Cycling News & Blog Articles

The plan would spend $2 million a year (for five years) on sweeping bike lanes six times per year. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

It’s been a roller-coaster week for the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). On Tuesday they announced controversial plans to remove a new bike lane, and on Wednesday we learned a judge ruled against them in a lawsuit that could expose the city to major liability for not complying with the Oregon Bike Bill.

But also yesterday there was very, very good news: City Commissioner Carmen Rubio announced a plan that would inject $112 million into PBOT as part of $540 million in unanticipated revenue from the city’s Clean Energy Surcharge (CES), a 1% tax on retail gross revenue earned within Portland on tax filers with a total gross income of $1 billion or more, and a Portland gross income of $500,000 or more. The CES is the revenue source for the Portland Clean Energy Fund (which Rubio oversees as commissioner-in-charge of the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability) which was created to fund projects and programs that help low-income and people of color fight climate change.

The funds pegged for PBOT would be spread over five years and would be used to: buy new streetcars, sweep bike lanes, build small bike/walk/transit projects, continue community programs like Safe Routes to School and Sunday Parkways, and purchase LED streetlights. This funding would be in addition to the $20 million PBOT received from the PCEF Capital Investment Plan passed by City Council in September.

The largesse is possible because forecasted revenue from the CES is expected to be $540 million over initial estimates. The City Budget Office chalked up the higher forecast to a strong retail sales growth trend, weakening inflation, and more e-commerce sales which tend to be concentrated in corporations that pay the tax.

There’s never a wrong time of year to explore the amazing winery roads in Yamhill county. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Welcome to the weekend.

The annual Peacock Lane holiday lights display starts tomorrow and the first three nights are carfree! Find out about a group ride to that event and much more in this week’s guide. And remember, we list meet-up times and rides usually leave about 30 mins later (always best to check website ahead of time for latest info).

Techno Christmas Peacock Lane Takeover – 6:30 pm at Lloyd Center (NE)
It’s the first of three carfree nights on Peacock Lane, one of the best places to revel in holiday light magic in Portland, and this ride is an invite to get out there and get funky w’ cha dance moves. More info here.

Family Trail Day – 9:00 am to 12:00 noon at Gateway Green (NE)
Northwest Trail Alliance and Warpaint host this event where you’ll get to dig and scoop and make Portland a nicer place by helping maintain the bike park at Gateway Green. More info here.

NE 33rd Avenue, where bike lane striping will be removed next week. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

“It’s 3:00 am on a Sunday morning and what sounded like a [street] sweeper was not a sweeper — it was a striping crew getting an early jump before the rain and putting in a bike lane on fresh pavement on 33rd with no prior notice or notification. Pause and imagine that moment and imagine the emotions that would bring forth.”

That was how Portland Bureau of Transportation Policy, Planning and Projects Group Manager Art Pearce described the context of what happened when city crews installed a new bike lane on NE 33rd Avenue back in September. Pearce attended a meeting of the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee (PBAC) Tuesday night to explain why he decided to move forward with removal of the bike lane. Pearce was at the same meeting last month to explain how PBOT erred when they installed it in the first place and that they’d pause a planned removal to get more feedback from adjacent residents.

At Tuesday’s meeting Pearce shared more about what PBOT staff heard in those conversations over the past month. His comments and a pointed exchange with a member of the PBAC help explain the city’s frame of mind and shed light on their controversial decisions.

“Despite our best intentions, we triggered, I think, emotional harm to the adjacent neighbors,” Pearce told the committee. And then continued a few minutes later:

Scenes from the past few weeks. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Been a minute since I chimed in about Bike Happy Hour. Just want to say it’s been really to see such a healthy group of folks show up each week — even through this chilly and (sometimes) wet winter weather! Keep reading to find out how it’s been going lately and what to expect if you come out.

Last night was week 37 and I had a wonderful time. If you haven’t come out since the big summer blowouts on the Gorges Beer patio, you’ll notice a bit different vibe at our winter location across the street at Ankeny Tap & Table. We’ve been outside on Ankeny plaza next the pub almost every week and it’s a much more convivial gathering as we huddle around in our coats and naturally come together seeking warmth (we go inside if it’s unbearable and/or wet). The crowd is smaller so it’s more relaxed and we’ll often be all together in one big group.

