For Oregon’s roads, the first seven months of 2015 have been the deadliest since 2008.
Jobs of the Week: Velotech, Oregon Walks, Chris King, The Bike Commuter
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
Weekend Event Guide: Raging Waters fountain ride, intersection painting & more
The Salmon Street Fountain will be the last stop at tonight’s water-themed Portland Bike Party. Bring a swimsuit.
(Photo © J.Maus/BikePortland)
(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.
With new ‘Livable Streets’ subgroup, BikeLoud will commemorate road deaths by all modes
The Facebook page for the new “subgroup”
Livable Streets Action.
Livable Streets Action.
A new group called Livable Streets Action is taking the tactics that have won a string of victories for local biking this spring and summer and applying them to other modes, too.
Organizer Dan Kaufman, a videographer and longtime local social justice advocate who has helped organize demonstrations for transportation activism group BikeLoudPDX and the bike-based but non-transportation-focused group Bike Swarm, referred to Livable Streets Action as a “subgroup” of those other groups.
Livable Streets Action’s first event is tomorrow, a Friday afternoon commemoration for Marlene Popps, a woman who was hit by a car and left for dead on the evening of July 4 at the corner of SE 60th and Holgate. She died of her injuries July 21.
Another outsider’s take: A British bike journalist on Portland
Carlton Reid in Grant Park in June.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
Many BikePortland readers are familiar with the work of Carlton Reid, a leading writer for the U.K. news outlet BikeBiz. As of last month, Reid is familiar with Portland, too.
Reid stopped through town for a few days on a tour promoting his new popular history of early bicycling, Roads Were Not Built for Cars. As a side project, he also put together one of the most concisely accurate summaries I’ve seen of Portland and biking at this moment in our history.
Here’s a passage from the piece published today on BikeBiz:
Bike commuters may dominate in some bohemian enclaves but across the city they make up just six percent of the total. This is stellar by U.S. standards – ten times the norm, in fact – but in comparison with, say, Copenhagen, it’s not even in the same galaxy.
Stats can be misleading though. When riding around Portland it’s clear this is a city where, in certain areas, cycling is perfectly normal, not just for getting to work but for running errands or riding to a night out. Bars and shops have bike-corrals (rows of cycle parking hoops instead of car parking spaces) and the light rail system is geared up to take bikes. Portland’s six percent modal share has to be seen in context – in 1990 it was just 1 percent. Between 2000 and 2008 the civic authority’s proactive bicycle programme helped add the other five percent, and the city has held it at that level ever since. Ten percent of kids cycle to school, nine percentage points higher than the U.S. national average.
Police response to Greenpeace action closes south sidewalk of St Johns Bridge (updated)
Update 5:45 p.m.: Police now say that only the southeast sidewalk (upstream, closer to downtown Portland) is closed and that officers were mistaken when they previously blocked people from crossing the bridge on bike or foot.
“It was just that someone didn’t get told,” Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Greg Stewart said Wednesday evening. “We’re just having people use the other side of the street.”
An updated version of the original post follows.
Some Portland police officers ordered the sidewalks of the St. Johns bridge closed to foot and bike traffic in response to a direct action on the bridge Wednesday.
Late Wednesday, police changed their operation and closed only the southeast (upstream) sidewalk to people on foot or bike.
More biking = better driving. So why isn’t this said more often?
Supercommuter Kyle Carlson preparing to head home.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
An article published today by the Portland-based magazine Oregon Business takes a look at a handful of local bike-commuting superstars who regularly pedal 20 to 40 miles each way to work and back.
Biking fans won’t find many surprises in the piece, though that doesn’t diminish the accomplishment of interviewees like Kyle Carlson, a recent Friday Profile subject here at BikePortland who bikes 39 miles from Hillsboro to North Portland and back several times a week.
But one passage in the post is a little unfamiliar in Portland’s transportation conversation these days. It’s the simple but (for some reason) rarely discussed fact that if Portland doesn’t decrease the percentage of trips that happen by car, everybody who actually needs to get around by car or truck is going to be screwed.
Job: Mechanic / Sales / Management – The Bike Commuter
Job Title *
Mechanic / Sales / Management
Company/Organization *
The Bike Commuter
Job Description *
Full Time position available for a skilled mechanic who can multitask! Our shop is a do-it-all environment where you will need to switch quickly between wrenching, selling, and some management work. It’s a fun, neighborhood shop specializing in commuter bikes and accessories. We also have 10 beer taps and a small lounge area for thirsty tired customers, so you would need to get an OLCC servers permit before you could work in the lounge.
We would prefer someone with many years of mechanic experience, who is familiar with the latest technology of Disc Brakes, Internally geared hubs, and some (but not much) MTB.
We offer competitive pay, and will be offering benefits to the right person who can demonstrate that they can do the job.
Qualifications…..
Prefer Past Experience with bike mechanics.
Ability to work under pressure and multitask.
Keep a clean work area Yo!
Must work weekends…..it’s a bike shop….
Be customer centric and awesome…
How to Apply *
Apply in person with Resume, or send Resume and references to…
jobs@pdxbikecommuter.com
Job: Account Service Representative – Chris King Precision Components
Sorry, this job has been filled. Browse more great jobs here.
Security video helps police nab prolific bike thief (yet again)
Johnathan Dubouis in March 2015 in Waterfront Park
under the Burnside Bridge. He asked to pose with
these bolt-cutters, which PPB officers photographed
as evidence prior to arresting him.
(Photo: Portland Police Bureau)
under the Burnside Bridge. He asked to pose with
these bolt-cutters, which PPB officers photographed
as evidence prior to arresting him.
(Photo: Portland Police Bureau)
The Portland Police have nabbed one of our city’s most prolific bike thieves: 29-year old Johnathan Marcel Dubouis. Dubouis was arrested on Sunday night, just about 24 hours after he appeared in security camera footage stealing a woman’s bike in southwest Portland.
Open house will feature ODOT plans for notorious section of Powell Blvd
A protestor at the May 11th rally held at SE Powell and 26th.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
The Oregon Department of Transportation is ready to share their plans for making SE Powell Blvd safer. Their “Powell Boulevard Safety Project” will spend $3.8 million on the segment of the roadway between 20th and 34th.
The project includes the intersection of SE 26th where Alistair Corkett was involved in a collision back in May that resulted in his leg being torn off. Then a few weeks later another man was seriously injured from a collision in the same intersection.
While their Powell project isn’t slated for construction until 2017, ODOT fast-tracked a left-turn signal at Powell and 26th immediately following those two collisions.
Heroic bike shop employee wrestles back stolen track bike
Alleged thief on stolen bike.
(Photo: Nate Gibson)
(Photo: Nate Gibson)
Thanks to the quick thinking and brave action of a bike shop employee in southwest Portland, one of three track racing bikes stolen from Alpenrose Velodrome last week has been recovered.
Nate Gibson, an undergrad at Portland State University and employee at Southwest Bicycle, contacted us today with the good news.
Here’s Gibson’s version of events:
“So here goes, I’m finally calm enough to sit down and type.