BikePortland

Slideshows: Mini Bike Winter and the Bicycle Belles

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

“Bump” showing his skills.
(Photos by Elly Blue)
-Slideshows below-

Mini Bike Winter is Zoobomb’s answer to all of Portland’s summer bicycle fun — but less of it, and on small bikes.

The festivities go on for several days, and after missing the glorious Hamster Ball on Saturday night I determined to head out on Sunday to catch some of the action. I arrived at the Esplanade just in time to catch the Bicycle Belles, Seattle’s answer to our own Sprockettes. I took some photos:

“Failing to support the Mayor’s very affordable new bicycling initiatives when more revenue is on the table does not reflect this city’s transportation or liveability [sic] priorities.”
— Michelle Poyourow of the BTA in an action alert sent to members today

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) has issued an action alert to their 3,000 members in Portland and saying the are “very concerned” about the Bureau of Transportation’s requested budget for FY 2009-2010.

Earlier today, we reported that PBOT’s budget will cut Safe Routes to Schools by 40% this coming fiscal year (the BTA is a primary contractor on Safe Routes programs).

In the action alert, the BTA’s advocate and educator Michelle Poyourow outlines this and other concerns:

The 2009-10 budget:

Commits no revenue for building the Bike Boulevards called out in the Mayor’s 100 Day List (about $300,000).*

Reduces the size of the Safer Routes to Schools program by about 40% (about $200,000).

Fails to fund the demonstration cycletrack called out in the Mayor’s 100 Day List (about $100,000).

(*In a section titled, “Other Decision Packages” there is a line labeled, “Bike Boulevards ($516,000 add) develops bike boulevards city-wide.”)

Time for the Monday news roundup!

Critical Mass vindicated; freeway and budget sinkholes; carfree cities go mainstream; James Dean

– NY Times columnist David Brooks’ rant in favor of sprawling suburbs sparked a large number of interesting letters to the editor.

– Obama has named Adolfo Carrión Jr. to head the newly created White House Office of Urban Affairs. Carrión, an urban planner by training from the Bronx, has mixed reviews but may speak up for bicycling as well as transit and urban density.

The Burnside Bridgehead site.

An article published Friday in the Portland Business Journal makes short reference to some very interesting news about the Burnside Bridgehead project site.

The four acre site (at the northwest corner of the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and E. Burnside) was initially planned to be a gateway to the Central Eastside. However, the $260 million project fell through last year and is still on hold.

BTA Bike Safety Class at Prescott Elementary

Portland’s Safer Routes to Schools
program encourages kids to ride
to school — but budget cuts loom.
(Photos © J. Maus)

The City of Portland’s Safer Routes to Schools program is facing a steep drop in its funding for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

In the past two years (Portland’s fiscal year goes from July 1 to June 30) the Safer Routes to Schools program has had a budget of $850,000 and $840,000 respectively. According to the program manager at PBOT’s Transportation Options division Linda Ginenthal, a sizable chunk of that budget — $250,000 — came from the city’s General Fund in the form of “one-time funds” (PBOT-speak for allocations taken from a surplus in the city’s budget).

Friday (2/20)

Portland’s 1st Kidical Mass in June, 2008
(Photos © J. Maus)

Kidical Mass
Kids are traffic, too! Kidical Mass is a celebration of family bicycling. Training wheels, tagalongs, and trailers are all welcome on this easy-going, short, legal family ride. Be sure to bring lights and warm clothes. All families are encouraged to attend.
Sunnyside Environmental School — SE 34th and Taylor
Meet at 5:30, ride at 6:00
Contact: Angela Koch, angela at bta4bikes dot org

State Rep. Jules Bailey

Newly elected Oregon State Representative from Southeast Portland, Jules Bailey, has introduced a bill into the legislature that would create a new vehicle weight class for non-motorized vehicles weighing under 50 pounds — such as bicycles (we think that weight might be too low with some of today’s new cargo bikes, but this is a matter that can likely change as the bill moves forward).

