Cycling News & Blog Articles

Welcome to the week. Even though the sun isn’t supposed to last, the good vibes are unstoppable.

Here’s what our community has been talking about for the past seven days…

Putting out fires: Bike advocates and shop owners are worried that a new law in San Francisco aimed at e-bike battery safety has gone too far and will snuff out more than fires. (The San Francisco Standard)

A smarter warning: A new product called Copilot uses a mix of software and AI to go several steps beyond radar detection and sounds like the most advanced rear camera/light warning system on the market. (Ars Technica)

The top 10.

Why are some places more popular for bicycle users than others? How important is infrastructure versus other factors such as proximity to destinations, connectedness to other infrastructure, and so on? What’s parts of town have the most bicycling hot-spots?

I’ve been poking around the 2023 City of Portland Bicycle Count Report and thought it’d be fun to share the top ten highest traffic locations. So on Sunday I grabbed my 13-year-old son and we visited all 10 locations. I got one of the spots incorrect so I had to roll over there this morning, but otherwise, all the photos (and forthcoming video) were shot on March 17th. These numbers come from a publicly accessible spreadsheet created by the City of Portland.

Check out the top ten below, peruse the area on the Google map, then ask yourself: why do so many people bike here?

This week’s comment came in six days ago, in response to our short post about Governor Kotek ditching regional tolling plans. Jonathan’s post didn’t read any tea leaves or probe the deeper reasoning behind the Governor’s decision—abandoning tolling just seemed like another change flying in on the whirlwind.

(Offhand, to me, it seemed one of a piece with her urban growth boundary loosening, part of her push to incentivize a market-based approach to getting more housing built—let ‘em live further away, and don’t charge ‘em for it!)

WRF, who self-describes as a rare “transportation professional … against tolling in our region,” offered up some some hope in the form of alternatives to tolling, and also a critique of it.

Here are WRF’s ideas:

(Jonathan Maus / BikePortland)

What if you and your fellow Portlanders had a direct impact on what city funds were spent on? I’m not talking about lobbying politicians and then hoping they do what you want; I’m talking about true direct democracy where you come up with a project idea, work with your peers to flesh it out, get support for it from a vote of the people, then get it funded and implemented.

That’s the promise of participatory budgeting (PB), and a local effort to have it become an official part of the city of Portland’s budget process launched on Thursday.

The Community Budgeting for All campaign is gathering signatures to get PB on the ballot in November. The effort is being led by nonprofits Next Up, East County Rising, and Participatory Budgeting Oregon and their campaign wants to put at least 2% of the city’s General Fund budget — an estimated $15.6 million — into the hands of the people. Yesterday I interviewed one of PB Oregon’s staffers, Maria Sipin, to learn more about the initiative and how PB is different than the way we currently do things. (Watch our conversation below.)

As a former transportation planner with the Oregon Department of Transportation, Sipin saw first-hand that what gets funded often doesn’t reflect what people on the ground actually want and need. “What I personally like about it is in a PB process, you don’t end up with highway projects… people put forward projects in this process that have never been funded in the past, but should have. It addresses community safety, basic needs and all kinds of things that might have been overlooked.”

Where will the paths take you this weekend? (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Sun! You want it. We got it.

You also want fun things to do. We got those too…

Climate Curious Happy Hour – 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Upright Brewing (N)
Talk about the big redevelopment of the Lloyd Center with folks in-the-know, with a focus on making sure it makes people and the planet healthier. Panel and Q&A hosted by EcoLloyd. More info here.

Beaverton Farmers Market Ride – 9:30 am at Tigard Public Library (West Side)
A family-friendly ride where I can guarantee a kiddo or two and a 7-mile route led by one of the best people you’ll ever meet. And it’s between a library and a farmers market. It simply doesn’t get better than this! More info here.

Last week Jonathan texted me that he “would really love to see more women using our comments section.”

Little did he know that men and women communicating is something I, for decades, have spent a lot of time thinking about. It probably started with that 1981 Gloria Steinem piece, Men and Women Talking, and continued with the excellent 1990 book by linguist Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.

