Cycling News & Blog Articles

Keith Wilson, a candidate for Portland mayor, speaking at Bike Happy Hour on February 14th. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

As I listened to Keith Wilson give a speech at Bike Happy Hour last night it occurred to me his life has been sort of like Forrest Gump. He’s got an interesting and diverse background and set of life experiences you’d never expect from a trucking company CEO. If you knew that his company, Titan Freight Systems, runs and all-electric fleet and that just before coming to the event last night he gave invited testimony on decarbonization in the freight industry to the State of Washington Transportation Commission, or that he was once so poor he spent nights in LaGuardia Airport, or that he takes 12 at-risk Black youth camping once a year, you might begin to understand what I mean.

Wilson spoke to a rapt crowd last night about growing up poor in north Portland and being the first person in his family to go to college (Portland Community College), then moving from home to take a job as a sales intern at NBC in Manhattan. When he didn’t land a job, he ran out of money and spent nights in LaGuardia Airport. “I thought to myself, if you’re homeless, where do you go? You go to the place with carpet, because Newark Airport had tile.”

These days Wilson divides his time between his company and his nonprofit, Shelter Now PDX. He said he found himself pulled toward the homelessness problem because — despite building Titan Freight into a success and being named national “Innovator of the Year” two years in a row — “Six, seven years ago, I started looking around and I didn’t recognize my city anymore,” he shared last night. “If I’m operating in the backdrop of a community where my neighbors can’t live, where livability is compromised, we’ve got a problem.”

What streets can look like. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

What do Better Naito, the Southwest 3rd and Ankeny plaza, Steel Bridge Skatepark, bus priority lanes, and several other important bits of non-car infrastructure around Portland have in common? They all started as tactical urbanism and pop-up demonstration projects through Portland State University’s partnership with Better Block.

Since 2016, the nonprofit Better Block has cemented their collaboration with Portland State to bring amazing ideas for better streets and public spaces from dream into reality. For everyday activists, or anyone with an idea, Better Block gives you a pathway to the brilliant planners and engineers-in-training at PSU. And now that PSU and the Portland Bureau of Transportation have worked successfully together on several projects, the route from your idea to your infrastructure has never been more direct.

Each year, the Better Block PSU program launches a citywide search for the best ideas. The ones they select, get vetted, designed, planned — and maybe even funded and implemented!

Consider the Steel Bridge Skatepark and the big announcement that it has received $15 million to be constructed. A team of PSU students played a huge role in making that happen. They provided the planning data and analysis that helped make the case at City Hall and ultimately convince local elected officials and policymakers that the project was worth investing in.

These kids would be in violation of Oregon law if a bill in the legislature passed. (Photos: Megan Ramey)

“I am frustrated by the short-sightedness. HB 4103 is a one-sided, incomplete bill that will focus solely on rider enforcement as a deterrent”

A bill that would change the legal status of electric bicycles in Oregon is up for its first public hearing in Salem later today, and cycling and road safety advocates disagree on whether or not it’s the right path forward.

There are two e-bike bills up for consideration in the Oregon Legislature this session: House Bill 4067 and House Bill 4103. HB 4067 would create a task force on “electric micromobility,” a catch-all term that includes e-bikes and other small, battery-powered vehicles. That bill has broad support and is likely to pass.

But the more substantive of the two, HB 4103, has created a bit of a stir in advocacy circles. Some say it could hinder e-bike adoption, adds too much regulation too soon, and is overly punitive; while others say it’s a step forward for safety. Most notably, the bill is being opposed by Portland-based nonprofit, The Street Trust.

Caroline Fitchett calls the Salmonberry Trail “Oregon’s next big adventure” and considers it the most ambitious rail-to-trail project in the nation. Fitchett is executive director of the Salmonberry Trail Foundation, the nonprofit that’s leading a coalition of government agencies in development of an 82-mile trail that would connect Washington County to the city of Tillamook on the Oregon Coast.

Imagine biking or hiking through wild river valleys and across abandoned timber settlements along a historic railroad line.

I first wrote about the project 11 years ago and it has captured my imagination ever since. Now more than a decade into the planning process, the project has matured nicely. In the past year or so, volunteers have begun to rip out the old railroad tracks, cut back ivy and blackberries, and parts of the trail are even open for guided hikes. This past summer, US Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici hiked the trail and Fitchett says visits from Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley will happen this year.

