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
One major reason our roads are so dangerous is because our system does not keep dangerous people from using them.
The man who was convicted for killing Mitch York while he straddled his bicycle on the St. Johns Bridge in October 2016 was arrested again in January. He then boasted about his driving skills on his Facebook page about being in a high-speed car chase with the Portland Police Bureau.
“So yeah any way, got into a high-speed chase 140mph [sic] with Multnomah county’s finest down division the other morning,” reads a post from Joel Schrantz posted January 23rd, 2024. “They spiked stripped me twice, that’s cheating. It used to be about if they could catch you or not, who was the better driver, not anymore.”
It seems nothing will prevent Schrantz from wantonly dangerous driving: Not the threat of legal consequences; not admonishments from judges; not his Facebook friends (none of whom expressed concern for his post, and six of whom replied with a “Haha” emoji); not even killing an innocent person.
Schrantz was sentenced to 42 months in prison on May 17th, 2017. In the courtroom that day prosecutors explained how he’d been driving without a valid license for 25 years and had not paid the 40 traffic citations that had piled up on his record. Just two years prior, Schrantz was convicted of hit-and-run. During that case a judge warned Schrantz, “He needed to stop driving or he was going to kill someone.”
He didn’t stop driving. Then he killed Mitch York.
Then on January 21st of this year, Schrantz, now 49, was caught yet again driving recklessly around innocent people. The Portland Police Bureau arrested him following the aforementioned car chase and he was slapped with five charges: attempt to elude by vehicle, reckless driving, attempt to elude on foot, escape in the third degree and intent to deliver methamphetamine.
According to court records, Schrantz appeared in front of a judge on April 18th. But due to lack of an attorney his case was dismissed (along with 26 others). The Multnomah County District Attorney’s office has called this lack of public defenders “an urgent threat to public safety.”
Schrantz’s case was dismissed “without prejudice” meaning the judge didn’t rule on the merits of the charges. Technically, this means he could face a court date in the future if/when an attorney can be provided for him. But with hundreds (thousands?) of cases impacted by the lack of public defenders, it’s hard to say when — or if — that would ever happen.
Multnomah County DA’s Office Communications Director Liz Merah told BikePortland they plan to bring this case back to court, “In the near future.” “And we certainly hope that the court will appoint counsel if/when we get to arraignment.”
I-5 running under NE Broadway and Weidler through the Rose Quarter. (Google Earth)
If you’re new to the I-5 Rose Quarter project and never looked too far beyond recent headlines or press releases, you’d think it was a community redevelopment project that will build a highway cover, restore a vibrant community, and add a bunch of new bike facilities to surface streets.
But the thrust of the $1.9 billion project from the get-go, and still it’s most expensive element, is something Oregon Department of Transportation officials and other project partners hardly ever mention these days: A significant expansion of I-5 and new freeway lanes between I-84 and I-405 that will exacerbate many of the same community wounds the recent $450 million federal grant aims to heal.
This week a coalition of nonprofit organizations emerged once again to remind ODOT of this inconvenient truth and filed of another lawsuit against their Rose Quarter project. Led by ODOT’s most persistent nemesis No More Freeways, the four other plaintiffs on the suit are Neighbors for Clean Air, Oregon and SW Washington Families for Safe Streets, BikeLoud PDX, and the Eliot Neighborhood Association.
They claim ODOT is not in compliance with city and regional planning documents — specifically the Portland Central City Plan and Comprehensive Plan and Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan. The 15-page complaint (read it below) filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court May 10th calls out ODOT’s failure to comply with Portland’s Central City Plan, which calls for congestion pricing to be implemented in conjunction with any project that seeks to expand I-5 through the Rose Quarter. “No such plans or analyses of congestion pricing or TDM options were included in ODOT’s final Rose Quarter I-5 project as adopted, nor were such analyses included in the project’s published Environmental Assessment, nor were such inconsistencies discussed in ODOT’s findings on supposed compatibility,” reads the complaint.
Litigants also claim ODOT is running afoul of Metro’s RTP, which states that before any road authority adds new capacity or lanes, “agencies must demonstrate that system and demand management strategies, including access management, transit and freight priority, pricing, transit service, and multimodal connectivity improvements cannot adequately address identified needs.” The complainants state in the lawsuit that, “ODOT has not demonstrated whether any of the listed alternative improvements would be incapable of addressing any identified congestion issues.”
