BikePortland

After carfree success, Crater Lake National Park officials make it an annual event

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Reader Sally Hunt and a friend took
full advantage of a carfree Rim Drive
back in June.

After the resounding success of its first-ever carfree weekend this past June, Crater Lake officials now plan to make it an annual event. And, as a bonus, they’ll host another carfree weekend next month.

Travel Oregon is set to announce tomorrow morning that Crater Lake National Park will hold another carfree weekend on September 21st and 22nd this year and that, “Going forward, the third weekend in September will be preserved for non-motorized enjoyment of the park.”

Based on KATU reporting and Schmidt’s own memory, we think the collision occured at the yellow symbol. The blue arrows shows the turnoff from Barbur onto Capitol Hwy.

Kim Fey
(Photo: Facebook/Kim Fey)

Kim Fey, the co-director of North Portland Bikeworks, has a serious form of cancer and she’s making a direct appeal to the community to help her fight it. Kim, 40, is part of the heart and soul of Bikeworks, a shop that has become a neighborhood institution since opening on Mississippi Street over a decade ago (they recently moved to a larger location on the corner of Mississippi and Shaver).

Kim has taken a leave of absence from the shop to fight a recent diagnosis of Stage IV Melanoma skin cancer. While the survival rate of her condition is less than 10 percent, Kim is counting on a new type of medicine that has shown great promise for people with her specific condition. The new drugs are “a considerable amount of money,” she says, and they are not covered by her insurance so Kim has turned to the community for support.

Here’s more from Kim via her page on GoFundMe.com:

Bike-powered urban fruit tree harvesters.
(Photos by Betsy Reese)

Back in May, we shared how the connection between bikes and urban trees here in Portland is so strong it’s garnered national recognition. Now there’s another tree-related non-profit that has tapped into the power of bicycles to help further their mission.

The Portland Fruit Tree Project had a “Bike-Powered Harvesting Party” on Saturday in southeast Portland. The non-profit organizes volunteers to harvest and take care of fruit trees that would otherwise be neglected. Half of the fruit goes to a local food bank (via their distribution partner Urban Gleaners) and the rest is taken home by everyone who participates in the harvest.

Ambulance, Uganda-style.
(Image: CA Bikes)

Here’s the bike news that caught our eyes this week:

Bike ambulances: In much of Uganda, they’re the most sensible way to get to the hospital.

Tire pressure app: How much should you pump up your tires? I mean, exactly how much? There’s an app.

Speeding brag: If you hit and kill somebody with your car, you should not boast about it on Twitter.

Henry Schmidt was recovering at OHSU Saturday.
(Image: KATU.com)

A Lewis & Clark student is recovering from traumatic injuries after being hit by a vehicle that left the scene of a collision on Southwest Barbur Boulevard early Friday morning.

Henry Schmidt, 20, had been biking home after working a late shift at Pok Pok restaurant, and either walking or riding his bike south. The driver, who remains unidentified, lacerated Schimidt’s spleen and broke his clavicle, cheekbone, three vertebrae, and his left leg in three places, according to The Oregonian. Doctors dug glass out of Schmidt’s face and mouth; his backpack and clothes were shredded from the impact, according to KATU.

Around 1 a.m., a TriMet bus driver saw Schmidt’s body and stopped to help. One passenger found Schmidt’s cell phone and notified his parents by calling the number labeled “Dad.”

This collision is awful news and we can only hope that people with knowledge of the incident have the decency to contact the police. But a driver’s choice to illegally leave the wounded man to his fate late at night is not the only factor in this crash. It happened on a stretch of road that the Oregon Department of Transportation has been refusing to consider promptly changing, despite numerous warnings that it is needlessly dangerous.

OK. Maybe not.

It may be a hot Friday afternoon in the middle of August, but the president of the Oregon Senate has spent it making calls to key legislators, counting votes for a possible resurrection of the Columbia River Crossing.

That’s the latest word from Sen. Rod Monroe (D-East Portland), a longtime backer of the CRC who said a one-day special session that would include a new deal on the big highway-rail project is possible, but not likely.

“I would say right now the chances of a special session are at best 50-50, maybe not even that high,” said Monroe, a former Metro councilor who sits on the Business and Transportation Committee and the special committee regarding the CRC.