In my interview with Fitchett, she shares the story about how the project first came about. I had no idea it began with one mom and dad in Tillamook who just wanted a safe place for their kids to ride bikes! We also talk about a few current projects in Rockaway Beach, Tillamook, and Buxton (north of Banks) that will result in the first official pieces of the Salmonberry that will be open for riding and hiking.

One notable moment in this interview is when I asked Fitchett how she talks about the trail in front of communities who might have some inherent skepticism about it. “I really let them talk about it,” she replied. “We listen… we also share information so they know what our plans are and they have a chance to change those plans.” Fitchett she sees the trail as a neighbor to the communities along it. “We are a neighbor to hundreds of people, to school districts, to watersheds, to the fish and the birds that are along the trail. And so we have to do the best we can to be a good neighbor.”

A person on an e-bike rolls on SE 148th on February 6th, 2024. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Biking was up in Portland in 2023 about 17% of riders were on e-bikes. Those are two findings of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s latest bicycle counts.

PBOT has conducted manual counts of bicycle riders since at least 2000. The annual exercise has become an important and reliable bellwether of cycling’s overall health in the city. The 2022 counts, released last March, revealed a precipitous drop that led to countless headlines and soul-searching among many local policymakers and bike advocates. Last year’s numbers were expected but were nevertheless a difficult pill to swallow.

The 2023 counts were tallied during peak commute times for two-hour intervals at 272 locations citywide. 114 volunteers took part in the process between June and the end of September.

According to a preview of the report that will be made public for the first time at the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting tonight, the number of people bicycling in Portland in 2023 was up 5% over last year. That’s still down 32% relative to 2019, but it’s still a notch in the right direction. The Northwest district saw an increase of 15% over 2022 and East Portland was up 12%.

(Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

An arcane study first undertaken by the Oregon Department of Transportation in 1937 is suddenly the subject of unprecedented scrutiny. The 2023-2035 Highway Cost Allocation Study (HCAS), published last year for the 23rd time and authored by research firm ECOnorthwest, is completed every two years in order to determine if road users are paying their fair share of taxes based on what ODOT spends on highways. If the balance is off, lawmakers and a study review team can use HCAS findings to lobby for changes in vehicle taxes and fees.

ODOT slide

Its findings never made much news until now, because for the first time ever, it has revealed a significant imbalance.

ODOT splits vehicles into two main classes: light and heavy (over 10,000 pounds, which is essentially all large commercial freight trucks). The past two HCAS reports (completed in 2021 and 2023), have raised eyebrows because the numbers show light vehicle operators are not paying enough for what ODOT spends on them, and heavy vehicles operators are paying too much (see slide at right). “For the 2023-25 biennium, under the existing tax structure and rates,” reads page 45 of the study, “light vehicles are expected to underpay their fair share by 12% and heavy vehicles are expected to overpay by 32% relative to the projected distribution of project spending.”

Drawing of bridge over N Columbia Blvd shared by Portland Parks bureau at an open house in 2020.

(Mapp: PP&R)

I have some very good news for anyone Portland who breathes: the Parks bureau says they’re committed to building a bridge over North Columbia Blvd at Chimney Park — a key element of the 40-Mile Loop and link in the North Portland Greenway that will connect St. Johns to Kelly Point Park and beyond.

Back in November, trail advocates were dismayed to learn that Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) claimed a $3-4 million funding shortfall meant they could only build a standard, at-grade crossing to get trail users over the busy, high-speed, industrial truck traffic on Columbia Blvd. The bridge had been planned for years, much of the funding had been secured, and design was well underway when the announcement was made.

The official shift in stance came via the City of Portland’s Freight Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday, February 1st. Portland Bureau of Transportation Resources Manager Mark Lear told committee members he talked to PP&R Trail Planning Manager Brett Horner and learned that he was “feeling pretty positive about a grant they’re going to apply for.”

We can’t say it enough: comments are an integral part of BikePortland, and tending to our comments section is something we care deeply about.

Our goal is to provide a space that encourages expression of a range of opinions, where people feel they can discuss and disagree (or agree), but with guardrails in place that keep the threads from nose-diving into a lowest-common-denominator sewer, like has happened with comments on so many other news sites.

They are trying to flood the public sphere with a certain political stance to make it appear as if it is widespread.