This is the third time No More Freeways has joined with some of these litigants on a lawsuit against ODOT and this project. In two separate lawsuits filed in 2021 they claimed ODOT failed to adhere to federal environmental law and that the plan to expand the freeway ran afoul of the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan. Both those suits were withdrawn in 2022 when Federal Highway Administration officials told ODOT to go back to the drawing board and do more environmental assessments.
This new lawsuit that ODOT’s proposal still fails to comply with the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan as well as Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan, citing numerous specific details of the proposed expansion that litigants say are, “demonstrably out of alignment with the city’s tentative approval of the expansion back in 2012.”
While ODOT has maintained their freeway work isn’t technically an expansion or that it will add new lanes — preferring more politically innocuous terms like “auxiliary” or “ramp-to-ramp” lanes or the phrase they used in a meeting today, “safety and operational improvements in the areas underneath the highway cover” — No More Freeways and their partner groups see it differently. City Observatory, a website run by economist Joe Cortright, a co-founder of No More Freeways, maintains ODOT is hiding a wolf in sheep’s clothing and their true intent is to double or triple the width of the freeway and make it wide enough to include ten lanes. That would be “in direct contradiction of the city’s formally adopted climate, transportation and lane use plans,” according to a press release from No More Freeways released today.
ODOT drawing obtained via public records request by City Observatory (red annotations by City Observatory).
“It’s absurd for ODOT to claim that their proposed $1.9 billion 10-lane highway is in compliance with the city’s existing plans,” said No More Freeways co-founder Chris Smith. “We filed this lawsuit because state law requires ODOT to follow the city’s clean air and climate goals. ODOT shouldn’t be allowed to advance a project that brazenly violates the city’s adopted plans.”
And Allan Rudwick, chair of the Eliot Neighborhood Association’s Land Use and Transportation Committee added, “The Eliot Neighborhood needs more homes, not more highways. Routing lots of extra traffic onto our roads may put a damper on this revitalization for another century and we continue to oppose ODOT’s road-widening project.”
Nakisha Nathan with Neighbors for Clean Air said she’s joining the lawsuit because ODOT’s freeway plans “would significantly pollute the air in the Albina neighborhood and actively harm the health and well being of North Portland residents.”
For road safety advocate Michelle DuBarry, ODOT’s investment in a wider freeway to increase driving capacity flies in the face of more urgent needs like improving crossings of local streets similar to the one where her 22-month-old son was killed in 2010. “ODOT has continued to prioritize investment in endless freeway expansion instead of targeting improvements to streets like North Lombard, where my son was killed,” DuBarry said in the statement.
This lawsuit and accompanying critiques of the I-5 Rose Quarter project create dissonance in the community. On one hand we have Albina Vision Trust and ODOT’s Historic Albina Advisory Board (made up of Black residents with ties to the neighborhoods destroyed by construction of I-5 in the 1960s) who are eager to start the project and are forging ever stronger ties to ODOT to make it happen. And on the other hand you’ve got the No More Freeways coalition and many local transportation reform advocates who remain appalled by the freeway expansion elements and want to, “Construct the caps. Lose the lanes.”
Whether or not the freeway expansion can be decoupled from the highway caps and surface street elements of the project, depends on who you ask. A clear ruling from a judge about whether the expansion is even legal would help settle the debate.
Crossing SW Farmington Road is often a leap of faith. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Riding a bike in Beaverton can be a treasure hunt. I typically use Google Maps, Strava, and local friends’ knowledge to sleuth out safe routes on park paths, cut-throughs, and neighborhood streets to avoid major roads like Tualatin-Valley Highway or Murray Road. Cut left behind the mailbox between two houses, cross a footbridge, and you’re there! Riding a bike in Beaverton can also be a terrifying game of Frogger, where I leap across five- and six-lane roads like Farmington or Canyon, and hope I’m not flattened.
But with a series of plans coming over the next few years, that might change. The City of Beaverton is updating their Transportation System Plan (TSP) for the first time since 2010. What is a Transportation System Plan? It’s a long-range plan required by the State of Oregon, which has told cities and counties they must reduce vehicle miles traveled. It lays out the city’s transportation priorities for all road users. In theory, it will cover planning and investments, as well as what to do and how to pay for it.
