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

Comments of the Week: Two readers’ concepts for fixing SE Ankeny at 11th

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Full size below the jump.
(Image by reader Paikiala)

One of the great joys of BikePortland comments is that they make very clear how rich and deep our city’s transportation expertise has become over the last decade.

After we wrote on Thursday about a small tweak the city made recently to the strange six-way intersection of SE Ankeny, 11th and Sandy, not one but two readers created full-color overhead mockups of alternative ways to design this awkward interchange.

The first, by reader sean, is a sort of linear park that would remove auto access for one block (immediately south of what is today a billboard) in order to reimagine “Ankeny as a destination”:

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Q&A: NYC’s top biking advocate wants you to talk more about death

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Paul Steely White at the 2010
National Bike Summit.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Talking about “livable streets” is out; talking about “safe streets” is in.

That’s the advice from Paul Steely White, executive director of the country’s largest local transportation advocacy group. The executive director of New York City-based Transportation Alternatives since 2004, White was a major force behind the city’s emergence as a national leader in reimagining streets as pleasant public spaces.

But as he heads to Portland for a keynote address Monday to the Oregon Active Transportation Summit, White is urging his fellow believers in livable streets to readjust their message when talking to politicians and the public. We spoke by phone on Thursday about why and how his organization has put Vision Zero, the campaign to completely eliminate road deaths, at the middle of their message.

Are you on a national Vision Zero tour, or is this a one-off thing?

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Get ready to climb: Portland’s De Ronde/La Doyenne weekend is coming

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2013 De Ronde -4

In Portland we call this fun.
(Photos J. Maus/BikePortland)

Rumor has it that Portland’s toughest weekend of cycling is coming up. “De Ronde” and its sister event “La Doyenne” are two unsanctioned road rides that have captured the imagination of thousands of riders (and the media) over the years because of the sheer difficulty of even finishing.

Our secret sources say the Big Weekend for both rides is April 18-19th.

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Q&A: Melissa Wells on everyone’s stake in transportation equity

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Melissa Wells, program associate
for the equity think tank PolicyLink.
(Photo via Bicycle Transportation Alliance)

In 25 years, half the U.S. workforce will be of Latino, black or Asian descent — so if you ever plan on having a nurse, you’d better start caring about social equity.

That’s the way Melissa Wells, a program associate at D.C.-based equity nonprofit PolicyLink and co-leader of the national Transportation Equity Caucus, explains every American’s stake in racial justice.

Wells, who’s headed to Portland for a keynote address Monday to the Oregon Active Transportation Summit, spoke with me by phone on Thursday about the dilemma of improving neighborhoods without raising rents and whether a new president is likely to roll back federal transportation policy changes.

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Weekend Event Guide: Gorge gravel, tandems, photo show, and more

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The Dalles hosts three events this weekend.
(Photo J. Maus/BikePortland)

Welcome to your menu of weekend rides and events, lovingly brought to you by our friends at Hopworks Urban Brewery.

The weather looks to be great this and we just so happen to have a stellar line-up to choose from this weekend. Whether you want to roll en masse through the city or dust off your racing legs on some sweet Gorge gravel, there’s an event for you.

Check out the full listing below and have a good weekend!

Friday, March 27th

Western Bikeworks Tigard Grand Opening – 5:00 to 9:00 pm at 7295 SW Dartmouth Ave in Tigard

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Rodney Avenue neighborhood greenway gets open house next week

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New traffic diverter at Rodney and Ivy-2

NE Rodney at Ivy.
(Photos: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Rodney Avenue, already a decent low-stress alternative to the Vancouver-Williams couplet, is lined up for an upgrade to full neighborhood greenway status.

At an open house next Wednesday evening, the Portland Bureau of Transportation will be asking people for their thoughts on the plans.

To make the route comfortable for all riders, the city will need to find good ways to help people navigate two jogs in the street grid, at NE Alberta and NE Fremont (pictured below).

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Job: Customer Experience Specialist – Velotech, Inc. – FILLED

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Sorry, this job has been filled. Browse more great jobs here. Job Title
Customer Experience Specialist

Company/Organization
Velotech, Inc.

Job Description
This position is responsible for responding to customer phone calls, emails, and for working directly with customers in our store. Customer Experience Specialists provide product information, advice and order assistance. Qualified CS Reps also review orders and price match requests and assist with site content, including product reviews, photos and descriptions.

Sales & Support candidate must:
● Answer product questions & assist with the order process
● Have excellent communication and organizational skills
● Analyze customer questions, troubleshoot, and provide clear answers in an efficient and professional manner
● Help develop trust and loyalty with consumers and build value in our brands
● Be comfortable in a high volume, fast-paced environment
● Demonstrate knowledge of cycling products and the ability to help customers of all levels of experience
● Comfortably navigate a sophisticated order processing system
● Work with Marketing to assist with customer-facing content, including site maintenance, product images and descriptions
● Coordinate with Returns to assist customers with returns and exchanges
● Assist walk-in customers with product questions and purchases
● Retrieve products from the warehouse to assist walk-in customers
● Increase sales by genuinely helping customers learn about additional/alternative product options
● Maintain a professional demeanor with all customers
● Be willing to talk about bicycles all day (even the kind you don’t like, if there’s a kind out there you don’t like)

The position requires basic computer skills and a strong knowledge of cycling. Previous customer service experience is a plus, as is sales, service and mechanical experience in the cycling industry.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to sex, race, color, age, national origin, religion, disability, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, pregnancy or veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.

How to Apply
To Apply send your Cover Letter and Resume to Jobs@velotech.com

City removes portion of N Rosa Parks bike lane to allow right turns

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New bike lane striping at N Rosa Parks and Albina-2

It used to be a bike lane.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation is trying out a new bike lane treatment on North Rosa Parks Way that they hope will lessen the risks of right-hook collisions.

A few weeks ago I noticed the bike lane on Rosa Parks (which was just installed in 2011) as it approaches Albina had been ground off about 50-feet from the intersection. In what used to be a parking lane and bicycle-only lane, PBOT has placed sharrow markings and a right-turn arrow.

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Oregon House Rep gives up on mandatory reflective clothing bill

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Rep. John Davis.

Oregon House Representative John Davis has changed his mind about how best to improve the safety of bicycling.

Davis made headlines around the state last month when he introduced H.B. 3255, a bill that would require all Oregonians who ride a bicycle at night to wear refelctive clothing. Davis’ clothing mandate garnered considerable media attention and resulted in an “action alert” from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance who urged their members to help stop the bill.

A hearing for the bill was scheduled for March 30th in Salem.

Now he says he’s changing course and the bill will no longer include any language about reflective clothing.

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Where growth went: How different cities answered America’s urban rebound

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The orange line shows Portland-area housing patterns in 1990; the brown line shows it in 2012.
(All images: UVA Demogaphics Research Group)
Want to sponsor this great column? Get in touch.

If affordable proximity is one of the keys to great bike cities, understanding Portland’s biking boom means understanding its urban development decisions 20 years ago.

To see how our metro area grew, it’s useful to see how dramatically different things have gone down in different U.S. cities. A fascinating new website from the University of Virginia gives us a new way of looking at exactly that.

The chart above shows Portland at two key moments in American urban life: the orange line for 1990, when urban crime levels were near their peak and many central cities were seen as charity cases for their suburbs; and the brown line for 2012, when the economic boom of some U.S. cities was accelerating the country out of recession.

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