Cycling News & Blog Articles

You know you have something special when a project inspires elected officials and local government leaders to show up and stand in the rain during a pandemic. That’s the power of the Crown Zellerbach Trail, which is finally beginning to live up to its reputation as the crown jewel of Columbia Colunty.

In just the latest sign of major momentum for the trail, a few dozen people representing local and statewide agencies met at the Ruley Trailhead on Friday. About 26 miles northwest of Portland, they stood under tents and jacket hoods to thank partners and acknowledge the significant progress this project has made over the past few years.

The Crown Z has been a local gem for decades. Following an old and defunct rail line that used to move logs from timber camps in the hills east to the Columbia River, it connects the growing city of Scappoose to the small town of Vernonia. Up until 2017 the Crown Z was mostly undeveloped. Rockslides and washouts were common, signage and trailheads were all but non-existent, and there was a gap on the western end that required stressful riding on narrow highways. It was a beautiful place to ride, but it’s lack of polish excluded all but the most adventurous riders.

This is a guest post from former BikePortland news editor Michael Andersen. He now writes about housing and transportation for Sightline Insitute, a regional sustainability think tank.

In its final snapshot of pre-pandemic travel habits, U.S. Census surveys found that 2019 was another year with little growth in bike commuting, in Portland or elsewhere.

Portland’s bike commuting rate was 5.2 percent, the Census found in its annual compilation of surveys collected throughout the previous calendar year, down from an average of 6.3 percent over the previous five years and the lowest single-year estimate since 2007. The new finding served as a likely confirmation of last year’s discouraging indication that Portland’s mid-decade boomlet of bike commuting seemed to have receded.

The Salmonberry Trail Foundation says they’ve got the green light to build a new trail that would connect directly to the existing Banks-Vernonia State Trail.

The location is just about 30 miles northwest of Portland, where Williams Creek tumbles through Hares Canyon between Highway 47 and Stub Stewart State Park. It’s where the now-defunct Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad used to wind over a trestle above the creek just north of the small community of Buxton.

Today advocates are pushing to re-establish the railroad line as a trail that would connect Banks to the Oregon Coast. It’s a vast undertaking, but progress is being made in small, opportunitistic chunks. Last year the foundation completed the first two segments of work on the trail — trailheads at the eastern and western terminus of the future trail.

With so much attention on the mayoral race and national politics, you might not have heard much about an interesting contest shaping up for a seat in the Oregon House that represents a key swath of east Portland.

When I heard the name Ashton Simpson pop up as a third-party challenger to scandal-plagued incumbent Diego Hernandez, I knew you’d be interested to learn about him. Simpson, who’s running on the Working Families Party ticket, has deep ties to local transportation issues.

As you might have noticed with our recent coverage of new neighborhood greenways, east Portland is seeing a lot of transportation investment at the moment. That stream of funding will become a flood if the Metro transportation measure passes in November. After years of neglect, parts of our city east of I-205 are finally being noticed by City Hall. And it’s active, young leaders like Simpson who are making that happen.

The Oregon Department of Transportation has made a new promise regarding their controversial I-5 Rose Quarter project.

Asked Friday by the host of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud radio show about how much power the forthcoming Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB) would have to influence the project, ODOT’s Director of Urban Mobility Brendan Finn said they’d have, “A tremendous amount of power and influence in how this project shapes out. They’re going to help reshape it with us.”

Finn was a guest on the show along with Oregon Walks‘ Claire Vlach and John Washington, CEO of Flossin Media, and the chair of the Soul District Business Association — both of whom were members of the I-5 project’s Citizen Advisory Committee which was abruptly disbanded earlier this month.

ODOT shut down the committee after just three meetings and the agency said it will be replaced by a new one that aims to, “intentionally center Black voices”. On September 14th a majority of committee members (including Vlach) signed a letter accusing of ODOT of silencing their voices due to fears they were too critical of the agency’s plan to widen I-5.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic took a cleaver to municipal budgets and dramatically impacted mobility patterns regionwide, congestion pricing was already a hot topic. Now there’s new urgency around the idea of charging people to use roads.

Currently Metro, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation are involved in separate — but related — discussions about if and how to implement tolls.

On Thursday Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) was briefed on the Metro Regional Congestion Pricing Study (not to be confused with PBOT’s Pricing for Equitable Mobility or ODOT’s I-5 and I-205 tolling efforts).

On Thursday a Metro transportation advisory committee passed a resolution to explore the feasibility of a new carfree bridge over the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn.