According to Beaverton Senior Transportation Planner Jessica Engelmann, the “Go Beaverton” project has been about two years in the making, and has two-and-a-half years to go. Engelmann said the city wants to hear from a wide swath of the city — from families, retirees, business owners, drivers, cyclists, and students. “Transportation decisions affect everyone in our community,” Englemann shared in an email to BikePortland last week. “From the little kid who would like to ride their bike to their friend’s house to the 50-year-old business owner who depends on customers visiting their business, to the 85-year-old elder who wants to continue to live independently.”
The City of Beaverton has secured funding, a consultant team, and community volunteers to serve as advisors (a Community Advisory Committee or CAC) and a new team of transportation ambassadors. The ambassadors were appointed by Beaverton’s City Manager in February. Although the ambassadors haven’t met yet, they have ambitious goals to connect with friends and neighbors and find out what they think about transportation issues in the city.
Beaverton adopted a complete streets policy in 2023 that defines rules and guidelines for making streets welcoming for all users. These efforts align with the State of Oregon’s Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities rules for transportation planning. Beaverton’s TSP update will include many other agencies and voices as part of a Technical Advisory Committee or TAC, such as ODOT (which owns major thoroughfares like TV Highway), Washington County, TriMet, Tualatin Hills Parks & Recreation District, Beaverton School District, and others.
It all sounds fabulous and hopeful on paper. It has all the right buzzwords, and I’ve heard the transportation ambassadors have been assigned the book, Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck (a great book by the way). But what will it really mean, on the ground when/if the policies and projects are implemented? While I’d love to see Dutch-style protected and connected bike and pedestrian infrastructure spring up out of the bike lane paint stripes on Murray Road, I’m skeptical. In a car-centric suburban city like Beaverton, where will the money come from to make these changes? Will real change even happen?
Engelmann, who’s leading the TSP update project, thinks so. “The City’s Transportation System Plan, at its core, is a policy and investment plan for the next 20 years. It will consider transportation revenue sources the City expects to have, both over the short and long term. It will also consider what it would cost to program and build the transportation system the community desires.”
Imagine a future rebuild of a current major road like Cedar Hills Blvd between Walker Road and TV Highway. It’s currently five lanes general traffic lanes with lots of shopping and restaurants, and a patchwork of bike lanes—which are only paint and have fast-moving cars, trucks, and buses roaring by inches away. (I mostly ride the sidewalk there and yield to pedestrians.) When it comes time to decide between reducing traffic lanes, or removing space (sometimes landscaping) from business parking lots to create protected bike lanes, or staying with the status quo —what will we decide in the future?
Engelmann says, “That’s for the community to discuss and City Council to decide. [Future projects] could happen in a multitude of ways that we will explore as the plan progresses. Among several things, it could include exploring new sustainable revenue sources, restructuring city processes to better align with the plan’s vision and goals, or leveraging community resources to go after additional funds. Underpinning any of these actions requires a shared understanding of what the City is working toward and clearly articulating the City’s priorities.”
In other words, we’ll explore all kinds of options to come up with funding, and whoever’s on City Council at the time will need to be on board.
I hope we get this right. All of us who live, bike, or walk in Beaverton can see the result of decades of car-centric infrastructure — when we cross Cedar Hills Blvd or Jenkins Road on foot or bike and feel our blood pressure rise until we make it to the other side in one piece. I hope the city can produce ambitious projects that match their words and I’m eager to follow this project. For more information on the TSP update, check out the project website and stay tuned for more reporting from Washington County.
Tina Ricks writes for BikePortland about transportation policy across Washington County. She lives in Bethany and rides her bike around the county. Have a tip about Washington County transportation? Email tinaricksbikes@gmail.com.
Got an idea to encourage folks to put their damn phones down? ODOT might fund it! (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
If you have an idea for a road safety project or program, the State of Oregon wants to help make it a reality.
The other day a source at a local government agency forwarded me an email from the Oregon Department of Transportation about a grant solicitation. There was no link to a website and a few key details were missing, but the email piqued my interest because it appeared to be an open-ended request for road safety project ideas — and most importantly — a promise to fund the best ones. Since I know many of you care about saving lives, I found a contact name and fired off a few questions.
What I’ve learned is that ODOT’s Transportation Safety Office (TSO) has launched a new, annual safety grant program. This is the first time TSO has administered this grant, and the timeline is crunched this year. Applications are due by June 15th!
ODOT TSO has 19 different grant funding sources, all of which have different eligibility criteria. Instead of having to navigate those options, this new approach will make it simpler for community members and organizations to tap into federal and state funds. If you have an idea, simply fill out the Funding Opportunity document (the application) below and then the staff at TSO will determine which the the best funding source for your particular project.
When I asked about the cost range of successful project, the ODOT source replied, “Go for the moon and see where it sticks!”
If you apply, ODOT TSO says you should keep these points in mind:
ODOT’s 5-year Transportation Safety Action Plan (TSAP) outline the individual programs, problems identified, and strategies encouraged to be used to rectify the transportation safety problem.
All grant projects that are approved must be data-driven; so include data that supports your problem identification (that you want to solve).
For ‘proven countermeasures,’ per program area (DUII; Bike/Ped; Distracted Driving, etc.) please also see this NHTSA publication.
You can submit as many individual Funding Opportunity requests as you’d like.
The projected grant year is October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025 for federal funds; and July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 for state funds.
All applications will be reviewed and scored by a committee a traffic safety professionals.
TSO is specifically interested in proposals that address safe road user behaviors and education and outreach for the following topics:
Aging Road Users
Community-based transportation safety programs (and programs that reach underserved communities)
Distracted Driving
Driver Education (teens)
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and public health partnerships
Impaired driving (alcohol and/or drugs)
Motorcycle Safety
Occupant Protection (seat belts and child safety seats)
Pedestrian and/or Bicyclist safety
Preventing roadside deaths or injuries of first responders, stranded motor vehicle drivers, and others
Protecting children and others from risks related to being left unattended in a motor vehicle
Roadway Safety and Work Zone Safety
Speeding and Aggressive Driving
Traffic Law Enforcement and/or Judicial programs
Traffic Records (traffic safety research studies and improved data collection, dissemination, and access)
Vehicle Equipment Safety Standards
Projects that include proven countermeasure strategies or that introduce innovative ideas or best practices with measurable outcomes are encouraged, as are programs that foster collaboration among community resources.
From here on out, TSO will solicit applications every February.
All submissions for the coming grant cycle must be submitted to TSO via TSOGrantApp@odot.oregon.gov on or before June 15, 2024. It can also be mailed directly to TSO at 1905 Lana Ave NE, Salem, OR 97314.
Scenes from our anniversary celebration on 4/17: Dan Kaufman on the Boom Bike, me trying a lowrider from PDX Vintage Bikes, and Free Fries at Four fans on the patio. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Just a quick check-in about Bike Happy Hour. In case you’ve missed a few weeks, we are now back on the Gorges Beer Co patio after a long, dark, and cold winter across the street in the plaza in front of Ankeny Tap & Table.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved gathering in the plaza under dim lights, huddled together with bike-minded friends old and new. And I’m so grateful for all you regulars who sustained BHH through winter — and through our entire first year. You showed up rain-or-shine and we’re all stronger together because of it.
Speaking of our first year, when I left town suddenly after our First Anniversary Celebration on April 17th, I never said a proper “thank you.”
This week should be more great patio weather and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you. We’ll have Free Fries at Four (please contribute to the Fry Fund to keep this tradition going) and open mic at 5:00.
Next week, May 22nd will be our annual Bike T-Shirt night, so start thinking about which special tee you want to wear and share. And the following week, May 29th, we’ll be joined by PBOT’s annual bike count program manager Sean Doyle. He’ll tell us all about the counts and will encourage you to sign up to be a volunteer.
Remember, we meet every Wednesday from 3-6:00 pm on the Gorges Beer Co. patio on carfree Ankeny Rainbow Road (at SE 27th). Be sure to tip your servers well, meet someone new, and don’t forget your name cards!
Existing conditions on Sandy Blvd are… not great. (Jonathan Maus – BikePortland)
Tonight’s event flyer.
A key section of Sandy Boulevard has big potential to improve Portland’s transportation system — especially if it can be redesigned to meet a latent demand for cycling.
That’s one of the takeaways from a report made public last month by a group of Portland State University graduate students. The Future Sandy Existing Conditions report was prepared by Strategic Minds Consulting Group as part of a project for PSU’s Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program. Students Afroza Hossain Misty, Anchal Cheruvari, Heather Rector, Holly Querin, Katelyn Dendas, and Symeon Walker are working with local nonprofit BikeLoud PDX to investigate the potential of adding a major bikeway to Sandy when it gets repaved by the Portland Bureau of Transportation in 2026. (You might recall that several of these students came to Bike Happy Hour on April 10th to garner feedback.)
