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

The Monday Roundup: Bike-lane lights, Germany’s bikebahn, DIY snow tires & more

LED bike lane lights on NE Couch-3

Solar-powered lane lights tested on Couch Street, 2012.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Happy new year, Portland — we’ve had some much-needed rest on Team BikePortland and we’re happy to be back from the holidays with you. Here, as usual, are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:

Lane lights: A proposed Florida law would require Florida-made solar-powered lights to be installed along every bike path or lane. (Cost: $75 each.)

DIY snow tires: For those of you with disc brakes, this might be a good day to consider this creative use of zip-ties.

Read more

Snow day means biking bliss in Portland

Snow Day 2016-7.jpg

Peninsula Park.
(Photo by James Rohl)

Portlanders woke up to the first real snowfall of the season this morning. The white powdery stuff was sticking to streets and beckoning us out into before most of us had finished our first cup of coffee.

Read more

Year in Review: We asked 33 questions in January, here are the answers

reviewlead

Let’s take a look back shall we?
(Photos by J. Maus unless otherwise noted)

Following the news in your city is like braiding hair: you won’t be able to weave it all together unless you can keep track of each separate strand.

What’s more, the whole thing only makes sense after it’s finished.

With the 1,060 front-page stories BikePortland has published so far this year — that’s 20 per week, four per weekday — we’ve tried to help you follow the braid of what matters to Portland biking in all its richness, from off-road recreation to new businesses to wonktastic policy detail to weather reports. Back when the year started, we took a crack at “33 questions that’ll shape Portland bike news in 2015.”

It’s time to step back and look at the year we’ve had. Below are answers to the 33 questions we asked nearly 12 months ago. We’ve broken them down into handy topics for your reading pleasure…

Read more

Parking meter hike approved Wednesday will mean $4 million a year for local streets

parking pass

Costs and benefits.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

After a decade of struggling to pay for a street network that is in some parts dangerous and in other parts crumbling, Portland’s city council voted 4-0 Wednesday to do a small something about it.

The $4 million annually that’ll be raised by hiking downtown parking meter rates from $1.60 an hour to $2 is a far cry from the $53 million that might have been raised by last year’s original street fee proposal, and even further from the $100 million that the city would need each of the next 10 years to prevent any of its paved streets from gradually turning to gravel.

But the meter rate hike will mean that it’ll no longer be cheaper to spend three hours parked along a public curb than to take a three-hour bus trip or to spend three hours in one of the city’s off-street garages.

Read more

A harrowing, icy commute

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
An icy commute-1.jpg

Slick.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

If you rode into work this morning and are reading this, congratulations: You survived one of the most harrowing commutes of 2015. And I’m only slightly joking.

I almost didn’t.

Read more

Job: Summer Bike Camp Instructor – Washington County Bicycle Transportation Coalition

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title *
Summer Bike Camp Instructor

Company/Organization *
Washington County Bicycle Transportation Coalition

Job Description *
We are looking for two individuals who are comfortable riding their bike in traffic, can ride 10-20 miles in a day, and have experience working with youth. You and your co-instructor will be responible for the day to day activities of up to 12 campers, ages 9-11 or 12-14, including teaching a core bike safety curriculum. We are looking for someone who is self-directed and able to teach in a collaborative setting.

We plan to hold four camps, each 5 days long, based in Hillsboro, Tigard (and if enough interest in Beaverton and Bethany). Camps will be held M-F on four consecutive weeks beginning Monday, July 11 and last camp starting on Aug. 1 and ending on Aug.5th.

Instructors will be required to successfully complete our “Confidence in Traffic” clinic or show similar competency, as well as have first aid training and basic bike repair. You will also be required to know the material contained in our “Bike Camp Instructors Manual” and the safety curriculum in the “Safe Routes to School” manual. We will provide the training and written materials to you. You will also be required to pass a criminal background check.

e-mail questions and resume to camps@washcobtc.org
Visit our website at www.washcobtc.org

How to Apply *
e-mail your resume to Camps@washcobtc.org or send it via mail to:
WashCo BTC Summer Bike Camps
Attention: Steve
137 NE 3rd Ave.
Hillsboro, OR. 97124

UPDATED – ODOT says bikers, walkers, people with disabilities are “problem children” in work zones

odot-workzoneslide

Slide from a presentation given by ODOT’s Traffic Plans Unit at a safety conference earlier this year.

For years now transportation advocates have been battling the tides of the Oregon Department of Transportation. It’s an agency — like all state highway agencies — that was born and raised in the automobile era yet now operates in an era where many people want to walk and bike and use our roads without a car. While there have been glimmers of reform, recent decisions have made it clear that the real changes many of us hope for are still a ways off.

Read more

Industry Ticker: The Lumberyard inks deal with Timberline Ski Area

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward
Visit to the Lumberyard MTB Park -11

(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

No matter where you like to shred, The Lumberyard has you covered.

Portland’s beloved indoor bike park has inked a deal with Timberline Ski Area to give season pass holders discounts at both facilities. It goes both ways: If you’re a member of the Lumberyard you can now get 15 percent off your midweek lift tickets at Timberline; and if you are a season or annual pass member at Timberline, you can get a 15 percent off admission and bike rentals at The Lumberyard

If you’ve followed our coverage of The Lumberyard since they opened back in 2012, this news won’t come as a surprise. The company’s founders, Will Heiberg and Michael Whitesel, have modeled their ticketing plans on ski areas since the beginning.

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