Before we dive into 2019, I thought it’d be fun to share our 10 most popular stories from last year.

Here they are, in order from least to most total pageviews…
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Yeah, it’s a hill. We’re climbing it together.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

2016 will be a very important year for the future of Portland biking.

Start with the mayoral election, a possible commissioner change, public gas tax vote and new state transportation funding talks. Throw in major decisions about off-road cycling access and a possible fight with TriMet over Metro money. Consider major progress brewing for the North Portland Greenway from Kelley Point to the Rose Quarter. Consider bike sharing — public and maybe private too. Consider decisions about wide or protected new bike lanes on outer Powell, outer Division and maybe even outer Barbur. Consider plans for our first permanent downtown protected bike lane. Consider a possible program that would add diverters to neighborhood greenways.

All of that is headed straight this way at full speed.

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Let’s take a look back shall we?
(Photos by J. Maus unless otherwise noted)

Following the news in your city is like braiding hair: you won’t be able to weave it all together unless you can keep track of each separate strand.

What’s more, the whole thing only makes sense after it’s finished.

With the 1,060 front-page stories BikePortland has published so far this year — that’s 20 per week, four per weekday — we’ve tried to help you follow the braid of what matters to Portland biking in all its richness, from off-road recreation to new businesses to wonktastic policy detail to weather reports. Back when the year started, we took a crack at “33 questions that’ll shape Portland bike news in 2015.”

It’s time to step back and look at the year we’ve had. Below are answers to the 33 questions we asked nearly 12 months ago. We’ve broken them down into handy topics for your reading pleasure…

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It’s been the best of times; it’s been the worst of times.

If 2014 was the year when Portland first came to terms in a meaningful way with the fact that it’s no longer the nation’s undisputed biking capital, 2015 has been the year when Portlanders responded. It took a year of tireless work by local volunteers and pros, working alone and in institutions new and old, but it culminated in a series of major victories in late summer and fall:

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Will race promoters suffer from the
allure of the open (gravel) road?
(Photos: J. Maus unless otherwise noted)

As we wrote this time last year, predictions are for suckers.

It’s way cooler (and much safer, if anybody happens to look back with hindsight) to list the things you don’t know yet. So, once again, we’ve done our best to anticipate the questions that’ll shape Portland’s next year of biking news.

Are we asking the right ones? Which have we forgotten? Add your own in the comments. Or, if you’re a daredevil, try laying down some answers in advance.

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As the sun sets on 2014, there are reasons for optimism in 2015.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

Somewhere along the path to becoming one of the dirtiest words in local politics, a funny thing happened to bicycling in Portland in 2014.
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One of our biggest stories was about lessons
from another city.
(Photos: J.Maus and M.Andersen, unless noted)

Some people think that controversy makes people read news. They’re half right.

The world has no shortage of controversy. What’s scarce are controversies that are somehow surprising.

You can see that force behind a few of the stories that got the most clicks this year from BikePortland readers.

And though we don’t put pageviews at the heart of our coverage decisions and never will, it’s fun to imagine the threads of shared surprise that caught readers’ imaginations enough to make them click and share these 10 posts. (Click on each headline or photo below to read the original story.)

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Team Podcast: Michael Andersen (L), Lillian Karabaic,
and Jonathan Maus.
(Photo: BikePortland)

It’s the end of the year, and that means the next couple weeks here on BikePortland will be rich with retrospectives and analysis from 2014 and predictions for 2015.

One of those will be part of a new tradition: the annual question show on our podcast. This is a fun endeavor where the three of us — Jonathan, me, and producer Lillian Karabaic — take questions from listeners and others and address as many as we can, on air, in 25 minutes. The only restriction: the questions somehow have to be about either the year past or the year to come.

Last year, we tackled subjects like proper use of crosswalks, the latest improvements to the Springwater Trail and the Nobel Prize for Physics.

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