Cycling News & Blog Articles

Major neckdown at N Fessenden near Peninsula Crossing Trail would make dramatic difference in safety at what is now a wide and stressful intersection.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation is putting finishing touches on their North Portland In Motion (NPIM) plan and they’ve just released the final online open house.

NPIM aims to improve the future of biking, walking, and transit on Portland’s peninsula from I-5 between the Overlook and Kenton neighborhoods, west to Pier Park in St. Johns. It launched in 2021 and will likely be adopted by City Council in early 2024. These planning processes (similar ones have been done for east and southwest Portland) are important because they result in a prioritized, clearly-defined list of projects that are shovel-ready and primed for funding. In some cases, the process validates current PBOT planning and they’re able fund and build the projects before the plan is adopted by Council.

These “In Motion” plans have been popular with both PBOT and Portlanders because they add transparency and predictability to the planning process. They also take a network-level view of what needs to be done to make the system (not just one location) safe, which makes each project easier to justify in the case of pushback (as in, “I hear you, but this is part of North Portland in Motion, which went through a comprehensive outreach process and was adopted by City Council, so we’re going to do it even if you don’t like it.”)

As we’ve shared in previous NPIM updates, PBOT gathered community feedback and categorized projects in three different types of projects: neighborhood greenways, corridor improvements, and “plazas & places to connect.” Each set of projects is then prioritized into tier 1 or tier 2.

Eva Frazier and I are back with another episode of “In The Shed.” This episode was recorded December 7th* in the BikePortland Shed a few blocks from Peninsula Park in north Portland. (*Sorry for the longer than usual turnaround. It won’t happen again!)

As per usual, Eva and I had a fun, informal chat about a wide range of stuff. In this video we talked about:

Thanks for listening! We’d love to hear feedback. Eva is coming back to the Shed tomorrow so I’ll have another episode before Christmas. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.

‘Sham’ process inflates IBR value: Don’t miss this assessment of the “fuzzy math” being used to justify the Interstate Bridge Replacement project, which economist Joe Cortright said should be considered as a federal crime. (Streetsblog USA)

Life with an a cycling lover: A sweet little column that I think a lot of “avid cyclists” can relate to. (Gold Country Media)

Rebuild walking culture: It’s very likely that a major reason more Americans are being killed while walking is that so few of us are doing it. (Streetsblog USA)

Major honor: Major Taylor, the first Black American global sports star who was simultaneously revered for athletic prowess and reviled for the color of his skin, is up for a congressional gold medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by lawmakers in the Capitol. (The Washington Post)

(Photo: Shannon Johnson/BikePortland)

Our first Christmas after I began biking with my kids was particularly special: every kid got a “new” (used) bike. I loved seeing the brightly colored bikes all lined up in the living room, circled around the tree. It was a happy moment, filled with the joy of the memories we’d made, and the rides we were looking forward to. It was a celebration that my newfound joy of biking was also a joy for my children, a joy and gift that we could share together. Furthermore, I was 9 months pregnant that Christmas, due any day, and seeing the array of little bikes under the tree gave me hope for our family’s coming year, as they were a vivid commitment that we would keep riding, even after a new baby joined our crew.

That first magical year of our biking journey!

Of course, we do a lot of bike hand-me-downs, so our tree doesn’t get to be adorned with new bikes every year. But biking gifts are a holiday staple. I don’t want to suggest we need new bike gear every year; but when bike-related gifts feature under our tree, they are a representation of how much of a gift biking is for us, and how committed we are to continuing to bike as our family grows and changes each year.

Most of these items are not cheap, and I feel badly about that, because I know it sucks to see things and not be able to pay for them. Maybe our family biking allows us to save enough on gas to pay for this stuff. I don’t know for sure. But I know that biking has been such an improvement to our lives (especially to my life as a mother) that it’s worth investing in, as much as we can manage (and so much better than video games!). Often, we make do with what we can (look for a “DIY” post coming next year) because we can’t afford all the cool gear I would love to have. But we also have found that quality gear and upgrades have been worthwhile, and have helped us bike more, bike farther, and bike happier. 

Looking north on NE 33rd from NE Holman. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Crews hired by the Portland Bureau of Transportation removed the bike lane on Northeast 33rd Avenue on Monday morning. They finished a job they started on November 1st but were forced to pause due to protestors who stood in front of their trucks.

There was no one to stop them this time.

Men in two trucks took turns going over sections of bright white and green paint. They peered out the windshield over their steering wheels as an attachment with stiff bristles aided by a spray of water whirred swiftly and erased infrastructure that — for the last three months — provided some safety for bicycle riders between a greenway route on NE Holman and existing bike lanes over Columbia Blvd at NE Dekum.

PBOT initially planned to remove this (relatively new) bike lane because they said it was installed by “mistake.” Due to an administrative error, PBOT striped the new lanes without notification to adjacent residents. When that mistake was compounded with strong opposition from some residents who saw it as a continuation of historic mistreatment by the City of Portland, PBOT felt it was impossible to leave the bike lanes in while they dealt with the neighborhood fallout.

I had to flip a coin this morning. Because it’s not ten comments of the week, or two, it’s just one.