With $350,000 in federal funding, the Oregon Department of Transportation will lead the effort in partnership with the cities of West Linn and Oregon City, Clackamas County and Metro. Of the two bridges that currently cross the river, one of them is Interstate 205 (Abernethy Bridge, where cycling is prohibited) and the other is the narrow Arch Bridge that has no dedicated space for cycling.

The feasibility study will consider whether a new bridge is necessary and if so, what the ideal location would be. The options on the table are a new bridge south of the existing Arch Bridge, north of the existing bridge (and south of I-205/Abernethy Bridge), or to simply not build a new bridge and instead make the Arch Bridge carfree.

Welcome to the week.

Here are the most noteworthy items we came across in the past seven days…

It’s not your fault: The idea that we all have a “carbon footprint” is nothing more than “devious” propaganda pushed by Big Oil to shame and distract us for their environmental destruction says this Mashable article.

Primed for e-bikes: Recent staffing moves hint that Amazon might be looking to bulk up its use of electric bikes for last-mile deliveries.

Three intersections in Washington County are part of a trial run of high-tech signal detection devices aimed at improving the experience of bicycle riders.

According to the Washington County Land Use and Transporation Division crews have installed “thermal bike-distinguishing video detection systems” at the following three locations:

— Rock Creek and Park View boulevards, approaching 185th Avenue
— Park Way approaching Cedar Hills Boulevard
— 85th Avenue approaching Durham Road, across from Hall Boulevard

The small town of Corbett is well known to bicycle riders in the Portland region. It’s bisected by the Historic Columbia River Highway, it’s a gateway to the Columbia River Gorge, and it sits at the base of Larch Mountain Road, one of most legendary climbs in the state. Corbett High School even serves as the base camp for the annual Larch Mountain Hillclimb Time Trial event.

But it also has a darker side: A locals-only vibe that has persisted for years.

We’ve reported on bicycle riders being verbally threatened for merely existing in the area and there have been multiple incidents of tacks being suspiciously left on the road. Back in May of this year when Covid-19 concerns were at a fever pitch, we shared how riders were mistakenly informed by an Oregon State Parks ranger that they could not ride on the Historic Highway near Corbett unless they lived in the area.

Now, as tensions over wildfires have mixed with conspiracy theories, disinformation on the web, and existing biases, armed civilians have set up roadblocks to deter people from using roads.

A long-held aspiration of many local transportation planners and advocates has taken a big step forward.

On Tuesday Metro opened a comment period for their draft Regional Framework for Highway Jurisdictional Transfer Study. The study identified a list of 11 state-owned highways that are primed for new management because they’ve been neglected by their current boss — the Oregon Department of Transportation.

These highways — which function more like urban arterials — are relics of a pre-interstate era. They were built to get produce and other items from farms into the central city. When the big, shiny, new freeways were built in the 1950s through 1970s, ODOT walked away from them. They became what are known as “orphan highways” and a cycle of neglect began. As cities and neighborhoods have grown up around them, these highways have fallen out of favor and aren’t prioritized for federal and state funding. In recent decades a wide chasm has formed between the priorities of ODOT, the tragic outcomes of their car-centric street designs, and the daily needs of people who live in communities adjacent to them.

Turns out not everything is terrible in the world: Portland’s community is as strong as ever (and maybe even stronger!).

Despite a pandemic and air quality crisis, folks are still hosting great events. All they need is for you to show up. Have a look below, make your plans, and then pray for blue skies.

Friday, September 18th

Addressing Barriers to Physical Activity in the Black Community – 1:00 to 3:00 pm (webinar)

An excellent panel of speakers (including PBOT Equity & Inclusion Manager Irene Marion) is set to explore the unique barriers to physical activity Black people face in America. Dubbed “Arrested Mobility” this free discussion will have lots of connections to cycling, walking, scootering, and so on. More info here.

The winding road of shared electric scooters in Portland has taken another turn. Today the transportation bureau released a report (PDF) on scooter usage and outlined plans for a permanent system. Among the findings is that cycling-specific infrastructure is key to boosting scooter ridership, especially in places with high-stress streets like east Portland.

Portland launched e-scooters in summer 2018 as a pilot program. The Portland Bureau of Transportation deemed them a success and launched a second pilot in spring 2019 that’s set to end on December 31st.

With lessons learned in courtship and positive signs that the scooters are a needed and valuable part of Portland’s transportation ecosystem, PBOT wants to settle down with fewer partners and a longer-term commitment. There are currently six different companies offering scooters in Portland. This is clunky for both users and PBOT staff to manage. A key recommendation in the report released today says PBOT wants to work with 1-3 companies for the next 2-3 years.