We do this by moderating the comments. In other words, either Jonathan or I read and approve each comment before it gets published.

Business owner and nonprofit leader Keith Wilson has thrown his hat into the ring to become Portland’s next mayor.

I’ve seen Wilson operate in political, business, and advocacy spheres and have come away impressed. He not only has interesting ideas, he does the hard work it takes to give them legs. This is not an endorsement of Wilson, I’m just relaying my experience covering and working with him since 2020.

In 2020 he got a nice round of applause at a transportation-focused candidate forum when he answered a question about how to make streets safer by saying the number one problem is distracted driving. But he wasn’t just throwing out an answer, Wilson had proven results to back it up. As CEO of Titan Freight Systems (a company that operates 45 trucks and 120 trailers across three states), Wilson pioneered technology in his cabs that uses AI to track driver movements and then sent alerts back to the office. According to a trucking industry media outlet, “In 10 months of use, Titan reduced the number of daily unsafe events by 77% with the exterior cameras enabled.”

Wilson hosted the director of the Oregon Department of Transportation to his company for a close-up look at the technology and wants to help implement something similar in city and state fleets. “Call me and let me give you a run through,” he wrote in an email to me in 2020. “You will be amazed and walk away knowing that the solution to Vision Zero is near.”

Took the scenic route along Marine Drive, thanks to a suggestion from a friend. (Photos: Erin Bailie/BikePortland)

This is the second post in my “New to Portland” column. In my first post, I shared my thoughts as a visitor to town. Now that I’m here and settling in, I’m excited to share a few tales from my first few weeks as a Portlander. 

I moved to Portland at the end of January, and I would be remiss not to acknowledge that I’m lucky to have completely dodged the ice storm. It’s clear the storm has been a hardship on the city, and that residents, businesses, and infrastructure are recovering from its impacts. On my first day in town, I encountered bike lanes filled with gravel and thought about complaining about the inconvenience; but when street sweepers quickly cleaned the bike lanes in my neighborhood, I realized the disruption was only temporary.

In the few weeks I’ve been in Portland, I’ve prioritized bicycling as my form of transit as much as I can. The unseasonably warm and dry weather has made it easy to make this choice. My destinations have included the mundane — the gym, my office, the grocery store — as well as more unique trips like IKEA, several furniture stores, and Bike Happy Hour. When I can remember, I track my riding with a tool called wandrer.earth which lets me know if I’ve ridden any new-to-me stretches of road. According to Wandrer, I’ve ridden 54 new miles in the first week!

A clean energy advocate, bike lover, and fabricator in northeast Portland has launched something that will change Portland streets forever: the Boom Bike — a 100% human-powered mobile soundstage, pedaled behind a trike that can carry 500 pounds of cargo and broadcast live music to a massive audience.

Cully neighborhood resident Mike Cobb built the Boom Bike based on a design by Xtracycle co-founder and carfree musician Kipchoge Spencer. Cobb is no stranger to pedal-powered projects as you might recall his role as an organizer of the Disaster Relief Trials or how he hooked up pedal-powered generators for Dakota Access Pipeline protestors at the Standing Rock Reservation in 2016.

I got an up-close look at the Boom Bike during a visit to Cobb’s workshop last week.

Cobb has known Spencer for years and once worked as a mechanic on his global, bicycle-powered Pleasant Revolution music tour back in 2010. Cobb reconnected with Spencer in 2020 to build five Boom Bikes as part of a massive parade in support of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

Cobb says his latest creation is, “The pinnacle of bicycle powered sound.”

The relation of land use to transportation was in the air last week. On different threads, from different starting points, last week saw many conversations arrive at a discussion about density, what is needed to have a transit network that works well enough, for enough people, in enough areas, that it can replace car trips—and if that is even feasible.

There were a lot of strong comments. I wish I could just bundle them. My favorite ones noticed that there seems to be a disconnect between this site’s heartfelt debates about the density/transportation conundrum and what our elected leaders are actually doing.

And it’s more than just debate and talk, Portland eats volunteer time, and the time of city employees too, on its plethora of advisory committees whose advice frequently winds up on a shelf collecting dust. What gives?

This pithy comment from Watts captured the absurdity and frustration of the present moment. Plus, and this is a once-in-decade-phenomena, Fred, Damien and Prioritarian all seemed to agree with him. Think about that!

Welcome to the week.

