🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏

The Monday Roundup: The gravel boom, biking while high and more

Gifford Gravel 50-14.jpg

The 2015 Gifford Gravel 50,
here in Oregon.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Find a place to air out your jacket, Portland — it’s been pretty wet out there. Let’s warm you up with the bike links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:

Gravel race: 1,400 riders signed up in 15 minutes for a Kansas gravel grinder; the remaining 500 tickets were gone in two hours.

Mandatory flags: A bill in Missouri’s legislature would require anyone riding a bike on lettered country roads to have a 15-foot-high fluorescent flag.

Read more

Guest post: Advocate and bike scene veteran Carl Larson says goodbye

2014 Bike Fair-10

Carl Larson at the 2014 Multnomah County Bike Fair.
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland)

This is a guest post from Carl Larson, a Portland bike advocate and all-around bicycle culture Renaissance man. Amid many other bike-related activities including bike polo, World Naked Bike Ride, Mini Bike Winter, Zoobomb and Pedalpalooza, he’s worked for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance since 2008, currently as its engagement manager. The BTA is eliminating the job on Jan. 31.

“I feel sheepish about suggesting anyone would care about my memories but they’re not just mine,” Larson writes. “These highlights remind me of what a ride so many of us have been on and it’s been really fun to look back at some of them. It has helped me, and will hopefully help others, recognize the BTA at its best.”

Read more

River View plan passage is a watershed moment for off-road cycling in Portland

riverview-rothandmap

Parks Project Manager Emily Roth presenting
the plan at City Council yesterday.

In the past decade there have been a handful of key moments on Portland’s mountain biking timeline.

Yesterday’s city council meeting was one of the biggest.

The River View Natural Area Management Plan passed 4-0 (Commissioner Dan Saltzman was absent) with an amendment that keeps open the possibility of bicycle access in the future. On paper, that’s far from what many off-road cycling advocates wanted. In repeated testimony at the hearing, they urged council to delay the plan’s passage until after the city completes its Off-road Cycling Master Plan.

Their concerns were that if it the plan gets adopted it would set in stone barriers to bike access: a limiting trail alignment and an “interim prohibited” status for cycling.

Read more

Could driving get catastrophically cheap? One smart Portlander speculates

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
car2go in the wild

Still pretty expensive.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Here’s an interesting argument about the near future from a Portland entrepreneur who’s also been a longtime advocate for biking and mass transit.

It’s a useful counterpoint to yesterday’s news that the U.S. Department of Transportation will kick off a $4 billion program to write national rules for self-driving cars.

The futurism here comes from Steve Gutmann, a Southeast Portland resident who has worked at various transportation-related startups since becoming an early employee at the local company that later merged with Zipcar. He’s also on the board of the anti-sprawl group 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Read more

City will buy downtown post office, enabling new bikeway links

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Sunset riders-2

There’s a pot of gold at the west end of the Broadway
Bridge — for someone, at least.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

It looks like inner Northwest Portland is about to get very, very different.

As various outlets have reported, the Portland Development Commission on Wednesday authorized the purchase of the downtown U.S. Postal Service headquarters for $88 million.

That means that if the city can clear up some remaining sticking points and find buyers, hundreds of daily truck trips will vanish from the Pearl District area; a major blue-collar downtown employer will probably relocate to a site near the airport, replaced by a mix of market-rate housing, office jobs and affordable housing; and the street grid between the north Pearl and Willamette River will connect for the first time in more than 50 years.

And as we reported in September, it’ll also mean three new or improved bikeway connections to the Broadway Bridge, including the promise of a route that winds straight down to the North Park Blocks.

Read more

Springwater path users feel threatened by campers, police say their hands are tied

0

Springwater path near SE 82nd.
(Photo: Mark Mollenkopf)

Neighborhood advocates and residents say conditions on the Springwater Corridor path near its intersection of SE 82nd have reached a boiling point. Things have gotten so bad that local residents have dubbed it the “Avenue of Terror.” At issue is the behavior of people who live in tents and under tarps adjacent to the path and the impact their presence is having on users of the path and the surrounding community.

In recent weeks we’ve heard from several readers with concerns about the situation and from a Portland Police Bureau officer who says there’s not enough officers to deal with the issue and a federal court decision has constrained their enforcement power.

Read more

Big shift in Salem: Realtors and some builders are open to housing price controls

Milano apartments grand opening-1

Inclusionary zoning would let cities turn the voluntary agreements that have made the Pearl District relatively income-diverse into mandatory rules.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Oregon just got some powerful new voices in support of ending the state’s unusual ban on a type of zoning designed to preserve income-diverse neighborhoods.

It’s a development that could slowly add up to a significant number of new apartments and condos in bikeable, walkable parts of Portland being set aside for lower or middle-income people.

The news was reported late Wednesday by The Oregonian, whose reporter Denis Theriault covered a state Senate hearing in Salem about “inclusionary zoning,” as the policy is known.

Read more

Industry Ticker: Velofix mobile bike shop now open for business in Portland

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
van5

The mobile bike shop wars are heating up.

Velofix, a Vancouver, B.C.-based company that launched in 2013, is now open for business in Portland.

Back in June we reported that another mobile bike shop company Beeline Bikes was looking for a Portland outlet. They’re still looking. Beeline Marketing Director Peter Small shared with us last week that they’re hoping to have their first Portland shop up and running before this spring.

Meanwhile, Velofix says their first van in Portland has been open for business since January 11th. Customers can book appointments on-line then sit back and wait for the big red van to show up. Will these bike shops on wheels disrupt Portland’s existing bike shop biz? That remains to be seen.

Check out the Velofix press release below for more info:

Read more

Latest Headlines

‘Better Sheridan’ project brings safer street to South Waterfront 

Your guide to finding the ‘Wildwood’ crows by bike

My journey to that ‘Hard Rock glow’

Off-Road Cycling Master Plan: A decade later, what has changed?

From the Archives

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland