Cycling News & Blog Articles

My cap doesn’t lie. (Erin Bailie – BikePortland)

Our route.

My husband and I recently took advantage of the weather and went for a “fun ride” – that is, a ride without a specific timeline or destination in mind. I’d call it a recreational ride, but the distinction between commuting and recreating is a blurry line and I don’t want to enforce a false dichotomy. Our plan followed our typical formula for a weekend outing: see something neat (the trails at Powell Butte) and eat something tasty (lunch at the Mercado carts in Foster-Powell). The dose of vitamin D from the sunny skies was an added bonus. 

During the ride, my husband and I marveled at the many different types of infrastructure we encountered, and the nuances between them. 

Our ride started in our neighborhood, Sullivan’s Gulch. We zig-zagged on neighborhood greenways through Laurelhurst, North Tabor and Montavilla neighborhoods. In Montavilla, we transitioned from greenways to our second mode, a designated bike lane on East Burnside, where the MAX tracks occupy the center of the road. 

(Source: City of Portland Bureau of Transportation)

Map of project area looking north.

It’s not everyday that plans for a new street come across my desk. Read that again: Not new plans for a street. Plans for a new street! Yes, the Portland Bureau of Transportation will finalize designs this year and break ground next year on new streets in Old Town. Specifically, they plan to extend NW Johnson and Kearney Streets from where they currently end at NW 9th about one-tenth of a mile east to NW Station Way/Union Station.

The work is part of the Broadway Corridor project, a redevelopment of the 34-acre former US Postal Service distribution site being led by Prosper Portland. Not only will this site be home to new commercial and residential units, it will also be a key link in the future Green Loop, a biking and walking path that will eventually ring Portland’s central city. The Broadway Corridor has been in the planning stages since at least 2015 and reached a major milestone last month when demolition of the USPS facility was completed. Now that the slate has been wiped clean, it’s much easier to get excited about building on top of it. It’s even more exciting to see what type of street design PBOT will build when given the chance of starting from scratch.

On a new website for the NW Johnson & Kearney Street Extension Project, PBOT gives us our most detailed view yet of what we can expect. The conceptual cross-section drawing shows a street with two general lanes, an on-street parking lane, and a wide sidewalk separated from a two-way cycle-track by large trees.

An e-bike? Or a commercial vehicle? How Oregon regulates trikes like this one is just one issue the bill would tackle. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

With just 10 days left in the legislative session, e-bike advocates are making a big push to get a key bill over the finish line. Typically the formation of an official state task force isn’t something folks get excited about. In fact, pushing an important issue into a committee is something many of the advocates lobbying for House Bill 4067 might, in other circumstances, fight tooth-and-nail.

But what HB 4067 would do, establish a new Oregon Department of Transportation Task Force on Electric Mobility, is considered a vital step forward in the effort to legitimize e-bikes, scooters, and a range of promising lightweight electric vehicles. Since BikePortland first reported on this bill before the session began back in January, its importance has grown considerably because of its close connection to another e-bike bill, HB 4103.

When HB 4103 passed the House this week (note that both bills originated in a joint committee and therefore aren’t subject to deadlines like single chamber bills) it was stripped of its most consequential provisions. Heralded as a compromise between lawmakers and advocates in Bend and Portland, there was a general agreement that its substantive proposals needed more debate and discussion so that a more comprehensive and effective bill could emerge next year. E-bikes are so popular and their impact on the mobility of Oregonians could be so vast, the thinking goes, advocates want to make sure any new laws or new regulations help reach that potential instead of kneecap it.

That’s why The Street Trust and its partners put out an action alert yesterday urging members to contact lawmakers and telling them to pass HB 4067. After it passed the Joint Committee on Transportation alongside HB 4103, the task force bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Ways & Means. Why? Because all bills that have a fiscal impact on the state budget must be approved by Ways & Means.

View looking west on SE Belmont across Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. People in green vests are standing near where Bentley was struck. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Violent and allegedly intentional actions led to the death of 49-year-old David “Dino” Bentley on Southeast Belmont in the Buckman neighborhood early Sunday morning. What initially seemed like the result of a dangerous street design mixed with the inherent risks of people who live in homes made out of fabric and thin wood pallets on the sidewalk, now seems to have been something much different.