Job Title
Purchasing and Production Manager

Company/Organization
Nutcase

Job Description
Domestic production forecasts, schedules and purchase orders. Communication with factories and supply chain vendors in China. International Purchasing and Production schedules via Collaboration with International Sales and Distribution Manager.

How to Apply
Send resume to miriam@nutcasehelmets.com

More on the effort to weaken Metro’s Active Transportation Plan

“Since Metro seems to be easily cowed by the minority nowadays, and we have mayors who think it’s okay to flout the law, it’s time for a lawsuit.”
— Rex Burkholder, former Metro councilor

As we shared on Wednesday, the mayors of 21 of the 25 cities represented by Metro have signed a letter that calls for changes to a draft version of the Regional Active Transportation Plan (ATP) that would render it powerless. They say the wording in the plan is too strong, that it’s a “mandate”, and that if it’s absorbed into the all-powerful Regional Transportation Plan, the biking and walking projects in the ATP would wrestle precious funding from other road projects.

Yesterday that topic came up again at a meeting of regional leaders at Metro headquarters. Remember, at issue here is only a non-binding “resolution of acknowledgment” for work done on the plan thus far. Since the plan is being developed with some federal funding, a vote by Metro council to acknowledge its progress is required by the feds. But this vote has struck fear in the hearts of mayors from suburban cities surrounding Portland. What are they afraid of? Why do they want to delay this plan and weaken its language?

“Shall the City increase fees up to three percent on utility reserves and establish a four and a half cent per gallon motor vehicle fee to reduce pollution, conserve energy, improve streets?”
— Question on poll conducted this week by Portland Mayor Charlie Hales.

This morning, the Willamette Week broke the story about a poll performed by Mayor Charlie Hales’ office last night asking Portland residents about their opinions of a potential carbon tax. We’ve followed up with the Mayor’s office to find out what — if anything — the poll questions included about whether or not any new tax revenue would be spent on transportation infrastructure.

Hales’ Communications Director Dana Haynes confirmed the poll, and added that, “The questions are designed to assess the feasibility of a carbon tax, as the mayor and the city explore options for new revenue. While we are a long away from saying “yes” or “no” to a carbon tax, it is our responsibility to think broadly and creatively, regarding ways to be good stewards of the public’s money for services we provide.”

So. What exactly did the poll ask?

Here in America, the most common word associated with new bikeway projects is “safety”. Deaths, injuries, and collision statistics are the key driver of which projects rise to the top of funding lists. Want a new bike path on a street in your neighborhood? The first thing PBOT will do is check the database for reported collisions along the route.

But what if all these discussion surrounding safety isn’t really where we should focus our energy? On the Green Lane Project blog this week, Michael Andersen (yes, that Michael Andersen) laid out the following case in a post titled, What if bike comfort is more important than bike safety?:

Homebuilders have discovered low-car life in Portland. But until now, nobody’s made a comprehensive effort to help Portlanders locate low-car homes.

Today, BikePortland is kicking off a project to change that.

Three weeks ago, we laid out one of the biggest problems in Portland right now: it’s had a chronic shortage of rental housing for the last six years, leading to rapidly rising rents and powerless tenants.

The following week, we explained why the Portland real estate market has been shifting so fast toward low-car life: households that include more adults than they do automobiles account for an estimated 60 percent of Portland growth since 2005.

After carfree success, Crater Lake National Park officials make it an annual event

Barbur hit-and-run renews calls for ODOT action

North Portland Bikeworks co-director asks for help to fund cancer treatment

Bikes help power non-profit’s fruit tree harvest

The Monday Roundup: Bike ambulances, tire pressure app and more

Man suffers serious injuries after hit-and-run on notorious stretch of Barbur Blvd

The Columbia River Crossing is alive

Job: Purchasing and Production Manager – Nutcase

More on the effort to weaken Metro’s Active Transportation Plan

Portland Mayor’s office releases statement, poll on carbon tax idea

Why our focus on “safety” holds us back

The BikePortland Housing Index project: Your map to 5,000 new low-car homes in Portland

Latest Headlines

Guest Article: We must unite and organize to solve our transportation problems

Port wants 82nd Avenue expansion for airport traffic increase

PBOT eyes elimination of key programs and services as they await budget fate

Oregon’s House Republican Caucus only cares about car drivers

From the Archives

More biking = better driving. So why isn’t this said more often?