Just Crossing Alliance gains momentum for I-5 freeway fight at first fundraising party

Oregon State Rep Khanh Pham speaks at a fundraising party for Just Crossing Alliance Thursday night. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

There’s one vital ingredient needed to influence the debate around a multi-billion dollar effort to expand I-5 between Portland and Vancouver: Money.

Last night in a shaded backyard in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood, well over 100 people gathered for a house party that raised thousands of dollars for the Just Crossing Alliance, an upstart coalition of advocacy groups that have united to change the trajectory of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program.

Now that the project’s Locally Preferred Alternative has been endorsed and the project is moving into its financial and environmental assessment and design phase, interest groups on all sides see this as a crucial moment to retrench, build power, and prep for the next phase of the fight.

Last night was a strong show of force for the coalition as they embark on the massive task of competing with the million-dollar marketing budget of the project team in a bid to prevent the Oregon Department of Transportation from spending billions on a project they say won’t solve the problems we face.

Among the crowd was a whos-who of activists, planners, elected officials, and freeway fighters — many of whom were around a decade ago to fight the previous iteration of this project, the Columbia River Crossing.

One of them was Mara Gross who fought the CRC as a staffer with Coalition for A Livable future. “I am sad to say that the same issues we saw back then are still at play today,” Gross said, as the first of several speakers aimed at riling up the crowd. “It’s still a mega-freeway expansion over the river. It’s still seven freeway interchanges over five miles.”

Just Crossing Alliance isn’t looking to kill this project, they just want to make it better. And that means smaller. Smaller footprint, smaller budget, smaller impact on the earth and people who live around the project.

Oregon State Representative Khanh Pham sits on the Joint Legislative Committee on the I-5 Bridge and has been an outspoken critic of the IBR project. She and many others are worried about the financial commitment required to build the currently proposed design, and how that investment will rob more pressing priorities like fixing urban arterials. Last night she said:

“ODOT keeps telling us, ‘I’m sorry, but we just don’t have the money to be making these critical investments in your street. And so you’re just going to have to accept that, every year, another community member is going to die trying to cross the street or riding their bicycle.’

And, you know, I now see as a legislator, that in fact, the money is available. It’s just being used on other priorities.”

In the 18 months Rep. Pham has been in office she’s learned that if she wants to make good on her activism credentials and continue to speak her truths to power in Salem, she needs support. “I am only as powerful as the grassroots community that’s behind me,” she told the crowd. “I need you to back me up and show that this legislator is not just a renegade, spouting off on her own… we really need to show that there is a growing and mass movement behind this this effort.”

Pham then looked in the crowd toward Metro Councilor Mary Nolan (who I believe referred to Pham as a “sister”) and led a loud round of applause for the “courage and conviction” of her recent lone “no” vote against the LPA.

The turnout and enthusiasm last night will buoy the spirits of advocates and will act as salve for their wounds after the project was almost unanimously approved by local governments. They’ll need the boost as the project moves into the next phase of the process.

The next big debate is likely to center around a new cost estimate that the IBR team has said will be released in November. Currently estimated at $5 billion, the new number is likely to be much higher. And next session at the Oregon Legislature, lawmakers will be asked to make a down payment on the project.

Just Crossing Alliance backers hope the payments they pledged last night will give those politicians pause.

After years of growth, organizers of tomorrow’s Naked Bike Ride hope for smaller crowd

The 2012 ride, with live music and international media correspondents at the start location, was one of the biggest ever. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“We are trying to remind folks that this isn’t Bridge Pedal.”

– WNBR organizer

After growing into Portland’s biggest free bike event, the World Naked Bike Ride wants to get back to its roots. Organizers of this year’s edition — which will embark from Peninsula Park Saturday night — say they want the ride to evolve from a massive party to a more manageable protest.

Started with humble intentions in 2004 as part of a global protest against fossil fuels, Portland’s first WNBR had less than 200 participants. Four years later it grew to 2,000. Then it was around 7,000 in 2010 before hitting a peak of over 10,000 riders in 2014.

