Busy in Biketown: Top 10 bike share stations and first month stats

We’re just going to come right out and say it: By every measure that matters, bike share in Portland is an unmitigated success (and yes we’re so confident in that statement we don’t think we’ll jinx it).

In case you missed our story yesterday about how behavioral science explains it, check out this new piece in The Oregonian where reporter Eliot Njus shares this wonderful little gem:

“The program is on-track to be self-sustaining, paying for its operations with user fees and corporate sponsorships. The transportation bureau has said the program won’t depend on city funds.”

So there’s that.

Now let’s take a closer look at the numbers behind all this great news.

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With Forest Park on the table, Portland’s off-road cycling debate is heating up

Forest Park-4

A common sight in Forest Park.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Here we go again.

After seven months of advisory committee meetings, tonight the City of Portland will unveil a first draft of a list of potential sites to build new off-road cycling facilities. And like we’ve seen several times in the past, now that the moment of truth is drawing closer, people who want to prevent any improvement in bike access in local parks and natural areas are digging in for a fight.

This time the action is swirling around the city’s Off Road Cycling Master Plan process, a $350,000 effort to once-and-for-all create a comprehensive strategy to address the growing demand for places where Portlanders can ride a bicycle on dirt trails that doesn’t require a drive to Hood River, Sandy, or the Coast Range. The plan doesn’t draw any lines on the map, nor does it mandate the construction of any new trails. Its goal is to create a citywide inventory of where off-road cycling could work and what type of facility could be built at each site (it’s looking at all forms of dirt riding, from singletrack to skills parks and “pump tracks”). Part of that inventory is likely to include Forest Park, a location steeped in emotion and controversy on boths sides of this debate.

And since this is Portland and the city is talking about riding bicycles on dirt trails in Forest Park, a group of people who are vehemently resistant to any changes to the status quo have emerged to try and stop any forward movement.

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The secret to Portland’s bike share success is in the science of behavior change

Biketowning in the park

Three brothers enjoying our city via Biketown: Philmore, Jermaine, and Vilynn Yun Ulinwa.
(Photos: J Maus/BikePortland)

This article is by Jessica Roberts, a principal at Alta Planning + Design and resident of north Portland. She previously wrote about a local bike racer and infrastructure on North Williams Avenue.

To the average Portlander, it must look like they just dropped from the sky overnight. Or perhaps like an exotic fungus that sprang up from the ground over a particularly rainy summer evening. I’m talking, of course, about one thousand bright orange Biketown bikes that have already – just one month into the program – become nothing short of cultural phenomenon.

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Weekly Video Roundup: St. Helens adventure, brake abuse, and more


Welcome to the weekly video roundup! I reviewed 45 videos this week so I could show you the best. As always, a third of the videos were just posted in the last 36 hours. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are always busy with this. I’m starting the week with a video that is on Vimeo- it ends up being the forgotten step-sibling but the videos are often great. This is no exception to that- it looks like a really fun adventure on the side of Mt. St. Helens.

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Portland about to win another major battle in its quest to lower speed limits

Ride Along Kathleen McDade-34

The City of Portland thinks proximity to vulnerable road users should be used to determine speed limits — not the dangerous behaviors of those with the most protection.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

It’s simple: When we drive too fast, it’s much easier to kill someone. But even with that clear and present danger, the vast majority of us still speed. Our roads will never be safe until we get a handle on this and now the City of Portland has taken a big step in the right direction.

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City’s bicycle advisory committee seeks an east Portland rep

N NE Quadrant plans at BAC-3

BAC gets down to business.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

East Portland is where it’s at these days. We all know how the future looks in the Central City because the changes are happening right before our eyes. But the story of east Portland is still being written. And if the first few chapters are any indication it’ll be a bestseller.

From a bicycling standpoint the possibilities are endless: Activists (like Jim Chasse) and the City of Portland have laid a strong foundation, there’s plenty of right-of-way to work with, and there’s strong demand for a more affordable and healthy way to get around.

If you want to have a powerful voice in this future, the City of Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee wants to hear from you. They have an opening and need to fill it with a person who lives and/or works east of 82nd Avenue.

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Traffic civility in Portland’s new era of congestion

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It’s not just Portland’s freeways that are crowded these days.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Please welcome back Sarah Gilbert. She’s written for us in the past about a cargo biking adventure and the psychology of anger.

Crystal was egged one day coming back from a bike tour, her guests trailing behind her on their bicycles. We don’t know why; just, bam, splat. The assailants only got her.

We’re both tour guides for the same company and I heard the story when I got back to the shop that afternoon. It’s busy work, with the tourist industry on the same upswing as everywhere-to-Portland immigration.

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Fallon Smart’s death, a heart-wrenching reality check, has sparked protests and support

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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)

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.

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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

The Athletes Lounge tent at a race.
The Athletes Lounge tent at a race.

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.”

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From the Archives

With six kids and no car, this mom does it all by bike