Cycling News & Blog Articles

Screenshot of DirtyFreehub.org. Inset photo: Linda English.

Linda English, a runner-turned-cyclist and tech industry retiree, has built something very special. Linda and her crew have uploaded about 300 gravel ride routes onto DirtyFreehub.org and the site has become a must-browse for anyone who seeks adventure on two wheels. I’ve watched the site’s impressive growth over the past decade — right along with the explosion of interest in riding drop-bar bikes on unpaved roads.

I talked to Linda a few days ago about the site, the rise of gravel riding in Oregon, the projects she’s working on, and more.

Based in Bend, Linda says about 200 of the routes she’s uploaded are in Oregon. In addition to being a resource for cyclists, Linda’s work has become recognized for its role in economic development in rural Oregon towns. Dirty Freehub (a nonprofit) has secured contracts with agencies like Travel Oregon and the Oregon Coast Visitors Association to develop routes specifically with tourism in mind.

“It’s what we call ‘drip tourism’,” Linda shared with BikePortland. “where instead of having two or three hundred people show up to an event, which is really stressful for a really small town, we can just sort of run people through there. It’s just been this explosion. We can go into tiny little places like Paisley, Oregon, and create ride guides out there. And the next thing you know, there’s people out there and they’re just loving it. And the town loves it too because it’s economic development.”

Last night I had a few minutes to kill on my way to an event, so I posted up on North Williams Avenue to observe some bike traffic (as one does).

If you’re new here (welcome!), People on Bikes is a portrait gallery series BikePortland launched in 2011. It’s basically a way to appreciate the beautiful diversity of cycling and develop a deeper understanding of bike culture in a specific location. In addition to busy bike corridors across Portland, we’ve shared galleries from New York City, Miami, Amsterdam, Colombia and Copenhagen.

You can take whatever you want from these images. I personally find it interesting to have a snapshot of what riders look like at a given time and place. As I browse the gallery, I look at the type of bikes folks are riding, how they’re riding, what type of gear and accessories they’re using, and what type of person is on the bike.

What do you see when you look at these photos? Are folks on e-bikes or fast road bikes? Flat bars or drop bars? Are they on a training ride or just getting home from work? Or both? Are they Black, white, brown, small, large, tall or short? How many women? Are most of the riders young or old? Do they use panniers or a backpack? Are their bikes expensive or cheap? Do they look happy, relaxed, or stressed? Are they wearing bike-specific clothing? Helmets?

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.

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)

Our Guest Post last week by Don Baack focused on southwest Portland’s problems with getting pedestrian and bicycle networks built. The area relies on private development — and the city’s frontage requirements that are supposed to accompany it — to cobble together its networks. The area has the worst sidewalk coverage and most incomplete bicycle facilities in the city, so obviously this system is not working very well.

HJ jumped in to say that it’s not just southwest, that West Hills struggles with the same problem. But HJ added another wrinkle — jurisdictional control. And boy is that true!

When we say “jurisdictional control,” people usually think of all the ODOT-owned orphan highways, but the complications also extend to the ragged edges of our city borders. County lines, unincorporated county lines, and city-borders don’t respect the layout of surface streets, and the locations where they intersect end up being some of the most dangerous spots in the area.

HJ sums up the problems pretty well:

Corner of SW Broadway and 5th Avenue looking east. I-405 and the surface route of Hwy 26 create a no-man’s-land for people walking and on bicycles. (Lisa Caballero/BikePortland)

A few weeks ago the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) grappled with a thankless task, choosing between six patches PBOT had presented to it for routing cyclists into downtown from Terwilliger Boulevard.

That area surrounding the southernmost segment of I-405 serves as a surface street exchange for the confluence of three highways—Interstates 5 and 405, and Highway 26—and also Barbur Boulevard. Trying to carve a safe route for cyclists or pedestrians through the resulting jumble is like solving a Rubik’s cube. You can understand why a transportation planner might shout, “don’t touch that!” It’s pretty complicated.

On- and off-ramps from I-405 affect many surrounding surface streets

I say “patches” because PBOT doesn’t have the authority to really fix the underlying problem, which is the area’s numerous freeway on- and off-ramps. Those ramps are zones of hazard punctuating any PBOT safety effort. Truly addressing the problems in this area would require a lot of money, and ODOT’s cooperation.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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)