But the novelty of growing the event and reveling in its size and influence has worn off for many of its fans and organizers. While it was exhilarating for advocates to see so many people riding bikes and they worked hard to stoke interest and attention on the event, there were also downsides.

This year it will feel different. “It’s going to be much more back-to-the-roots,” one of the organizers told me in an interview Thursday.

“For so many years the ride was getting bigger and bigger and people outside the core bike community were showing up. That was really exciting, but this year we are trying to remind folks that this isn’t Bridge Pedal [a large annual organized ride with corporate sponsors]… This is a protest,” they said.

Organizers aren’t promoting the ride as aggressively as they used to. To dilute interest and dampen attendance at tomorrow’s ride, they’ve encouraged other naked rides throughout this year’s Pedalpalooza.

Don’t get it wrong: Seeing a lot of newbies and new faces on the ride is a great thing, but what organizers are getting at is that in recent years the WNBR became a major destination event with hundreds of people driving cars to the venue. “I get a lot of emails from people asking where to park their cars,” they said. “The last thing WNBR needs to do is flood a neighborhood with a bunch of parked cars. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Protest messages at past WNBRs.

In addition to a demonstration against oil dependency and fossil fuels, the ride is also about body positivity. But as WNBR has grown, many complaints have surfaced from people who don’t feel safe on the ride. The vulnerability of bicycling is one thing, but being naked around thousands of strangers adds another layer which can be very unwelcome and even unsafe for some people.

Organizers of the ride are putting a lot more energy into rider safety this year. Instead of selling merchandise, live music and having 100s of porta-potties at the start location, they’re urging folks to plan ahead and be more self-sufficient. That doesn’t mean you’ll be left hanging. There is more focus this year on making sure there are ample course marshalls, medics, and mechanics along the route in case anyone needs help.

WNBR organizers know they can’t control what happens Saturday night; but there are forces beyond their control that could lead to a smaller turnout. Many people are rightfully concerned about the ongoing spread of Covid, the heat could keep people away, as could fear of interactions with Portland police or aggressive car users (there’s been an uptick in people driving through group rides this summer). Then there’s the looming monkeypox virus — which is primarily transmitted through skin-to-skin contact in close quarters

“There’s a lot of reasons having a smaller ride is probably to the benefit of the community,” the organizer said.

Please keep all this in mind as you make your plans. For more information, read the WNBR FAQ. And don’t forget the two afterparties! On the ride, follow Diablo and his Tiki Bike to one of them. For the other party, check out the details and follow PopCartPDX on IG.

City plans two-way protected bike lane on NE 33rd and Skidmore

Existing conditions on NE 33rd at Mason. The new two-way bike lane would be on the right next to Wilshire Park.

The City of Portland wants to make it easier to bike, scoot and walk around Wilshire Park in the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood. Two upcoming projects would add bike lanes to key stretches of NE 33rd and Skidmore, which would give people a safer way to cross a major north-south street, create a better connection to an existing neighborhood greenway, and allow people to avoid a gap in the network that requires sidewalk riding.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation has plans for two separate but connected projects.

NE 33rd

Click to enlarge. (Source: PBOT)
(PBOT bike map with location of new bike lanes circled.)

The first project would create a better connection between NE Mason and Skidmore across 33rd. Mason and Skidmore are currently used as east-west bike routes through the area and are important options when the nearest neighborhood greenways on NE Klickitat and Going are too far away. Skidmore also intersects with NE 37th, a major north-south greenway.

The problem is 33rd — a very high-traffic street with no dedicated cycling space. The official city bike map (right) recommends that bicycle users roll up onto the sidewalk in Wilshire Park to make the connection.

PBOT wants to get bike riders onto the street. They plan to re-allocate space currently used as free car storage to create a two-way, physically-protected bike lane. To make it even safer for bike users, PBOT will add a user-activated signal to help folks get across 33rd. The design is similar to what PBOT did just a few blocks north in 2010 at NE Going and 33rd.

A PBOT rep told us the project will be installed later this summer as part of a paving project on 33rd.

NE Skidmore

PBOT’s initial proposal for NE Skidmore between 33rd and 37th.