I spent time at the scene Wednesday afternoon, I’ve reviewed the court documents, and have watched and read local news coverage to try and understand what happened, and why.

Here’s what I know so far…

The man who drove his car into Bentley, 22-year-old Shane McKeever, is currently being held on charges of Manslaughter in the First Degree and Reckless Driving. The probable cause affidavit filed at the Multnomah County Courthouse on Monday relays a harrowing tale that began with what one witness described as an argument. “The suspect [McKeever] walked into the camp and started to argue with everyone,” one man told a Portland Police officer who responded to the scene. “It seemed like the suspect was looking to cause issues.” There was also an allegation from someone in the adjacent encampment that McKeever “threatened to run over their camp.” Then McKeever allegedly got into his car and made good on those threats.

N Delaware crossing Rosa Parks Way. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

In the coming months there will be a new neighborhood greenway established in north Portland. The project will create a more bicycle-friendly street on a 1.3-mile stretch of North Delaware between Sumner and Terry.

Delaware is already an important north-south street in the bike network, but it’s currently listed on the official city bike map as a “shared roadway” — one step in quality below a neighborhood greenway. Delaware connects the campus of Adidas North American headquarters near Willamette Blvd in the south and crosses important east-west bikeways such as Ainsworth, Rosa Parks, Bryant and Lombard. Delaware also provides direct access to Arbor Lodge Park, Chief Joseph Elementary School, Portland Village School, and Kenton Park.

To make it safer and more welcoming for bicycle riders, the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced in an email to nearby residents earlier this month they plan to begin construction at the end of March.

The plan calls for:

View looking west on SE Stark at 115th. That’s Ventura Park on the right.

One of Portland’s deadliest streets will get major changes with a project set to break ground in the coming months. The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced last week they will repave Southeast Stark Street between 108th and 122nd this spring. In addition to new pavement, PBOT will add protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.

It’s all part of the larger Safer Outer Stark project that launched in 2019. Stark has a gruesome history as a high-speed stroad where people in cars, on foot, and on bikes run a higher than average risk of death or serious injury from a traffic collision. SE Stark and 122nd is known as the highest crash intersection in the entire city. Advocates have pushed PBOT for years to make a large safety investment on outer Stark and the city has responded. PBOT has split the $20 million project into five phases. The first two are complete and the one that will repave and add bike lanes this spring is phase three.

This 0.7 mile section of SE Stark begins just east of the Stark-Washington couplet at Mall 205. The width of the road is about 60-feet and it currently has four general purpose lanes and a center turn lane. The stretch between SE 113th and 117th runs along the south side of Ventura Park and has a 30 mph speed limit. Despite doing a complete repave, PBOT will not reduce the number of general travel lanes. See the before/after graphics below shared in a PBOT video about the project:

This Specialized Haul ST is a Class 3 bike with a top speed of 28 mph. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Cycling and road safety advocates from across Oregon came together on a piece of electric bike legislation that is now poised to pass the House of Representatives. It’s likely passage is a major win for some e-bike advocates and represents a compromise they hope will lead to a more effective bill next year.

Last week BikePortland reported that a schism among bike advocates had developed over House Bill 4103. That bill was drafted by Bend lawmaker Emerson Levy (D-53) in response to a fatal collision last summer that took the life of a 15-year-old who was riding an e-bike. Levy’s bill sought to do four key things: bring Oregon in line with 41 other states that have adopted a three-class system for regulating e-bikes; make it legal for riders 15 and under to ride “Class 1” models (with a max speed of 20 mph and no throttle); prohibit people 15 and under from riding bikes equipped with throttles (Class 2) and that reach speeds of 28 mph (Class 3); and create a new misdemeanor traffic violation for parents of kids who didn’t comply with the new law.

The bill, known as “Trenton’s Law” was strongly supported by the parents of Trenton Burger, the boy who was killed by a driver while riding in Bend. Bend-based advocacy groups also supported the bill and were happy to see Class 1 bikes become legal for young riders and get more clarity and awareness around e-bikes in general. Since Burger’s death, pressure to do something about teens on throttle-equipped e-bikes has reached a fever pitch in small, high-income cities like Bend, Hood River, and Lake Oswego.