Owing to all the big news this week, last night we had an impromptu, spirited, roundtable chat. People shared opinions about how best to frame advocacy arguments and I ranted about a few things. I’m always open to debates and conversations… it’s one of my favorite aspects of Happy Hour! I loved how the group last night heard from different voices and even folks who showed up for the first time got in on the conversation (hi Camilla, Jupiter, Craig, Neil, Forrest, Mark and others!).

Bike Happy Hour isn’t owned by anyone, so everyone is welcome to come and use the space however they see fit (within reason of course, I do reserve the right to manage the space as the main organizer).

William Henderson at a BikePortland Wonk Night event in 2015 (left), during our online interview on Friday (center), and at a Bike Happy Hour in April 2023. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

On Friday afternoon, I was only a few minutes into my interview with Ride Report Founder and former CEO William Henderson when I threw my notes aside and realized they’d be useless.

BikePortland has covered nearly every twist-and-turn of Henderson’s journey in the transportation data industry since our profile of him in 2015. So I prepped notes with a timeline of the past eight years that included: how he turned a passion for bike advocacy into a piece of hardware that counted bike trips (a gadget we proclaimed would “change bike planning forever”) and earned the interest (and investment) of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, to a successful app that set him on a different course; how he became a “smart city” darling and raised $13 million from venture capital firms; and how his company launched data dashboards to track bike share and e-scooter fleets for Portland and dozens of cities worldwide.

So imagine my surprise when Henderson said at the beginning of our chat that, “Bike counts are not the most important conversation,” and that, “we need to challenge that idea that quantification is the place to start,” when it comes to bike advocacy and pushing for systemic transportation reform.

Henderson’s self-reflective skepticism made more sense after I learned he majored in math and philosophy at Reed College, only got into tech (he worked at Apple and Square before creating the Ride Report app) to pay back student loans, described himself as a reluctant capitalist, and once dabbled in monasticism.

Views of NE 57th Ave near NE Failing. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland Bureau of Transportation has replaced nearly two dozen plastic flex-posts that were uprooted from their place in the buffer zone of the bike lane on Northeast 57th Avenue in the Cully neighborhood.

We posted about the missing protective materials in this important curved section of the bike lane between NE Failing and Fremont on Tuesday. And by the end of this past weekend, new posts had been installed. I went and took a look at them yesterday just for good measure and was happy to see new, bright, white posts where there were previously none. This bikeway needs all the help it can get while we wait another three years (at least) before the city builds a more robust solution with concrete curbs.

For their part, a PBOT comment on social media yesterday made it seem like they simply were unaware the posts were missing. “Thanks for making us aware of this,” they wrote in response to the BikePortland story. I appreciate that PBOT is using this as an opportunity to promote their complaint-driven system for keeping roads maintained, but I find it hard to believe no PBOT employees had noticed this situation in the past several months.

Regardless, I’m just happy PBOT responded and acted to fortify the bike lane a bit. I hope the posts do their job of encouraging more people to bike and walk and protecting them better while doing so — while also discouraging people to drive dangerously. Of course, if these plastic posts were tall concrete curbs, I wouldn’t have to hope!

The contours of conversations about how much space should be given to various users of the new Hood River-White Salmon Bridge are quickly coming into focus. Members of the Columbia River Gorge Commission where given an update on the project this morning and some of them see a red flag in the lack of space initially allocated toward non-car users.

Washington and Oregon have decided to spend an estimated $520 million to replace the current bridge because it’s over 100 years old, is quite narrow, and has no dedicated space for bicycling or walking.

Planning work began in earnest in 2018 and BikePortland first covered the project in 2020 when it reached a major planning milestone. From the get-go, some advocates worried that the conceptual design language called for only one 12-foot-wide path to serve two directions of cycling, walking, and other non-car users. That one path would be adjacent to 40 feet for drivers who would have two, 12-foot lanes and two 8-foot wide “breakdown” shoulders (so people could move aside and let traffic get by in the event of a fender-bender or other emergency).

Screengrab of Columbia River Gorge Commission meeting 12/12/23.

The Gorge Commission was shown a presentation by Michael Shannon, a project manager with HTNB Corp, an engineering consulting firm. Shannon shared a new digital video of a conceptual rendering of what the future bridge could look like.

People who live along Northeast 33rd Avenue in the Concordia Neighborhood received a flyer on their doorstep earlier today. The flyer states that the City of Portland plans to remove bike lane striping between Dekum and Holman on December 18th and 19th. (Note: The flyer is not on Portland Bureau of Transportation letterhead because it comes directly from S-2 Contractors, the firm PBOT has hired to do the work.)

The flyer was delivered before PBOT made any announcement about the project but I have just confirmed with the city that the removal will happen. ***Scroll down for updates and comments from PBOT staff***

The first time these bike lanes were slated for removal (November 1st) people stood in front of the contractor’s truck and prevented the driver from moving forward. The spontaneous protest came as bike advocates were caught off-guard and sought to defend a vital link in the bike network between the Holman neighborhood greenway and existing bike lanes over NE Columbia.

The protestors were successful. PBOT paused the removal and chose to do more direct outreach to nearby residents. The reason PBOT claimed they needed to remove the bike lanes in the first place was because of an administrative error. The agency manager in charge of the project, Art Pearce, said people who live on 33rd were told about the new bike lanes only on the morning they were striped. He chalked it up to PBOT simply “dropping the ball.”

In addition to what PBOT says was an oversight in their outreach process, the fact that some of the people strongly opposed to the bike lane are longtime Black residents, loomed over their decision.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Ramras ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit filed against the City of Portland for lack of compliance with the Oregon Bike Bill can move forward.

The decision could have vast implications on how the 1971 law, that requires a minimum investment in bicycling and walking infrastructure in tandem with major road projects is applied going forward, and could result in the City of Portland being mandated to build dozens of bike facilities.

The lawsuit was filed 13 months ago by BikeLoud PDX, a Portland-based cycling advocacy group. The suit was initially dismissed in May 2023 but the judge allowed BikeLoud and their lawyers to append their arguments and refile. So they added context to BikeLoud’s complaint, added names of 15 Portland residents as individual plaintiffs, and listed 21 locations they allege are examples of Bike Bill non-compliance.

The two law firms representing the plaintiffs, Forum Law Group and Thomas, Coon, Newton & Frost (TCN&F)*, have a long history of cycling and transportation-related experience and expertise. Reached for comment today, lawyers from both firms told BikePortland they are eager to move forward into the discovery phase where they’ll be able to interview City staff about project decisions and compel them to produce detailed documentation.

Waterfront Park is nice to look at, but it could be so much more! (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

A task force convened by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek with the goal of breathing life into downtown Portland revealed its recommendations this morning. While I’d hoped tactical urbanism or some sort of streets and/or transportation-related remedies would get more prominent billing, the group has decided to focus on more traditional approaches.

“Gov. Tina Kotek in the coming months will press to increase police presence downtown Portland, outlaw public drug consumption, take protective plywood off of buildings, and step up social services for those struggling on the streets of Oregon’s largest city,” reads an OPB story published this morning that summarizes the recommendations.

While anything that makes downtown streets look and feel safer will encourage people to use transit, their feet, and bikes downtown — there’s nothing transportation-specific in the 10 immediate priorities the governor wants to focus on.

A stronger — and safer — connection between the Park Blocks and the river on Salmon is a great idea. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Call it a litmus test, a Rorschach blot — maybe a new question for the Meyer-Briggs personality quiz? But the topic of working from home … well, let’s say it brings out a lot of personality. That personality was on full display in the comments to our post on Alta Planning and Design’s move to the west side of the river. As Jonathan wrote, the move was “part of their strategy to lure more employees into the office.”

WFH (work from home) can be such a hot-button issue that I hesitate to say anything about it. But at least let’s describe the range of the phenomena. It extends from taking one day a week at home, to making home in another state. Yep, some folks have put hundreds, even thousands, of miles between themselves and their employer, and are real happy with the arrangement.

PTB is not buying it. Here’s why PTB thinks going to work matters:

Not everyone loves WFH. My role at work won’t allow it, but there are some here that can, and during the height of Covid, did. I thought it sucked. I hated Zoom meetings. There’s something very human that is lacking when your only interactions are online. It would be one thing to Zoom with someone in a different time zone, but when that person is a couple miles from where you’re at, goddamn, something about it irks the hell out of me.

