BikePortland

Albina Vision Trust in driver’s seat of Rose Quarter redevelopment

Albina Vision Trust Strategic Communications Director JT Flowers (left), along with ODOT Rose Quarter Project Manager Megan Channell and ODOT Urban Mobility Office Director Brendan Finn at an Oregon Transportation Commission meeting in Medford Thursday, March 14th. (Photo via YouTube screenshot)

“The Albina Vision Trust has consistently proven to be both the backbone and the wings behind this project.”
– JT Flowers, Albina Vision Trust

An unlikely partnership between a state agency and a Portland-based nonprofit that could have vast implications for the future of the Rose Quarter took a big step forward last Thursday.

At a meeting of the Oregon Transportation Commission in Medford, Albina Vision Trust and the Oregon Department of Transportation received official approval to develop a work plan for how the future cover over I-5 will be governed. Specifically, the resolution passed unanimously by the five OTC members says that AVT and ODOT now have 60 days to hammer out a plan that determines, “If AVT can have access and rights to the future lease(s) and/or easement(s) for developable air rights on the Project’s highway cover and ownership and development rights for surplus property associated with the Project.” And if current laws and regulations don’t allow AVT to be granted those rights, the plan will determine how to change the law to make it possible.

It’s an unprecedented step that’s likely to put AVT in the driver’s seat of the $450 million investment into lower Albina — the largest federal grant ever received by ODOT — and that sets into motion the largest redevelopment project of its kind in America today.

It’s the latest in a string of eye-popping wins by AVT, a nonprofit that launched in 2017 with a bold idea to recreate the bustling community that once thrived in lower Albina before construction of I-5 and other developments displaced hundreds of Black Portlanders. In February, AVT convinced Portland Public Schools to relocate their headquarters and sell their building to the nonprofit, who plans to build 1,000 units of “working class housing” at the location. And shortly after that move, AVT won $25 million from the Oregon Legislature for the PPS project. The $450 million grant from the US DOT’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program was coupled with an additional $38 million City of Portland grant to rebuild and redesign NE Broadway and Weidler from 7th to the Willamette River through the Rose Quarter project area.

Now, as you’d expect for an organization with this many accomplishments under their belt, AVT is leaning into their power. AVT’s Strategic Communications Director JT Flowers told members of the OTC Thursday that his group, “Has consistently proven to be both the backbone and the wings behind this project.”

Just five years ago, AVT used that backbone to publicly challenge ODOT because of the agency’s initial reluctance to invest in highway covers that would be robust enough to hold multi-story buildings. That squabble seemed very far in the rear-view mirror Thursday, as Flowers sat next to ODOT Urban Mobility Office Director Brendan Finn and Rose Quarter Project Director Megan Channell at the OTC meeting. The trio beamed as they shared news of the federal grant and shared their work plan proposal with transportation commissioners.

“I think the project is a prime example for how community building and partnership goals are well aligned with transportation infrastructure investment,” said Channell, “and we see the Rose Quarter project as an opportunity to be a national model for how it can be a ‘yes, and’ instead of just an ‘either, or'”

No one at Thursday’s meeting uttered the word “freeway” or mentioned anything about ODOT’s plans to significantly widen I-5 between I-84 and the Fremont Bridge. However, Channell might have been referring to it when she said, “It wasn’t that long ago that we were having different conversations in front of you and we were not in alignment on a project design, nor did we have the project partnerships to move forward. So I feel like we’ve worked very hard to incorporate the perspective of our partners of our community, and believe that we now have the right project for the region and for the moment.”

Does the “right project for the moment” include more freeway lanes that will encourage more driving and all the negative consequences that comes with more vehicle miles traveled?

What happens below the new Albina remains to be seen. For now, AVT is focused on making sure they get to decide what happens on the seven acres above it.

“Together, we can redefine what government-community partnership looks like and set a new national precedent,” Flowers said at the meeting. “One that uses development to heal rather than harm.”

Tools for finding my way around Portland by bike

*This post is from Erin Bailie. She writes our New to Portland column. Find previous installments here.

Last week, I went to my first Blazers game. I asked a few folks at Bike Happy Hour for advice on riding to the game and where to lock a bike at Moda Center. Several folks immediately pulled out their phones to show me their favorite routes and parking spots, and I quickly realized that everyone seemed to open a different app to show bicycle navigation around the city.

There’s not just one way to find your way around Portland, as exemplified in the variety of apps folks referenced at Bike Happy Hour. In today’s post, I’ll share a few tools I’ve found helpful.

A few notes on my approach:

For each tool, I mapped the same route (from Bike Happy Hour in Kerns to Moda Center in Rose Quarter) so I could have a steady comparison.
Some of these services offer additional features for a monthly subscription fee, but everything you see here is based off of free versions.
I’ve got a generous data plan on my phone, but I’ve tried to account for how each app works with no data connection.
This blog has heavy overlap with my day job (usability research). I wish I could say ‘I’m sorry if this gets too nerdy’… but I’m not sorry. I love this stuff.