Megan Ramey, the Safe Routes to School manager for Hood River County who penned the “Dawn of the Throttle Kids” story for BikePortland in July 2022, testified at a public hearing for the bill on February 15th that one reason she supports HB 4103 is, “I can’t go a week without a friend, colleague or leader bringing up the ‘scofflaw e-bike teens.'” “The backlash is growing,” Ramey warned. “And it draws the positive energy out of Safe Routes to School.”

“The speeds which people turn here is appalling.”

One man is dead and another man has been arrested after a collision between a driver and a bicycle rider around 3:00 am Sunday morning.

Red arrow points to collision location.

According to the Portland Police Bureau, 22-year-old Shane M. McKeever was driving southbound on Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and then turned left onto SE Belmont. Right after the turn, as he drove eastbound on Belmont, McKeever allegedly struck 49-year-old David Bentley. The Oregonian has reported that Bentley was sitting on his bike with his back to the road prior to the collision (a report by KOIN TV said Bentley was in the bike lane when it happened). One witness told The Oregonian that, “a car came flying through.” The impact reportedly threw Bentley’s body 40-50 feet in the air.

This comment made me smile. Writing in response to our post about a survey, which noted that Portland struggles with increasing the number of women on bikes, Paige stood a truism about biking on its head.

So many people talk about how riding a bike brings you closer to your environment, whether it’s the cityscape or out in nature. Riding a bike has an immediacy which traveling in a car just doesn’t.

But as Paige noted, sometimes you don’t want to interact much with your immediate environment — and a bike helps with that too!

Here’s what Paige had to say:

James Emond, the owner and dedicated heart of The Missing Link bike shop in the Woodstock Neighborhood is going through a major medical situation and folks are rallying support around him and his shop.

“Changes in the vertebrae in my neck have caused a narrowing of my spinal canal to the point where my spinal chord has been abraded,” Emond wrote last week on the shop’s Facebook page. “The overall feeling of this is a lot like what I imagine having a stroke would feel like-difficulty doing anything with my hands, trouble walking, balance issues, dropping things, difficult getting myself up from a seated position. I’m determined to get over this but I need help getting through the next couple months to keep myself and the shop afloat.”

According to a GoFundMe page set up by River Croney, a member of the shop’s riding club, “The good news is his brain is unaffected.”

“James isn’t just a shop owner; he’s a mentor, a friend, and an irreplaceable part of our cycling lives,” Croney wrote. Croney is a member of “Rolling Thunder,” the shop’s cycling club that competes at races throughout Oregon.

Welcome to the week. It’s going to be a great! Let’s get started.

Here are the most notable items our community came across in the past seven days:

Cougar attack: Friends riding bikes together on a trail near Fall City, Washington heroically fought off a cougar that attacked a 60-year old woman. Cyclists used their bike to pin down the cougar until wildlife officials arrived. (KOMO)

Less pavement, more life: Portland’s very own Depave leads this article that profiles the growing worldwide trend of removing pavement and replacing it with plants in a bid to improve lives and battle climate change. (BBC)

There’s a new candidate for Portland City Council’s District 2 (N/NE) and you might have already heard his name. Or should say, seen his name on the side of cider cans in stores and gatherings throughout our city. After 12 years building his Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider business from his basement to his garage in the Woodlawn neighborhood, and then to stores and refrigerators all across the globe, Nat West wants to make change at City Hall.

West rolled over to The Shed a few hours ago on his beefy Radwagon cargo bike and we had a wide-ranging conversation that gives you an excellent introduction to this interesting candidate. I wasn’t around when former pub owner Bud Clark made a surprising run for mayor and became a local folk hero, but I’ve started to think of West as this election’s Bud Clark. Don’t expect him to do a bunch of media interviews, to sound like a politician when he speaks, or to attend all the obligatory campaign events. He won’t run a typical campaign and he plans to spend his time meeting people at small gatherings and happy hours around the city — as well as continue his new day job as a TriMet bus driver.

