BikePortland

Imagining an inner Powell that would actually solve the street’s problems

When more people use cars on a street, it becomes less and less efficient. When more people use mass transit, it becomes more and more efficient.
(Image: Nick Falbo)

The City of Portland and the State of Oregon both say they want to free more of their constituents from traffic congestion and to reduce planet-killing pollution.

There’s no mystery at all about what this would look like on inner Powell Boulevard. Everyone with some measure of power who has considered the issue knows the answer. But for some reason, the millions of public dollars spent talking about that possible answer have never resulted in a street-level picture of it.

PPB Bike Theft Task Force at Sunday Parkways-8.jpg

The booth at the entrance to Woodlawn Park was buzzing with activity all day.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

If we’re going to take a bite out of bike theft in Portland we need the whole community to step up: Police, bike shops, city bureaus, and citizens like you and me.

At this checkpoint at Salmon Street Fountain, the teams had to re-enact a fish ladder by passing a folded Brompton between each other while holding a basketball between their knees (that last part was just for added fun). And yes, they got wet!
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland unless noted otherwise.)

A bike scavenger hunt? With folding bikes and a salmon theme? That’s a thing? Yep! And it all went down last weekend on the streets of Portland.

The inaugural Brompton Urban Challenge — a.k.a. Great Salmon Run — was a big success! Thank you to everyone who showed up to play and all the volunteers and crew who helped make it happen.

I spent most of the day filling 2 dumpsters with trash that homeless people had collected and put in bags along the SpringWater Corridor. It’s an amazing community that is safe and mostly not even seen from the bike path.

Amanda Fritz and her park rangers continue to violate their oath and put a variety of restraints ( exclusions, citations, written warnings) on the peaceful assembly protected by the Oregon Constitution. Cops did this to bikes for a long time:

http://bikeportland.org/2006/12/20/standing-next-to-your-bike-is-not-a-crime-2729#comment-193531

Everything I observed in my court case ( URL above ) was made more obvious to me at the time because I was teaching at Jefferson High. My African American students would constantly tell me about being abused by cops for being black. I did not want to write that then, but I will say it loudly now that #BlackLivesMatter and the cycling community should be more supportive.

When the city Sit Lie Ordinance was tossed out for the 5th time by the courts I took my very young daughter to read the Oregon Constitution to Amanda Fritz and Sam Adams.

Please stay tuned to the Bike Portland Subscriber pages so that cyclists can show more solidarity with the movements of #blackLivesMatter and not evicting the residents of the SpringWater corridor

https://www.facebook.com/BootsOnTheGroundPDX/?fref=ts

Portland’s drop in car use frees up $138 million in our local economy every year

Per-person car ownership is down 7 percent since 2007 and miles driven are down 8 percent.
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland unless noted)

Last month, we wrote about the 38,501 additional cars and trucks that would be in Multnomah County right now if its residents still owned cars at the rate they did in 2007.

What does it cost to own 38,501 cars? Or more to the point, what does it not cost to not own them?

For that post, we focused on the amount of space those nonexistent cars would take up. They’d fill a parking lot almost exactly the size of the central business district, for example.

But what about the money that isn’t being spent to move, maintain, insure and replace all those cars, and can therefore be spent on other things? How much money have Portlanders collectively saved by having a city where car ownership (or ownership of one car for each adult) feels less mandatory than it used to?

The head of “Graham,” a lifelike model of what humans might look like if they’d evolved to use cars.
(Image: Towards Zero)

This week’s Monday Roundup is sponsored by The Portland Century, a one or two-day bicycle tour coming August 6-7th.

Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:

Crash-proof human: An Australian artist collaborated with a trauma surgeon to create “Graham,” a full-body silicone model of what humans might look like if they evolved to survive car crashes.

Bike bridge: San Jose’s proposed biking-walking bridge over a freeway would certainly be spectacular.

Getting there.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Of all the wonderful ideas in Portland’s Bicycle Plan for 2030, the one I personally hope is never forgotten is its audacious use of a numeral: 25 percent.

That’s the target it set for the share of trips that could happen by bicycle in Portland. Today, the figure is something like 7 percent. Only several dozen cities in eastern Asia and northern Europe, probably, can currently boast 25 percent or more.

But 25 percent is possible and even imaginable, as BikePortland reader Alex Reedin spelled out in a Thursday morning comment estimating the payoff for each step that’ll be required to get us there.

