car speeds, touches a car they don’t own, or deflates a tire; AND then I imagine this happening to all the tires every day; AND then I imagine very unique circumstances where this might, at the very right moment, maybe cause more harm than driving an SUV everyday…. I lose my freaking mind! Aaarhghghaahgh!
But, now that I have had some time to reflect (as the avid cyclist that I am, BTW) I am seeing how the real “inconvenience to freak-out ratio” works in favor of tire deflation. This post, other news coverage, and the tire flattening has brought so much attention to the very important issue of climate destabilization, without any real harm. So cool! Thanks to all the hyberbolic pearl-clutching comments on this article, I get how awesome letting the air out can be. Heck, I just flattened my and my neighbors’ car tires and we had a good laugh while we pumped them back up. He was worried about being late to work, but in considering the many ways that the car-based transportation system that we have all become addicted to often fails us, we just had another good laugh about the tyranny of capitalism. Ha!
I guess it’s like Jonathan always says “read the comments,” the ridiculous things that climate-change-denying drivers say just might make you want to flatten some tires.
And from maxD, who disagreed with my stance but did so kindly and without making threats (and gave me something to chew on):
I agree that we are in an emergency and it can cause despair that people are not acting urgently. I disagree that random vandalism is smart tactic. I believe that we need to face uncomfortable truths and we will need to drastically change our lifestyles, but I strongly hope we can do it together. The last 5 years have shown us the ugliness of increasing tribalism and violence. TX strikes me as analogous to window smashing in the name of racial justice. There were people who lost their businesses over that. My point is that there are are villains, but the people driving SUVs are not them. It is selfish and clueless, but not villainous. The villains are Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, et. The billionaires who exploit and control our economy and our politics. Having enough money for an SUV or the poor taste to buy one is not reason to target and vandalize them. Attack the power and the systems that are ruining our planet- alienating people that are really our wealthier neighbors will only promote counter-productive divisions and tribalism. It is so mean, and petty, and a total distraction from the very real oligarchs we should be targeting.
You can read SD and Max’s comments under the original post.
And as alway, thanks for all your comments. We appreciate hearing so many different perspectives.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation spent several years testing out the effectiveness of a program that subsidizes transportation options for people who live in low-income housing developments, many of whom spend a good chunk of their income on transportation. We checked in on this program last year, when it was in its second iteration as a pilot and already garnering positive results.
Now, the Transportation Wallet for Residents of Affordable Housing pilot is moving on up the PBOT project ladder and will be fully implemented this spring under a new, less verbose name (Transportation Wallet: Access for All).
Here are PBOT’s goals for the Access for All program:
— Deliver Transportation Wallets to our partner affordable housing sites. — Reduce the barriers to using transportation options, like cost, technology access, credit/debit card requirements, and low-income verification processes for different providers. — Allow residents to access transportation and have the flexibility to use how much of the transportation options that fit their needs. — ProvideResources to services and community events. — Communicate climate and equity benefits of transit and bike improvements in the City and promote investments in economic, physical, and community health.
The Access for All transportation wallet program will be partially funded through the 20-cent transaction fee added to Portland’s metered street parking spots this past summer. PBOT expects to raise $2 million in annual revenue from this parking fee, which is part of a larger plan to fund sustainable transportation projects with small driving taxes.
Access to these passes were limited under the pilot program, and PBOT will be able to offer more of the subsidizes when the Access for All project launches. But exactly how many of these will be up for grabs remains to be seen.
This isn’t the only program within PBOT’s Transportation Wallet offerings. They launched the initial program in 2017 as a way to increase parking supply in some of the city’s most car-congested areas, including the Central Eastside and Northwest Industrial Parking Districts. PBOT also runs a Transportation Wallet for New Movers program that offers multimodal transportation credits to people living in new multi-unit developments. The whole lineup is intended to get people out of their cars and incentivize them to try different, more sustainable modes of transportation, as well as to promote freedom of mobility for people of all income levels.
Along with their more developed “Access for All” program, PBOT is also planning to launch a Transportation Wallet app created in collaboration with RideShark. This new tech will “allow users to more precisely track their credits and more easily redeem them” and “provide program planners with useful information to better tailor the program to customers’ needs and deliver more targeted outreach to drive program engagement.”
If you’re interested in getting involved with this program, PBOT is looking for community organizations to partner with. These organizations will help recruit participants and distribute the passes, and they’ll receive some compensation from the city for their help. Applications to participate in the program are due in January, and PBOT will host two information sessions about this partnership later this fall. You can find out more here.