In a bid to fortify their advocacy push for a bikeway on Sandy Blvd, BikeLoud PDX submitted an application to PSU back in November and the project was chosen for the “MURP workshop”. According to PSU, that program, “is intended to give our students hands-on experience in conceiving, planning, and implementing a community-based planning project in close consultation with a committed client/partner.”
This existing conditions report is the first product of the student’s partnership with BikeLoud.
Intersection of Burnside, Sandy, and 12th Avenue, 1943. Source: Portland VintageMap of streetcar service in Portland, 1912. Source: Portland Bureau of Transportation (Strategic Minds Consulting Group)(Strategic Minds Consulting Group)From Future Sandy Existing Conditions, Strategic Minds Consulting Group
BikeLoud feels the upcoming PBOT repaving project is “an important opportunity to reconfigure the street.” As we’ve reported, Sandy’s flat, direct, diagonal alignment makes it a very seductive short-cut to many important destinations, but it lacks dedicated bicycle infrastructure and most riders don’t feel like the safety risk is worth the time savings.
Strategic Minds Consulting Group hasn’t completed their full report that will offer recommendations on more detailed insights, but the existing conditions report validates BikeLoud’s vision. “The study area’s population density combined with the mixture of commercial development and (mostly renter-occupied) housing along the corridor make it well-suited for investments in transit, walking, and biking,” reads the report.
Here are more of their key takeaways:
Sandy Boulevard has taken many forms through the years and is again poised to change as the number of multifamily and mixed-use developments increase along the corridor.
The median household income of the study area is noticeably lower than the median income of the city as a whole, reflecting a need for low-cost transportation options to serve the community.
Sandy Boulevard is estimated to have a high latent demand for cycling due to its diagonal nature but currently lacks cycling infrastructure, which is misaligned with the corridor’s designation as a Major City Bikeway.
The city and region’s current plans and policies support the transformation of the corridor into one that prioritizes active transportation and transit usage in order to meet goals related to climate change mitigation, safety improvements, environmental health, and quality of life.
PSU MURP student Holly Querin and other members of Strategic Minds Consulting Group at Bike Happy Hour last month. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The students’ fresh eyes on Sandy also validate a lot of what many veteran Portland bicycle riders have known for many years:
“Unless they choose to bike within the travel lanes on Sandy, cyclists currently must zig-zag along the bike network to move southwest to northeast… Even when following the bike routes, gaps in the bike network create a confusing and stressful experience when biking.”
Not only is Sandy “confusing and stressful” for cyclists, it’s current design caters only to car users. And when bicycle users try to avoid it they incur an unfair time and distance penalty.
Strategic Minds believes increasing housing and commercial density along the corridor are another factor that should point toward a bike-centric future for Sandy.
“The city and region’s Vision Zero goals, modal hierarchy, and climate goals support the need to move the corridor away from dominant automobile use and toward active transportation and transit,” the report concludes.
Meet the students and learn more about their Future Sandy project at an hopen house tonight (Monday, May 13th) from 5:30 to 7:00 pm at The Village Free School (1785 NE Sandy Blvd).
Megan Ramey is doing so many cool things to make bicycling better in Hood River it was hard to decide on just one way to introduce her when we connected for an online interview this past Thursday.
The main hat she wears is Safe Routes to School program manager for Hood River County. But if you’ve followed her on X or Instagram, you’ll know she’s up to all sorts of cool stuff — from lobbying for e-bike legislation and donating free used bikes, to leading afterschool bike clubs and getting grants for demonstration projects.
During our conversation, Megan shared:
how she first got involved in transportation reform advocacy,
how raising a daughter sharpened her appetite for safe streets work,
what a typical week is like for her,
how some folks have the wrong impression about the type of families who call Hood River County home,
what she’ll do with a recent $25,000 federal safety grant,
why she started afterschool bike clubs for elementary school kids and the impact it has had on them,
what music is most often requested for the ride playlists these days,
and more!
Listen and/or watch via YouTube in the player above. And stay tuned for the audio-only version that will hit our podcast later today.
Ghost bike procession of walkers and bikers through streets of Hillsboro Saturday. (Noah Langenwalter – Ride Westside)
I have been crushed to know that our worst nightmares are another family’s reality.
Community members, city leaders (including Hillsboro Mayor Steve Callaway and City Councilor Beach Pace), safe streets advocates, family and friends gathered for a memorial event on Saturday in remembrance of the life and loss of 12-year-old Joseph Brausen.