OK. Here we go…

City of Portland Official Bike Map

Find it at: Portland.gov/transportation
Cost: free
Format: paper and digital (desktop and mobile)
How it works: The Portland Bike Map is a detailed map of bike infrastructure across the city. The map encompasses the entire city, including detailed sections for downtown. It uses color-coded lines to note 10 distinct types of bike infrastructure – from shared roadways to multi-use paths (paved and unpaved!). It even notes “difficult connections” and one-way sections.
Low-data friendly?: Yes, via a physical paper map or by downloading a 3.38MB PDF while connected to Wifi.
Ideal for: Planning your route before you head out the door. The map offers a bird’s eye view of infrastructure options in an area. I like to use the map to plan a leisurely ride and know what alternatives exist for getting to my destination. In fact, I used this map to plan my trip to Powell Butte a few weeks ago.
Not ideal for: On-the-go route-finding. It’s just a map, there are no point-to-point directions. I also find it hard to use on a mobile screen, because I usually need to zoom way out to see my whole route.

Neighborhood Greenway signs

Cost: free
Format: street signs and on-pavement markings
How it works: Neighborhood Greenways are a network of shared roadways on low-speed, low-traffic streets. Greenways often have protected crossings for major intersections and diverters to stave off vehicle traffic. You’ll know you’re on a Neighborhood Greenway by the orange bicycle fixture on the street sign and the on-street painted sharrow markings. Green signage at intersections with other Greenways helps you navigate to your desired destination.
Low-data friendly?: Yes! No data needed.
Ideal for: Just about everything! I’ve only found one downside, which I’ve mentioned below
Not ideal for: The signs show the next-closest neighborhood. This means that if you’re traveling several miles, you’ll need to know the names of the neighborhoods along the way so you can pick the right direction to go. It’s similar to choosing a direction on the interstate – the sign will say the next-closest destination in any direction. If your destination is farther than that, you’ll have to know which direction to choose. [Or, if you’re looking for a sneaky upside, it’s this: using Neighborhood Greenways exposes you to all the areas in between point A and point B.]

Pointz

Find it at: BikePointz.com
Cost: free
Format: a mobile app
How it works: Pointz is a bicycle mobility app which offers point-to-point routing.
Low-data friendly?: No. Cellular connection needed for routing.
Ideal for: On-the-go navigation, with on-screen or audio turn-by-turn directions. You can toggle your preferences for street safety, avoiding hills, taking shortcuts, etc. to develop the right route for you. I use Pointz when I don’t want to think very much about which way is best to go.
Not ideal for: Folks without a mobile data plan. Pointz does rely on mobile data to compute routing.

Ride With GPS

Find it at: RideWithGPS.com
Cost: free, with premium licenses available
Format: mobile app and website
How it works: RideWithGPS is a powerful route planner, and it creates GPS files that you can upload to a bicycle computer (like a Garmin or a Wahoo).
Low-data friendly?: If the route is saved while connected to Wifi, yes.
Ideal for: Planning, drawing, and sharing routes – and discovering routes published by others – to be run on a GPS computer. RideWithGPS has a powerful route planning tool which selects the best route between two selected points. Premium tiers offer heatmaps, which make it easy to see how other cyclists tend to get around in a certain area.
Not ideal for: On-the-fly navigation or mobile-only use. Though RideWithGPS does technically support routing on mobile, I find it really easy to “mis-click” on the wrong thing while trying to scroll around the phone screen. There’s no way to explore alternatives routes if you don’t like the one that’s suggested.

Google Maps

Find it at: Google.com/maps
Cost: free
Format: a mobile app and website
How it works: Google Maps shows maps, businesses, bike infrastructure, and transit all in one app. It can provide turn-by-turn navigation and makes it easy to compare transportation options for a trip.
Ideal for: To be honest, just about everything… until it’s not. Google Maps has the largest breadth of capabilities, and it’s easy to have it be a go-to app for all transportation decisions, especially if you’re comparing multiple transportation modes.
Low-data friendly?: Yes, maps can be saved locally to the phone while connected to Wifi.
Not ideal for: I’ve got two points of frustration with Google Maps – inaccurate bike infrastructure data, and the absolutely bonkers way that they display transit time for public transportation.

Allow me to explain:

Google Maps likes to think areas are a lot more bikeable than they are. Take, for example, SE Belmont Street in the Tabor area. Google Maps shows a dotted green line – indicating a “bicycle friendly road”, usually meaning a Neighborhood Greenway. If you’ve ridden Belmont in this area, you’ll know it’s not a neighborhood greenway, and is in fact a bit of a thoroughfare between Tabor and Montavilla. The wide shoulder is filled with debris and Trimet buses whiz by. “BIcycle friendly”, not so much. For this reason, I’d cross-check with Pointz or the Bike Map whenever possible.
When showing how long a trip will take on transit, Google Maps has a strange habit of showing total time actively riding on transit instead of total trip time. That means if the bus arrives in 5 minutes and the ride is 20 minutes, Google Maps shows the trip (and your arrival time!) as 20 minutes, not 25 minutes. Honestly, this boggles my mind, because Google shows the realtime arrival – if they have the data in their system, why not incorporate it?