A closely related project would change the layout of Skidmore between 33rd and 37th. This four-block stretch adjacent to Wilshire Park is 40-feet wide, has no lane striping and is used as a typical residential street with free car storage on both sides.

PBOT has released an initial proposal that would create 12-feet of dedicated cycling space. The idea is to continue the two-way bike lane from 33rd along the south side of Skidmore (but instead of a cement-curb buffer, this section would be a paint-only buffer). As you can see in the cross-section drawings from PBOT, their initial proposal would maintain four, seven-foot lanes for drivers — two for moving and two for parking.

Balto’s post on Nextdoor.

You might recall at the onset of the pandemic in April 2020, neighborhood resident and noted bike advocate Sam Balto created his own “extended sidewalk” on this stretch of Skidmore. Balto has spent years pushing his neighbors and PBOT to see the potential of this street.

In November 2020, Balto posted the message below to Nextdoor along with a photo of the street:

“Besides the 7 homes that have driveways on this stretch of Skidmore why do we need this road?? It’s 42 ft wide and a quarter mile long. Couldn’t it serve the public better besides being just another road??”

Many of the 627 comments expressed shock and confusion that anyone would care about changing this street.

But Balto’s campaign appears to have worked. A PBOT rep confirmed with me yesterday that while the above cross-section drawings are just an initial proposal, they plan to do something as part of an upcoming Fixing Our Streets project that’s scheduled for construction in 2024.

The Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association might have something to say about these changes. That group is coming off a difficult interaction with PBOT from a nearby traffic diverter project, so it’s hard to know how they’ll respond to these plans. I’ve reached out for comment and will update the story if/when I hear back.

CORRECTION, 4:21: I originally reported that these proposals had been presented at a BWNA meeting. That was incorrect. I regret the error and any confusion it caused

Depave and an army of volunteers brings city spaces to life

Depave staff and volunteers at Patrick Lynch Elementary (Photos: Paxton Rothwell/BikePortland)

It is endlessly hot in Portland this week. Due to the ‘urban heat island effect’, some areas of the region will be hotter than others. A lack of tree canopy and large expanses of concrete and asphalt are to blame for this imbalance of heat.

We hope that people start looking at pavement as an opportunity to be something else

– Lisa Huntington, Depave board member

Communities like Lents, where temperatures hit 124 degrees during the June 2021 heat wave, need relief. Unfortunately, it takes decades for a budding tree canopy to provide this relief. So what can we do to bring cooling relief to the disproportionately hotter areas of the region?

We can remove asphalt.

Portland based nonprofit Depave is in the business of turning ‘parking lots to paradise.’ Since its inception in 2008, the organization has completed 70 depaving projects. In a process board member Lisa Huntington describes as a barn raising in reverse, Depave brings the community together to invest their time and energy to remove an underused area of asphalt. In its place, spaces can come alive with plants, people or both.

“We hope that people start looking at pavement as an opportunity to be something else,” Huntington shared at a recent event.

Sawcut asphalt awaits the depavers (Photos: Paxton Rothwell/Bike Portland)
After a hard day’s work, only the gravel base remains
Concept for the new greenspace (Courtesy Depave)

I joined 35 other volunteers to depave 7,000 square feet of asphalt at East Portland’s Patrick Lynch Elementary a few weekends ago. What was once an expanse of asphalt will be transformed into an educational and community destination. Depave Communication and Engagement Coordinator Katherine Rose said the transformed site will have, “a labyrinth, outdoor classroom space, a rain garden, and lots of other assets that will be really helpful for the students and beneficial to the whole community.” Check out some before and after photos of the work below.

Depave volunteer crew leaders provided guidance, training, and a pre-work stretch clinic. During the hearty lunch of tacos, I spoke with a few first time volunteers about their experience. Doug, a first time volunteer, shared that he was depaving because he believes building community leads to a stronger and friendlier world. “I’m all for helping out. It feels really good to be working as a team.”

I saw folks who had just met work together like they were close friends. People made silly jokes to their new companions while working to fill wheelbarrows with countless pounds of fossil fuel based asphalt. The work itself was tiring and everyone got ridiculously dirty. At the end of the day I saw many leave with a big smile on their face – the truest sign of a healthy community working toward a shared goal.