Joe was killed while riding his bike to the playground to play basketball on February 10th. The memorial ride and walk took the path he intended to travel, and delivered his ghost bike to the basketball courts – “the ride Joe didn’t get to finish” — then returned to the spot where he was killed to install the ghost bike in his memory.
The week leading up to the memorial was painful, as we prepared to face this loss in the place it happened. (How much more so for Joe’s family?!) Both my son and I were having terrible nightmares. I dreamed my son had been hit by a car and that I had to find his body on the side of the road. A few days later, my son told me he had had the worst nightmare of his life. I expected monsters and villains, but he dreamed I was killed on my bike. He was trying to help me, but didn’t know how and couldn’t find anyone to help him.
Our nightmares were our fears and our empathy. Though I have tried to shove the sleep-stealing terrors out of mind, I have been crushed to know that our worst nightmares are another family’s reality. And what comfort can we give to them or to each other?
(Shannon Johnson – BikePortland)The author speaking to an assembled crowd on SE 10th Avenue in Hillsboro. (Noah Langenwalter – Ride Westside)(Shannon Johnson – BikePortland)
It is not enough comfort, and it is not what any of us want, but gathering to remember Joe and installing a ghost bike for him was one thing we could do. The all-white painted bike was moving, beautiful and terrible. I had never connected with the ghost bike tradition until this moment, but immediately I saw the power of it. Seeing the angel-white bike, without its rider, immediately brought me to tears. It told the story. And it hurt. I suppose it must.
I’m so thankful to all those who stepped up to create this event, including Noah Langenwalter and other members of Ride Westside, to all those who attended, and to the Brausen family who let us into their lives to share their grief.
Sometimes a traffic fatality gets only a one-paragraph mention, or a brief gape from the nightly news, then drifts away without further thought. I have a few such traffic deaths in mind, where I couldn’t find any organized memorial to attend, nor any follow-up news reports with important details. It often seems like these tragedies simply disappear — out of sight, out of mind, gone. It has added to my grief, that my grief had no outlet. And I have grieved to think the bereaved families in my community could understandably feel abandoned and forgotten, uncared for by their neighbors and peers.
This memorial gave our whole community the opportunity to stand beside the Brausen family, to cry together, and assure them that we have not forgotten.
It’s clear why folks get so passionate about safe streets. They know what it means. They know the stakes. They know the cost. They know they never want to attend another ghost bike memorial. To never have occasion to paint another bike white.
And so, many of us will be working in Joe’s memory, and for every kid on a bike, to fight for their right to ride safely to the park to play, and to come home again in time for dinner. I’m so sorry we did not achieve that safe ride, safe route, and safe homecoming in time for Joe and his family. That’s really what I want to give them: safe streets, so that every kid comes home.
Below is the text of the speech I shared at the event:
Sharing words as Joe’s parents look on. (Noah Langenwalter – Ride Westside)
Hello everyone. Thank you for coming today, most especially to the Brausen family: I’m grateful that you are here with us, and that we get to come out and surround you with our love and support – as many of us have longed to do – but I must say, I truly wish we did not have occasion to be here today. I wish that instead of doing a memorial ride, we could just be out for a ride, and that instead of installing a ghost bike, we could wave at a boy on his bicycle, riding to the park to play basketball. I admit, part of me didn’t want to come at all, because the thing I want most in the world, as a mother, is to give back the boy to the mother who lost him, and I know we can’t do that.
But I did come. We have all come. To bear witness and share our deep regret and grief over the loss of a child, a loved one. Some of us have come without knowing Joe or his family, but we want them to know: we see you. We stand beside you. And we are crying too. We are so sorry for your loss, which is also a loss to all of us, both the loss of your Joe, and with him, a sense of loss of the innocence that should accompany every child who is out riding a bicycle.
I am a mother. I also have a boy who rides his bike, on his own, to the park. And that should not be a mortal danger. All kids should be able to ride their bikes to the park, to do so safely, to do so with the whole community watching out for their safety, prioritizing their safety, ensuring their safety. That is the kind of community we want to live in, and today we grieve that we have not achieved that in time to protect the life and safety of Joe Brausen.