TriMet Trip Planner

Find it at: TriMet.org
Cost: free
Format: mobile and desktop website
How it works: Enter your starting and ending location, and select what types of transit you would like to use. You can select additional modes such as bicycle or scooter rental, which the planning tool will factor into the overall trip time. Trimet will show you trip options, including price and trip time.
Ideal for: Planning ahead and comparing multi-modal options. The routing is similar to Google Maps, but the ability to select what transportation type you use in addition to Trimet gives much more flexibility than Google Maps. They even offer a bicycle-only routing option.
Low-data friendly?: No, requires internet connection.
Not ideal for: There is no option for turn-by-turn directions that follow your trip in real-time, or automatic re-routing. If you use this tool for on-the-fly navigation, you’ll have to commit the route to memory.

Word of Mouth

Last but not least, word of mouth and community input is a great way to learn how to get around. I’m surprised and grateful for how readily folks offer recommendations. I also enjoy riding on Shift rides which help me see new parts of the city.

Bike Portland readers, which tools do you use regularly to plan your rides around town?

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland

Why are some places more popular for bicycle users than others? How important is infrastructure versus other factors such as proximity to destinations, connectedness to other infrastructure, and so on? What’s parts of town have the most bicycling hot-spots?

I’ve been poking around the 2023 City of Portland Bicycle Count Report and thought it’d be fun to share the top ten highest traffic locations. So on Sunday I grabbed my 13-year-old son and we visited all 10 locations. I got one of the spots incorrect so I had to roll over there this morning, but otherwise, all the photos (and forthcoming video) were shot on March 17th. These numbers come from a publicly accessible spreadsheet created by the City of Portland.

Check out the top ten below, peruse the area on the Google map, then ask yourself: why do so many people bike here?

10. SW Naito at Morrison Bridge – 2,060 daily riders

Since hardly anyone rides the Morrison these days, this number is definitely more of a reflection on Naito Parkway’s new bikeway than anything else. It’s a bummer the pandemic shifted so many folks out of the central city, because Naito is poised to carry much heavier volumes and the design has held up very well (except for the green color which is very faint in some locations). The spot near the Morrison Bridge is two directions for bike traffic and protected from one narrow travel lane by low curbs. A wide sidewalk gives folks on foot a place to be without getting in the path of bike riders. Given how much we love Better Naito, I’m glad to see it crack into the top 10.

9. SE Springwater Trail (S of Ivon) – 2,115 daily riders

There are three Springwater locations in the top 11. The top-ranked spot is just a block or so north of this location, where the path meets SE Ivon Street. I bet Splendid Cycles (on the corner) is the only bike shop in town with two top ten traffic locations within a few blocks of its shop.

8. NW Lovejoy & 9th – 2,135 daily riders

The only location in northwest, this is right at the bottom of the Lovejoy ramp that connects to the Broadway Bridge. The improvements of nearby greenways on Johnson and Marshall have certainly helped boost this number. This is a key route used by riders throughout the city who are headed to long rides in the West Hills, Highway 30, and beyond. It will be interesting to see how traffic changes once the Broadway Corridor project is complete.

7. N Interstate Ave/NE Lloyd Blvd & NE Oregon St – 2,140 daily riders

Looking east toward the Convention Center across North Interstate from N Oregon.

Peace Park! This location likely has a special place in everyone’s heart. It’s an iconic biking spot. Maybe it’s the cool bike traffic signal (imported from the Netherlands) or how you are straddling the Rose Quarter, the Convention Center, the Steel Bridge, and the Esplanade all at the same time. This is a part of a key connection between downtown and North Williams Ave.

6. SE Clinton & 34th – 2,190 daily riders

This is one of two spots in the top ten for the legendary SE Clinton St. neighborhood greenway. As my son and I biked to this spot he said, completely on his own, “This is a nice neighborhood, dad. It’s so quiet here.” There’s a market on the corner and it’s just one block from lots of cool stuff on SE Division. Recent traffic calming and diversion upgrades have made Clinton even better in recent years. Sit on this corner on a beautiful day and have your faith in Portland restored as bikers of all ages and persuasions roll past calmly.

5. N Williams & Russell – 2,245 daily riders

Of course Williams is in the top four. I’ve called Williams the best bicycling street in Portland and I still think it deserves that title. It’s a very rare example of a commercial district street with a dedicated bikeway. This is a few blocks south of the busy sections of the street, before too many riders have turned off. This might be the #1 spot in a few years once the Williams & Russell project is built.

4. SE Harrison & Ladd (Circle) – 2,375 daily riders

One of six southeast locations in the top ten, Ladd Circle Park is a highlight of so many great biking memories — from the humble commute to the zany Ladd’s 500. Maybe the most pleasant spot on this entire list. No dedicated bike infrastructure here, just organic traffic calming thanks to shared-lane markings, roundabouts, relatively narrow streets, and locals who know to always expect bike traffic.

3. S Moody & Gibbs – 2,455 daily riders

Looking east toward the river from the Gibbs Street elevator.

Smack dab in the middle of what I always think of as the Portland petri dish of urban planning, this location is eye-popping. Consider this: It’s adjacent to North America’s largest bike valet, Oregon’s largest employer, one of only two aerial tramways in the U.S., and a streetcar line. If you haven’t watched traffic here from the tram or Gibbs Bridge elevator, you are not a true Portland transportation nerd. (Yes I realize it was not ideal to to visit this on a Sunday when it’s pretty dead.)

