Last Thursday Art Walk

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Alberta St. - Last Thursday Art Walk
Alberta St. - Last Thursday Art Walk
Alberta St. - Last Thursday Art Walk

Took my ladies out to Last Thursday on Alberta tonight. It was Danica’s big public debut…she slept the whole time. I love Alberta. Lots of funky, happy, beautiful people, lots of great art, and of course, lots of bikes and bikers. Ran into Carye of Red Bat Press fame. I love her woodcut prints…especially the bikey ones. Her “Everybody Bike” card is my new favorite. Hmmm, now I’m thinking of a BikePortland.org T-shirt design…

Somehow we always end up at the Clown House, watching their various antics. Eleni (my 2 1/2 yr old) is a big fan of Dingo the Clown. He’s sort of the ring-leader and he can usually be seen with his green chaps high atop his golden horse tall bike. I also met a clown on a tall unicycle named “Slim Chance.”

The amazing Sprockettes put in a performance, although regrettably I wasn’t their to see it…but I did snap a few photos of their small, pink bikes. I think the Sprockettes rule and I would be proud to see Eleni or Danica grow up to be one.

Shift Bike Bulletin: September

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Shift‘s monthly Bike Bulletin is an essential Portland bike event and ride listing. Instead of just having it sit in my inbox each month, I’ve decided to start posting it here on BikePortland.org. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to post more rides and events, so I’ll try this and see how it goes. I’m working on a more comprehensive, user-friendly event-listing system…but for now, this will serve as a quick-and-dirty shortcut.

So here it is. Get your calendar out, save these dates, and start planning for some major bike fun!

September 2005

Ride Portland’s Off-Street Bike Paths – I-205
Tuesday, August 30
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Shogren House, NE 62nd between Davis & Glisan
We’ll ride north (possibly all the way to Marine Drive).
Website for more info
Contact: 503.823.5266, linda.ginenthal@pdxtrans.org

Ride Portland’s Springwater on the Willamette
Wednesday, August 31
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Laurelhurst Park, SE 37th & Oak
Enjoy the newest of Portland’s linear parks.
Website for more info
Contact: 503.823.5266, linda.ginenthal@pdxtrans.org

Read more

Bikeway network signage

bikewaysignJust noticed this over at News4Neighbors:

    “The City of Portland was awarded a federal grant to develop a comprehensive signing system for Portland’s bikeways. For the past year we have been designing a signing system that will use two types of signs: destination signs and route confirmation signs and markings. We identified more than 70 destinations to which we would like to direct cyclists (Central City map and City-wide Map) (destinations shown in red). Destination signs will be placed at the intersections of all established bikeways and anywhere else a cyclist faces a decision point…We will finish up final sign design by the end of November and will then seek approval from the Oregon Department of Transportation to use these new signs. Assuming all goes well, we hope to install the signs by next winter.”

Read more about the signs and the status of the project on the City of Portland Office of Transportation website. They’ve also got links to sneak peaks of more of the signs (PDF) and informational kiosks that are in the works. Man, those guys are always up to something.

AP: Bikes keep Portlanders slim

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wapotimo

Local transportation advocate Linda Ginenthal (left), is featured in a just-released AP newswire story that details how Portland is a shining example of how bike-friendly cities keep people healthy. The story is a follow-up to a recent story about how Oregon is the only state to not show a rise in obesity rates.

Excerpt:

“What makes Oregon different is its emphasis on urban design, which encourages outdoor activities like biking to work, the study’s authors said….For Ginenthal, Portland’s layout has made it convenient for her to ride to work following a familiar path of arching trees. Moreover, her employer, the City of Portland, provides financial incentives, such as a $25 bonus each month for riding her bike to work at least 80 percent of the time.”

The story will now spread across the globe in a matter of hours. Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone at the City of Portland Transportation Options division…this is a nice feather in your cap for all the hard work you do.

Danica Agnes Maus

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Thanks to everyone for the kind emails and comments on the birth of my daughter.  Several folks have asked for photos and more details…so here goes:

Danica Agnes Maus (we call her Dani)
9lbs. 5oz. and 21" long

It was by far the most intense experience of my life.  The only thing I can even compare it to is the final laps of a long, hard crit…with a lap counter that seemed to never budge.

… and like bike racing, the reward far outweighs the effort…don’t you think?