(Noah Langenwalter – Ride Westside)
To remember Joe, we are putting up this ghost bike in his memory. A ghost bike serves as a reminder to all who pass by: a life was lost here, in this spot, while riding a bicycle. Like any memorial, a ghost bike honors the loss and is a reminder of the grief, which the family continues to bear. But a ghost bike is also an important reminder for our whole community of our shared responsibility to keep each other safe as we travel. It is a stark reminder to drivers to slow down and pay attention, to look for pedestrians and cyclists and children–to see them!–and to drive with caution and care for others above self. It is a reminder to transportation planners and government leaders that we need safer infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. It is a reminder to police officers that we need strong traffic enforcement, especially against speeding and distracted driving. But most of all, it is a reminder that Joe Brausen is missing from among us, and we are missing him.
Thank you to everyone who helped create this memorial and to all of you for coming.
Today, we have come to put up his ghost bike, to remember Joe and to say to his family that we remember and we honor your loss and we grieve beside you. Joe Brausen, you are greatly missed. You will not be forgotten.
Like probably a lot of readers, I had my head in my hands as I waded through last Friday’s post about the funding shortfalls the Oregon Department of Transportation faces with its I-5 Rose Quarter expansion and the I-205 Abernethy Bridge projects.
What is it about the words millions and billions that befuddle everything?
But maybe it’s not actually the numbers that cause the confusion, maybe it’s the looking under the cushions for quarters (or billions of quarters) aspect to the story that is so disorienting. In either case, I appreciated the clarity that JaredO’s comment brought to the issue:
This is the Robert Moses approach.
Promise the world. Pretend it’s going to be cheap. Lie outright to legislators to fund it. (Bent Flyvbjerg has documented this across the world).
Get something started, be shocked – shocked! that it costs more than you claimed, then make everyone feel like it would be a waste to stop it.
Steal money and projects from the least powerful people in a community. Pretend there are no opportunity costs.
The whole conversation makes me sick.
As a side note, if we don’t value something enough to pay for it, and are only doing it because the federal government will pay for most of it … we’re making the wrong decisions.
Perverse incentives from the feds means safety – road maintenance – and transit, walking, and biking projects will be destroyed. ODOT claims safety is their top priority. This is exhibit #1,412,342 on why that’s simply not true.
It’s time to provide real leadership and avoid sunk-cost fallacy.
Cancel the projects. Keep the commitments to the Oregonians around the state who need safety and choices. We’ve done it before. Time to do it again.
Thank you JaredO, I was kind of leaning that way myself, but it sure was nice to have someone else just lay it all out. You can read JaredO’s comment in context under the post.
Happy Monday friends. Hope you had a good weekend.
This week’s Roundup is sponsored by The eBike Store. If you’re e-bike curious, check out The eBike Store. Portland’s original, all-electric bike shop offers great service and solid brands. Swing in for a test ride today!
Here are the best stories and other items we came across in the past seven days…
How to do carfree streets: This week’s must read is all about how Canadian cities are realizing carfree zones are a huge win. I like how this piece shares how successful they can be, and how to get around potential pitfalls. (CBC)
Letter from Sweden: It doesn’t have to be like this. Portland could elevate itself into one of the greatest cities in the world if we took steps toward charging car users more to enter our beautiful central city. Don’t believe me, learn about what happened when two Swedish cities took the leap. (Streetsblog NYC)
Future of northwest Portland: The planned streetcar line extension into the far reaches of industrial northwest Portland hold a lot of promise if we get the details right. (Portland Mercury)
Constructueur moderne: Portland’s Ira Ryan is back to building custom bicycles on his own after splitting off from Breadwinner Cycles, and this profile catches up to him in his backyard shop. (The Radavist)
‘Vagina girl’ and swollen labia: Far too many women who ride frequently suffer from swollen labia that often leads to permanent changes that force them to stop riding. Embarrassment and cycling’s suffering culture are just a few reasons why this problem has only just now emerged as a “silent epidemic”. (Bicycling)
Non-drivers in spotlight: Thanks to an excellent new book by Anna Zivarts, the idea that about one-third of Americans cannot drive cars is finally getting its due. (The War on Cars Podcast & Streetsblog USA)
Cell signals and safety: A coalition of major bike brands is coming together to push for “Connected Vehicle to Everything” or C-V2X technology so that one day car and bike users will have a direct line of communication — and maybe even stop running into each other so often. (Ars Technica)
Better bike parking: NYC’s DOT plans to launch a major bike parking initiative that will bring enclosed, secure stations to residential and urban locations in the coming years. It will be the largest attempt at next-gen municipal bike parking in the country and I’ll be watching very closely to see how it works. (Gothamist)