Here are the most notable stories our community came across in the past seven days…

More youth e-bike laws: A California rep from San Diego County wants to ban e-bikes for the 12 and under set and require state-issued IDs and a riders test to get one before hopping on for everyone else. (Rancho Santa Fe Review)

Decriminalize jaywalking: Washington did a statewide analysis of people stopped by police for crossing streets in an illegal way and found disturbing trends in who gets stopped, how they are treated by police, and other things that show legal reform around “jaywalking” cannot happen soon enough. (Streetsblog USA)

My husband came home from a shopping trip on Saturday, grim-faced and quiet. “A kid on a bike got hit by a car,” he said. I looked at him for more information. “Is he going to be okay? How do you know it was a kid? Did you see the crash?” “I saw the kid’s bike under the car,” he replied, and shook his head. He didn’t see the collision, or glimpse the victim, but from the position of the bike under the car, and the swarm of cop cars that responded, he suspected the worst.

The worst was confirmed by local news reports: A twelve-year-old boy named Joseph Michael Brausen was killed while riding his bike after a collision with a driver of a car just a few blocks from our home in downtown Hillsboro.

Although police and news reports say the collision occurred at or near the intersection of SE 10th Ave and Baseline St, my husband clarified that the car was facing west on the alley by the Starbucks”— that’s SE Gumleaf Lane at 10th Ave.

I wanted to pay my respects, bear witness, and try to figure out what happened, so I rode to the place my husband described. Sure enough, at the exact spot, the family of 12-year old Michael Brausen was there, tying balloons to a nearby pole and trying to put up signs with phrases like “Slow Down” and “Speeding Killed My Son” — but the wind kept blowing the signs down. I felt stupidly helpless and pathetically useless. What good are my tears or condolences to the family who lost their son forever?

Christina Cuanalo places flowers at a ghost bike installed for her brother Jason Ruhmshottel while BikeLoud volunteers Sarah Risser (purple jacket) and Steve Cheseborough (red), his mother Jill Ruhmshottel (white flowers), and other members of Jason’s family look on. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

A few hours ago, a ghost bike was installed where the Smith & Bybee Wetlands path crosses North Portland Road just south of Marine Drive. Jason Ruhmshottel was struck and killed by a driver while riding across this intersection on September 19th, 2023.

Today at the site, Jason’s family — his mother Jill Ruhmshottel, sister Christina Cuanalo, brother-in-law Mario Cuanalo, and niece Michelle Ruhmshottel — met advocates from BikeLoud PDX and held a small ceremony to mark the memorial site with the bike, flowers, and photos.

BikeLoud volunteer Sarah Risser took on a project to make roadside memorials for crash victims (more on that later). This was her first time coordinating a ghost bike. She met the family, and along with other BikeLoud volunteers, they attached signs to the bike and then Mario placed it along the busy road.

Risser knows the pain the family is going through, since she lost a son of her own in a traffic crash. “As a mother who has lost a son. I think there’s a general hesitancy that a lot of people have about showing up for the family or publicly honoring the loss of a loved one. I think in most cases it’s a great comfort to the family to have the community show up and to have the community express love or acknowledgement because it means a lot.”

Crowded parking in Kerns neighborhood. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s transportation bureau walked slowly away from the edge of a financial cliff on City Council budget work session on Thursday. Battered by years of revenue loss made worse by not charging road users enough for the service of safe streets, and a change in travel behaviors exacerbated by the pandemic, the Portland Bureau of Transportation was an agency on the brink when they approached council for help five months ago.

With a $32.4 million shortfall and the prospect of laying off 118 full-time employees that would have been “gutting to the bureau” (according to its director), something had to give. In a proposal shared for the first time yesterday, we learned that PBOT will plug about one-third of that revenue hole by charging drivers more to park and register their vehicles. Combined with funding from the Portland Clean Energy Fund and the expected (but not guaranteed!) passage of the Fixing Our Streets local gas tax renewal in May, PBOT has chiseled that shortfall down to a manageable $4.6 million and just four full-time positions (which likely won’t result in any layoffs).

PBOT’s budget was presented at council yesterday along with the budgets from the water and environmental services bureaus (it was the first time all three bureau directors teamed up under the “Public Works” banner, a nod to the upcoming change in government that will group bureaus into “service areas” to encourage collaboration).

How PBOT will avoid falling over the cliff.