BikePortland

Task force likes proposal to restrict main-street residents’ curbside parking rights

morehead with centers corridors committee

Portland Bureau of Transportation planner Grant Morehead discusses parking policies with the city’s Centers and Corridors parking stakeholder committee.
(Photos: M.Andersen and J.Maus/BikePortland)

Central-city apartment dwellers might want to start looking into that whole car-free thing pretty soon.

An advisory committee composed almost entirely of residents of residential zones gave a general thumbs-up Wednesday night to a city proposal that could let residents of residential zones vote to prevent people who live on commercial streets from buying overnight parking permits in their neighborhoods.

Because most of Portland’s commercial main streets are zoned for mixed-use or employment, the proposed parking permit system — which would also charge residential permit holders a yet-to-be determined monthly or annual fee for curbside parking — would effectively let residents just off of commercial corridors remove curbside parking rights from residents of most nearby multifamily buildings.

The city’s idea is that such a system would lead developers of buildings on commercial corridors to include more on-site auto parking in their new buildings, or else to market their buildings more successfully to car-free residents.

A 2012 photo of the offending grate, long before Parsons’ unsanctioned paint job.
(Photos: Jim Parsons)

Update: After this and other media coverage of Parsons’ action and ODOT’s repsonse, the agency has announced plans to fix the grates and says it is grateful for Parsons’ work.

A local man who says he’s been warning state officials for seven years about a sunken grate in the middle of Barbur Boulevard’s northbound bike lane has finally gotten some action from the agency.

After he marked the grate himself with yellow warning paint and with the letters “ODOT KNOWS,” the agency is planning to visit the site … to erase his paint.

In a Wednesday email to the man, Jim Parsons, an Oregon Department of Transportation staffer with the title “citizen’s representative” scolded him for what she said would make the street more dangerous.

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Breen Goodwin.
(Photo: Alliance for Biking and Walking)

The organization that supports and coordinates the country’s state and local active transportation advocacy groups has a new boss, and she’s a Portlander.

The Alliance for Biking and Walking, which counts the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Oregon Walks among its many affiliates, announced Monday that it’s named Breen Goodwin as its new executive director. Though the Alliance has been based in Washington, D.C., since its founding in the late 1990s, Goodwin will be based in Portland.

“This is a special place for my family,” Goodwin, who grew up in Tacoma and who still has family there, explained in a brief interview Wednesday from her current workplace.

Going up?
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

As redevelopment proposals for Northwest Portland’s big post office have moved forward, some insiders have been talking about an exciting concept for the site: a flyover ramp that could directly connect the bridge’s 30-foot-high Y-shaped west landing with a new north-south bikeway through the Park Blocks.

Envisioned as a key link in a proposed Green Loop biking path around the central city, a well-designed route through what’s supposed to become a major mixed-use employment and residential development would certainly be costly if it took the form of a floating path — but would also seem likely to become one of Portland’s most iconic pieces of bike infrastructure, reminiscent of Copenhagen’s new Bicycle Snake.

Southwest Portland’s bikeways need huge work. But is that work more important than improving areas that have immediate ridership potential?
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland)

The debate is familiar. But lately, we’ve been hearing an interesting twist to this story: there might actually be a way to resolve it.

Portland is getting ready for a burst of its biggest biking investments in years, and it’s prompted a creative proposal for confronting one of the stickiest issues in local politics.

The city is preparing to put $6 million toward its first high-quality downtown bike lane network. Next year, a $5.2 million upgrade of Foster Road will make that highway-style street much safer to walk, bike and drive on between SE 52nd and SE 90th. Another $4.2 million will create a 130s Greenway; another greenway running east from Gateway Transit Center; and bike facilities on Division Street as far east as 130th. The $2.4 million 20s Bikeway Project is being built piece by piece.

Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People.
(Photo: TriMet)

If you, like us, have spent the last five years dreaming of the day you’ll be pedaling across Portland’s lovely new car-free bridge, this weekend is your first chance.

The Tilikum Crossing will temporarily open to bike traffic this Sunday, Aug. 9, for two events: first, the Providence Bridge Pedal, the paid ride that loops across Portland’s Willamette River bridges; and second, a three-hour open window that TriMet is calling “The People’s Preview.”

Just another day in Amsterdam.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

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

Parenting by bike: A diary travel study of 37 Dutch women concluded that mothers there bike as much as childless women and see transporting their kids by bike as “pleasant and natural.”

Hidden costs: Todd Litman notes that to build an auto-dependent city is essentially to put a tax on your population — hidden in the cost of their car payments and gas bills.

Under the concept, residents of the mixed commercial zone along Southeast Ankeny Street wouldn’t be allowed to buy permits to park cars on nearby residential streets unless there were spaces left unused by nearby residents.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

After months of research and discussion with a massive stakeholders’ group, the Portland Bureau of Transportation on Thursday circulated its first concept for how to deal with shortages of free on-street car parking in some neighborhoods.

The proposal, which the city described Friday as “preliminary,” combines two main ideas:

1) Neighborhoods would get the option to vote to start charging themselves a yet-to-be-determined amount for overnight street parking, and

2) people who live in most of the buildings along commercial corridors wouldn’t get to park in permit-parking areas overnight unless people who live in nearby residences don’t want the space.

For Oregon’s roads, the first seven months of 2015 have been the deadliest since 2008.

We’ve had four great jobs listed this week. Learn more about them via the links below…

Customer Experience Specialist – Velotech, Inc.
Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator – Oregon Walks
Account Service Representative – Chris King Components
Mechanic / Sales / Management – The Bike Commuter

The Salmon Street Fountain will be the last stop at tonight’s water-themed Portland Bike Party. Bring a swimsuit.
(Photo © J.Maus/BikePortland)

This menu of delicious rides and events is brought to you by our friends at Hopworks Urban Brewery. Their support makes BikePortland possible.

The peak of summer isn’t letting us go yet. This week’s heat wave will continue through this first weekend of August before slackening off. It’s a perfect reminder to savor what we’ve got, at least in between gulps of water. There’s plenty of outdoor fun to choose from.

Friday, July 31

Fly to Pie Kid Ride – 2 p.m. at Oregon Park (NE Hoyt and 29th)
Bike-based clowns Olive and Dingo lead a ride celebrating fairies, bugs, birds, bats, squirrels and of course flying monkeys. Put on your wings and ride to the Pie Spot for food and story time. Suggested $5 donation includes balloon animals and clown show. More info here.

Task force likes proposal to restrict main-street residents’ curbside parking rights

After man adds warning paint to sunken grate, state roads agency calls it vandalism

New head of national bike-walk advocacy group will live in Portland

A Broadway Bridge-to-Park-Blocks flyover path? Site designer says it could happen

As big bike investments loom, the debate goes on: Which neighborhoods need most?

It’s time: Bridge Pedal will open Tilikum Crossing Sunday, followed by ‘The People’s Preview’

The Monday Roundup: Parenting by bike, hidden auto taxes & more

City parking reform proposal would limit apartment dwellers’ access to parking permits

Across Oregon, traffic fatalities abruptly return almost to pre-recession levels

Jobs of the Week: Velotech, Oregon Walks, Chris King, The Bike Commuter

Weekend Event Guide: Raging Waters fountain ride, intersection painting & more

Friday, July 31

Latest Headlines

Dispatch from hiatus and update on the future

Reminder: No riding through River View Cemetery during Memorial Day Weekend

Guest Article: Demand a pause on PBOT’s SW Alder decision

Guest Opinion: The bike beat lives on in all of us

From the Archives

The 10 busiest bicycling spots in Portland