🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
Portland is still covered in a layer of snow after a storm last night.
If you can manage it, the biking is quite nice. Roads are much quieter than usual because people are driving slower and schools and many businesses are closed.
Welcome to the morning after.
After a few inches of snow fell on Wednesday afternoon, our region’s transportation system ground to a halt. Major freeways, arterials, and even many neighborhood streets were either completely gridlocked or impassable due to abandoned cars left in scrap heaps of twisted metal and broken dreams. Thousands of people were stranded for hours and backups continued on Highway 26 until midnight (midnight!). Thanks to an Associated Press story, the insanity of it all has brought us national attention.
Now we’ve entered the autopsy stage where everyone is trying to figure out how it happened.
The Oregonian broke it down to five reasons: We don’t use salt on our roads; people don’t carry chains; people don’t know how to drive in the snow; Portland doesn’t have enough snow plows, and transit is, “not equipped for hilly Portland.”
Sigh. Of course they forgot to mention something.
Here’s the inconvenient truth: Our over-reliance on single-occupancy motor vehicle use has real consequences. It leads to lots of injuries and deaths, it poisons our lungs, and it makes our transportation system extremely fragile and inefficient.
I have never seen anything like what happened on tonight’s evening commute. A few inches of snow has led to utter chaos on roads throughout the Portland region.
Schoolkids trapped in buses until way past their bed times, multiple car pile-ups, dozens of cars just abandoned on the side of the road, people hitch-hiking or giving up on their cars and walking several miles to get home, standstill traffic on I-5 and Highway 26, five to seven hour commutes with people passing out survival snacks to strangers. You know those traffic maps news stations show every night? Almost every major highway was deep red until about 10:00 pm. Like a traffic blood bath.
My social media timelines were an amazing contrast — full of complete and utter misery for people inside motor vehicles, and then sheer joy and glee from people who were lucky enough to be on a bike.
Portlander Chris L. was just trying to get home and avoid the snowpocalypse.
Around 2:00 pm today Chris (who requested that we don’t use his last name) was biking east on East Burnside. There’s an unprotected bike lane on that street and it’s directly adjacent to three standard lanes. Between SE Grand and 9th Chris avoided two auto users who encroached into the bike lane as he came by (one turned in front of him, another waited and inched along, forcing him to swerve). So by the time he came up next to a woman driving a Toyota Prius just east of 8th Avenue, he was was already a bit frazzled. When he noticed she was on her phone, he became angry and frustrated. As he passed her, Chris slowed and slapped the side of the car.
“Put the phone fuckin’ down!” yelled Chris as he continued to pedal.
What Chris didn’t realize was that Portland Police Bureau Officer Bill Balzer was parked right next to him in an unmarked car when it happened.
The City of Portland is scaling up the massive new Fixing Our Streets program. Thanks to the passage of a 10-cent per gallon gas tax, the bureau needs to prepare, develop, design, and construct over 50 transportation projects over the next four years.
One of those projects will pave SW Main Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. This is the section of Main at the western terminus of the Hawthorne Bridge — one of the most heavily used bike routes in the city. Unfortunately people riding bikes don’t get a very nice welcome into downtown. The dedicated path on the bridge gives way to a bike lane prior to crossing 1st Avenue. Then between 1st and 2nd the bike lane all but disappears into a cracked road surface full of bumps. There’s also the tricky merge with other road users, including TriMet bus operators that need to service a stop at the northeast corner of 2nd and Main.
When it comes to planning a city, trips matter. Estimates about the amount of trips generated by a transportation project or new development are what dictate not just what our redesigned streets will look like, but also how we pay for them.
One of the ways the City of Portland pays for infrastructure is by charging developers a fee based on the impact their new building will have on the transportation system. These fees — known as Transportation System Development Charges, or just TSDCs for short — are based on a model that estimates how many trips a new development will generate.
There’s just one small problem: The methodology is centered almost exclusively around cars. The Portland Bureau of Transportation wants to change that.
At City Council today commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance (PDF) allowing PBOT to use a methodology that uses “person trips” – meaning trips made not just by people in cars and trucks but also foot, by bike and in transit vehicles.
The first hearing for the City of Portland’s Inclusionary Housing Zoning Code Project took place at city council today and biking and walking advocates showed up to support the proposal and urge council to pass it.
As we’ve reported for years now, there’s a clear intersection between affordable housing policy and cycling: The most bike-friendly neighborhoods are also the ones where we’ve seen tremendous market pressure exerted — and many of them are now unaffordable to many low and even middle-income Portlanders. And according to the National Household Travel Survey, low-income households drive much less than those with high-incomes.
One way to make neighborhoods more affordable is to require developers to build affordable housing units in their new buildings. Otherwise they’ll sell the units at whatever price the market can bear — and that happens to be a lot of money in Portland’s red-hot housing market. The result is a sort of forced migration of people with lower incomes into neighborhoods further away from the city center.
When Wayne Naillon chose to end his life back in May, the region lost one of its most dedicated cycling advocates. Now his name will remain connected to the places and trails he loved thanks to funds created in his name by friends and family.
From Cycle Oregon to Sunday Parkways — and from the Wilson River Trail to the Crown Zellerbach Trail, Naillon donated hundreds of volunteer hours during his lifetime. He had a special place in his heart for off-road trails and was a regular volunteer with the Northwest Trail Alliance. Wayne was also a BikePortland subscriber who I first met while doing a trail maintenance event in the Tillamook State Forest in 2005 (a fact he reminded me of last year in a comment he left on a story about the Wilson River Trail).
Last week we heard from Wayne’s friend Dale Latham with details about how he’ll be remembered:
We are honored with the huge support we have received in Wayne’s’ memory. This includes:
Job Title *
Event Coordinator
Company/Organization *
Rapha
Job Description *
Rapha is a brand built upon rich and thoughtful experiences. Our approach to building relationships through riding allows Rapha to interact with our customers in a way that is both meaningful and authentic. Our passion and respect for the sport comes through most clearly when we are creating interactions that matter.
The Event Coordinator, North America is responsible for working within Rapha North American’s Marketing Team to produce unique events. Our events aim to be destinations to celebrate the sport of road cycling, bring cycling fans together, and showcasing Rapha collections. The role includes schedule development, budget management, vehicle procurement/maintenance, and driving the vehicle to predetermined events. This position is based in Portland, Or but, 30% of your time will be spent traveling and excuting events across the country.
The Events Coordinator will be a very visible representative of the brand to consumers, industry partners, and the press. A positive force for the brand, this person will play a critical role within the North American office. This role will report into the Marketing Manager, Events for North America.
THE ROLE:
-Manage day to day execution of annual event calendar
-Update current vehicle
-Oversee ongoing maintenance of the vehicle(s)
-Develop and submit creative briefs
-Set up and break down of traveling event series
-Deliver positive brand/consumer experience
-Manage and maintain budget
-Logistics management while in office and remotely
-Drive brand vehicle from point to point, likely 15,000 miles for the year
THE CANDIDATE:
-Dynamic interpersonal style, a great story teller
-An ability to operate effectively at all levels with both internal and external stakeholders
-Highly organized and solid grasp of Google Drive, Microsoft Excel and Fedex.com
-Not afraid of managing an airtight budget
-Coffee enthusiast preffered, appreciators considered
-Resourceful, but knows when to ask for help
-Can manage multiple balls in the air without breaking a sweat
-Can be the face of the Rapha brand, projecting the values of the brand in all interactions
-Over-delivers, finding ways to create special moments that can be “only Rapha”
-Travel heavy scheduling, booking and managing all accomodations
-Loves and appreciates the sport of road racing/cycling
-Comfortable leading group rides, well versed in bike mechanics and safety
-Has experience “on the road” and is comfortable driving oversized vehicles across the country
-Clean driving record
How to Apply *
Please follow this link to apply: http://grnh.se/c7lgu21
Portland Custom Bicycle Wheel Builder Sugar Wheel Works to Host Free Monthly Clinics in 2017
In 2017 in conjunction with Williams Wednesday, held on the second Wednesday of each month, Sugar Wheel Works will be offering clinics, free and open to the public. Each clinic will offer the chance to learn about a different element of wheels and wheel-building, with the opportunity to ask one-on-one questions with the Sugar Wheel Works team.
All clinics will be held on the second Wednesday of each month through June, each one starting at 6:15 p.m. Detailed clinic schedule and information:
January 11, 2017: Bike Essentials: How to Change a Flat
Come learn how to change a flat tire as well watch a demonstration on setting up a tire tubeless. Q/A to follow the demo!February 8, 2017: Wheel Truing 101
A demonstration on wheel truing followed by Q/A with Sugar Wheel Works founder Jude Gerace about wheel truing and general wheel maintenance, to answer questions like “what’s the best way to take the grit off of a rim?March 8, 2017: Wheel Building 101
Ever wonder how a wheel is actually built? Sugar Wheel Works founder Jude Gerace will do a 90-minute wheel building demonstration paired with a Q&A for anyone who is interested in the art of wheel-building. Kids encouraged to attend.
Welcome to Monday.
This is our last full week before the news cycle slows way down. So let’s get to it, shall we? Here are the best stories we came across last week…
Death by headphones?: A coroner in Yorkshire had no evidence a woman was listening to music prior to being run over by a truck crashing her bike near a truck — but he put the blame squarely on her anyways. And The Telegraph piled-on with a biased and irresponsible article.
Design saving commutes: The bad news is people’s work commutes are getting longer (see next item). The good news is, according to The Economist, the free market and urban designers are stepping in to make them more enjoyable.
Going further: More lower-income Portlanders are moving further away from their jobs and other important destinations in order to afford a place to live.
Division Street east of 82nd is one of the deadliest part of our entire transportation network. Designed exclusively around the use of private motorized vehicles, it’s a vast, nine-lane behemoth full of speeding, multi-ton vehicles driven by many people without regard to laws or the safety of others. It also happens to be directly adjacent to places where a growing number of Portlanders live, work and play.