New public plaza on SW 3rd and Ankeny-7.jpg

Looking ~~south~~ north at Burnside from SW 3rd near Ankeny.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

You know Portland is getting its groove back when the Bureau of Transportation creates a large new public plaza and it takes us nearly a week to get it up on the front page.

Nonprofit newspaper director Israel Bayer.
(Photo: Street Roots)

As the day approaches for a so-called “sweep” of everyone camping along the Springwater Corridor, one of Portland’s leading housing advocates is offering a counterproposal.

Instead of pushing everyone in these informal camps “back into the neighborhoods and downtown,” Street Roots Executive Director Israel Bayer wrote in a column Thursday, the city should (a) increase “organized camping” and (b) “surgically” target only people who are causing problems, not everyone else around them.

“If there are bad actors, get them out of there,” Bayer wrote. “If people are having an environmental impact, give them an ultimatum. Clean your camps up, or be swept.”

Last month’s inaugural U-lock? U-Rock! exchange was so popular that the Portland Police Bureau’s Bike Theft Task Force (BTTF) ran out of locks within the first hour.

“Before we even got set up, there was a line. We could not keep up with the demand,” Portland Police Bureau Officer Dave Sanders wrote in a debrief. “At one point, there was a line of cyclists a block long and so many people congregating around our tents, that it was interfering with other organizations.”

Officer Sanders and a crew of volunteers (more are needed!) and city partners will be prepared for the onslaught this Sunday when the program returns for Sunday Parkways Northeast.

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Looks like there’s a bee theme to this Sunday Parkways. Check out all the details below…

Northeast Portland Sunday Parkways will be BEE-utiful this Weekend

PBOT, BES and City Repair activities at Sunday Parkways to highlight a Pollinator-friendly Portland
Portland, OR, July 21, 2016 — This summer’s third City of Portland Sunday Parkways presented by Kaiser Permanente is coming to Northeast Portland this Sunday, July 24. Walkers, cyclists and rollers of all kinds will have the opportunity to enjoy a 7.6 mile loop of traffic-free streets from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. This weekend’s route will connect Northeast Portland neighborhoods from Woodlawn Park to Khunamokwst Park. The route will also showcase neighborhood greenways like Going Street. Neighborhood greenways are residential streets with low speeds that are marked with bicycle symbols on the pavement.

As an added bonus, this weekend’s event will give Portlanders an opportunity to explore the benefits of a healthy and bee-friendly city when the Pollinator Project debuts. A partnership between the City Repair Project and Sunday Parkways, the multi-year Pollinator Project will focus on increasing pollinator habitat in Portland through community engagement, educational awareness, and a series of neighborhood projects. Sunday Parkways participants will be able to take part in a variety of activities highlighting the important role that pollinators play in Portland’s environment. The Pollinator Project is partially funded through the Community Watershed Stewardship Program (CWSP) grant facilitated by the Bureau of Environmental Services.

The event’s detailed Sunday Parkways route map shows the route as well as bus and light rail options to help area residents get to Sunday Parkways via bike and transit. A schedule and listing of event highlights are available on the Sunday Parkways Northeast Portland brochure.

Sunday Parkways is a series of five free community events opening the city’s largest public space – its streets – for people to walk, bike, roll and discover active transportation. The event series, held in a different neighborhood once a month from May to September, is hugely popular; total attendance topped 119,000 last year.
For maps and more information, visit www.PortlandSundayParkways.org or call 503-823-7599. Follow us on Facebook at PortlandSundayParkways and on Twitter @SundayParkways.

Imagining an inner Powell that would actually solve the street’s problems

Bike Theft Task Force spreads awareness at Sunday Parkways

Here’s what Portland’s first Brompton Urban Challenge looked like

Nothing changes with police abuse

Portland’s drop in car use frees up $138 million in our local economy every year

The Monday Roundup: A crash-proof human body, a San Jose bike bridge & more

Comment of the Week: Portland’s five-step recipe for 25 percent biking

First look: The new public plaza on SW 3rd

Street Roots’ Israel Bayer on moving Springwater camps: ‘Do it surgically’

Bike Theft Task Force returns with popular u-lock exchange program

Sunday Parkways coming to Northeast Portland this Sunday (7/24)

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From the Archives

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