In our interview today (listen below), after sharing a list of the bikes he’s owned throughout his life and the story about how he started his cider business by collecting apples from trees citywide by bike, West told me how the 2020 George Floyd protests and a public fight with the City of Portland lit his fire for political activism.

West was on the front lines of the protests and he and his teenage kid suffered serious injuries from munitions fired by federal police officers. I asked West how the protests have impacted his positions on issues like policing and racism, and if he has any regrets about showing up on the streets week after week (he doesn’t). Other topics we covered include:

Here are a few excerpts:

Mingus Mapp on April 21st, 2023. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Portland Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps wants to make one thing clear about the revenue generated from the local gas tax: it will not be spent on bike lanes. Unless you’re a bicycle rider who loves bike lanes. Then in that case, yes, revenue from the Fixing Our Streets program will definitely fund bike lanes.

Over the course of the last week, Mapps told different audiences different things about the renewal of the Fixing Our Streets program (FOS) that Portlanders will vote on May 21st.

At a meeting this past Tuesday with Laborers’ Local 483 (a chapter of LiUNA, Laborers’ International Union of North America, the union that represents about 280 maintenance and operations employees at the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT)), Mapps showed up in hopes of earning the group’s support for the measure. “I’ve come here today to ask you for your support… Ultimately, I sure hope that we can get LiUNA’s endorsement on this,” he said.

After telling a hybrid online and in-person audience that the failure of the ballot measure would, “Be bad for PBOT, bad for the people of Portland, and an outcome we very much need to avoid,” Mapps opened up the floor to questions.

Hosts Rick Potestio (center) and Jonathan Konkol (right) with the low-density building table in the foreground. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

Game on!

Armed with only a bag of legos and a table-sized map of district properties, you and your team have a couple hours to insert 600 new residences into Portland’s historic Irvington neighborhood.

The group which gathered last Saturday at the Broadway McMenamins seemed up to the task and happy to spend a rainy afternoon talking about density and zoning. Their hosts were urban designer Jonathan Konkol and architect Rick Potestio, and the event was a dry run of the duo’s Dynamic Density process, a new method of accommodating growth which empowers neighborhoods.

I bet you think you know where this is headed.

Bike traffic on North Williams Avenue: May 4th, 2016. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

When City of Portland Transportation Planner Sean Doyle presented the 2023 PBOT bike counts at a meeting last week, he pointed to one figure in particular he feels is, “an important indicator of the quality of our bike network.” That figure was the number of women who ride.

Now, BikeLoud PDX is sharing a Women Biking in Portland survey that aims to learn more about women and cycling with an aim to achieve gender parity.

While a 50/50 split of men and women riding is the goal, Portland has never come close to that. When PBOT first began counting bicycle riders in the 1990s, the number of women on bikes was estimated to be about 20%. The number grew steadily, and between 2003 and 2021, PBOT found that about 31-32% of all riders were women.

But for the past two years, the number has dropped several percentage points and is now at around 29%, its lowest point since 2006. East of I-205, PBOT’s latest counts found that only 17% of bicycle riders are women. “Since the start of the pandemic, the gender split in people biking widened,” states the PBOT report.

One proposed change would carve out a different class for cargo bikes to allow them to have larger motors. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

The debate around electric bikes at the Oregon Legislature is heating up ahead of a work session and possible votes on Friday. 

As BikePortland reported last week, House Bill 4103 has split opinions among cycling advocates. Now the debate has escalated to a national level as industry group People for Bikes has entered the fray. 

PFB has written a letter to leaders of the Joint Committee on Transportation urging lawmakers to make several key changes to the bill. The letter, dated Wednesday 2/21, was written by PFB’s Electric Bicycle Policy & Campaign Director Ash Lovell, Ph.D. The letter had been co-signed by Portland-based nonprofits The Street Trust, BikeLoud PDX and No More Freeways. National bike advocacy group the League of American Bicyclists has also signed on. 

The letter says Oregon is at risk of falling out of alignment with federal regulations if the bill does not include language in its definition of “electric bicycle” that clearly stipulates a maximum motor size of 750 watts and the presence of pedals.