Asphalt square being removed
New friends removing asphalt together
One of the many full bins after a day of depaving

Portland’s Depave organization is known for their work in community engagement. The Depave Network has blossomed many similar depaving organizations around the globe with many more in the works. Mary Pat McGuire, a Chicagoan who is looking to start a Depave Chicago branch, was in attendance to see how Portland puts on a depaving event. Her biggest takeaway: “The collaboration and coordination that everybody had today was awesome!”

Depave’s next depaving event is not until October. But, as we reported last week, they are hosting a block party this Sunday as part of the Blumenauer Bridge opening events. This block party is to showcase how the intersection of SE 7th and Sandy can be made into a community space.

Asphalt covers so much of our city. As our urban canopy continues to dwindle away and as summers get hotter, it is up to the community to decide that there are better uses for our parking lots and paved places. It is beyond time to free more of Portland’s soil from the hot and suffocating burden of this fossil fuel product.

Biketown and The Street Trust team up to get more people into reduced cost program

PBOT’s Dylan Rivera (L), The Street Trust’s Anouksha Gardner, Ryan Ross from Biketown and André Lightsey with The Street Trust at a sixth birthday celebration event Thursday morning. (Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)

It’s a match made in multimodal heaven: Biketown, Portland’s electric bike share program, won’t rest until every Portlander is confident behind the handlebars of one of their orange bikes, and transportation nonprofit The Street Trust (TST) wants to see active transportation dominate Portland’s mode share.

This morning the two organizations announced they’re embarking on a new partnership – pairing Biketown’s resources with TST’s expertise in policy and community organizing – to make those goals happen and share the message that everyone can be a bike person if they want to be.

Starting in August, TST will launch a community ambassador program to hire Biketown liaisons who will reach out and provide support to people getting started with the bike share system. Part of the project mission is to make sure people who qualify for Biketown for All, a program that gives free bike share passes to people who meet income eligibility requirements, are aware of it and know how to get started.

Biketown utilizes both private and public sector resources – the program is operated and largely funded by Lyft with support from Nike, but the Portland Bureau of Transportation is also involved in their programming. Biketown for All has become a valuable public resource for lower income people around the Portland area and is funded through the Oregon Clean Fuels Program via the Portland General Electric Drive Change fund.

TST Strategic Partnerships Manager Anouksha Gardner told me at a partnership launch event this morning she’s seen people who could really benefit from Biketown hesitate to use it.

“They might not know how to get started, or they think it’s too expensive,” she said. She hopes this partnership will put people at ease about trying it out.

In a statement announcing the partnership, Biketown said they want to introduce new people to bike share who “might not think of themselves as a ‘typical’ cyclist – in terms of age, race, or income.” This will mean doing outreach to people who receive financial aid at Portland colleges and people who live in low-income housing facilities.

Signage at the event near the Tilikum Bridge Thursday morning read, “Yes I am a Bike Person” and there was a list with the heading, “The New Rules of Being a Bike Person.”

Another group important to bring into the fold are people who receive reduced fare from TriMet to take the bus and the MAX. If they get involved with Biketown for All, it could serve as another mode in their transportation routine and fill in some of the gaps that are especially prevalent in lower income parts of the city.

As we shared earlier this week, some advocates are concerned the Biketown fleet is too small and fails to serve its expanded service area. It’s unclear how launching another new program will impact this issue, but if the partnership goes well and more people are initiated into Biketown ridership, the lack of bikes in the system (currently at just 1,500) will continue to limit its potential.

Asked about adding new bikes to the system today, a PBOT rep agreed that would be a positive development, but also didn’t say there were any plans to do so.

In the meantime, TST plans to begin hosting rides and events around the city starting next month, prioritizing areas further from the city center like Gateway, the Jade District and east Portland around 122nd Ave. This program will be led by TST’s Policy Transformation Manager André Lightsey-Walker – an avid Biketown user himself – who said ideal candidates for the ambassadorship would be people who are big bike share riders, including people who are members of Biketown for All. If you’re interested in getting involved, you can email him at andre@thestreettrust.org.