2. SE Clinton & 26th – 2,625 daily riders

The only reason I don’t give Clinton the title of “best bike street” is because it doesn’t have a dedicated bike lane. But I should probably reconsider that. With two spots on the top ten, Clinton is really showing the power of PBOT’s greenways to attract bikes. This spot at 26th is always bustling and full of life with the iconic Clinton St. Theater, great bars and restaurants, and even a bike-friendly physical therapy office (hi Kevin!).

1. SE Caruthers & 4th – 3,415 daily riders

Looking west on SE Caruthers at SE 4th/Water Ave.

The only spot to break the 3,000 rider barrier this shows the power of the carfree paths on the Esplanade and Springwater to attract riders. Three spots in the top 11 are within two blocks of this spot. I can’t wait for the day when this location isn’t on the top 10 list because we’ve completed the Esplanade-Springwater path connection and folks don’t have to ride on surface streets here. It’s notable that this is #1 without any high-quality bike infrastructure (I realize it’s a gap between two carfree paths). There’s only paint, but it feels safer because it’s such a popular route.

What do you think? Any surprises? What can we do to replicate these conditions in more places?

Note: Below is an excerpt from the counts report about how PBOT got these numbers:

“These summer counts were conducted by 114 volunteers between June 6 and September 28 on either a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Volunteers counted during the two-hour peak time for people biking. At most locations that is 4-6 p.m. Locations on one-way roadways going into the City Center were counted during the a.m. peak, from 7-9 a.m. Using a standard traffic engineering rubric, these two-hour peak counts are assumed to account for approximately 20% of all daily bicycle trips at each location, making it possible to extrapolate a full weekday estimate of the number of people biking at each site.”

Comment of the Week: Tolling Schmolling

This week’s comment came in six days ago, in response to our short post about Governor Kotek ditching regional tolling plans. Jonathan’s post didn’t read any tea leaves or probe the deeper reasoning behind the Governor’s decision—abandoning tolling just seemed like another change flying in on the whirlwind.

(Offhand, to me, it seemed one of a piece with her urban growth boundary loosening, part of her push to incentivize a market-based approach to getting more housing built—let ‘em live further away, and don’t charge ‘em for it!)

WRF, who self-describes as a rare “transportation professional … against tolling in our region,” offered up some some hope in the form of alternatives to tolling, and also a critique of it.

Here are WRF’s ideas:

I honestly feel like I’ve been in the minority the last few years as a transportation professional being against tolling in our region.

While I’m all in favor of finding ways to reduce trips by SOVs and improving modal options through better infrastructure for transit, biking and walking, I’ve felt that tolling as proposed just incentivized finding alternative routes using the region’s arterials and collectors. For those that need to drive, I would much rather find ways to keep them on our interstate than to have them in the mix with vulnerable users on bikes and on foot.

If the goal is to make driving more expensive, there are better and more equitable ways.

A road-usage charge would be my first choice to replace an aging gas tax. Let’s go back to charging people for how much they drive on whatever road they choose to go on. Let’s tie it to inflation so we don’t end up where we are currently with funding not keeping pace with the costs of construction. Place a road tax on tires (and tie it to inflation as well). The larger the tire, the more the tax. Also, tax studded tires heavily. This will hit vehicles that buy oversized tires and will make EVs pay just the right amount more, since they tend to go through tires more quickly than lighter vehicles.

The revenue from these fees should be split with cities and counties, similar to the gas tax.

I also feel that registration and titling fees need to be reassessed when the 2025 legislature looks into transportation funding. Right now, EVs are charged almost twice as much as a pickup truck for titling and over 2.5 times as much for registration. Let’s quit incentivizing older, less fuel-efficient vehicles while at the same time punishing people that buy EVs. Let’s charge all vehicles the higher rates. Also, keep the road maintenance funds coming from a road-usage charge and make the fees at the DMV pay for the operation of the DMV.

Thank you WRF! There were many good comments in this thread, and WRF’s comment inspired some interesting responses, enjoy reading them all.

Monday Roundup: Expensive bikes, cheap housing, e-bike libraries, and more

Welcome to the week. Even though the sun isn’t supposed to last, the good vibes are unstoppable.

Here’s what our community has been talking about for the past seven days…

Putting out fires: Bike advocates and shop owners are worried that a new law in San Francisco aimed at e-bike battery safety has gone too far and will snuff out more than fires. (The San Francisco Standard)

A smarter warning: A new product called Copilot uses a mix of software and AI to go several steps beyond radar detection and sounds like the most advanced rear camera/light warning system on the market. (Ars Technica)

$100K track bike: The Factor bikes that will be used by the Australian Olympic track cycling team in the upcoming Paris games cost $97,979. (The Guardian)

Police hate competition: The lesson we should learn from the cancelation of automated enforcement camera program in Sacramento is to not let police anywhere near the program. (CBS News)

Why fight for better cities? After a Republican governor’s excellent comments on zoning reform went viral, it sparked a debate in urbanist circles about how far they’re willing to go to embrace someone with a very conservative, right-wing voting and policy history. (Streetsblog USA Opinion)

Bigger car, bigger fees: Another way we could get drivers of massive cars to pay more to use the roads is by hitting them where they park. (The Guardian)

