Cycling News & Blog Articles

Hi everyone! I’ve been away from the Shed since Thursday on a family trip, so that’s why things have been slow around here. I am back now and slowly getting the gears turning again. (And yes, I realize it’s Tuesday.) Also note, the Weekly Reader (our weekly email newsletter that you should sign up for) will come out later today.

Without further ado, below are the most notable stories our community has come across in the past seven days…

Safer transit in Portland: Dismissing public safety fears is just as extreme as calling for a police-oriented, law-and-order approach says this opinion column about how to create a more safe and welcoming environment on TriMet. (Portland Mercury)

Cash for e-bikes: Another state has seen the light and will pay its residents to purchase e-bikes. Starting this summer, Minnesota will launch a program that will offer a purchase incentive of up to 75% of the price of a new e-bike, or $1,500 max. (Clean Technica)

The patio will be poppin’! Come on out and join us.

Hope you can swing by Bike Happy Hour tomorrow (Weds, 4/10), because we’ve got two special guests and ample opportunities for activism. We’ll hear from Portland City Council candidate Rex Burkholder, learn about an exciting project from a group of Portland State University students, and activists from BikeLoud PDX will meet up for their bi-monthly Bike Loud Action Mixer (BLAM).

Burkholder is running for a seat in District 3, which encompasses (roughly) southeast Portland from the Willamette to 82nd, and I-84 to the southern border. Burkholder is an advocacy veteran and former Metro Council member who’s well-known in local cycling circles. In late 1990, Burkholder co-founded the Portland Area Bicycle Coalition, which in 1992 incorporated as the nonprofit Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) which grew to prominence in the 1990s. The BTA changed its name (and its mission) to The Street Trust in 2016.

Burkholder was a leader in the successful “Outdoor School for All” effort in 2016. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

After he left the BTA, Burkholder was elected to Metro Council in 2000 and held that position for 12 years. He ran for Metro president in 2010 but didn’t win the race. After that, he went into consulting and worked on various environmental advocacy issues. Burkholder now finds himself in a highly competitive race to represent southeast Portland on city council.

Might not be tank top weather, but still fun to be had! (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Hope you’ve got time to ride this weekend. Have some extra fun for me because I’m out of town until Tuesday (not a work trip).

Scroll down for some excellent ride options…

Woodstock & Creston Park Crawl Bike Bus – 1:00 pm at Creston School, 2:00 pm at Woodstock (SE)
Join parents and kids of these two elementary schools for a tour of parks that will help build confidence of young riders, connect the community, and spread the good word about the bike bus. More info here.

Some Sorta Social Ride – 5:30 pm at Something Cycles (E)
Shop ride with some fun-loving folks who like old-school MTBs, but all bikes are welcome! Route will include unpaved Leif Erikson Road in Forest Park. More info here.

Magic moments like this one at Bike Play during Pedalpalooza are possible because of Umbrella. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

When it comes to promoting the creative, vibrant street culture and fabric of events that make Portland, Portland, Umbrella is arguably the most important nonprofit in the city. Why? Because they provide the financial and legal foundation for many of our most beloved traditions.

I’m talking about things like the upcoming Ladds 500, the World Naked Bike Ride, Pedalpalooza, Breakfast on the Bridges, Better Block PDX, Disaster Relief Trials, and more. As a registered 501(c)(3), Umbrella pops up to protect projects and events that would struggle to handle major legal details like event insurance, alcohol permits, tax ID numbers (to accept donations), mailing addresses, and bookkeeping, on their own.

Umbrella is possible thanks to its board members — generous, benevolent folks who understand the value of community-based street culture and want to see it survive and thrive. And now you have an opportunity to become one. That’s right, Umbrella is looking for a few good folks to join their board.

County rendering of new design coming to Hawthorne Bridge offramp (SW Main) approaching SW 1st.

Two annoying sections of the very popular Hawthorne Bridge bikeway will get significant changes thanks to a project set to begin this spring.

At their meeting yesterday, Portland City Council passed an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Multnomah County, giving them a green light to break ground and complete a major bridge maintenance project. The County owns and operates the Hawthorne Bridge, and they plan to spend $9.5 million on a paving and repair project. The IGA passed Wednesday allows Portland to pay the County $220,00 to build two key bits of infrastructure that will have a big impact your bicycling experience over the bridge.

Currently as you ride westbound into downtown from the Hawthorne, bike riders transition from the sidewalk path onto the street-level bike lane just after the off-ramp to Waterfront Park. According to PBOT, the County will widen the westbound sidewalk all the way SW 1st Avenue, creating a shared pedestrian and bicycling space. PBOT plans and County design renderings shared with BikePortland (see below) show an 11-foot path split evenly between a green-colored bikeway and a sidewalk.