I think the Transportation Wallet is one of PBOT’s most underrated programs. It incentivizes people to rethink their transportation habits and encourages the combination of car-free living with dense housing. The Access for All program promotes the idea of universal basic mobility, which says freedom to get around is a basic human right and should be treated accordingly. It’s good that PBOT is doubling down on Transportation Wallet programming – so stay tuned for more details as it moves ahead.
Rolling up the NE Rodney neighborhood greenway. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Jenna Phillips
There are plenty of things to debate about social media these days. But there’s one thing I think we can all agree on: in the right hands, platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram can build community online. Whether or not that transfers to real life depends on whose hands are at the wheel… or should I say, the handlebars.
Jenna Phillips, who we profiled in our Carfree Portlanders series back in April, has proven to have very capable hands. After amassing a large following on TikTok (where she has over one million likes as @jennabikes) with her daily vlogs about biking in Portland, she’s now connecting with fans in real life.
I showed up to her monthly ride on Sunday and had a great time. We met at Upper Left Roasters on SE Clay and 12th, then biked north at a chill pace toward North Williams Avenue. We made a pet stop at the goat house on NE Rodney and Failing and then hung out at the excellent back patio of Migration Brewing for post-ride snacks, drinks and conversation.
Check out the photo gallery below:
Thanks Jenna! And of course don’t miss her video recap over on TikTok.
Use code bikeportland22 and save 20% off at ShowersPass.com!
This week’s Monday Roundup is made possible by Showers Pass, makers of quality waterproof rainwear and gear that’s proudly designed and tested right here in Portland!
Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers came across in the past seven days…
Better vision: How do you push your city to make streets safer? Offer a detailed plan for tackling Vision Zero like nonprofit Seattle Neighborhood Greenways just did. (The Urbanist)
What parking lots are good for: In France, a new law requires that every existing car parking garage with over 80 spaces must install solar panels on its roof. (Electrek)
Pedestrian rights: The city of Los Angeles has relaxed its crossing laws for people on foot thanks to passage of the “Freedom to Walk Act.” (NY Times)
Bike share competitor: Netherlands-based Swapfiets, a service that offers all-inclusive bike rentals, is booming in London and the company says they will expand to other cities with quality bike infrastructure. (Bloomberg)
When Pete Buttigieg talks about bikes and cars…: We should all listen. That’s because this US DOT Secretary is an amazing communicator and he knows how to be persuasive and politically palatable. (Fast Company)
Right turns wrong: The more I hear about cities banning right-turn-on-red, like this article about Berkeley, the more curious I am about whether we should push for it in Portland. (SF Gate)
A familiar problem: A deep dive into raging bike theft epidemic in Burlington, Vermont and how it relates to policing. The person who sent this link said the article could have been about Portland. (NY Times)
Think you can do better?: A new video game lets you be the general manager of a bus system in any city you choose. (Streetsblog USA)
Video of the Week: Seattle has built a concrete-barrier protected bike lane on a highway and it looks fantastic (Seattle Bike Blog)
Not how I like to welcome guests into my business. Sorry!
Yes, something is up.
I realize many of you have experienced errors and/or slow load times when visiting this site. There’s a very good reason for it.
Last Friday we were hit with a major bot attack. According to our web guy, it emanated from Russian sources and started as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is when tons of fake visitors bombard our server with requests for files. The requests overwhelm the server and it just gives up trying to respond. That attack gave way to a botnet strike that we are still not fully recovered from.
When our server host looked into the problem, they said BikePortland was, “getting totally inundated with bot traffic… an insane amount of IPs [bots] with reports of abuse.” They said there wasn’t much they could do beyond taking some basic steps because, “These bot networks are vast.”
Suffice it to say, this is not what an internet business owner likes to hear about their site! It has all been very frustrating, in large part because I have no idea why BikePortland would be targeted for something like this.
Thankfully, we have survived (thanks to our web guy Steve Bozzone!), but we’re not fully out of the woods yet. That’s why you still might see that black screen when you click onto our site. If you do, don’t worry, it’s friendly! You’re not on a naughty list or anything, even I get that screen when I log in sometimes. It’s just a service we use to help mitigate high server loads.
Hopefully this will all be behind us soon. Steve has made some changes and we will plan to take even more substantial steps over the winter as we continue to polish things up after our major site upgrade this past June.
Sorry for any hassle this has caused you. And as always, please feel free to send us a note via email, text, or various DMs if you experience anything odd.
Working toward a safer Southeast Powell Boulevard, ODOT this week completed installation of new school speed zone signs lowering the speed limit to 20 mph next to Cleveland High School.
