BikePortland

Bike projects expected to compete better in next phase of stimulus funding

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

State transportation planners are scrambling to get their “shovel ready” projects in order and they’re waiting eagerly by their inboxes this morning. That’s because any day now, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is expected to release the application forms for what they’re calling “Phase II of the Federal Economic Stimulus”.

I spoke with ODOT’s communications director Patrick Cooney (he’s also the spokesperson for the Oregon Transportation Commission) yesterday and he said ~~Phase II will allocate $110 million~~* the next phase of stimulus funding for infrastructure projects will get underway very soon.

Greg Raisman (center) from the Bureau
of Transportation joined us at our
Get Together in St. Johns last month.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Tonight, I’m headed to Southwest Portland for the second in our ongoing series of Get Together events. We’ll be at the Lucky Labrador Brewpub in Multnomah Village (7675 SW Capitol Hwy.) from 5-7:00pm.

If you live, work, or ride in and around the circuitous, hilly roads of Southwest Portland we’d love to meet you and we hope you’ll consider joining us. The point of these events is simply to learn and connect. They’re a great way to learn about hot bike issues and meet other bikers in your neighborhood (I hope eventually they grow to include even people that don’t ride, but are curious for whatever reason).

(L to R) Mark Ginsberg (an Alice Award
nominee), Dat Nguyen, and Ben
Salzberg at last year’s Alice event.
(Photos © J. Maus)

The BTA’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Alice B. Toeclips Awards and Auction, is happening this Saturday and the Portland-based non-profit is pulling out all the stops to make sure it’s a successful event.

~~They’ve lined up Congressman Earl Blumenauer as a speaker~~ (update: he has cancelled), they’ve got auction prizes galore, and I’m sure many other fun surprises in store for attendees. This year’s Alice Award nominees include everyone from the Cross Crusade’s Brad Ross to perennial nominee Mark Ginsberg and BikePortland’s very own Elly Blue.

Hollis Hawthorne (furthest to the left)
at a performance in San Francisco last
summer
(Photos © J. Maus)

Hollis Hawthorne, one of the founders of The Bay Area Derailleurs bike dance troupe, is clinging to life in India today.

The Derailleurs were formed in 2007 by former Portlander and Sprockette Eliza Strack and they performed last summer in Portland at the Sprockettes Bicycle Bash.

Last week, Hawthorne was riding on the back of a motorcycle in the streets of Pondicherry, India and collided with a bus. Hawthorne was wearing a helmet, but still sustained a major injury to her head. Her boyfriend performed CPR on her for over a half-hour before she eventually ended up in a hospital.

Reporting by Brompton in
Baltimore last month
(Photo: Patrick McMahon)

I’m headed out tomorrow afternoon to Los Angeles for the first-ever L.A. Bike Summit on Saturday, March 7th.

L.A., iconic land of freeways, may seem like an unlikely place for bicycling to flourish, but that seems to be what is happening. In an op-ed for the L.A. Times last June, summit organizing team member Robert Gottlieb discussed the history of L.A.’s recent surge of interest in bicycling, and the formation of many new bike-oriented groups running the gamut from large, spontaneous midnight rides to advocacy organizations to bike repair co-ops.

Joe Kurmaskie, seen here at the
“We are All Traffic” rally held in
November 2007 after two
bike fatalities.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Mayor Sam Adams’ support of a proposal that would authorize the construction of a new I-5 bridge that could “be built to accomodate up to 12 lanes” has sparked a new level of opposition to the current direction of the Columbia River Crossing project.

Adams’ decision to compromise with Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard on this issue has provided a spark for citizen activists to organize and rally in opposition to the project.

A loose coalition of activists has come together and is planning a rally at 12:00 noon on April 5th in Waterfront Park (which is, fittingly, the site where the Harbor Drive Freeway was once located before it was removed, thus sparking Portland’s green transportation planning legacy).

“What went wrong?… The Transportation Commission got heavy pressure from pro-highway legislators, road builders, and Washington County and other local governments looking for road-building money.”
— excerpt from a statement set to go out to supporters of Transportation for Oregon’s Future

Transportation for Oregon’s Future — a “network of organizations and businesses supporting transportation choices for the 21st Century” — is not happy with the decisions made by ODOT’s Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) on how to spend Oregon’s initial, $122 million chunk of federal stimulus funds.

As we reported this morning, the OTC decided last week to fund just one bike/ped project (valued at $2.5 million) out of 30 total projects and they did not fund a single transit project.

Bob Stacey is the executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon and he’s working on the Transportation for Oregon’s Future effort. He is disappointed in the OTC’s decision and he’s already planning a course of action. He gave me a sneak peek at the email he plans to send out to supporters (1,300 of them wrote to Governor Kulongoski about this issue in just a few days).

On Friday, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC, a body appointed by Governor Kulongoski) made their final decisions on how to spend $122,592,742 in federal stimulus funds. And, if you remember our report from last week, it seems like their “cautious willingness” to consider non-highway projects turned out to be more cautious than willingness.

It’s been a while since we last added new titles to the BikePortland Bookstore. In the meantime, some new books have been released, most notably local author Jeff Mapes’ Pedaling Revolution, and many more old, good ones brought to our attention. A selection of newly featured titles is below.

“The US has big economic problems. But they have been made worse, and harder to resolve, by a half-century in which, at federal urging, the country was misbuilt.”
— Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard

Reflecting on Obama’s address to congress last week (in which he said that America “cannot walk away from” the automobile), columnist Christopher Caldwell penned a rebuttal in the Financial Times against the President’s plans for massive government spending — on the nation’s highways.

Caldwell, a senior editor for conservative news publication The Weekly Standard, spends the bulk of the column casting President Eisenhower’s Federal Highway Act in an unfavorable light (the Highway Act passed with strong support in 1956 and created our interstate highway system).

The Monday Roundup

The joys of walking, breastfeeding while driving, overcrowded bike parking, the case against homeownership, school choice in Japan, and more…

– The Oregonian profiles a Vancouver woman who switched from driving to taking the bus when gas prices went up last year — and kept riding even when they dropped again, even though the bus doubles her commute time. Service changes may push her back into her SUV, however.

– A woman has been arrested in Ohio for breastfeeding her infant while talking on her cell phone and driving her other kids to school. “If my child’s hungry, I’m going to feed it,” she was reported to say.

Bike projects expected to compete better in next phase of stimulus funding

Tonight: Join us for a Get Together in Multnomah Village

BTA gears up for big Alice Awards bash

Sprockettes rally as fellow bike dancer clings to life

Heading down to the L.A. Bike Summit

CRC rally planned for April; Commissioner Fritz will attend

Group responds to ODOT/OTC stimulus decision: “What went wrong?”

Oregon chooses just one bike/ped project with stimulus funds

Pedaling Revolution and more new titles in the BikePortland Bookstore

Editorial: Conservative columnist speaks out against highways

King Neighborhood Walk with Rex Burkholder

The Monday Roundup

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