And it clearly irked my coworkers because once vaccines rolled out they did what I thought we were all waiting to do once they were available; they came back to work. Didn’t we all hate being home and not seeing people? Vaccines were gonna help us get back to normal life, yeah? Then a bunch of office workers decided, nah, fuck it, this spare room office life is legit…I’m staying. You’re the master of your own isolation, same goes for me. I’m going out and leaving the house, thanks.

Darkness and deaths: Portland is highlighted in this important article that explains why America has an exceptionally high number of pedestrian traffic deaths. There are some factors highlighted here — like how shift workers have moved into places with more dangerous roads — that I hadn’t considered before. (NY Times)

Where separation is mandatory: Cambridge (MA) passed a council ordinance that required protected bike lanes whenever a road is reconstructed and the results have been very positive. (Velo)

Why ‘shared space’ doesn’t work: The idea of ‘shared space’ pushed by Hans Monderman was supposed to usher in a new era of street civility and socialized public space; but it hasn’t quite turned out that way. (Global Cycling Network)

The state of the art: A deep dive into the challenges of building bike infrastructure in America, with mention of the protested bike lane removal on NE 33rd Ave in Portland. (The Verge)

Preliminary alignment of future Red Electric Trail.

The Portland Parks & Recreation bureau wants your help to design the future Red Electric Trail.

As we shared back in June, Parks won a $750,000 federal pandemic relief grant to finalize the design and planning for a half-mile section of the Red Electric Trail between SW Shattuck Road and SW Cullen Boulevard in the Hayhurst neighborhood. Since our last report, city staff have held several open houses and done other outreach and have come up with a preliminary design. A new survey that closes this coming Monday (December 11th) aims to iron out a few last details before the design can be completed and the city can come up with a cost estimate. Those two steps are crucial to getting this project funded and built!

The alignment of the paved path will head east from Shattuck (across the street from the Alpenrose Dairy site), through a community garden, park, part of Hayhurst Elementary School, then along SW Cameron Road.

Parks planners have broken the design down into five segments. Starting from Shattuck and moving east, the plan for the trail would include:

View of I-5 going over Hayden Island and the Columbia River from north Portland.

While the effort to expand I-5 between Portland and Vancouver and replace the Interstate Bridge (a.k.a. the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, or IBR) lumbers on, many questions remain about the $7.5 billion project — especially how it will impact Oregon’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

A question on that topic came up during an exchange last month between a Portland cycling advocate and the project’s engineering manager. It was a notable back-and-forth that shows how project staff justify claims that the freeway megaproject will actually lower vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and won’t be terrible for the climate.

The exchange took place during a meeting of the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee on November 14th. It was between committee member David Stein and Casey Liles, engineering manager for the IBR. Their comments have been slightly edited for clarity.

David Stein:

Here’s a dose of good in a situation that started out bad: Yesterday before Bike Happy Hour I swung by Ota Tofu on Southeast Stark to deliver a check for $1,215. That was the amount nearly 50 of you donated to Cole so she can buy a new bike after hers was flattened by an errant driver last Thursday.

Cole was getting coffee across the street from her job at Ota when she saw someone in an SUV swing off SE Sandy right into the on-street bike parking corral her bike was locked to. That now-destroyed bike was how Cole got to and from work, and when I talked to her about what happened, it was clear she could use help buying a new one. With the check I dropped off, and some donations that were sent directly to her, Cole should have enough to find a solid, reliable bike.

Thanks to everyone who stepped up to help a complete stranger. And to the handful of folks who offered to loan her a bike, or in some cases, even give her one! The generosity of our community helps restore my faith in humanity. I can’t wait to see Cole’s new bike and I’m glad we were able to keep one more person on a bike in Portland.

It’s do-whatever-it-takes-to-stay-dry season. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Welcome to the weekend.

Hope you’re hanging on through repeating rivers of atmosphere pelting down on our city. If the rain has got you down, consider one of the events below to brighten your mood.

This week’s guide is sponsored by the Rapha Archive Sale, a great opportunity to score deals on quality gear. See details on the event below.