The County refers to the design as a “bicycle slip ramp.” The new raised bike lane will be five-feet wide, separated from a five-foot wide sidewalk. There will be a one-foot wide yellow stripe between them. The raised bike lane will return back to street level at the bike box at SW 1st.

On the Oregon Coast Bike Route, somewhere between Tillamook and Newport. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The Oregon Department of Transportation sent out a survey on the first of April that seeks to gather information about road safety. I think you should take it.

Given the high stakes of the coming legislative session where lawmakers will debate a massive new transportation spending and policy package, I feel like every opportunity to share feedback with ODOT should be seized. This is especially true because I’ve seen this same survey being shared in circles online where folks don’t believe ODOT should spend any money on things like traffic calming, road diets, or bike lanes — because things aren’t really “fixing the roads.”

The survey comes from ODOT’s Transportation Safety Office who says (on their website) that their main responsibility is to, “improve the safety of all roadway users, and all modes of travel in Oregon through education and outreach” with an overall goal to, “eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries on Oregon’s roadways.” This office is funded by grants from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and it’s focused on communication and partnerships with community groups, not on infrastructure funding.

According to Safety Office Public Information Officer Mindy McCartt, this is the first time this office has pushed out their safety survey to such a wide audience. It’s part of their effort to fulfill demographic and reporting requirements from the federal government. In the past they’ve gathered this feedback primarily from in-person meetings around the state and from a smaller survey sample online.

SW Capitol Hill Road, looking south, from the Habitat for Humanity frontage. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

This post is by Guest Contributor Don Baack

Don Baack

As our city government reorganizes itself to operate more efficiently, there has been a lot of talk this past couple of years about silos. Bureaus as silos, silos within bureaus. But what’s happening right now on SW Capitol Hill Road takes silos to a new level of inefficiency. It also illustrates how the piecemeal way sidewalks and bike lanes get built in the southwest results in so many gaps.

The simple outline of the story goes like this…

By all accounts (except the one where a nearby resident allegedly pulled a gun and threatened to use it on people riding skateboards), the new path into Mt. Tabor Park that opened this week has been a big success.

It was a dream many years in the making that creates direct access for an entire neighborhood and connects to a key cycling route. I’ve heard multiple reports that the new path and crosswalk are already seeing a high volume of users.

But as with many City of Portland projects, if we want to see this reach its full potential, we’ve got to get the details right. And one detail of this project — getting people across Southeast Division Street at 64th Avenue — isn’t right. As I reported last week, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has installed a painted crosswalk and a median island with plastic posts and curbs on the east side of the intersection. It helps, but given the behavior of drivers on Division, a more robust crossing treatment might be needed. (Parks also needs to improve the transition from the path to the crossing for southbound bike riders, but I’ll leave that for another post.)

To help illustrate this issue, I’ve shared a message below that I received from a reader yesterday. It helps drive home the dangers people face while biking — not just due to infrastructure design but the related bad behaviors on our streets:

A cyclist on the Springwater Corridor rolls by Ebetsu Plaza in Main City Park. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The sun has broken through and Portland is prepped for a perfect weekend. Before signing off and enjoying it myself, I wanted to share something I experienced today that would make for a great ride destination.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon a mention of the Gresham Japanese Garden. And since it’s spring break and my kids are home and my mom is in town (that’s why story production has been a bit lower this week), we decided to pile into the car and go check it out. 

I didn’t realize until we arrived that the garden is directly adjacent to the Springwater Corridor path! The garden is located inside Main City Park, a place I’m familiar with because I’ve passed it so many times over the years as I whirred by on my bike. But I never stopped to really check it out.

The City of Gresham has done an amazing job integrating the Japanese Garden into the park. There are three elements to the gardens: Kyoudou Center, Tsuru Island, and Ebetsu Plaza.

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the regular work week after a glorious weekend (and for many of you a spring break holiday).

Below are the most notable stories our community has come across in the past seven days…

The problem with fire bureaus: “For all the good they do, fire departments have increasingly emerged as a primary force preventing cities from embracing walkability, safer streets, transit, and affordable housing.” (Thesis Driven)

IBR secrets: The Just Crossing Alliance has obtained a copy of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project and it appears the folks behind the project are so worried about the truth they list public knowledge of it as a major risk and they are working hard to keep the EIS out of public view. (City Observatory)

Eli Arnold in the BikePortland Shed, April 1st, 2024. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

It took over a month for me to agree to interview Portland City Council candidate Eli Arnold. When most candidates reach out and ask for an interview, I reply much sooner and am eager to connect, either for a recorded conversation or an appearance at Bike Happy Hour.