It’s a fascinating topic to me. The wrinkle of internet message boards is that most people comment anonymously, so you don’t know their sex. The structure of a Zoom call changes things too, profoundly, especially in terms of interruption.

My short answer to Jonathan was that more women than he thinks do already comment to BikePortland. Women, like men, can and do pick anonymous, gender-neutral user names. The deeper question for me is, why do we assume that everyone is a man?

And I mean the “we.” Just a couple days ago, an occasional commenter posted on one of our stories. “Oh good, so-and-so posted, I like his comments,” thought I. Meanwhile, I had also just received an email from this person in my home email account—nothing to do with BikePortland. I know this person, she is a woman! But it took me a day before I realized the woman in my email box was the same person in the BikePortland comments, despite the fact that her gender-neutral username was practically the same.

From a road safety protest on SE Division in December 2016. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

I’m still going through the recent bicycle count report published by the Portland Bureau of Transportation this week and there’s something I need to make very clear: The reason more people aren’t biking is not because of some flaw in the idea of bicycling itself or even because of any shortcomings in the network of roads, paths, and lanes that people do it on.

The problem is cars. Too many cars, to be exact. And too many of them driven without regard for others. This isn’t just my opinion, it also happens to be the official stance of the City of Portland.

This problem has always been right in front of our faces but we don’t recognize it as such because it requires us to acknowledge that something we (nearly) all do on a regular basis might actually have negative impacts on our community and our city. Put another way, the problem is us, and that’s the problem. Not only is driving a car something the vast majority of us do and sympathize with, it’s also normalized by trillions of dollars in marketing over the last century as something that is cool, fun, and harmless. When you’re in a car, Big Auto propaganda says, everyone else is the problem. None of that is true of course, but this is America! With enough money and marketing savvy, you can convince people of anything.

But I digress. What I want you take from this post is a clearer understanding of what has happened on Portland streets in the past decade.

Conceptual drawing of cap looking southwest from NE Tillamook toward the river. (Source: ODOT)

Just two days after the Biden Administration announced a $450 million grant to construct highway caps above I-5 through the Rose Quarter, the advisory committee that is largely responsible for making it happen held a meeting. Members of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB) gathered on Zoom Tuesday. The group aired feedback on the grant news and watched presentations about the caps and other details from project staff.

HAAB meeting on Zoom with ODOT Director Strickler on bottom right..

I found the meeting very enlightening and figured you might too. Below I’ll share some of the slides and other things I took away from it…

The plan is for one continuous cap (also called a “highway cover”) that would stretch over I-5 from the corner of NE Tillamook and Flint south to NE Weidler (see images). The cap, which is estimated to cost about $700 to $900 million total (about half the project total) would fully restore the street grid of North Flint, Vancouver, and North Williams (north/south) and N Weidler, Broadway, Hancock and Tillamook (east/west). The cap would add about 7 new acres of land to the Rose Quarter.

(Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

A few days ago a reader emailed to share that a person riding a bike shouted at them for running on Southeast Clinton Street. “I was yelled at by a cyclist to run on the sidewalk,” the person (who also rides bikes) shared. “I responded that no, I would not run on the sidewalk because it was a neighborhood greenway.” After this random argument with a stranger, the person got home and took stock: “Was I the a**hole here?” she asked me. “Is it legal to run in the road on a neighborhood greenway?”

I figured it’d be a great question for the Ask BikePortland column. But as I got the post together, I realized I’d actually already answered that exact question in 2012 (there are 17,882 posts on here, so yes, I will often forget what I’ve already written!). But what I didn’t have in 2012 was the ability to make a video and share it on social media. So I made a video instead and shared it on Instagram and TikTok this morning. Watch it below:

So what’s the answer? Turns out Oregon law (ORS 814.070) says if you are a “pedestrian” (or runner) you must use the sidewalk if one is available. And if there’s no sidewalk, you must stay as far to the right “as practicable.” Since SE Clinton has a sidewalk, technically the cyclist in the above situation was right. It’s similar to the mandatory bike lane law some of you might be familiar with — and just like how activists are working to erase that law, I’d love to see an effort to change this one so that pedestrians could have a bit more legal right to be on the road.