Friday’s story about BikeLoud PDX’s decision not to protest the removal of the bike lane on Northeast 33rd Avenue (which happened this morning, story coming soon) continued the avalanche of strongly-felt opinions about this PBOT screw-up. Maybe you think the issue has already been adequately hashed out. But you might have missed a comment that came in Sunday afternoon, one of the most insightful perspectives on Portland I’ve read.

Here’s ITOTS’s take on how our city handles some racial conversations:

“This time, that conflict happened on NE 33rd, but it is not an isolated instance, and is in fact an ongoing experience for our neighbors of color, particularly Black people.” — BikeLoud PDX

This phrase emerged in the last few years, but we need to get even more specific here, because as lovely as it is to “center” black voices, that’s not a specific enough description of who is experiencing these conflicts negatively. Reversing this project doesn’t center black voices and doesn’t provide a pathway to resolve these kinds of conflicts (when they actually are substantive) in the future.

Burkholder campaigning at the Sellwood Bridge opening in 2016. Novick at Better Naito kickoff in 2016. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

We’re less than one year out from what will be the wildest race for Portland City Council this city has ever seen. And in the past week or so, two new candidates with serious transportation bona fides have declared their candidacy: Rex Burkholder and Steve Novick.

Keep reading to find out who they are, why they’ll shake up the race, and what you can expect if they win…

At a ride to save Washington County farmland in 2009.

Burkholder founded the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (now known as The Street Trust) in his kitchen in 1990. At least that’s how the story goes. The story took a big turn five years later when the BTA filed a lawsuit against the City of Portland alleging they weren’t building bike lanes on main streets as required by the Oregon Bike Bill. The BTA won that lawsuit, and it helped set Portland on a trajectory to become the best bicycling city in America for the next two decades.

Kiel Johnson stood in front of a truck to prevent it from removing bike lanes on 33rd Ave on November 1st. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

As news broke this week that the Portland Bureau of Transportation would remove the new bike lanes on Northeast 33rd Avenue, many of the responses I heard online were, “When is the protest?!”

While PBOT’s first attempt to erase the bike lanes was meant with aggressive tactics, this time around the same person who stood in front of a striping truck and stared down its driver, is calling for calm. “I do not support blocking next week’s striping removal, and anyone doing so are not acting in the best interest of promoting biking for all communities,” wrote BikeLoud PDX Vice Chair Kiel Johnson in a letter to members sent out today.

Johnson said Portland bike advocates are justifiably angry, but that — unlike the initial protest when no one knew what was going on — “we need to acknowledge the multitude of truths; we need to recognize the truths of others in order to navigate and be inclusive of a city full of people with many different lived experiences.”

Here’s how Johnson framed the situation on 33rd and its “multitude of truths”:

Commissioner Mingus Mapps and PBOT Director Millicent Williams prepare notes before speaking at this morning’s press conference. (Photo: Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

— Lisa Caballero contributed to this story.

Standing on a gravel street in southwest Portland this morning, Commissioner Mingus Mapps kicked off the campaign to renew the local gas tax. As we hinted last month after seeing early drafts of the proposal, Mapps confirmed today he won’t increase the tax and it will stay at the 10-cent per gallon rate for the next four years. Mapps’ Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is in crisis-mode and desperately needs the money, so he was surely tempted to ask for more — but must be mindful of voter sentiment and can’t afford to come away empty-handed.

The tax funds the Fixing Our Streets (FOS) Program first approved by voters in 2016 and renewed in 2020 as a local source of transportation revenue. FOS funds projects like Safe Routes to School, the gravel streets program, and other projects citywide. Its largest expenditure so far has been the recently completed Capitol Highway project. The funding is crucial because only about 20% of PBOT’s $510 million annual budget is discretionary revenue.

Commissioner Mapps and Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Director Millicent Williams announced the plan at a press conference near a rivulet on SW Arnold Street, one of southwest Portland’s many unpaved streets. It was cold, but spirits were high because, let’s admit it, dump trucks and big equipment bring out the kid in everyone. By the end of the event, PBOT’s maintenance crews had nearly completed grading and graveling the street (they would have been done sooner if they hadn’t had to dodge the assembled press corps).

(Google map with annotations by BikePortland)

Remember a few years ago when the Portland Bureau of Transportation decided there were just “too many cars” on NE Tillamook near Grant High School to keep the neighborhood greenway route on that street? That realization led them to shift the route one block south the NE Hancock east of 33rd Avenue and they’ve since made significant changes to turn it into a bike-friendly street.

The big challenge with this route is how to get greenway users from Hancock and 42nd across Sandy Boulevard at 43rd. Sandy is a stressful street to cross (illustrated by a recent serious injury collision involving a very experienced bicycle rider) because it’s on a diagonal and has four lanes of drivers with no shoulder and a 30 mph speed limit. Adding to the equation is Kelly Plaza, a one-block section on the north side of Sandy between 42nd and 43rd that meets Sandy at an oblique angle.

BikePortland hinted at the Kelly Plaza issue back in early 2021 and now PBOT has released detailed plans for how they’ll make the crossing work.

According to newly released drawings (above), PBOT will build a new cycling path on top of what is now an on-street parking lane. That path will then orient riders to cross Sandy with a bike-only signal that will help make the east-west connection onto Hancock. PBOT will add green striping to help guide bike riders across and warn other road users of the presence of a cycling route.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)