🚨 Please note that BikePortland slows down during this time of year as I have family in town and just need a break! Please don't expect typical volume of news stories and content. I'll be back in regular form after the new year. Thanks. - Jonathan 🙏

Velo Cult will close retail shop to focus solely on e-commerce

Velo Cult was a central meeting place for bike lovers of all types.
(Photos: Jonathan Maus)
Velo Cult owner Sky Boyer in February 2018.

Velo Cult — a bike shop, bar and community gathering and event space in the Hollywood Neighborhood — will throw one final party this Saturday. Owner Sky Boyer has decided to close the brick-and-mortar space to focus his efforts online.

Boyer moved his business from San Diego to Portland in 2012 and quickly became a major cog in the local bike scene. Velo Cult has hosted all types of events and meetings and the shop changed the bike retail landscape locally and nationally. In 2013, Outside Magazine named Velo Cult one of the top 10 bike shops in America.

In the end, it appears the complexities of running a brick-and-mortar retail and e-commerce business, mixed with requirements for running a bar in a 10,000 square-foot space, proved too big of a challenge.

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Chill reads for new urbanist needs

Our co-editor Emily Guise models proper reading form.
(Photo: Catie Gould)

This summer reading list was created by Catie Gould and Emily Guise, BikeLoud PDX volunteers and co-editors of our Adventures in Activism column.

Summer is a great time to relax by the pool (fountain, river, lake, sprinkler, or whatever) and still get nerdy about transportation and land-use. What could be better?

Here’s our list of favorite urbanist classics and a few newer ones for good measure…

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Let’s keep the Green Loop rolling

“Will the Green Loop have the bitterness of a bureaucrat’s utilitarianism and timeline, or will it be a place that embodies the slightly anarchistic spirit of Portland?”

“What is the Green Loop”?

That’s the question I got asked the most while tabling for the Friends of the Green Loop at the last Sunday Parkway as thousands of people streamed by. I always responded, “It is this, but all the time.”

Connecting the downtown park blocks across the Broadway Bridge through the Lloyd and over the soon to be built I-84 crossing on 7th through the Central Eastside and finally looping over the Tilikum crossing. It is a connected loop for walking, biking, reflecting, and enjoying our city. This past Sunday, tens of thousands of Portlanders got a taste of what that feels like on the Green Loop edition of Sunday Parkways. For me, it was a quiet exploration of the city full of the diverse faces of my neighbors.

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Family biking: What type of infrastructure is important to you?

We love this leaning rail with a footrest we found in Seattle.
(Photo: Madi Carlson)

Let’s talk infrastructure! When I think about infrastructure I think about everywhere we use our bikes; streets, bike lanes, trails, paths, sidewalks and even things like signals, signage, and bike racks.

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Son’s death sparks crusade for safer light rail crossings

Darla Sturdy and her children.
(Photo: Sturdy family)

Greg Spencer is a writer and editor who volunteers with the local chapter of Families for Safe Streets.

Eighty crosswalks and 45 light-rail stations made safer. That’s how Darla Sturdy sums up her proudest accomplishment to date.

Sturdy, a Gresham mother and member of Families for Safe Streets Oregon and SW Washington, never imagined a second life as a transportation engineer, much less as a lobbyist. But this is the work she threw herself into after her boy was run over and killed by a MAX light rail train.

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ODOT on defensive about I-5 Rose Quarter project at Metro meeting

ODOT Region 1 Director Rian Windsheimer at Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) meeting yesterday.
(Photos: Jonathan Maus)

At a meeting of a high-powered Metro policy committee yesterday, the Oregon Department of Transportation was put in the hot seat over their plans to widen Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter. Peppered with questions from Metro Councilor Bob Stacey, the regional director of ODOT Rian Windsheimer, was forced to came to the aid of an ODOT staff member who was presenting on the project.