Bike safety leadership workshops

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citylogo

The City of Portland Office of Transportation has just announced a series of Bike Safety Leadership Workshops coming directly to your neighborhood. The Workshops will include:

  • a presentation about bicycle safety (including bike crash map information)
  • a bicycle ride to locations emblematic of issues related to bicycle safety in the district
  • a re-group for a discussion about some of the more challenging questions (e.g., how do we respond as a community after a fatality? how do neighborhoods better access Transportation or Police services? etc).

The idea is to build a bicycle safety group in each neighborhood that has a common understanding of bike safety issues and to enable a bicycle liaison in the Police precincts.

The schedule for the Workshops is:

If you have any questions contact Greg Raisman at the Portland Office of Transportation, (503) 823-1052 or email Greg.Raisman [@] pdxtrans.org

French bike rental system shows promise

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lyonbikerental

Just reported on Wired.com is a new program in Lyon, France that may be of interest here in Portland (photo on left). This well-designed and high tech rent-a-bike system seems to be a major improvement on the old “Yellow Bike” program. It simply requires a credit card to “check out” a bike. The fee is $1.20 per hour and the first :30 minutes are free.

So far the system is doing quite well:

In just three months, the program has signed up 15,000 subscribers who take 4,000 trips a day and travel over 24,800 miles a week on 2,000 public bikes at 150 bike stations.

Read the full article here.

Several other cities (including Amsterdam) are interested in this new system and have already sent delegations to check it out. So…which lucky city employee is going to fly to Lyon?

Weekend media roundup

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Been a ton of bike-related articles in the news lately so I thought I’d just put them all in one post.

The August 19th issue of the Portland Business Journal did an in-depth piece called, A passion for pedaling: Commuters switch gears, turn to bikes for transportation. The article focused on everything from Molly Cameron, owner of Veloshop to the Bike Commute Challenge and quotes from all the usual suspects. Great to see a Biz Journal devote so much space to the bike scene. The headline alone will make people think.

This week’s Portland Mercury noticed BikePortland.org and your “close call” submissions in their “In Other News…” section (scroll down).

The Willamette Week printed a few more bike-related letters in their current issue, including one from the ever-vigilant and hard-working Jessica Roberts of the BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance).

And of course, I can’t leave out the Oregonian’s Metro section front page story on bike safety. Staff writer Harry Esteve, did a solid job presenting the facts behind the bike safety issue. He also took the time to talk to a bunch of folks in the bike community to make sure he got the full story.

And finally, this interesting story from today’s San Francisco Chronicle. It covers the parallel rise of SF’s creative bike culture crowd with the more formal advocacy crowd. What really struck me were the similarities between their bike scene and ours here in Portland. Just substitute “San Francisco” for “Portland” and “the San Francisco Bike Coalition” with “the BTA”. I especially like the headline: Wheels of revolution turning toward cheap, friendly transit.

First look: Trek’s new “Portland”

trek \"Portland\"

As you may remember from a comment to a previous post, Trek Bicycles is planning on a new bike model for 2006 called the “Portland”. This last weekend, Trek held its annual dealer-only show and photos of this new bike are just now starting to show up on web forums.

I was hoping for more of a city/urban warrior type of bike, but it looks like Trek decided to make the Portland a winter training bike for racing enthusiasts. It also looks like it would easily double as a cyclocross bike just by adding some knobby tires.

Either way, it’s pretty cool that the largest bike brand in the world has been duly inspired to name a bike after us.

In other news, I have recently heard that some movers and shakers in the local bicycle industry are meeting to discuss the feasibility of a home-grown bike brand. This potential new bike company would specialize in commuter and city bikes and would leverage Portland’s bike-friendly reputation in its marketing plan.

[Thanks for the tip David! Photo taken from a post to the forums at RoadBikeReview.com by “unclefuzzy_ss”]

Interactive bike crash maps

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I recently posted about the City of Portland’s work on an exciting mapping project that combines our bike routes with an interactive, web-based map. I have also heard from many of you about your close calls with motorists.

The next step will be to integrate the close-call data with an interactive map. This map would instruct the city on where to focus their bicycle infrastructure budget, it would be a useful tool to highlight problem areas for advocacy groups and the police and it would also help cyclists choose the safest routes through the city.

To get an idea of how this “crash reporting map” might look, I just came across this nifty map reporting bike crashes in Sussex County Delaware.

New York City transportation advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives also has a cool bike crash mapping system called CrashStat that offers loads of valuable information like the top 10 crash locations and an injury/fatality trend map.

Besides being a useful tool for our community, an online bike crash map would encourage more cyclists to report incidents that currently go unreported. Stay tuned for more details and your chance to get involved with this effort.

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From the Archives

The good, the bad, and the ugly on the Oregon Coast Bike Route