🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏

Key CRC decision coming Friday

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Mayor Adams (L) and Vancouver
Mayor Royce Pollard before a
CRC meeting in February 2007.
(Photo © J. Maus)

On Friday, the Columbia River Crossing Project Sponsors Council will meet to solidify the lane configuration of the new I-5 bridge. According to a press release sent out by the CRC project, the meeting will result in “a recommendation on the number of add/drop (auxiliary) lanes on Interstate 5 in the CRC project area.”

There has been a lot of public and media attention given to the CRC lane decision after Mayor Adams and Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard put forth a compromise lane proposal last week.

That proposal was supported 4-1 by the Portland City Council, giving Mayor Adams the authorization to vote “yes” on a bridge that could accomodate up to 12 lanes (although there’s no specific mention of 12 lanes in the CRC press release).

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Talking bikes in Multnomah Village

Get Together in Multnomah Village-6

Police Officer Robert Pickett (in jacket, left)
was one of about 50 who showed
up for our second monthly Get Together
event last night.
(Photos © J. Maus)

I think this “Get Together” idea just might have some legs. I honestly did not expect many people to show up, but I was very pleasantly surprised when about 50 people came out to the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village last night just to talk bikes.

You don’t hear about it as much as inner southeast and other neighborhoods closer to the city, but there is clearly a big, pent-up demand and lots of energy for biking in outer southwest. The turnout last night — both in quantity of people and the quality of the conversations — was a testament to that.

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Mayor publishes statement on bikes and the budget

“I believe in bicycling. Investing in bicycle projects in Portland makes the city a safer, greener, healthier place.”
— Mayor Sam Adams

In a statement just published on his website, Mayor Sam Adams has responded to concerns from Portlanders about the Bureau of Transportation’s requested budget for 2009-2010. As we’ve reported, PBOT’s budget puts a high priority on arterial paving and is slim on bike project funding. It also includes a budget revision that would scale back funding at the Transportation Options division and the Safe Routes to Schools program would take 40% hit.

Adams has just posted a statement about this on his website. Here’s the full text:

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Lovejoy crash victim says she’s “miraculously fine” (updated)

An “insane accident” says the victim.
(Photo: Marion Rice)

The victim of the crash at NW Lovejoy and 9th yesterday morning, left a comment last night saying she has been discharged from the hospital and has suffered no major injuries. The woman’s name is Asha and she’s a student at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA).

(PNCA, you might recall, was the school of both Brett Jarolimek and Tracey Sparling, both of whom lost their lives in October from right-hook crashes.)

From witness accounts and police statements on the scene, we had feared much worse, so this is welcome news.

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Site stats and top five stories for February 2009

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Here are BikePortland’s traffic stats for the month of February:

    Visits – 144,715
    Average visit length – 00:03:11
    Pages viewed – 321,505
    Stories posted – 102
    Comments – 2,430

Top Five Stories (*In terms of pageviews analyzed by Google Analytics):

Interested how this compares to January? Check those stats here.

Alice Award nominees coming to KBOO Bike Show

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This just in from KBOO Bike Show co-host Tori Bortman:

“Tomorrow we’ll be interviewing the BTA’S Alice B. Toeclips nominees to hear what they did to earn such a great distinction, who they see as our lesser known bike hero’s and what you can do to get involved with your cycing community. Guests include perennial nominee Mark Ginsberg for his contributions as lawyer and advocate, Brad Ross for his work organizing the Cross Crusade Series, Robert Gootee CEO of ODS who’s made commuting by bike accessible for thousands of workers throughout the state and Judge Chris Larson and Mike Morrison, RN for their work on the Share the Road Safety Class. Listen in at 11am, 90.7 FM on your FM dial.”

Oregonian: Is “Copenhagen Left” a better way to turn on Portland Mall?

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

TriMet’s recommendation: become a
pedestrian and use the crosswalk.
Is there a better way?
See Oregonian video below.

When TriMet announced how they expect people riding bikes to turn off of the new Portland Mall downtown, many of you said, “Huh?”.

In an attempt to create safe conditions, TriMet said people on bikes who want to turn right (and across the bus/MAX lane) off of the mall should; move over to the curb, enter the crosswalk, become a pedestrian, and walk and ride at walking speed (that’s the law in crosswalks) across the street.

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Today is final day to comment on Metro stimulus projects

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

(Lots of talk about stimulus funds around here lately. Hope you’re staying with me).

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) may get the largest chunk of federal stimulus money (about $232 million last time I checked), but Metro also gets a piece of the pie — $38 million to be exact. That’s a much smaller piece, but Metro is more likely than ODOT to fund non-highway projects.

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ODOT/OTC release stimulus funds application, process details

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

“The OTC also recognizes the need to balance highway needs with other modal needs.”
— From a statement released by ODOT today

The Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC), acting on behalf of the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), has announced the application process and more details on how they’ll allocate their remainder of federal stimulus funds.

The OTC approved 31 projects totaling $122 million as part of their first phase of funding decisions. In Phase II, the OTC will have about $110 million to assign to transportation projects throughout the state.

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Who’s deciding where our state’s stimulus money goes?

OTC Commissioners:

  • Gail Achterman
  • Michael Nelson
  • Janice Wilson
  • Alan Brown
  • David Lohman

See photos/bios below

Now that it’s crunch-time for the Oregon Department of Transportation and their Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) to decide on how to spend the infrastructure chunk of our federal stimulus money, I thought you might want to know a little more about them.

Before I started doing this site full-time, I had no idea what the OTC was. It wasn’t until I started meeting the region’s powerful movers-and-shakers in the transportation world that I began to realize how much influence this commission had. People would mention the OTC to me in hushed tones, as if it were some sort of impenetrable cabal that wielded massive power and influence.

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