But Arnold was different — because he’s a Portland Police officer.

10 years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about interviewing him or helping him connect to our community. Personally, I’ve always had very strong mixed feelings about police in our city, but I’ve also maintained working relationships with them. Here are just a few examples: In 2005, BikePortland’s first year, I sat down with a Traffic Division commander; I’ve done two ride-alongs, one in a patrol car, the other on a bike; I’ve advocated for more bike-mounted officers; published a guest article by a former officer (hi Robert!); and in 2015, I worked closely with the Portland Police Bureau to launch the (now defunct) Bike Theft Task Force.

But in recent years, my opinion of policing — and the PPB in particular — has soured. I participated in several of the Black Lives Matter protests as a Portlander and as a journalist between June 2020 and April 2021 and I currently have no contact with the bureau or any of its officers.

A bicycle rider waits for a chance to cross SE Powell at 79th. View is looking south. (Aaron Kuehn/Instagram)

Doing it right is more important than getting it done quickly. That’s the message road safety advocates have for the Oregon Department of Transportation after learning about imminent plans to finally build a new crossing treatment on Southeast Powell Boulevard at 79th.

Crossing marked in red.

This crossing (see map at right) has always been risky. It’s not just the four lanes of fast, state highway traffic on Powell you have to worry about. 79th is also a small, forgettable road at this location and on the south side it emerges from a frontage road. At just 700 feet west of roaring 82nd Avenue (another state highway), most drivers barely notice 79th at all, much less a person waiting to walk or bike across it.

That’s why a new crossing was first identified and funded in 2013 and neighbors have been pushing for years for a safer way across. And now, with a major investment coming to 82nd Avenue and the importance of 79th as the designated route of the 70s Neighborhood Greenway, this key north-south route is more important than ever.

As transportation advocates of all stripes gird for what’s going to be a very intense session of the Oregon Legislature next year, there’s a new report that I think should required reading: Oregon in Motion: The development and impacts of HB 2017 and recommendations for a 2025 transportation package (PDF).

As the title says, all eyes are on 2025 because lawmakers are expected to craft and (try to) pass another massive spending and policy plan, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the $5.3 billion package passed in 2017. The importance of this moment needs to be understood — that’s why I asked the report’s author, Cassie Wilson, to join me for an interview.

Cassie Wilson (Allison Barr/Allison Barr Media)

Cassie is a disability rights and transportation advocate who you might recall from our profile of her in 2022. This past legislative session, Cassie was a legislative aide for the Oregon House of Representatives. She wrote the Oregon in Motion report as an intern with nonprofit land-use and environmental advocacy group, 1000 Friends of Oregon.

The 60-page report is an excellent, insider’s look at the sausage-making that led to HB 2017, what that package did (and didn’t do), and what Oregon’s next big funding bill should include. And that’s just the start of what you can learn by reading it. I loved the sections with quotes from activists and insiders who were on the front lines in 2017.

(Photo: State of Oregon)

Approximate location of project.

McKenzie Pass is a hallowed route for many cyclists. The 38 miles of Highway 242 between Sisters and Belknap Springs is some of the best riding not just in Oregon, but anywhere in the world. Already enshrined as an official State Scenic Bikeway, the Oregon Department of Transportation wants to make it even better for bicycle riders.

Earlier this month, ODOT began the McKenzie Highway Pavement preservation project. Using a $4.1 million grant from the FHWA’s Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP), ODOT will pave about 15 miles of the route — from the a few miles west of the Dee Wright Observatory down to junction with Highway 20 in Sisters.

People on bikes love smoother pavement on scenic roads like this because it allows them to descend with more confidence and climb with more efficiency. But there’s more to this project than just better pavement that will benefit cyclists: ODOT also plans to rebuild the shoulders, replace/repair safety signage (some of which targets cyclists) throughout the corridor, build new bathrooms at Cold Springs Campground and Dee Wright Observatory, install bicycle parking at the observatory, and add more turnouts and interpretive panels along the route.

New bikes on the showroom at Trek Bicycle Store. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The amount of revenue collected by the State of Oregon from the bicycle excise tax was over $1 million for the first time ever in 2022. And the total amount of new bikes sold in the state have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Those are two insights we can glean from Oregon Department of Revenue data that has been kept since the bike tax went into effect on January 1st, 2018.

The bike tax was a part of House Bill 2017, the landmark, $5.3 billion transportation package passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2017. In addition to funding projects like freeway expansion megaprojects, rural transit systems, and Safe Routes to Schools infrastructure, the bill included a bevy of new fees to begin the Oregon Department of Transportation’s transition away from the withering gas tax. Vehicle registrations went up, car dealerships had to pay a new “privilege tax” (0.5% on the retail price of any taxable car or truck sold in Oregon), and bicycle riders were dinged $15 at the register for each new bike purchased. The tax applies to bikes priced $200 or more.

