Take your pick.

The debate over the best route for a future NE 7th/9th neighborhood greenway is, for the moment, largely about appearances. But in this week’s battle for appearances, backers of a 7th Avenue route are definitely winning.

As we mentioned in Monday’s coverage of this issue, an anonymous supporter of a 9th Avenue route launched a petition on Sunday in which he or she suggested that a 7th Avenue route would send traffic spilling onto other small residential streets. As of this writing, it’s got 50 signatures.

Yesterday morning, resident Montse Shepherd started a competing petition in favor of a 7th Avenue route, itemizing 16 reasons for that route. 26 hours later, it’s drawn 368 signatures.

[Read more…]

NE 7th Avenue is technically a local street, but it’s become heavily used by cars as an alternative to MLK.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Advocates for turning NE 7th Avenue into a low-stress neighborhood greenway scored a significant victory this month, but opponents of that change are pushing back.

[Read more…]

NE 7th Avenue is technically a local street, but it’s become
heavily used by cars as an alternative to MLK.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

A roomful of inner Northeast Portland residents gave an “overwhelming” thumbs-up Monday night to a plan to eventually turn Northeast 7th Avenue into a low-traffic neighborhood greenway between Alberta and Broadway.

That’d vastly improve the bike network just west of Alameda Ridge, but require traffic diverters that would send thousands of vehicles a day to other nearby streets, probably Martin Luther King Boulevard and 15th Avenue.

[Read more…]

A bike placed on NE Broadway to market
a new gym in the area.
(Photo via Tim Dowell)

A new gym that opened recently in Portland’s Lloyd District is following its national marketing playbook and distributing a handful of orange-painted bikes on nearby streets.

It’s the same phenomenon we covered in January when the same chain, Orangetheory Fitness, had recently opened locations in Beaverton and Tigard.

In an interview Monday, Orangethoery Oregon Regional Director Amanda Goolsby said her team plans to keep shifting them around nearby streets indefinitely.

“They don’t just stay out,” she said. “We take them down daily. We move them around.”
[Read more…]

Velia Mendoza was one of the first users of the new lockers at Hacienda CDC. They were donated by the City of Portland but had sat empty since last year while residents and managers worked out an agreement for how to use them.
(Photo: Jaclyn Hoy for CCC)

After three years of meetings and negotiations, the group of Northeast Portland families who might be the city’s most dogged biking advocacy group got their goal Thursday: somewhere to park their families’ bikes.

[Read more…]

Kickstand included.
(Photo: City of Portland Archives)

Tall bikes look great in sepia, too.

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Northeast Portland resident Erinne
Goodell enjoys the new lane.
(Photo: Kirk Paulsen)

A new pair of buffered bike lanes across Lombard Street in Northeast Portland will improve both work and fun trips to the Columbia River area this summer.

The crossing will uses the bridge at 33rd Avenue to link the river and slough, as well as nearby port, airport and retail land, to the rest of the city. It also bears traffic on 33rd across a series of railroad tracks just north of Lombard.

[Read more…]

Corner of 15th and Killingsworth.

Residents of the Vernon Neighborhood in northeast Portland are organizing opposition to a proposed 7-Eleven at the corner of NE Killingsworth and 15th (map). Among their list of concerns about the potential store are how it would impact traffic safety — particularly among people walking and biking.

In a newsletter emailed out on Wednesday, the Vernon Neighborhood Association said after an “overwhelming majority” of residents at a recent meeting expressed concerns about the store, they have decided to oppose the development. In addition to the fact that the new 7-Eleven would be within one block of three locally and minority-owned convenient stores, the neighbors say they are, [Read more…]

Event Name: Bikes & Beer at the Organic Brewers Festival
Event Date: June 24-26, 2011
Start Time: 12:00:00 PM
Web Site: http://washingtoncountybikes.org/events
Event Description: Give us 3 hours watching over bikes and we’ll give you chips and a mug for free beer at the 7th Annual Organic Brewers Festival at Overlook Park in Portland.

Running from Friday June 24 – Sunday the 26th, the festival hours are Noon-9 on Friday and Saturday and Noon-5 on Sunday.

Contact us at Volunteer[at]washcobtc[dot]org to schedule a shift time.

Available hours are:
Friday & Saturday
11:45AM – 3PM
3:45PM – 6PM
5:45PM – Close

Sunday
11:45AM – 3PM
2:45PM – Close

The event leader contact information will be provided to all volunteers who register.

The new cycle track on Cully, part of a large-scale road reconstruction project, is now complete.
(Photos/video © J. Maus)

As strange as it may sound, Cully Boulevard in outer Northeast Portland is now home to the most significant piece of bike infrastructure in our city.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has just completed a cycle track that runs 0.6 miles from NE Prescott to Killingsworth. And, unlike the “cycle track” on SW Broadway near Portland State University (which is nice, but it’s really just a curbside bike lane protected from motor vehicle traffic by parked cars), the Cully facility is the real deal.
[Read more…]