If the bill passes, it would create the new weight class and instruct state and local law enforcement agencies to index their traffic violation fines to match the weight class of the offending vehicle.

I spoke with Representative Bailey last week, and he explained his reasoning behind the bill. “It’s your basic physics equation,” he said. “Force equals mass times velocity, squared.”

“[The OTC showed a] cautious willingness to consider the possibility that local bike, pedestrian and transit projects might just be as “shovel ready” as ODOT’s existing list.”
— Bob Stacey, 1000 Friends of Oregon

The Governor-appointed Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) was set to make a decision on how Oregon would spend it’s federal economic stimulus money this week. However, after hearing concerns from Metro and a new coalition calling themselves Transportation for Oregon’s Future, the OTC has decided to delay their decision until Friday of next week.

That information comes from Bob Stacey, executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon. Stacey was in Salem for the OTC meeting on Wednesday. Joining Stacey was Metro councilor Rex Burkholder. Also at the meeting was Karl Rohde from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Both Stacey and Burkholder have written letters expressing their concerns that the OTC and the Oregon Department of Transportation were hurrying into approval of a project list that leaned too far in favor of highway paving projects — at the exclusion of more multi-modal projects.

Mayor Adams’ office has just released a survey titled, Bicycle Transportation During the Storm of December 2008.

The survey (take it online here) comes after their initial Winter Storm Response Survey, released back in January, failed to mention bicycles at all.

Today, the Mayor’s office released a new, bike-specific survey along with this statement (emphasis mine):

On January 14, the Office of the Mayor launched a survey to gather information about the City of Portland’s response to the recent winter storm. Six hundred people responded to the survey, and provided critical feedback on walking, transit and driving conditions during the storm. Almost immediately after releasing the survey, we realized that we had failed to consider bicycle transportation.

Logo for 2009
Oregon Bike Summit

Since its humble beginnings back in 2006, the Oregon Bike Summit has steadily grown into an important event for anyone working to make Oregon, “The Land Bicycles Dream About”. This year, the event will continue that growth and take a big step in its evolution.

Following in the footsteps of the National Bike Summit — which takes place just blocks from Capitol Hill and the White House — the Oregon Bike Summit moves to Salem in 2009 with a focus on lobbying state lawmakers to pass bike-friendly legislation.

We had another great opportunity listed on the BikePortland Job Listings this week.

Learn more about it here:

Territory Sales Rep — EPGroup Inc.

The Institute for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation at Portland State University will host a week-long course on bicycle and pedestrian facility design and planning this summer.

Here’s the blurb:

“This week-long course will provide practitioners with the fundamentals of pedestrian and bicycle planning and design through an intensive week of classroom, field, and project experience. In addition, the course will integrate intersection design, transit access and connections, bridges, trail crossings, and other special features into the discussion…

…

Daily field tours (on foot and bike) will explore Portland’s “living laboratory” of bicycle and pedestrian facilities to provide first-hand experience of design and operations of facilities and projects discussed in the classroom. Week-long bike rentals are available for an additional fee. Please request the bike rental when registering for the workshop.”

More info on the course can be found on the IBPI’s website.

Slideshows: Mini Bike Winter and the Bicycle Belles

BTA urges action; “Transportation budget ignores bikes”

The Monday Roundup

Is a BMX track coming to Burnside and MLK?

Portland’s Safer Routes to Schools program faces 40% budget shortfall

Weekend Guide and Open Thread

Friday (2/20)

UPDATED State rep wants traffic fines based on vehicle weight

OTC delays funding decision, shows “cautious willingness” to consider non-highway projects

Mayor’s office releases new storm response survey after they “failed to consider bicycle transportation”

Fourth annual Oregon Bike Summit heads to Salem

Job of the Week

PSU will host summer course on bike and ped planning

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