Housing done right: It’s not just a biking boom that makes Paris so wonderful, it’s their focus on affordable, city-owned public housing and the walkable urbanism and “mixed society” the city creates through their role as landlords. This is how you built a great city! (NY Times)

Mature cyclists: Folks in the later stages of their lives are flocking to cycling vacdations because it’s more immersive and fun than sitting behind the wheel of a bus or an RV. (Conde Nast Traveler)

It’s all in your head: Next time you’re on a hard ride or dying up a climb, think about how some smart folks think fatigue is more about how your brain perceives it and not just how your legs and lungs perceive it. (Rouleur)

E-bike library: Buying an electric bikes brings up a lot of questions and even anxiety in some people, so being able to borrow one first via a neighborhood lending library just makes sense. Turns out e-bike libraries are all the rage. Who’s starting one in Portland? (Streetsblog USA)

E-bike incentives: With the hope that some of you out there are working on an e-bike purchase subsidy for Oregon in a future legislative session, here’s how the sausage is being made in California. (Streetsblog Cal)

Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.

Podcast: In the Shed with Eva & Jonathan – Ep 15

Eva’s back from Italy!

In this episode, she shares a bit about her magical time in the land of small cars, ancient roads, and wine tasting in Tuscany. Get this: Eva walked 98 miles in two weeks! That either sounds like a dream or a nightmare depending on if you have comfortable shoes.

We talk about the latest Portland Bike Count report and I share the top 10 (actually 11) busiest bike intersections in the city. Eva shares her dream of operating bicycle vending machines on high traffic corridors, and then things devolved from there.

We touched on tolling, freight lobbyists, my theory on what will happen with the I-5 Rose Quarter project, and much more.

Links from the episode:

Thanks to Brock Dittus of Sprocket Podcast fame for our fantastic theme music. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Participatory budgeting campaign has launched in Portland: Here’s what you need to know

What if you and your fellow Portlanders had a direct impact on what city funds were spent on? I’m not talking about lobbying politicians and then hoping they do what you want; I’m talking about true direct democracy where you come up with a project idea, work with your peers to flesh it out, get support for it from a vote of the people, then get it funded and implemented.

That’s the promise of participatory budgeting (PB), and a local effort to have it become an official part of the city of Portland’s budget process launched on Thursday.

The Community Budgeting for All campaign is gathering signatures to get PB on the ballot in November. The effort is being led by nonprofits Next Up, East County Rising, and Participatory Budgeting Oregon and their campaign wants to put at least 2% of the city’s General Fund budget — an estimated $15.6 million — into the hands of the people. Yesterday I interviewed one of PB Oregon’s staffers, Maria Sipin, to learn more about the initiative and how PB is different than the way we currently do things. (Watch our conversation below.)

As a former transportation planner with the Oregon Department of Transportation, Sipin saw first-hand that what gets funded often doesn’t reflect what people on the ground actually want and need. “What I personally like about it is in a PB process, you don’t end up with highway projects… people put forward projects in this process that have never been funded in the past, but should have. It addresses community safety, basic needs and all kinds of things that might have been overlooked.”

Don’t people already influence budgets by voting for elected officials and taking part in the budget process?

“Electing people is a form of democracy, but it’s not direct democracy. We can ask our elected officials to take action, but it doesn’t really require them to do something within a given amount of time,” Sipin answered. “It’s the legally binding aspect of PB that really can demonstrate people’s power and government’s ability to implement something that the people want.”

Asked for a specific example of a project like that, Sipin described school streets.

“[A type of project] that comes up a whole lot in spaces I’m in is keeping cars from approaching the school at a close distance and being able to save local streets for walking and biking safely and not dealing with the commotion of drop-offs and pick-ups of SUVs confronting their children at forehead height,” Sipin said. “If there was an appetite to create that type of street environment and PBOT said it could be feasible, you would work with PBOT, community orgs, parents, schools — to design a proposal.”

One thing I learned from talking with Sipin is that a big element of PB is community empowerment — not just in the form of controlling funds, but giving people the knowledge and experience about what things cost and how to develop high-quality funding proposals. I’ve found through doing BikePortland all these years that once you inform and empower people, amazing things can happen. And it’s a two-way street: regular folks like you and I would be engaged at a deeper level and city staff would learn what we want in an unfiltered way. But unlike a typical budget process where city staff and elected officials hold all the power, in PB, the scale of power tilts toward the people.

Below is a description of the process taken from the campaign website at CommunityBudgetingforAll.com, followed by the initiative language filed with the city auditor’s office:

Instead of typical backroom deals and ignored public testimony, residents would collaborate in the community and with City staff to develop and fund solutions. Portlanders would have a recurring avenue to bring forward problems, build skills, and relationships, and craft shared goals and solutions in partnership with City staff.

Official language of the initiative as recorded by Portland City Auditor, 11/21/23.

If it sounds like there’d be too many cooks in the kitchen, Sipin said a key part of a good PB process is one where the structure of decision-making is clearly laid out at the start. Professional facilitators are brought in to make sure things run smoothly, and a committee of delegates and city staff vet projects to make sure they’re feasible.