After all, sidewalks (similar to bike lanes) are often obstructed and unfit for running, and riding right next to parked cars is stressful and dangerous. Not only that, but as I point out in the video, City of Portland policy is to create greenways so they prioritize not just cyclists, but everyone who isn’t inside a car.

Bikepacking curious? (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Here are some fun things to do for bike lovers this weekend…

Singing Through the Gorge – 12:00 noon at Ankeny Rainbow Road Plaza (SE)
Join Bike Happy Hour regular and musician Steve “Chezz” Cheseborough on a ride to the Gorge to attend the annual retreat of the Portland Folkmusic Society. (More info here)

Art of Foster Ride – 2:00 pm at Portland Mercado (SE)
Local filmmaker Amit Zinman is making videos of Portland’s classic loop rides and wants you to help make his scenes more beautiful. This is the first in a series so stay tuned for future versions. (More info here)

Midnight Mystery Ride – 11:45 pm at Apex (SE)
Should be a clear and brisk night — perfect for riding to a mystery spot with friends old and new. (More info here)

Few people in Portland know more about our city’s bicycle parking policy than Chris Smith. During my chat with him yesterday he shared a history of the issue and we talked about recent efforts by the City of Portland and State of Oregon to roll back code requirements that encourage more bicycle parking. You can watch our conversation above (along with helpful graphics spliced-in along the way), or find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Smith is the consummate transportation reform activist who’s been involved with numerous efforts and projects over the years. I first knew him as creator of the excellent blog Portland Transport (first mentioned on BikePortland in 2005!) which still serves our community as a repository of KBOO Bike Show episodes. He’s also the inventor of the “Transit Appliance” — a wonderful device that posts transit arrival times and can be found at bus and MAX stations citywide. Smith has also been a candidate for Portland City Council and Metro Council. Smith has fought freeway expansions for nearly two decades and was a major voice against the Columbia River Crossing project and a co-founder of the group No More Freeways. And those are just some of his bona fides!

Smith was pulled into bicycle parking specifically for his expertise in how bikes mix with transit gleaned from his long-time position on the board (and as vice-chair) of Portland Streetcar Inc. (the private nonprofit contracted by the City of Portland to help plan and manage the streetcar). After the City’s Bicycle Plan for 2030 passed in 2010 and ridership skyrocketed, Smith was tapped to help update the code so that the hordes of local riders would have a proper place to park their bikes. BikePortland worked with Smith to host two events (one in 2013 and another in 2018) to garner input on the bike parking code and that effort led to a major update that passed Portland City Council in 2019.

Then Portland lost its bicycling mojo, the housing shortage became a crisis, and the politics shifted. As we reported here in detail over the past year or so, Portland’s vaunted bike parking code was put on the chopping block by Bureau of Planning & Sustainability Commissioner Carmen Rubio as part of a “housing regulatory reform” package. In my conversation with Smith, you’ll hear how and why this all went down, as well as the lessons he’s learned along the way.

We also talk about Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s big housing bill passed just this week by the Oregon Legislature. One of them, Senate Bill 1537, included a relatively unknown provision that gives cities the ability to adjust their bike parking requirements to spur housing production.

(Portland Bureau of Transportation)

Bike-friendly speed bumps have felt like something of an underdog since they burst onto the scene in 2017. But that would change if Portland’s head bike planner has any say in the matter.

Speed bumps with channels cut through them to ease the way for bicycle riders have elicited a variety of opinions over the years. Some say they make biking more comfortable and attractive, while others find them annoying and worry about costs given other priorities. For the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), the jury had been out — even after years of use in the field.

