🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Instant curb extension: Doug Gordon of Brooklyn Spoke has discovered that a single well-placed traffic cone can create big improvements in car turns.
Escalator capacity: Much like on streets, you can increase throughput on some escalators by removing the passing lane.
Kristin Eberhard, of Sightline Institute will speak on Monday, January 25 at 7 PM, at the Richmond Neighborhood Land Use meeting, on:
“What YOU can do about Climate Change: From voting to put a price on pollution, to replacing your light bulbs, to welcoming new housing.”
Kristin’s talk will be at 7:10, and a discussion will follow.
Also on the agenda is developer Adam Jones, presenting plans for a 10-unit mixed use building at 2515 SE 41st Ave.
The meeting is at the Waverly Church, 3300 SE Woodward, one block south of Clinton at 33rd Ave.
(Note: You do not have to live in Richmond to attend this talk).
(Correction: An earlier version of this post said this talk was February 25th. It’s January (tonight!). Sorry for the error and we regret any confusion it caused.)
After a long pause to gather its strategy and thoughts, Portland’s city council is expected to launch its latest plan Wednesday to raise money for the city’s streets.
The new concept, a public vote for a temporary local gas tax of 10 cents per gallon, comes endorsed by a 93-page report from the City Club of Portland and at least two mayoral candidates (Jules Bailey and Ted Wheeler) as the least bad way to slow the city’s deepening pavement problem while getting some high-priority safety improvements on the ground.
And in a new development, it looks as if some resources have been found for one of such a ballot issue’s biggest needs: an organized “yes” campaign.
Ride Report, the locally based mobile app that’s trying to bring new insights into bike planning by making it much easier to estimate stress levels and count bikes, is up and running.
To celebrate the release this week of their free iOS app (Android is in the works), the Ride Report team gave us the keys to their internal map so we could take a look at some of the interesting details they’ve already turned up about biking in Portland.
The non-profit Bicycle Transportation Alliance has a mission to get more women on bikes. But strangely enough, they first plan to teach women how to fall off them.
We often talk about fears and barriers to bicycling for would-be riders. Most of the time it’s about fears of riding next to traffic, getting sweaty before work, not having enough cargo space, not wanting to get rained on, and so on. But falling? It never occurred to me that would be a significant barrier until I saw an email from BTA Program Manager Nicole Davenport. She posted a message to a local email list with the subject: “Bike Falling Expert?”
“Is anyone out there really good at safely falling off their bike?” she wondered. “Would you like to help teach a group of people to safely fall off their bikes?”
Sorry, this job has been filled. Browse more great jobs here.
We’re continuing to track the concerns about people who live outside along the Springwater path, the conditions of the path, and the safety of people who ride bikes on it.
Our two recent stories on the subject — one about concerns from path users and the current state of law enforcement response to them, and the other that shared the perspectives of the homeless residents themselves — has sparked a big discussion.
This issue obviously goes way beyond bicycling. We’re covering it because it impacts conditions on properties managed by the Portland Parks & Recreation and Bureau of Transportation that have transportation corridors running through them (like the Springwater, Waterfront Park, and the Greeley path).
Here are a few updates:
Looking for a new job? We’ve got three opportunities that just went up this week.
Learn more about each job via the links below…
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact in this City/Country we have virtually unlimited space dedicated to free storage of cars, but very limited space for the increasing number of humans who simply need a place to sleep in peace and access to a toilet.
What will it take to change this disconnect in values and priorities? What would it take to transfer the value of all the free space for inanimate objects into dedicated space for struggling human beings? Wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate revenue neutrality on parking to subsidize more important things like human health and living conditions?
Here’s a bit of news that a lot of Portlanders have been waiting years to hear: a new group has launched to speak for the interests of business in Portland.
Or, in the words of one of its steering committee members, Metafilter publisher Matt Haughey: “There’s a business group that will fully support bike lanes and not complain about parking.”
The list of participants includes many from the city’s tech startup world, led by Switchboard CEO Mara Zepeda. Here’s what Zepeda writes in her introduction to the Portland Independent Chamber of Commerce:
A spot has opened up on ODOT’s biking and walking advisory committee. Check out details below…
SALEM – The Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is seeking to fill a recently vacated position that represents the youth community. The committee was first formed by Oregon Statute 366.112, a bill passed in the 1973 Oregon Legislature. In 1995, the Oregon Transportation Commission officially recognized the committee’s additional role in pedestrian issues, and the group became the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, or OBPAC.
The eight-member committee, appointed by the governor, acts as a liaison between the public and the Oregon Department of Transportation. It advises ODOT in the regulation of bicycle and pedestrian traffic and the establishment of bikeways and walkways. Members serve four-year terms, and the makeup of the group must include:
Like most of us, Sarah Iannarone thinks Portland is underachieving. But unlike most people, Iannarone has decided to something about it. Something big. She’s running for mayor.