The new signs are part of a series of safety upgrades that ODOT, the Portland Bureau of Transportation and TriMet announced Oct. 21 during a community forum at the school. The signs reduce the speed limit between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. near the school along Powell Boulevard, which is U.S. 26.
“Lowering the speed to 20 mph during the school day will make this road much safer for students,” said Rian Windsheimer, ODOT regional manager for the Portland area. “We will continue working with our partners at the City of Portland to make our roads safer for all users.”
Crews also recently completed crosswalk improvements at several locations along Southeast Powell, including 24th, 26th, 28th, 31st, 34th, 42nd, and 69th avenues.
In the weeks ahead, ODOT and PBOT plan more safety upgrades in the corridor. In addition to speed feedback signs — which tell motorists how fast they’re going — improvements include giving pedestrians a walk signal before vehicles get a green light, higher visibility striping at crosswalks, improving visibility and, in the long term, photo radar enforcement and studying reallocation of traffic lanes along Powell.
Protestors outside ODOT headquarters on NW Flanders yesterday. (Photo: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
“People of faith and faith communities… can be something that helps sustain the movement.”
-Cherice Bock
As the Oregon Department of Transportation gears up for the next phase of work on their I-5 Rose Quarter expansion project, anti-freeway activists want the agency to know they’re ready, too – and their support is growing. A rally outside Portland’s ODOT headquarters yesterday afternoon demonstrated the diverse coalition of people involved in the local fight against freeway expansions.
This rally consisted of environmental activists from faith groups who want to show ODOT the range of people holding them accountable. The people at the demonstration yesterday talked about their support for the young activists in the Youth vs ODOT group who protested the freeway expansion plan every other week for more than a year (they’re on a hiatus for the time being) and planned tactics for speaking out against the transportation agency.
Cherice Bock, a Quaker and active environmentalist, led discussion at the rally alongside Chris Smith of No More Freeways. Bock is also the Creation Justice Advocate with Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, a collective of faith-based groups who advocate for social justice issues, which recently became a member of the Just Crossing Alliance.
Chris Smith (green jacket) talks to rally goers. Bock is on his right.O and Teewahnee.
Bock practices ecotheology, a religious philosophy with roots going back to the mid-20th century that aims to connect human religion and spirituality with nature and environmental degradation. I had never heard this term before, and I was surprised to learn how many religious organizations in Portland have dedicated environmental groups with actionable and even radical goals.
“There are different ways of practicing Christianity. One way is to say, ‘let’s just use it all, because it’s here for us,'” Bock said. “But then there’s also a practice of care and respect and responsibility for taking care of this place. This is a land we’re given responsibility for to make sure it stays healthy to pass onto future generations.”
After Smith gave participants a run-down of the Rose Quarter project and upcoming plans to fight the expansion, Bock started a conversation rarely heard at protests like this. She asked the group to talk about their climate grief and anxiety and share what gives them hope to keep working to make a better world. Then she asked people to name a step they’ll take in the next week to bring that world closer to reality.
The first step most people said they’ll take is to participate in the upcoming public comment period ODOT will open next week for people to share their thoughts on the Rose Quarter project.
Bock said she thinks ODOT might take notice of public comment from a demographic of people they don’t necessarily associate with the environmentalists they’ve stereotyped and cast aside.
“It’s a different perspective,” Bock said. “There are a bunch of different kinds of people who care about this and are speaking up.”
Bill Harris is a member of the Community for Earth at First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. He thinks it’s important to get the dire message about the climate crisis out to congregants, even if they are hesitant to receive it.
“There are a number of people in faith groups who have come to know the doom humanity is facing,” Harris told me. “But it’s a hard message.”
None of these people are trying to convert others or preach their religious message to unwitting bystanders. In fact, the gospel didn’t come up at the rally outside ODOT at all. And they don’t discount the important of other traditions of spirituality and connectedness to the earth that aren’t in the western religious canon. Joining the rally were Teewahnee and O, members of the Warm Springs and Ojibwe tribes respectively, who played music to open and close the event and talked about the deep, spiritual relationship Indigenous people have had with nature for time immemorial.
But regardless of the practice, Bock said she thinks having some kind of spiritual grounding is helpful for processing the emotions that come with truly facing the devastating climate crisis, which can often be a lonely mission.
“Activists can get really burnt out working on such a big project. It’s hard to keep yourself sustained when doing sustainability,” Bock told me. “A lot of times, people of faith and faith communities are able to have a community among themselves and reach out to the broader community for grounding. It can be something that helps sustain the movement.”
