4/25: Hello readers and friends. I'm still recovering from a surgery I had on 4/11, so I'm unable to attend events and do typical coverage. See this post for the latest update. I'll work as I can and I'm improving every day! Thanks for all your support 🙏. - Jonathan Maus, BikePortland Publisher and Editor
I’m trying to justify an article I just read in The Oregonian with what I saw on a ride through Portland Sunday. And I can’t do it.
In the past few days I’ve heard from two readers concerned that a ghost bike in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood would be removed by the City of Portland. “I know there is a ton going on right now and this probably not high on most everyone’s list of important things,” the reader shared. “But it is a memorial.”
Ghost bikes are memorials that spring up at intersections after a bicycle rider is involved in a fatal traffic crash. They’re meant to remind the community of the tragedy and encourage people to use streets with greater awareness of the deadly consequences that could result from their actions.
The ghost bike on Southeast Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Gladstone was installed for 22-year-old Mark Angeles. In May 2015, Angeles was biking on Gladstone and died after he collided with the driver of a truck as he attempted to turn onto Cesar Chavez.
Map of bike shop statuses during the COVID-19 outbreak created by Chris King Precision Components and Portland Design Works
Despite a majority of Metro Council expressing concerns about the future of a nearly $800 million project that will expand the I-5 freeway through the Rose Quarter, only two out of seven members voted against giving the Oregon Department of Transportation $129 million to continue working on it.
The 5-2 vote came at a meeting just hours after the Oregon Transportation Commission gave ODOT permission to move forward with the project without the rigorous environmental analysis called for by hundreds of Portlanders, many organizations and key local elected officials including Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly. On the Metro Council agenda was a resolution to greenlight funding that allows ODOT to do two things: Purchase “right-of-way” parcels in the Rose Quarter where they’ll stage future construction equipment; and continue to pay expenses related to project development, outreach and preliminary engineering, and so on. (It’s the same funding passed by a Metro advisory committee last week.
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Part two of a three-part series written by Rebecca Small and Shawn Small. See full series here.
We continue with another timely article that’s tailor-made for Portland bike businesses. On Wednesday we explained how to navigate the system and find unemployment benefits. Today we’ll share the latest links and advice for how to manage cashflow and maintain your workforce.
If you think it’s hard to comply with social distancing guidelines on narrow sidewalks and bike lanes in Portland, you should try doing it on singletrack trails in Forest Park.
But that hasn’t stopped the City of Portland from keeping the much-loved urban park open.
While trails in the Columbia River Gorge and elsewhere throughout Oregon are closed — and the Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau has opted to close basketball courts, skateparks and roads around 10 other local parks in an effort to discourage use and help people maintain their distance, Forest Park has avoided closures thus far.
I’ve biked through the park several times recently and the parking lots have been very crowded. It got me wondering; if the Parks Bureau has closed basketball courts and skateparks, why would they keep Forest Park trails open while they continue to attract such large crowds? I was also curious how it’s physically possible to maintain a six-foot passing distance on trails in heavily forested areas that are just 18 to 30-inches wide.
I put my questions to two people: Portland Parks Media Relations Director Mark Ross and Forest Park Conservancy Executive Director Renée Myers.
Chris Smith is outraged by what just happened.
The Portland Planning & Sustainability Commissioner member, transportation activist, and Metro Council candidate watched this morning as the unelected, five-member Oregon Transportation Commission brushed aside considerable concerns about the I-5 Rose Quarter project and voted unanimously to let the Oregon Department of Transportation move forward without any further objective analysis.
In response, Smith wants to strip the OTC of its powers to oversee urban highways. Here’s the statement he just shared with us:
The oversight body for the Oregon Department of Transportation has given the agency permission to move forward on their $715 million I-5 Rose Quarter project without doing more rigorous and independent analysis of its environmental and community impacts.
In a 5-0 vote taken on a meeting held over the phone today, Oregon Transportation Commission Chair Robert Van Brocklin said he was satisfied with steps taken by ODOT thus far and that, “I just don’t find the basis in the record to change to an EIS [Environmental Impact Statement].”
At issue was whether ODOT should be required to perform an EIS or stick with their already completed Environmental Assessment. Both processes are part of the US Federal Highway Administration National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). ODOT completed an EA last February, a step required to determine whether or not a project will have significant impacts.
With their vote today, the OTC has swept aside serious concerns and calls for an EIS by many regional elected leaders and organizations, and thousands of Portlanders who oppose the project. In the past two weeks alone, the group No More Freeways says over 350 people submitted public comment calling for an EIS. Last spring a comment period led to over 2,000 public omments, 89% of which were in opposition to the project.
While all the attention at today’s Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) meeting will be on the I-5 Rose Quarter Project, there’s another highway expansion mega-project that will take an important step forward.
The OTC is expected to give the Oregon Department of Transportation permission to enter into an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the Washington Department of Transportation that will lay the groundwork for cooperation on a project to replace the I-5 bridges over the Columbia River. This is a resurrection of the ill-fated Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project that came crashing down in 2013 after the Washington legislature backed out of their funding commitments.
But since massive highway expansion projects are the air that keep state transportation agencies alive, after spending eight years and over $200 million the first time around, Oregon and Washington are eager to try again.
A three-part series written by Rebecca Small and Shawn Small. See the rest of the guides here.
Uncertainty is hardly a new sensation for small business owners. Throw in a pandemic, a statewide lockdown, and implosion of the national economy and our local entrepreneurs find themselves facing previously unknown levels of apprehension and sleepless nights. Lately it may seem like there are a million possible wrong choices.
Every one of the nearly 100 different bike-related business in Portland, from the biggest bike shop in town to a self-employed bike fitter, falls into the category of a “small business” – by definition, a company with fewer than 500 people. Most are much smaller: 9 out of 10 businesses in Oregon have fewer than 20 employees. Despite their size, they employ 55% of the state’s workers. They are critical economic engines of our community.