It’s been at least a week since smoky air showed up as an unwanted guest in Portland. Streets are dead and most people are in a more severe lockdown mode than when Covid-19 first hit. That’s certainly true for people who love and need to ride bicycles, many of whom continued to ride alone or indoors throughout the pandemic. But now even that’s not happening because the air is just too hazardous — indoors or out.

As the city’s shutdown of bike share illustrates, riding a bike when air quality is hazardous is a non-starter for nearly everyone with a choice. But it appears we’re on the road to recovery. With all signs pointing to better air quality by Thursday or Friday, I sense a massive pent-up demand to start riding again.

Roll through yellow? Or wait for green?

According to air quality forecasts, we should be well below a 100 AQI score by tomorrow. That would put us solidly in the “moderate” (yellow) level that the EPA defines as “acceptable” for all but a small number of sensitive people. For context, Portland usually has a score between 10 and 20 — so that means even the moderate level should not be taken lightly. Another thing to remember is air quality can vary in different parts of town, so make sure to check the AQI specifically where you’ll be riding.

A violent collision between two drivers on East Burnside Street in the Buckman neighborhood on Friday night left an innocent man dead.

Chris Copeland wasn’t in either car. He was on the sidewalk in front of his workplace, The East Burn Public House, a popular neighborhood eatery on the southeast corner of 18th and Burnside.

According to the Portland Police Bureau, it happened around 7:00 pm Friday night. That’s when an 18-year old who was under the influence of intoxicants failed to stop at a stop sign while driving southbound in his Subaru Forester. The Subaru driver was then hit by someone driving a Toyota Tacoma truck eastbound on Burnside. The impact shoved the Subaru across the intersection and up onto the sidewalk in front of East Burn.

Portland’s love of cyclocross is deep and real. The pain of loss over a season cancelled due to coronavirus concerns has been made more acute as toxic air has robbed us of even training rides — which themselves were a poor substitute for the competition, camaraderie, and blissful chaos that defines the sport.

Now, just as your muscle memory twitches for the start of ‘cross season, a new book will have to suffice. Portland-based photographer Drew Coleman (whose work has been featured on BikePortland several times) just released Of Crank and Chain: Cyclocross, a book he calls a “240 page photographic and written express of domestic cyclocross.” The book’s editor and co-author is Bend resident, poet and former professional ‘cross racer Laura Winberry.

The book features compelling scenes selected from tens of thousands of images in a culling process that took Coleman nearly four months. The images were all taken in 2019, but don’t expect the book to deliver a recap of the season. In fact, there are no captions and only superfans will know which racers they’re looking at.

14 former members of an Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) advisory committee have signed onto a letter that says they’re “deeply suspicious” of the agency and that they were shut out of the process because they “didn’t play ball” on the I-5 Rose Quarter project.

As we reported on September 2nd, ODOT abruptly shut down their own, hand-picked Community Advisory Community (CAC) for the embattled project and decided to create a new committee in its place. ODOT claimed they made the move to, “intentionally center Black voices,” but they’ve glossed over the fact that the now-defunct CAC was highly critical of the project and on the verge of a mass resignation. It’s also worth noting that five of the 14 people who signed the letter — Liz Fouther-Branch, Cleo Davis, Craig L. Brown, Jasmine Gadie, and Andrew Campbell — were on the committee to represent Black and African-American communities and businesses.

One former CAC member, Liz Fouther-Branch (who is Black), had already resigned and said, “I find it frustrating to sit on advisory committees and know that all of the design, financial decisions, and considerations have already been determined long before any real restorative justice can take place.” Other committee members voiced deep concerns at the final meeting that ODOT delayed adoption of a charter that would spell out precisely how much power they’d have to influence the project.

It’s another sign of our upside-down world that a public transit system launched with the promise of cleaner air is currently offline because of dirty air.

Welcome to the week.

Here are the most noteworthy items we came across in the past seven days…

Pavement and emissions: A recent study found that warmer temps pull more toxic vapors from road surfaces, adding to the long list of ways cars and trucks destroy our planet.

Death of Melrose: A heart-wrenching blow-by-blow recap of how one L.A. city councilor tanked a great project based on inaccurate and unfounded fears that one of the city’s most famous main streets couldn’t possibly exist with less space for car users.

Several towns in southern Oregon have been devastated by wildfire. Among the ashes, people are coming together to support one another.

Today I heard about the Ashland Bike Brigade, a group of people who are using their bikes to deliver supplies to victims of the Almeda Fire who’ve stayed in their homes despite evacuation orders.

Here’s the story from Jefferson Public Radio:

Roadblocks are keeping cars out of evacuation zones near the Almeda Fire in Jackson County, but cyclists can still get in. So a group of cyclists is delivering resources to people stranded in their homes.