Another interesting wrinkle is that all Portlanders would be eligible to vote on projects — not just eligible voters. That means about 200,000 Portlanders — who aren’t currently on voting rolls — could have a say in how funds are spent.

Sipin says once people learn and participate in the process, PB becomes a tool that builds real community power. “PB is meant to be consistent and not a one time thing. Being able to witness this and be part of it, it’s really powerful,” she said. “And this is why some cities, once they put PB into place, it just becomes part of their democracy from here on out.”

Portland would become one of the last major west coast cities to institute a PB process, as the idea has caught on in many other cities around the U.S. and the globe (a portion of the European Union budget is allocated using PB principles). If this campaign can gather about 41,000 signatures by July and if voters support the ballot measure in November, the program would begin in the 2026-2027 fiscal year and the process would begin no later than July 2027.

— Learn more at CommunityBudgetingForAll.com.

View a short highlight reel of my conversation with Sipin below:

Jobs of the Week: Oregon Department of Transportation

Need a job? Want a better job? Just looking for a change? You are in the right place. Don’t miss these recent job announcements. Remember, you can always stay abreast of jobs as soon as they get listed by signing up for email updates.

For a complete list of available jobs, click here.

Be the first to know about new job opportunities by signing up for our daily Job Listings email or by following @BikePortland on Twitter.

These are paid listings. And they work! We’ve helped hundreds of people find great jobs and great staff members. If you’d like to post a job on the Portland region’s most popular bike and transportation news platform, you can purchase a listing online for just $100. Learn more at our Job Listings page.

Weekend Event Guide: Goats, crows, beer, and a volcano

Sun! You want it. We got it.

You also want fun things to do. We got those too…

Friday, March 15th

Climate Curious Happy Hour – 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Upright Brewing (N)
Talk about the big redevelopment of the Lloyd Center with folks in-the-know, with a focus on making sure it makes people and the planet healthier. Panel and Q&A hosted by EcoLloyd. More info here.

Saturday, March 16th

Beaverton Farmers Market Ride – 9:30 am at Tigard Public Library (West Side)
A family-friendly ride where I can guarantee a kiddo or two and a 7-mile route led by one of the best people you’ll ever meet. And it’s between a library and a farmers market. It simply doesn’t get better than this! More info here.

Gaza Sunbirds Solidarity Ride – 12:00 noon at Grant Park (NE)
Roll out at 1:00 but come early for crafts and hangs to show support for Palestinians struggling for survival. You’ll get plugged into local activist groups. More info here.

Last Day of the Beer Ride – 1:00 pm at Earthlab Libations (SE)
Beer lovers unite! This is a last call for “Tour de Brew” and Earthlab has invited Threshold Brewing and Upright Brewing as special guests. Fun ride with unique beers, brewery tour, followed by food from Taco Gang and bike movie. More info here.

Die Hard Romance Ride – 7:00 pm at Laurelhurst Park (NE)
The 80s, the music, the masculinity! If you love 80s action movies, come out and have some fun with friendly folks. More info here.

Sunday, March 17th

The Goat Ride – 4:00 pm at Irving Park (NE)
It’s a rite of spring to see early blossoms, murders of crows, and our furry friends with four stomachs. This ride is sure to put you in touch with Portland’s wild beauty in its many forms. More info here.

Volcano Loop – 10:00 am at Sellwood Park (SE)
What better way to spend St. Patrick’s day then with a ride up and over a volcano! Joint PBC experienced ride leaders for a roll to Mt. Tabor. More info here.

— Don’t see an event? Please tell us about what’s going on in your neighborhood by filling out our contact form, or just email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com if it’s easier.

A few comments about sex

Last week Jonathan texted me that he “would really love to see more women using our comments section.”

Little did he know that men and women communicating is something I, for decades, have spent a lot of time thinking about. It probably started with that 1981 Gloria Steinem piece, Men and Women Talking, and continued with the excellent 1990 book by linguist Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.

It’s a fascinating topic to me. The wrinkle of internet message boards is that most people comment anonymously, so you don’t know their sex. The structure of a Zoom call changes things too, profoundly, especially in terms of interruption.

My short answer to Jonathan was that more women than he thinks do already comment to BikePortland. Women, like men, can and do pick anonymous, gender-neutral user names. The deeper question for me is, why do we assume that everyone is a man?

And I mean the “we.” Just a couple days ago, an occasional commenter posted on one of our stories. “Oh good, so-and-so posted, I like his comments,” thought I. Meanwhile, I had also just received an email from this person in my home email account—nothing to do with BikePortland. I know this person, she is a woman! But it took me a day before I realized the woman in my email box was the same person in the BikePortland comments, despite the fact that her gender-neutral username was practically the same.

How does this happen?

I think many people expect a female commenter to fit into a certain voice, or trope. If you don’t fit into that, the assumption is that you are a man. The molds are “I as a woman experienced xyz;” the face of the cause/disease; the victim; the newbie in need of advice.

In the case of BikePortland, the email address that commenters sign in with identifies some people as women despite their gender-neutral, outward-facing identity. We’ve featured comments from women as Comment of the Week. Did you notice?

It’s still true, though, that BikePortland gets many more comments from men than women. But why assume that is something that needs to be fixed? Why is the male behavior considered the norm? We have five to ten commenters (all men I’m pretty sure) who write a lot, maybe even more than I do. Read them or not, agree with them or not, I appreciate that several of them write link-rich posts which can be informative. I think of them as BikePortland’s Greek chorus—a chorus which doesn’t sing together or agree with each other, but there they are.

So some percentage of men think the world needs to hear from them a lot. Fewer women are like that. (Did you know that hens can crow? Great big cock-a-doodle-dos as good as a rooster? I nearly fell off my tree stump when I heard that come out of a non-aggressive hen who apparently needed to establish dominance over a new bird I had just introduced into the flock.)

Anecdotally, my perception is that most of the women who comment on BikePortland do it precisely, when there is something they specifically can add to the discussion. Comments from women tend to be few, focused and on-topic.

I agree with Jonathan, though, it would be nice if we had more comments from women.

Opinion: Actually, yes, cars are the problem

I’m still going through the recent bicycle count report published by the Portland Bureau of Transportation this week and there’s something I need to make very clear: The reason more people aren’t biking is not because of some flaw in the idea of bicycling itself or even because of any shortcomings in the network of roads, paths, and lanes that people do it on.

The problem is cars. Too many cars, to be exact. And too many of them driven without regard for others. This isn’t just my opinion, it also happens to be the official stance of the City of Portland.

This problem has always been right in front of our faces but we don’t recognize it as such because it requires us to acknowledge that something we (nearly) all do on a regular basis might actually have negative impacts on our community and our city. Put another way, the problem is us, and that’s the problem. Not only is driving a car something the vast majority of us do and sympathize with, it’s also normalized by trillions of dollars in marketing over the last century as something that is cool, fun, and harmless. When you’re in a car, Big Auto propaganda says, everyone else is the problem. None of that is true of course, but this is America! With enough money and marketing savvy, you can convince people of anything.

But I digress. What I want you take from this post is a clearer understanding of what has happened on Portland streets in the past decade.

As many of you know, I’ve thought a lot about why bicycling leveled off and then declined in Portland (even before the pandemic). I’ve also tracked closely what PBOT says (and doesn’t say) about the matter. On that note, did you happen to read what PBOT said in the “Discussion” section of the report? On page 16 you’ll see three reasons cited as the causes for the decline in cycling in Portland over the past ten years. Here they are (emphases by PBOT):

The population soared, with an average of about 10,000 new resident commuters hitting the roads each year from 2014 to 2018. Unlike in previous years where biking and working from home absorbed the plurality of new commute trips, during this period it was driving alone. This likely translated to less comfortable conditions for biking.

Public perceptions of safety have dropped. People are driving faster and yielding less since the pandemic, and 2023 was a record year for traffic deaths. But it goes beyond transportation. Anecdotally, the rise in houselessness, encampments along bikeways, as well as open drug use, have deterred some riders.

It has continued to be exceptionally easy to drive a personal vehicle, with a preponderance of street space dedicated to vehicle movement and storage—often at the expense of people who walk, bike, roll, or take transit.

Notice what all three have in common? Cars. Too many cars, to be exact. And too many of them driven without regard for others.

*From 2022 Portland Insights Survey, City of Portland Budget Office*

I understand PBOT is inherently biased against reaching some conclusions about the decline (such as their anemic designs, lack of political power to sway City Hall dysfunction, and so on) and that just like I often say bicycles and their riders are easy scapegoats, I recognize it’s very easy to blame cars for everything.

But in this case, as the City of Portland itself appears comfortable doing, blaming too many cars is a reasonable conclusion — especially when you consider what happens when cars are removed from the equation, like during Sunday Parkways events or during the pandemic when bicycling and walking on our streets skyrocketed. It’s also worth noting that the PBOT staffer who wrote this leaned on the 2022 Portland Insights survey that found nearly half of all 5,290 people who responded said they’d be interested in biking more if it were affordable and safe (see above).

So next time a city staffer or elected official is in a meeting and says they just can’t imagine why bicycling has struggled in Portland, remember they’ll probably leave that meeting, drive home in a sea of hundreds of other cars, and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Let’s talk about the I-5 freeway cap

Just two days after the Biden Administration announced a $450 million grant to construct highway caps above I-5 through the Rose Quarter, the advisory committee that is largely responsible for making it happen held a meeting. Members of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB) gathered on Zoom Tuesday. The group aired feedback on the grant news and watched presentations about the caps and other details from project staff.

HAAB meeting on Zoom with ODOT Director Strickler on bottom right..

I found the meeting very enlightening and figured you might too. Below I’ll share some of the slides and other things I took away from it…

Dimensions

Slides shown Tuesday that give us a sense of where the cap will go and its size in context.

The plan is for one continuous cap (also called a “highway cover”) that would stretch over I-5 from the corner of NE Tillamook and Flint south to NE Weidler (see images). The cap, which is estimated to cost about $700 to $900 million total (about half the project total) would fully restore the street grid of North Flint, Vancouver, and North Williams (north/south) and N Weidler, Broadway, Hancock and Tillamook (east/west). The cap would add about 7 new acres of land to the Rose Quarter.

