🚨 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 🙏
Seven great job opportunities have been listed on BikePortland in the past two weeks. If you’re looking to start 2018 on a new foot, have a look at them below…
–> Northwest Regional Policy Manager – Safe Routes to School National Partnership
–> Bike Shop Operations Manager – Bike Clark County
–> Backend Software Engineer – Ride with GPS
–> Mobile Software Engineer – Ride with GPS
–> Frontend Software Engineer – Ride with GPS
–> Operations and Volunteer Manager – Axiom Event Productions
In case you haven’t heard, Portland’s bike-centric holiday gift fair is back! BikeCraft 2017 is December 15-17 at the Bike Farm (1810 NE 1st Ave.) and it’s powered by Microcosm Publishing.
To get you ready, our friend Elly Blue (Microcosm’s co-owner and marketing director) has been profiling the fantastic people behind the crafts (see the previous ones here, here and here). Below are the latest three BikeCrafters you’ll get to meet at the big event…
It’s December! Whether that makes you elated or depressed, it’s worth knowing what your ride options are. And when it comes to that, we’ve got you covered.
If the wet and cold weather has you riding less, spend some time perusing our winter weather riding archives for all the best tips and tricks.
BikeLoud Lincoln-Harrison-Ladd Greenway Subcommittee Meeting – 5:00 pm at SE 12th and Hawthorne
Portland’s project-focused bike advocacy group BikeLoud PDX is ramping up focus on the Lincoln-Harrison project. Come and learn more about the greenway and how to make it better. More info here.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation is nearly done with their Willamette Blvd restriping project. This is the street where neighborhood residents seized an opportunity to improve the bikeway, galvanized tons of support, and got PBOT commissioner Dan Saltzman to back them up.
Job Title *
Bike delivery/Waste Reduction Ninja
Company/Organization *
GO Box
Job Description *
Do you get excited by the challenge of working on your bike, pulling a hefty trailer and helping reduce waste?
We’re a small, mission-driven company that provides reusable take out containers to downtown food vendors and their customers. So far we’ve eliminated the use of nearly 120,000 disposable containers, and we’re hiring a new bicycle delivery person to help us achieve our mission of doing away with throw away!
We’re looking for an energetic, upbeat and strong-legged person who can brave the winter rains of Portland and still be smiling when they deliver and pickup reusable GO Boxes to and from customers.
Here’s what we’re looking for:
A safe and courteous cyclist (respects drivers, uses hand-signals, wears helmet, etc).
Responsible, reliable, detail-oriented and self-directed.
Somebody that can work independently and has a good head for numbers.
The position:
We need a rider to take over a Wednesday and Friday route. Each route is about 2-4 hours long, and can generally be done anytime in the 10-4 time frame.
If you’re interested in being an integral part of a mission-driven, bicycle-based business we’d love to hear from you!
Compensation: $14/hour as an independent contractor.
How to Apply *
Send an email to laura@goboxpdx.com with 2-3 paragraphs telling us why you’re interested in working for GO Box, your bicycling background and all relevant skills and qualifications.
As part of their work to update the citywide walking plan the Portland Bureau of Transportation spent 17 weeks doing a survey to find out what keeps people from doing it. With 4,855 responses tallied, the results are in.
“We don’t want it [pricing] as a poison pill for the entire project. We want to be at the table with them [ODOT] as the process happens.”
— Matt Grumm, senior policy advisory for Commissioner Dan Saltzman
Just three months ago Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman was seen as a bulwark against the I-5 Rose Quarter project. Since then he has completely backed away from his insistence that congestion pricing be implemented before any lanes are added to the freeway.
The State of Oregon and the City of Portland are itching to spend $450 million to add lanes to I-5 and make changes to surface streets around the Rose Quarter. The project faces staunch opposition. Many of the critics think widening a central city freeway in 2017 is a bad idea and before doing so, it makes sense to implement congestion pricing. If people have to pay to use the freeway, the thinking goes, perhaps demand will decrease so much that current traffic problems will disappear and we’ll save millions of dollars.
On September 1st, Saltzman agreed with them. Three months later, not so much.
Saltzman’s initial statement on this issue was clear. He wanted to, “Include congestion/value pricing before the project breaks ground to ensure maximum congestion relief and overall environmental benefits.” That statement was heralded by transportation reform advocates and especially the group No More Freeways PDX. It put Saltzman on the other side of the Oregon Department of Transportation who has made it clear they don’t feel this section of I-5 is the right place to try congestion pricing.
For decades, people who live in a part of St. Johns north of Columbia Boulevard and west of Portland Road have hoped and prayed for street safety improvements. Cut off from nearby schools, markets and restaurants by an urban freeway where people drive large trucks and cars way too fast, residents of this part of our city have been ignored for a long time.
Now, thanks to a $1.5 million set-aside in the recently passed House Bill 2017, changes are finally coming.
Last night at Roosevelt High School the Portland Bureau of Transportation Director Leah Treat, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero, and Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (who represents this area of north Portland) hosted an event to gather input about how to improve safety at the notorious intersection of Columbia and Midway.
“Now we have some money, so let’s make the best use of it.”
— Tina Kotek, state representative
“None of us who live in north Portland need to be reminded we have a lot of accidents out here,” Speaker Kotek said during her brief remarks, “And now we have some money, so let’s make the best use of it.”
Also speaking last night was a sixth grader from nearby George Middle School. “I’m worried my friends will get hurt because of fast trucks,” she said. And a leader of the PTA at Roosevelt High who lives north of Columbia referred to it as, “A neighborhood that’s completely isolated, like a little island.”
I’m picky when it comes to jerseys these days. It’s probably because I’ve been riding and racing long enough that I’ve become a curmudgeon and I don’t have patience for second-rate stuff. And being “in the industry” means I’ve come across some of the best kit available.
A man was hit and killed last night just two blocks from where young Bradley Fortner was nearly killed while walking to school last year.
Portland Police reported late last night that a man was “struck by a vehicle in the 7000 block of North Fessenden.” That would put it near the intersection of N Midway, which is relatively busy with a taqueria, a corner store, bus stops, and apartment complexes. We don’t know many details yet, but police say it was a hit-and-run and they’re looking for a dark colored sedan with front-end damage.
By our count, this is the 48th traffic-related fatality in Portland so far this year (the Portland Bureau of Transportation, who uses state and federal criteria to count fatalities, has the number at 43). There were 44 fatalities on our roads in 2016 and December is typically one of the deadliest months of the year.
Welcome back! Hope your long holiday weekend was everything you hoped for. Here are the best stories we came across last week…
This week in car culture: Fox News show host Jeanine Pirro was cited for driving 119 mph in a 65 mph zone and said she “didn’t realize how fast she was driving.”