Friday Morning Hill Ride – 10:00 am at Portland Orchestra HQ (SE)
Like the steep stuff? Show up and ride with others who are so inclined. More info here.

Looking northwest at the diverter on NE Fremont and Alameda. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The City of Portland says a neighborhood traffic diverter that was vehemently opposed by many residents of a northeast Portland neighborhood is working as planned.

When the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association put the planned diverter on Northeast Fremont at Alameda on a meeting agenda in March 2022, over 70 people logged on. Many of them voiced concerns that the expected safety benefits of the project would not be worth a loss of convenience while driving and/or an increase in cut-through traffic.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation proposed the diverter to improve safety on NE Fremont (a neighborhood collector street), make it easier for bikers and walkers to cross at Alameda, and reduce the amount of drivers on the Alameda/37th neighborhood greenway route. Even though PBOT’s plan was to only make it a pilot project, the BWNA board voted it down 7-4.

View looking north across Fremont from Alameda.

I recently took out my grandmother’s sewing machine, after 10 years of storing it under the bed. I was inspired by the Sew Many Bikes Pedalpalooza ride, which life has twice prevented me from attending, but I am keen to learn from anyway. In addition to the sewing machine, I also had a friend teach me a knit stitch, and on a recent evening I put on an old record (yes, on a turntable) — one that had been unopened in its package for decades — and I sat in a chair to listen and knit.

It struck me particularly (as I bemoaned my inability to join the summer’s Sew Many Bikes ride) that sewing and biking is a most fitting combination. Folks who sew are doing something slow in the face of fast fashion. They could more easily buy their garments, yet they are doing the slow work of making their own outfits, not unlike a person riding a bike, who could ride in a faster car, but who chooses the slower way. Something slow, something lovely, something that takes work. But is totally worth it, both in the achievement of the end, and also for the joy of the journey.

Yes, a Pedalpalooza bike ride got me thinking about an entirely slow life, and how much it might be preferred to a fast one. Slower things, like biking, books, old records, and sewing machines. 

“Maybe choosing to bike is only part of what we need. Maybe we have been trying to fit biking into a car-centric lifestyle. And what we need is a completely different framing.”

122nd north of Glisan, where police say the victim was found.

One of Portland’s most prolific killers has struck again. Portland Police say Tuesday night just before 10:00 pm, a person was found dead on Northeast 122nd Avenue just north of Glisan. They believe the victim was walking prior to being hit and killed by someone driving a car.

Last night’s fatality was the 14th in past five years (2019 – 2023) on this street alone. Eight of the victims were on foot. This section of 122nd is about 75-feet wide with seven lanes used by drivers and a 30 mph speed limit.

122nd Avenue has been the focus of many speeches and plans over the past decade; but it remains a ticking time bomb of traffic tragedy and we’re years away from completion of infrastructure changes.

10 years ago this week, then Portland Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Steve Novick elevated the importance of making changes to 122nd Avenue when he lobbied for a “street fee” that would have allocated $20 million for better bus service on the street. That street fee would never come to pass, but it didn’t stop PBOT from working with TriMet to set aside $8 million for updates aimed at improving safety and adding a frequent service bus line.

Susan Peithman. (Photo: ODOT)

Susan Peithman, a former Portlander who was a staffer at the nonprofit advocacy group, The Street Trust and a serious bicycle racer, is now interim director of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Climate Office.

Peithman will serve in the position while current Climate Office Director Suzanne Carlson rotates over to serve as administration of ODOT Public Transportation Division for one year.

Peithman will be the third person to lead ODOT’s Climate Office since it was established in spring 2020 in response to former Governor Kate Brown’s executive order on climate change. The office’s main charge is to monitor and inform ODOT’s progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Peithman’s varied background in the transportation world should serve her well in leading that effort.

Peithman moved to Portland in 2007 with an expressed goal of getting a job in the “nonmotorized transportation” world. How do I know that? Because she was quoted saying it in a glowing NY Times profile of Portland’s bike culture in 2007. And Peithman did just that, by landing a job at Alta Planning + Design and then becoming a policy advocate at the nonprofit Bicycle Transportation Alliance (now The Street Trust) in 2009. Her experience in that role included time on the advisory committee for the controversial North Williams Avenue project.