BikePortland last took a look at the numbers about two years ago and requested the latest figures from the Department of Revenue.

What better way to mark Easter than with a Kidical Mass ride? (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The clouds should break just in time for the weekend, so make sure to take full advantage by checking out one of the fun rides below…

BIPOC Dig Day – 8:30 am at Rocky Point Central Trailhead (Scappoose)
Join Warpaint Mag in partnership with NW Trail Alliance on this exciting trail-building project that will result in the Portland area’s first POC (person of color) designed and built mountain bike trail. More info here.

Arleta Triangle Square Winter Work Party – 10:00 am in the Plaza (SE)
Roll out to SE 72nd and Woodstock to spruce up this awesome carfree neighborhod plaza so it’s ready for all the spring and summer fun. Organizers will supply gloves, tools, and warm drinks. You just need a smile and a willingness to help the neighborhood. More info here.

Memorial Ride for David Bentley – 1:00 pm at Waterfront Park – Japanese American Historical Plaza (SW)
Friends and safe streets activists will come together to remember David Bentley, the man who was killed last month in the bike lane on SE Belmont. There will be a ghost bike installation at the scene of the crash at the end of the ride. More info here.

This 2013 photo shows why some riders might opt to use the path adjacent to SW Terwilliger instead of the unprotected bike lanes. (Jonathan Maus – BikePortland)

Terwilliger Parkway is an iconic Portland bike route. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the winding road with interesting inclines is shrouded in lush greenery and offers memorable views of the Willamette River. For some it’s a route to and from southwest neighborhoods into downtown Portland, and for others it’s a perfect warm-up to challenging, hilltop destinations in the west hills like Council Crest Park.

The same attraction Terwilliger has for bike riders, it also has for walkers and runners. A sidewalk gives people a perfect way to experience the parkway on foot.

But a nonprofit that oversees the parkway, Friends of Terwilliger, says these two users have come into more conflict in recent years and with spring and summer approaching, they reached out to BikePortland in hopes of sending a message: “Please use the bike lanes that are clearly marked on the road if you are part of a group of cyclists.”

Friends of Terwiller board member Robin Vesey first contacted BikePortland last year when she began to hear reports of what she refers to as “organized groups of cyclists” using the pedestrian path and not yielding to people on foot. She says bike riders, especially those riding together in a group, should use the striped bike lanes on the roadway.

Looking south toward Division. (Photos: Jonathan Maus – BikePortland)

Mische’s plan.

On Monday, April 1st, the Portland Parks & Recreation bureau will realize a 113-year-old vision when they open a new southern entrance to Mt. Tabor Park. 

The year was 1911 when a plan for Mt. Tabor was drawn up by Emmanuel Mische, who worked for the Olmsted landscape architecture firm and went on to become superintendent of Portland Parks. Mische’s plan shows a “Maple Entrance” between what is now Southeast Division Street and SE Lincoln.

Fast forward to the Mt. Tabor Park Master Plan, which was updated in 2008, and we see a fully fleshed-out concept drawing for the path that will open next week. All that was missing was funding. When voters approved a $68 million Parks bond measure in 2014, planning for the new path began in earnest.

Just some of last week’s crowd on the Gorges Beer Co patio. (Jonathan Maus – BikePortland)

I hope you’ll consider joining us at Bike Happy Hour tomorrow (Weds, 3/27). I realize it’s Spring Break and lots of folks are not on their normal schedules, but BHH will continue on as per usual. And we’ve got a great night planned!

As you might have seen on Instagram this week, BHH regular “Lady Max” Nash is bringing her kit and caboodle of craftyness to share with all of us. Max and her Flat Tire Creations have made several appearances at BHH over the past year and you might have seen her really cool, holiday-inspired creations. Max has a knack for turning old inner-tubes into beautiful things and she’s got a special craft planned for us this week.

Name cards have become a cherished tradition at BHH and Max will be helping folks create cool lanyards that keep yours conveniently displayed around your neck in style (see below). And of course as Max often does, there will be lots of opportunities to add additional flare. Max says, “You decide the length, whether to hole-punch with hearts/stars/flowers or not, and which clip color and style you want (5 to choose from).” She’ll have bike charms available for a few bucks. It’s free to take part in craft night and Max has a pay-what-you-can system with a $10 recommended fee to keep things rolling.

Max has tons of fun ideas for bicycle-inspired art and accessories, so stay tuned for more craft night announcements.