🚨 Please note: BikePortland is currently on hiatus and only publishing guest articles. Learn more here. Thank you. - Jonathan 🙏
If we want to become a virtuoso cycling city, we must first master the fundamentals.
It’s one thing when poorly installed bicycle parking happens in front of a convenience store, but it’s a much bigger deal when it’s done as part of a multi-million dollar project for the 2nd tallest building in Portland and the largest office building (in terms of volume) in the entire state of Oregon.
This week’s Monday Roundup is brought to you by the Ride the Heart of the Valley Bike Ride. Set for April 26th, this ride is a benefit for the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the Boys and Girls Club of Corvallis.
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Here are the bike-related stories from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Illegal walking: Child protective services threatened to take two Maryland children away from their parents after the parents let their kids (aged 10 and 6) walk home one mile from the park together.
Ambulance bike racks: A hospital in Fort Collins now equips its ambulances with racks to avoid leaving patients’ bikes at the scene.
Car-detecting radar: Garmin is marketing an alert device for bike users.
For years, as deeply as he loved language, David Griffiths thought social media wasn’t for him.
Job Title
Back-up Soup Cyclist
Company/Organization
SoupCycle
Job Description
Do you get excited by the idea of working on your bicycle, pulling a hefty trailer and delivering, from scratch, organic soup? We’re a Portland based company that makes and delivers organic soups using local ingredients. Since 2008 we have done over 142,000 bicycle deliveries, and we’re growing!
We are in the midst of our busiest season and need to hire several Back-up Soup Cyclists. We’re looking for energetic, upbeat, and strong-legged people who can brave the winter rains of Portland and still be smiling when they deliver soup to customers.
This is a backup position. There are no guaranteed/set hours. You’ll be fully trained and ready to go for when we have an open shift. The right candidate for this position will already have a flexible schedule and an established income source from another job. Our Back-up Cyclists average 10-25 hours a month.
Requirements:
• Physically able to lift 75 lbs and pedal a bike trailer carrying 215 lbs
• The owner of a sturdy and well-maintained bike to attach to our soup trailer for deliveries (you use your bike, we provide the trailer, and reimburse you for the use of your bicycle).
• A safe cyclist (uses hand-signals, wears helmet, respects drivers, etc)
• Excited about food and sharing that with customers during deliveries.
Possible hours are:
Tuesdays (deliveries): 8am-4pm
Wednesdays (deliveries): 8am-4pm
Thursdays (deliveries): 8am-4pm
Compensation
$11.00/hour
Generous soup allowance.
How to Apply
Send an email to nate@soupcycle.com with a resume and 2-3 paragraphs outlining:
1) Why you’re interested in working for SoupCycle
2) Your bicycling and kitchen experience
3) Your current job situation and availability
There’s probably no better place for a section of carfree street than between an elementary school and a park. That’s the situation on N Delaware Avenue between Bryant and Saratoga in the Arbor Lodge neighborhood.
By the end of 2015, it’s looking like 21 of the largest 25 U.S. metro areas are likely to have public bike share systems.
The four that won’t: Los Angeles, Detroit, St. Louis and Portland.
Los Angeles, by far the country’s largest holdout, announced this month that it’s on track to launch a system in 2016. Atlanta, Baltimore and Riverside, Calif., have plans to launch in 2015 but haven’t announced more specific dates.
Meanwhile, four other cities started service late last year or will in the next few months: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Seattle.
We’ve had three great job opportunities listed this week. Check them out via the links below…
Job Title
Bike Camp Instructor
Company/Organization
WashCo BTC
Job Description
WashCo BTC is planning to hold four camps- each 5 days long as follows:July 20-24, 2015 Home base will be in at the fire station on Burnham St. in downtown Tigard.
The following three camps will start on the next three Mondays, with home base at Calvary Lutheran Church on Jackson School Road in Hillsboro. There will be two camps for ages 9-11, and two camps for ages 12-14.
There will be two instructors for each camp of up to 12 youth. We strongly prefer instructors who can teach all 4 camps.
The instructors are expected to plan the activities for each day. We do have a core bike safety curriculum that needs to be taught, but that only takes 6 to 10 hours total. We will also help with a list of suggested destinations or activities for you to choose from.
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 Manual and the safety curriculum in the Safe Routes to School manual. We will provide the training and written materials to you. You will be paid for the time spent in the Confidence in Traffic clinic (on-bike portion only), which would take place in the spring. The on-bike portion typically takes 4 hours or so.
The pay for starting instructors would be $10-$12.00/hr., depending on experience. There is some upside potential for income. If a parent wishes to have early drop off or late pick up, they will be required to pre-arrange it with the instructors, and will be charged accordingly. Proceeds will be paid to the instructors.
How to Apply
Contact Nancy at:
info@washcobtc.org with a current resume.
An application will then be sent out and an interview will be scheduled upon receipt of application.
Three years after Lake Oswego pulled out of a plan to upgrade its little-used riverside trolley line into a high-speed streetcar, the idea of turning the tracks into a biking-walking path is back in discussion.
This time, the idea is being driven by recently reelected Lake Oswego City Council member Jeff Gudman, who embraced the idea after hearing about it repeatedly from Lake Oswego residents during his campaigns.
“As I was doing my door to door, any number of people would say to me that they really like the idea,” Gudman said in an interview Thursday. “Some wanted streetcar, bike and ped. Others wanted just bike and ped.”
As the Oregonian’s editorial board reported Thursday, this week Gudman won his colleagues’ approval for a study of the legal issues surrounding a riverside trail.
During a construction project last summer, the Oregon Department of Transportation seems to have discovered that there’s a way to cut extreme speeding on a curving two-mile stretch of Southwest Barbur Boulevard where six people have died in the last five years.
Was it closing the passing lanes? Lowering the posted speed limit from 45 to 35 mph? Upping traffic enforcement and penalties? Simply marking it as a construction zone?
The agency did all of those things at once, so it isn’t sure which one worked, and it currently has no plans to find out.
Meanwhile, the state-owned street has returned to normal indefinitely.
Welcome to your menu of weekend rides and events, lovingly brought to you by our friends at Hopworks Urban Brewery.
This weather has been too nice. Too nice to work, too nice to stay indoors. Thankfully the weekend is coming! And guess what? The temps are only getting warmer and I hear it might even reach 60-degrees on Sunday.
I hope you have something fun planned. If not, we’ve got a bunch of great suggestions for you.
Get out there and ride. After staring at the sun and blue sky all week, you deserve some quality time in the saddle.
After we posted a story yesterday about a Milwaukie real estate owner who plans to demolish his retail building on Main Street and build a parking lot, we heard from a few readers who worried their hometown was getting a bad rap.
Truth is, there is a lot of positive momentum for bicycling and livable streets in Milwaukie. Reader Matt Menely has been advocating for bikes in Milwaukie for many years. He got in touch to tell us about tonight’s city council meeting — which has an agenda that’s chock-full of bike-related projects.