Video: Speed and summer vibes at weekly street sprints on N Williams Ave

They’re sort of like bicycle drag races. (Photos/video: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

It’s summer, the nights are beautiful, and you live in a house full of messengers with a porch and yard that looks out onto a main street with a 10-foot wide bike lane. What do you do?

You throw a weekly cash sprint series and invite as many people as you can.

That’s what denizens of a large house on North Williams Avenue started back in June. They’ve been hosting weekly sprints on the block of Williams between N Beech and Failing every Wednesday night at 7:00 pm for a few months now. I rolled over last night to check it out.

The kid was just biking along when he heard something…
but by the time he turned around there was nothing there!

A few dozen folks were chilling on the big porch of the house as the first sprints got underway. Jeremy Gomez was on the megaphone calling out the matches. I saw a familiar face, local up-and-coming racer Mateen Richey, and asked him about his bike. “It’s a pretty big gear,” he said, looking at his svelte and aero Felt carbon fiber machine. It was a 49-15 — huge for a singlespeed. What’s your strategy? I asked. “Try to get onto that gear as fast as I can,” he said with his typical wry smile. “The first five seconds will be really important.”

Cash sprints are a competition where participants pay into the pot and the winner takes all. The Williams variety are very informal and the vibe is definitely more about fun and hanging out than racing bikes. Someone scrawled the names of all entrants onto a of cardboard and the sprinting ensued.

The steps of the house (which is up on a small hill) were a perfect perch to watch the action. And since they striped the finish line right out in front, we got to see the final meters. It was awesome!

A few of the sprints were so fast the riders ended up catching up and passing unsuspecting Williams Avenue commuters. It took the “cat six commuter” thing Williams is infamous for to an entirely new level.

The final came down to Mateen and a guy named Ron. Apparently these two are often the fastest of the bunch and this was a rematch from a previous week. On one of the sprints, the two where rubbing shoulders right to the final inches and everyone at the house watched with mouths and eyes wide open and shouted hoots of appreciation as they flew by with a “whoosh!”.

Don’t miss the video for a closer look at the scene and to hear from finalists Mateen and Ron (and see Jeremy Gomez do some sick jumps on his new bike!). Who took home the cash this week? You’ll have to watch the video!

And stop by next Wednesday around 7:00 pm to test your strength and skill — or just spectate from sidewalk. More photos in the gallery below…

ODOT will break ground on new phase of Outer Powell project next month

A rendering of what outer Powell Blvd will look like once ODOT’s project is complete. (Image: ODOT)

Southeast Powell Boulevard is one of Portland’s most dangerous streets. The entirety of Powell is on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s High Crash Network map, but the easternmost section of the road has been home to its highest crash rates. With subpar bike lanes, cracked or missing sidewalks and poor visibility for people walking and biking, using active transportation on Powell is currently not a task for the faint of heart.

The $105 million Outer Powell Transportation Safety Project is set to bring much-needed changes to the dangerous arterial in the form of physically protected bike lanes, beefed up street lighting, sidewalk infill and enhanced pedestrian crossings with flashing beacons. The first part of this project was completed back in 2020, when the stretch from 122nd to 136th avenues debuted a makeover. But that was only a preview of the changes we should see on outer Powell in the coming years. Next month, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) will start making moves on the next phase, which will tackle the segments from SE 99th to 122nd and 136th to 174th Aves.

(A previous phase of work in fall 2020 created this new bike lane on SE Powell east of 122nd. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Outer Powell is another one of those roads in the Portland area that’s owned by the state instead of the City of Portland. Like other ODOT-owned roads in the area, Powell is technically a state highway, but as Portland residents has moved east and the city landscape has changed, it functions more like a local access corridor than a regional highway.

But there is hope ODOT’s safety project will be fruitful – not only because of the design changes it will bring, but because the City of Portland is set to take Powell over once the project is complete (similar to the recent jurisdictional transfer of 82nd Ave).

Of course, even after ODOT tackles outer Powell, there will be more work to do. As we wrote about earlier this summer, people who live east of 99th have felt neglected by road agencies who’ve promised safety changes that haven’t come to fruition.

Combined with the Division Transit Project which is well on its way to completion, as well as plans on the books for north-south corridors like 82nd, 122nd and 162nd, this part of the city is set for a much-needed transformation. East Portland is one of the most diverse areas in Portland, and it’s largely low-income compared to other parts of town. It has historically been light on accessible transit and safe routes for people to bike and walk, so these changes are really important for fully integrating east Portland into the rest of the city.

Stay tuned for updates as ODOT begins work on this project.

Carfree Portlanders Video Series: The Johnson Family

Welcome to the latest episode of our Carfree Portlanders video series!

In this episode you’ll meet the Johnson family: Kate, Kiel and Lulu.

This trio is a fixture in our community, in large part because Kiel has been pushing Portlander to be a better biking city for well over a decade. I first met him as a fresh college graduate in 2010 who did such great work setting up bike trains at local schools he earned an Alice Award and a spot on national TV. These days he owns and runs the Go By Bike shop and bike valet service at OHSU under the Aerial Tram in South Waterfront.

And you might recall Kate as our former ‘Gal by Bike’ columnist here at BikePortland. Add their little one Lulu to the mix and you’ve got one heck of a family.

In this video you’ll follow them to Ikea and on a few Pedalpalooza rides.

Thanks to our video guy Amit Zinman for doing stellar work on this series. These videos are funded by BikePortland and made possible in part by your subscriptions!

Watch it above or via this link. Browse past Carfree Portlander episodes here.

Weekend Event Guide: Ice skating, Sorellas, Naked Ride, and more

Rolling (mostly) nude on the 2011 World Naked Bike Ride. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

This week’s guide is sponsored by the Gorge Pass. Get unlimited rides for you and a friend — and your bikes — until the end of the year on any of the Columbia River Gorge transit shuttles for just $40! Route maps and details at GorgePass.com/bikes.

It’s going to be another hot one, so be prepared and browse these excellent tips if you need some inspiration or advice. If you head out to an event, double-check the organizer’s page for postponements or cancellations. Otherwise, get out there and embrace the heat!

Friday, July 29th

Bike to Ice Skate – 5:30 pm at Irving Park (NE)
What better place to spend a hot evening than by flying around a huge piece of ice in the middle of a spacious and cool mall. That’s the idea behind this ride. And there’s even a rumor that snow will be falling. More info here.

Wonder Woman Ride – 7:30 at Sewallcrest Park (SE)
Grab your golden bracelets and other superhero bling to honor the creation of this universal symbol of strength and member of the Justice League that debuted over 80 years ago! More info here.

Saturday, July 30th

Sorella Forte Club Ride – 9:00 am at River City Bicycles (SE)
Inspired by the Tour de France Femmes? Portland has several women-only bike clubs and the Sorellas are one of the oldest and most organized. Roll up to their weekly club ride to gain group-riding skills, meet other roadies, and get an excellent start to your weekend. More info here.

PDX Coffee Outside – 9:00 am at South Waterfront Park (SoWa)
If you’ve curtailed your bike community participation rate due to the heat, this early meet-up of friendly folks who love bikes and coffee would be a great option. It’ll be a cool dose of caffeine and culture. More info here.

World Naked Bike Ride – 8:00 pm at Peninsula Park (N)
The classic fest of body positivity and flesh-forward fossil fuel protest is back! Before you go, check out the FAQ on the official website. Have fun out there!

Sunday, July 31st

**All the Blumenauer Bridge Activities**
Check out our guide to all the cool stuff happening to celebrate the opening of the bridge.

Aaron Appreciation Ride – 12:30 at Blumenauer Bridge (NE)
Join friends of Aaron Tarfman to share stories about his life, give and receive hugs to help the pain, and celebrate what his life meant to so many of us. Ride ends at Sellwood Riverfront Park so bring your swimming costume and a towel. More info here.

Tandem Ride – 3:00 pm at Two Plum Park (NE)
Riding a two-seater bike is one of life’s finer pleasures and it’s made even finer by doing it with a group of others. Ride leaders have fun partner challenges planned to spice things up. More info here.