Windsheimer’s move demonstrated that sharp criticisms from a gathering storm of activists are gaining strength from elected leaders like Stacey, testing ODOT’s nerves and putting the agency on the defensive. The meeting also made it clear that, while initially sold by ODOT to the public and politicians as a “bottleneck elimination” project, the agency is now reluctant to claim it will lead to any capacity increase.

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New plan aims to transform 122nd Avenue into a more humane, multimodal street

A classic urban arterial with the abysmal safety record to match.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus)
(Project area map via PBOT)

The next evolution of 122nd Avenue has begun.

A new planning effort by the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation has the ambitious goal of removing the north-south arterial from the official high crash network.

I say ambitious, because 122nd is arguably the most dangerous street in Portland. It has the dubious distinction of being home to four of the top ten most dangerous intersections and it’s one of only 13 streets citywide that’s earned a “high crash” designation for bikers, walkers, and drivers.

But if all goes according to plan, in just two years 122nd will have a much different reputation.

If that timeline seems optimistic, bear in mind that efforts to improve 122nd Avenue have already begun. In the past three years, PBOT has pumped $4 million into safety upgrades into the street — just half of an $8 million agreement with TriMet wherein the transit agency’s end of the bargain is to implement a frequent service bus line. With the announcement last month that Line 73 will now run every 15 minutes or less, that’s a promise they’ve already made good on.

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As system hits ‘sweet spot’, City celebrates 2nd birthday for Biketown

Biketown has become a fixture in Portland in two short years.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus)

Can you believe it’s already been two years since those bright orange bikes hit the streets of Portland?

Biketown launched on July 19th, 2016 and today the City of Portland and Motivate, the system’s operator, are hosting a party to celebrate.

Since the launch, the system has tallied over 700,000 rides and there are over 101,000 active users. In a presentation to the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee on July 9th, bike share program manager Steve Hoyt-McBeth with the Portland Bureau of Transportation said Biketown is on an upward trajectory. “There’s been a lot of growth in 2018,” he said. “We’ve really hit a sweet spot.”

Hoyt-McBeth endured years of delays as PBOT launched bike share long after they expected to. In February 2007 we proclaimed “The race is on!” among big cities who wanted to be the first to get a major system on the streets. Portland ended up 64th. Acknowledging that late entry to the market, Hoyt-McBeth told the committee that, “We felt like it was incumbent upon us to learn from other cities and try to be innovative with what we did.”

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Weekend Event Guide: Green Loop Sunday Parkways, Salmon Cycling Classic and more

There’s something extra special about riding on carfree streets downtown.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus)
The Weekend Event Guide is sponsored by Abus Bike Locks. Thanks Abus!

The weekend is almost here. And with temps expected to heat back up, you might want to plan your riding earlier or later than usual.

A highlight this weekend includes the first-ever Salmon Cycling Classic down in Wilsonville. And Sunday is the most anticipated Sunday Parkways event of the year: A route that will follow the outline of the future Green Loop! PBOT has really pulled out all the stops on this one, with more activities than you could possibly fit into five hours. So check out the event brochure before you go in order to plan your attack.

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“Be reasonable” and other advice aspiring activists should ignore

Throwing bales of hay onto one of Portland’s most dangerous, high-speed arterials is far from reasonable. And that’s probably why it was so effective.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus)

Catie Gould is co-editor of our Adventures in Activism column.

There are not many professions where you introduce yourself and get a stream of complaints in response. I design office printers for a living, so this comes up a lot. On the plus side, years of complaints about ink prices and paper jams prepared me well to have an opinion about transportation issues, and be ready for other people’s advice on what is wrong with my perspective.

Just wearing a Sunday Parkways shirt once got me on the receiving end on a stream of complaints about PBOT, bike racks, and so on.

In general, I think transportation is a wonderful advocacy area because it is so accessible. Everyone experiences it — and therefore everyone is an expert. Well, not really. But everyone who calls City Hall about the lack of parking considers themselves experts, so you might as well think of yourself as one too.

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From the Archives

Portland’s invisible machine: Behind the scenes at the World Naked Bike Ride