🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
What has happened to Critical Mass in Portland?
A trailer has just been completed for a forthcoming documentary that will explore that question: A Post Critical Mass Portland: Living in a Post-Revolutionary Bicycle Age. You can watch it here:
A Post-Critical Mass Portland: Living in a Post-Revolutionary Bicycle Age from Joe Biel on Vimeo.
KBOO community radio is as much an institution in Portland as, well, bikes. The KBOO Bike Show been an essential component of bike-related media since its inception in October of 2001, airing interviews with major players in Portland’s bike evolution, and giving voice to all sides of the major issues of the day.
The Bike Show team was just told that the show is being cut back from a full hour to half an hour, effective immediately with their next show on March 4th*.
[According to a rep from KBOO, they were considering splitting the show into two, half-hour chunks, so there would still technically be an hour each month].
Greetings from Guadalajara! I am having an amazing time down here and I can’t wait to share more about my trip (I return to Portland on Monday afternoon).
On Sunday, I will join some new friends on the “Via Recreativa”. This is an event where 25 km of Guadalajara’s city streets are closed to motorized vehicles. It is what Sunday Parkways wants to be when it grows up.
“The bike community is very happy with the result.”
— James Koski, Deputy Chief of Staff for Earl Blumenauer
The Transportation Enhancements (TE) program is an important pot of cash doled out by the Federal Highway Administration that states can put toward bicycle and pedestrian projects. In Portland, TE funds have helped us create such popular bikeways as the Eastbank Esplanade, parts of the Springwater Corridor Trail, and the Fanno Creek Trail (in Tigard).
During negotiations on the recently passed federal economic stimulus, many national bike advocacy groups were very concerned that TE funding would not be part of the package. The League of American Bicyclists sent out a national action alert urging members to notify their representative in the U.S. Senate to make sure the program made it through.
The Zoobomb Badass Challenge
A signature event of Mini Bike Winter
A weekend-long festival of mini bike fun and carnage. You zoobomb until you can’t any more.
6pm at the Zoobomb Pile, SW 10th and Oak
Free Commuting Workshop at the Bike Farm
A one hour workshop to learn the rules of the road, traffic dynamics and essential bike handling techniques. A great first step towards bike commuting, as well as a way for intermediate commuters to learn more and share what they know. Led by Evan Ross, of Portland Bicycle Tours. Hosted by the Bike Farm, a local non-profit, bicycle tool library and learning resource. Free.
6:00pm Bike Farm, 305 NE Wygant St
TriMet is counting on about $60 million in federal cash as part of the stimulus bill. That slice of money cannot go to operations and must be spent on transit infrastructure and preventative maintenance projects.
TriMet’s list of projects under consideration for that funding currently totals about $127 million. To help Uncle Sam make up his mind about where to put the money, TriMet is encouraging folks to make public comments in support of projects they care about.
On that list is a project titled, Bike Parking Improvements. According to TriMet, the money would go toward:
We reported yesterday on a BBC article predicting the demise of Paris’s Vélib bicycle sharing program due to theft, vandalism, and increased costs.
Streetsblog has done some research of their own and discovered that the threat may not be so great as the BBC article makes it seem.
[NOTE: Streetsblog has a different perspective on this story. They say Velib corporate sponsor JCDecaux is manipulating this story in the media to their benefit. Read more here.]
Over half the original fleet of 15,000 specially made bicycles have disappeared, presumed stolen…vandalism and theft are taking their toll…The company which runs the scheme, JCDecaux, says it can no longer afford to operate the city-wide network.
— The BBC
Paris’ “Velib” bike-sharing system has been heralded as the most successful implementation of its kind in the world. Cities around the globe have pointed to success in Paris in order to justify their own bike-sharing systems. However, an article published Tuesday by the BBC reports that 18 months after its launch, Velib has hit a rough patch:
From the BBC:
“Over half the original fleet of 15,000 specially made bicycles have disappeared, presumed stolen. They have been used 42 million times since their introduction but vandalism and theft are taking their toll.”
The word is in — Phil Sano was found not guilty of resisting arrest on the night of June 10, 2008.
I got a voicemail from Phil at 2:18 saying “I’m free!” and that Phil plans to celebrate Mini Bike Winter with extra style this weekend.
We’ll keep you posted on Phil’s further exploits, and his planned civil suit.
For background on the incident and the trial: