“It’s not my fault”
In 2013 someone managed to get their car partway across the Columbia River on the I-205 multi-use path. Now it has happened again.
Multnomah County bought a tiny car to avoid blocking a bridge path
How far would your county go to maintain the integrity of a path?
Multnomah County has added a new, very small car to its fleet. The reason? So that it won’t get in the way of people walking and rolling on the Morrison Bridge.
Fallon Smart’s death, a heart-wrenching reality check, has sparked protests and support
Fallon Smart’s family and friends, concerned members of our community and transportation reform activists have left their mark on the intersection at SE Hawthorne and 43rd.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
The death of Fallon Smart has torn our community apart. A potent mixture of how she was killed (run over by a dangerous man who used his car as a deadly weapon while she legally walked across a street), where she was killed (a stretch of Hawthorne you might see in a tourism brochure), and who she was (by all accounts a bright, giving and creative 15-year-old who attended a nearby high school), has led to multiple protests, heated online debates, an outpouring of support for her grieving family, and a much-needed dose of reality on Portland’s back-patting path to “Vision Zero.”
Whenever someone dies in a traffc collision, it has an impact on the community; but every once in a while a fatality will spark something larger. Smart’s death appears to have done that. But strangely, while citizens and grassroots activists have mobilized, there’s a deafening silence from City Hall.
Ian Mackay is on a wheelchair tour to promote better paths and trails
Very few people would ride 300 miles on a bicycle just to raise awareness for a cause they believe in. Ian Mackay is doing it in his wheelchair. And what is it that he believes in? Better paths and trails so that more people in wheelchairs can get around safely and efficiently.
Mackay started from his hometown of Port Angeles earlier this month and is slated to arrive in Portland (his final destination) on Tuesday.
Mackay became a quadriplegic after a bike crash eight years ago. He understands the value of off-highway paths in large part because he lives right next to one. In fact it was his access to the Olympic Discovery Trail that helped him deal with post-accident depression. Instead of being “mopey” and watching television, the trail gave him a way to explore his neighborhood and enjoy life once again. Now he wants others with spinal cord injuries to have the same opportunity.
Here’s what he told The Olympian newspaper last Thursday:
“On the Olympic Peninsula I’m spoiled rotten because I can hop on a trail and go either way and commute to wherever I’m trying to get to. I have a lot of brothers with spinal cord injuries that would really like to do similar things and often the trail systems aren’t accomodating for wheelchairs so I wanted to demonstrate first off that the disabled and people in chairs do use bike paths and trails and multi-use paths. And by being out there and people seeing I hope to bring some advocacy to that.”
Since he’s been exploring the trail outside his home he’s put 5,000 miles on his wheelchair. Mackay says on his website that he’s a “well-known feature” on the local paths.
Given his love of exploring bike paths with friends and finishing off a day’s ride with craft beer (he ends each days 20-30 journey at a pub), we have a feeling Mackay will become pretty well-known in Portland too.
Stay tuned for updates on his visit as he gets into town tomorrow. We’ll post any meet-up spots on Twitter. Word has it he’ll end his trip in Waterfront Park.
Learn more at IansRide.com
Athletes Lounge, a fixture in Portland’s triathlon scene, is closing
Portland’s only bike shop that specialized in the needs of triathletes is closing its doors. Athletes Lounge in northwest on Vaughn and 26th plans to close by October 1st.
Gary Wallesen has owned the shop for nearly six years after purchasing it from its previous owner who had run it since 2007.
Wallesen says the business isn’t strong enough to remain open. “Last year the numbers were down, this year numbers really down,” he shared via email last week. And he also offered some external reasons he feels the bike shop business is especially challenging these days. “The business environment is changing, online [shopping] is growing, a shop in town discounts everything and hurts all others. There is a big inventory of new bikes in Portland and the market.” Wallesen said the triathlon market is particularly flat (pun intended).
He even shared one cautionary tale that might point to larger trends: “I think people are looking to ride, but the roads are getting more crowded and a little less safe. So markets that take riders of the road might be doing better.”
The Monday Roundup: Extremist NFL announcer, power of bikes, big data, and more
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Welcome to the 34th week of the year. Here are the stories and tweets that caught our eyes in the past seven days…
Extremist views go mainstream: An announcer with the NFL Network displayed his deviant and violent tendencies when he said on Twitter that he wanted to hit people on bikes with his car. He later deleted the tweet saying he “didn’t mean to offend anyone.”
Great public spaces more important than ever: In these days of protest and sorrow around killings of black people on our streets, the Project for Public Spaces says we need to plan them a different way. There has never been a more important time to integrate transportation and public space advocates with Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements.
Much more than a bike ride: The ability of bicycles to help connect people to others and to themselves and the world around them never ceases to amaze me. This woman’s recap of a Sydney Night Ride weaves together racism, sexism, politics, and a huge plate of nachos.
Summer driving season = summer dying season: As gas prices come down, driving goes up and so do the vast societal costs that come with it. City Observatory breaks it down for us.
Paris is doing it right: Still angry after Friday’s fatal collision on Hawthorne, my heart swelled with joy reading about this plan in Paris to expand a ban on cars along the Seine River.
Speeding driver kills teenage girl who was crossing SE Hawthorne
Yesterday afternoon a man was driving his Lexus SUV recklessly down SE Hawthorne Blvd and his behavior led him to strike and kill a teenage girl. First responders were unable to revive her and she died on the scene as her family grieved just feet away from her.
The man, 20-year-old Abdulrahman Noorah — who was driving with a suspended license — originally fled the scene of his crime and later returned. He has been arrested by the Portland Police Bureau and has been charged with Manslaughter II, Felony Failure to Perform the Duties of a Driver (hit and run) and Reckless Driving.
Don’t miss Sunday Parkways Southeast this weekend!
There will be plenty of ways to keep cool at Sunday Parkways.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
We know it’s stiflingly hot right now but the forecast is for cooler temps on Sunday. It should be a perfect day to enjoy your streets the way they intended to be used — by walking, rolling, and riding on them during Sunday Parkways.
Carfree bridge across I-405 at NW Flanders wins $2.8 million state grant
A bridge that will allow people to walk and bike — but not drive — over I-405 at Northwest Flanders just came much closer to reality. The Oregon Transportation Commission has approved $2,877,000 for the project through the state’s Connect Oregon funding program.
The award means the City of Portland is on track to start construction of the bridge in 2018.
How TriMet’s project in the Rose Quarter Transit Center will impact your ride
A busy bikeway cuts right through the middle of the Rose Quarter Transit Center.
(Photo: J Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo: J Maus/BikePortland)
If you bike through the Rose Quarter Transit Center be advised that starting this Sunday August 21st and lasting two weeks until September 3rd, TriMet is embarking on a major construction project that will close streets, change lange configurations, and put work crews and vehicles all over the place.
Crunching numbers: A closer look at Portland’s road fatality rates
Portland traffic fatalities, 1996-2015
The past few weeks have been especially bad in terms of road fatalities in Portland. Within nine days between July 30th and August 8th we had four fatalities, which prompted me to run the numbers- so by the time you’re reading this, they have gone up.
For the year to date as of August 9, we’ve had 28 fatalities. I took PBOT’s fatality data and crunched some numbers:
Cycle Exploregon: A dose of history, wild rivers, and a ‘true taste of the Pacific Northwest’
The mighty Rogue River.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Welcome to Cycle Exploregon, our annual adventure done in partnership with Cycle Oregon to explore beyond their official route. This is the final ride recap in this series. Read the other ones here.
Riding a bicycle through Oregon is an awesome way to learn about our history and get up close and personal with the wild places that have shaped it. From a bike you can hear, see, and smell much more than from inside a car — and hours in the saddle give you time to ponder everything your senses take in.
The final leg of my journey gave me several opportunities to for this. I rode from Gold Beach on the coast to the steep canyons of the Rogue River just outside of Grants Pass (see route details on RideWithGPS.com). Unlike the other three days of this trip, my route mirrored exactly what we’ll do on Cycle Oregon next month — all 71 miles (and nearly 7,400 feet of climbing) of it.