A skeptic

In addition to still being about $1 billion short on the project (which includes widening I-5 between I-84 and I-405 in addition to other surface street changes), ODOT has to address at least one high-profile HAAB member who is very skeptical that the money will be spent in a way that directly benefits Black people. A top priority of the HAAB is to use this project to rebuild wealth that was stolen from the Black community when the freeway and other developments were built. HAAB member James Posey is well-known in Portland as a former mayoral candidate and co-founder of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon. He’s also president of the local chapter of the NAACP.

When ODOT Director Kris Strickler stopped into the HAAB meeting to thank members for their help in securing what he referred to as the largest grant ODOT has ever received from the federal government, Posey seized the opportunity to express skepticism about who will see benefits from the investment:

James Posey (Photo via Linkedin)

“I hate to be a naysayer… but the truth of the matter is there are a lot of people that are concerned that very little of that money will go into the hands of the Black community. Some of us are concerned that we’ve seen this movie before… And you know, we use the HAAB and Black faces all over the place and at the end of the day, Black people will receive very little benefit from this project. I would recommend that you all put in place a Truth and Reconciliation committee to look at every one of the dollars that come from it and see if in fact we are maximizing the participation of African Americans, which you all are selling, don’t make no mistake about it. You’re using Black people. You’re using this community, and some of us feel like we’re going to be played.”

Posey wants to make sure Black firms, contractors, and other Black Portlanders directly benefit from the construction of the new highway caps. ODOT has never led a project like this before and even their work with the HAAB thus far as been unprecedented. Whether or not they can continue to meet the every-growing expectations of the community is a big unanswered question.

Design precedents

What type of development should we expect on and around the caps? At the meeting Tuesday, a Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability staffer shared several buildings and public space projects they believe are good precedents. Among them were: Vanport Square in Portland; the Fruit & Flower Child Development Center on the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus; the Sherman Phoenix Marketplace in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Pop Courts community plaza in Chicago; and the Louisa Flowers housing block in the Lloyd Center.

Development possibilities

Speaking of construction, a member of the Rose Quarter project team presented at the meeting that the type of development that would be possible on the highway cover will be “limited” due to various necessary offsets and other structural issues. Strength of the cover and whether it would be strong enough to be “buildable” and hold large buildings was a major point in contention before the “Hybrid 3” option was agreed to. So there’s no question multi-story buildings can be built, but what ODOT was saying in the HAAB meeting is that it won’t be a free-for-all in terms of what gets built and where.

According to project staff at Tuesday’s meeting, the northern and southern edges of the cap will have different load ratings due to the length of spans across the freeway and strength of girders. One-story buildings “with some constraints” would be possible in those areas and three-story buildings would be feasible in the middle portion of the cap (roughly between NE Weidler and Hancock).

The staffer also went over a number of reasons buildings would have to be offset from bridge joints, “free edges,” utility access points, and so on. They are clearly trying to manage expectations.

Governance

“Black ownership matters, ownership not only of the land but beneath our feet, but the development processes that shape these spaces.”
– JT Flowers, Albina Vision Trust

Governance of the cover will also be a big issue. As it stands today, ODOT would own all the land created by the cover (since it’s over one of their freeways). This means anyone who owns a building or does business on the cover must have a special lease or governance agreement with ODOT.

At the Oregon Transportation Commission meeting today, Albina Vision Trust members and ODOT are set to begin the first formal, public discussions of a joint workplan agreement that will establish the governance of the caps going forward. In previous work from the project’s Independent Cover Assessment (ICA), ODOT has referred to the need to form a new commission that, ” would have the authority to plan, monitor, manage, and oversee future development activity on the highway cover and any remnant land created by the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project.” They called it the Black Historic Albina Cover Development Commission

“While such a commission should be formed by a legally binding agreement that requires the coordination and cooperation of multiple levels of government and community stakeholders, its decision-making power would sit with Black community members and representatives,” reads a 2021 report from the ICA.

Albina Vision Trust is in the driver’s seat in the future of that commission. At the HAAB meeting Tuesday, AVT’s JT Flowers said their work plan proposal,

“is rooted in a principle that’s very foundational to the work that we do, which is that ownership matters, that Black ownership matters, ownership not only of the land but beneath our feet, but the development processes that shape these spaces matter, and it’s going to be vitally important for us as a community to make sure that we are driving and shaping this work from top to bottom, not just as we build the highway cover, but as we start to imagine what could be built on top of it and for whom that development centers.”

A slide that will be shown at today’s OTC meeting says the governance resolution will, “determine if Albina Vision Trust can have access and rights to 1) future lease(s)/easement(s) for developable air rights on the highway cover; and 2) ownership and development rights for surplus property associated with the Project.”

This is all fascinating new ground for ODOT and the agency finds itself in a very odd position. They don’t have any money or political support for the freeway widening part of their plans (especially with tolling off the table), while AVT continues to build tremendous power and influence. And since AVT has made it clear in past statements they don’t need the freeway expansion to realize their vision, ODOT’s influence and necessity seems to be waning. Maybe in the end, AVT will be in charge of cap development, the City of Portland will manage the surface street changes, and ODOT will be reduced to nothing more than a landlord.

Learn more!
— Don’t miss Lisa Caballero’s excellent interview about freeway caps with developer Matt Edlen.