Mapps will work on his own charter reform proposal

Source: Friends of Mingus Mapps

Mingus Mapps drew the charter reform battle lines more clearly yesterday when the city commissioner announced he would craft an alternative to the proposal put forward last month by the city appointed Charter Review Commission. In an email to supporters Tuesday, Mapps laid out a path to challenging the commission’s plan.

It is a deft political move by Mapps on an issue that is a snoozer for those who do not follow local politics closely.

The city charter is our “constitution,” it is the document that describes how Portland’s government is organized and how we elect the city council. As such, it touches every issue facing the city today, from policing to housing affordability to transportation. It affects how the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is run and how it sets its priorities. If you have a gripe — and as a comment moderator I know a lot of BikePortland readers do — the charter reform debate should be important to you.

Mapps made charter reform a a central issue in his 2020 city council campaign, and the former political science professor has been outspoken about the need for charter reform, “Portlanders deserve a modern city council.”

As BikePortland recently reported, some of the changes which the Charter Review Commission has put forward for the November ballot are broadly supported — including by Mapps: elections by district, a larger city council, and the replacement of Portland’s current Commissioner form of government with a City Manager system.

But their proposed system of voting, ranked choice voting with multi-member districts, is controversial. This would divide the city into four districts with voters in each district selecting three council representatives using a ranked-choice method. The system allows voters to rank their preference for multiple candidates, and its supporters point to research that shows that it approximates proportionality by better securing representation for non-majority viewpoints.

Heat map showing People of Color (POC) voting age population (VAP) for citizens and non-citizens from the MGGG Redistricting Lab’s analysis of Portland City Council voting.

This is one of the elements of the current proposal with which Mapps does not agree, calling it “an untested experiment not used by any other city in the United States.”

Mapps proposes to put forward a draft alternative proposal in October, a month before the election, and commits to “leading a City Council effort to submit this as a referendum in early Spring 2023” if the voters were to reject the Charter Commission proposal in November. Prior to that, Mapps will be polling the electorate, organizing focus groups and hosting forums and debates on alternatives to the current proposal through the Ulyssess PAC, a political action committee he formed last year to support charter reform.

Source: Charter Review Commission materials.
Charter Commissioner Candace Avalos

His “draft alternative proposal” will give voters who might be skittish about the ranked-voting, multi-member district aspect of reform the possibility of still enacting the reform’s more broadly popular elements. The job of the Charter Commission becomes making voters comfortable with a more complicated algorithm for tabulating votes, and will involve outreach and education.

In a recent interview published by Rose City Reform, Charter Review Commissioner Candace Avalos talked about the reasoning behind the commission’s proposals, saying

We thought it was important to present a vision to voters. This is a big bold change, and we want voters to buy into this with us. For it to work as we intended, you’ve got to accept the whole vision. You can’t piecemeal it.

Mapps’s task is simpler, he just needs to stoke fear and uncertainty and position his draft as a more moderate alternative.

Things are heating up, and it’s not just the weather. Stayed tuned as BikePortland follows this issue.

City beefs up bike lanes, seeks input on SW Alder Street Rose Lane project

The new bus and bike lane on SW Alder St in between 2nd and 4th Aves. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Take the Alder Street Rose Lane Project survey.

A new addition to downtown Portland’s emerging slate of bike and transit infrastructure opened late last month when the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and TriMet debuted the first phase of their SW Alder Street Rose Lane Project. This project is part of the larger Central City in Motion plan to improve active transportation infrastructure in the city center, which includes the recently-completed Better Naito, bike lanes on Broadway, SW 4th Ave, and more. But the Alder Rose Lane project isn’t done yet. As PBOT and TriMet work to plan its second phase, they’re seeking feedback from people about what is and isn’t working in the initial plan rollout.

In addition to bus-related elements, the project comes with two new bike lanes – a shared bus-bike lane between SW 4th and 2nd avenues and one going north on SW 2nd Avenue between Alder and Washington streets to connect to the bike lane north of Washington. When we checked out the project last month, those bike lanes weren’t complete. According to PBOT project managers who spoke at a Central City in Motion Working Group meeting Wednesday, some of the materials needed to complete these bike lanes have been on backorder, but they expect to complete the project with green bike lane striping and plastic “tuff-curb” and wands this week.

PBOT’s Rose Lane initiative is intended to prioritize bus and streetcar transit citywide. But while a two-block bus priority lane downtown is better than nothing – and small changes do make a big difference in the congested Central City – what has been completed of the Alder Rose Lane Project is not yet up to par with what we need to make it safe and convenient to bike and bus downtown.

In response to feedback they’ve received already, project planners will try to improve the experience for people using the new bike lane on 2nd Avenue. Their plan is to add a concrete planter with yield signage at 2nd and Washington to make it more apparent to people driving that they need to pay attention to oncoming bike traffic. This should be implemented within the next two months.

At yesterday’s CCIM Working Group meeting, PBOT project manager Gabe Graff said phase two of the project is still in its early stages, but the basic plan is to solidify the temporary infrastructure changes they made to TriMet stops on Alder with permanent bus stop improvements, concrete curb extensions and shelter amenities.

Graff said the team plans to begin designing the second phase of this project this winter, with installation coming the following year. This kind of timeline isn’t surprising, especially for projects multiple agencies are working on, but it doesn’t relieve people who bike around Portland’s car-clogged city center to know that permanent changes will be coming in two years. And with TriMet ridership still suffering, will this kind of incremental change even be enough to entice people out of their cars?

We’ll update you when the bike lanes and signage for the first phase of the project are complete. And be sure to share your thoughts with PBOT and TriMet about the project via a survey which will be open through August 20th.

New ‘global bike show’ coming to Portland next fall

(Source: Made.bike)

After a multi-year dry spell, there’s a new show on the calendar that could re-center Portland as a hotbed of framebuilding and high-end, custom bikes.

Made, is a new “industry and consumer bike event with a mission to bring framebuilders, media and makers together to elevate and inspire”. It will take place in Portland in September 2023. Echos Communications, a PR and marketing firm organizing the the event, are calling it a “global bike show”.

According to today’s announcement, the event’s format will be much different than the traditional booth-and-display vibe of other handmade bike shows. Here’s more from Echos VP (and Portland resident) Billy Sinkford:

“MADE is the next evolution of handmade consumer and trade events, creating a format that is inclusive, exciting and supportive. The event will celebrate and support framebuilders and the culture that surrounds them, and our collective goal is to bring awareness to this segment of the industry. To that end, we will be offering free booth space to all builders for the inaugural 2023 year.”

It’s been four years since Portland hosted a large-scale gathering of framebuilders. In the decade from 2005 to 2015, our city was the epicenter of custom framebuilding in America. We hosted major shows by local and national event companies and boasted dozens of small, independent builders. It seemed like every month there was another collaboration or exhibition to check out. But interest waned, and in 2018 the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show was cancelled due to what organizers said was “low levels of interest.”

Could Made mark a rebirth for builders and their fans and re-energize Portland’s handmade bike scene?

Open registration to be a part of the event will begin this September, but early confirmations have already come in from: Moots, The Pro’s Closet Museum, Bicycling Magazine, Paul Component Engineering, Mosaic, Breadwinner Cycles, Bike Flights, Schon Studio, Speedvagen, Stinner, Abbey Bike Tools, Chris King, Argonaut Cycles, Breadwinner Cycles, WZRD Bikes, Retrotec, Btchn Bikes, Falconer Cycles, Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, Tomii Cycle, Frontier Bikes, Bender Bikes, Bike Flights, Monē Bikes and more.

Check out the event website and stay tuned for more details.

Latest Headlines

New luxury car tax would fund off-highway paths statewide

It’s bike t-shirt and sticker night at Bike Happy Hour this week!

Monday Roundup: Morocco’s new bike route, unsafe e-bikes, Trump’s land sale, and more

Trucking advocates face headwinds in push for mandatory 12-foot lanes

From the Archives

Oregon’s rogue freight advisory committee might have finally overstepped