Now results are in from a PBOT survey conducted over the summer: “PBOT recommends that bicycle-friendly speed bumps be the preferred speed bump used for neighborhood greenways,” reads a 10-page report authored by PBOT Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller published Thursday ahead of a meeting of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee on Tuesday (March 12th).

The first mention of bike-friendly speed bumps on BikePortland was January 2017 when we got wind that PBOT would test them on the SE Clinton Street neighborhood greenway. Since then, PBOT has rolled them out on 10 greenways citywide: N Kilpatrick, Michigan and Wabash; NE Alameda, Davis and Everett; SE Ankeny, Clinton and Woodward, and SW 60th. When they came to a greenway in my neighborhood, I was eager to sing their praises.

The homeless camp on SE Belmont where Bentley was hit. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

A friend of David “Dino” Bentley, the man killed in a violent vehicular rampage on Southeast Belmont Street on February 25th, says the incident was the result of a disagreement between the driver and people who lived at a street encampment. According to a BikePortland commenter who says they once lived at the camp where Bentley was killed, the driver, 22-year-old Shane McKeever, wanted fentanyl and became aggressive when he couldn’t get it.

Someone named Belynda Wagner wrote a comment on our story about the crash Monday night sharing details of what she believes happened in those early hours of Sunday morning prior to McKeever running down Bentley and driving his car into the well-established encampment on SE Belmont between Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Grand Ave.

Wagner’s comment is a window into what might have happened that morning, the brutal nature of street life, and Portland’s ongoing struggle to take care of people who live here.

Read her comment below (edited for clarity):

ODOT concept drawing of the new intersection.

West Linn, a city about 20 miles south of Portland, will be one of the first places in the state where the Oregon Department of Transportation builds a protected intersection. Protected intersections are considered the gold standard of protection for bicycle riders and walkers because they come with raised corner curb islands, physical separation from other road users, better visibility at crossings, and other safety elements.

The Oregon Department of Transportation is in the final design stage of a protected intersection on Willamette Drive (OR 43) at Marylhurst Drive/Lazy River Dr. The $7 million project is part of a larger streetscape project that includes a continuous cycle track and other safety updates on Willamette Drive between Mary S. Young park and the city’s northern limit near Marylhurst University.

Here’s more about the project from a recent ODOT update:

Protected intersection designs are intended to extend the safe environment for bicyclists and pedestrians through use of raised corner islands, forward stop bars for bicyclists, and well defined marked crossings. These defenses make it clear to all users where bicyclists are, provide physical protection in the queuing area, and further increase bicyclist visibility by allowing them early entry into the intersection ahead of right turning vehicles.

New visualization released yesterday.

The folks working on a new Interstate Bridge and expansion of I-5 between Portland and Vancouver released new visualizations yesterday, including our best view yet of the potential new bike path.

The new drawings were released at a meeting of the Executive Steering Group, one of several committees formed to garner feedback on the (estimated) $6-7.5 billion Interstate Bridge Replacement Program. The ESG is made up of agency leaders and elected officials from Portland and southwest Washington. ESG members have already adopted a set of desired outcomes for the future bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Among them are that the new bikeway must “feel safe” and be “separated from moving vehicles” and that the path environment is “visible and connected.” They’ve also expressed a desire for bikeways to be “high quality,” “convenient,” and to “connect to important destinations.”

The ESG and IBRP team are currently finalizing their Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS), which is due out later this spring.

IBRP Administrator Greg Johnson presented the visualizations at the meeting (where he also said they’re working on new videos that will explain how bicycle riders and walkers will make their way through the corridor). Johnson stressed that the drawings shown yesterday are not final and are, “Not for decision-making or narrowing options.”  “These are just to give perspective on the size of the bridge as related to, if you’re standing on the ground on Hayden Island or on the Vancouver Waterfront.”

Flyer by Portland for All

Hope everyone’s having a good Tuesday and enjoying a bit of sunshine and dry skies. This is just a quick post to share a thing I’m doing on March 19th with some great folks on an important topic. I’ll be on a three-person “Policy Talks” panel hosted by local nonprofit Portland for All. The title of the panel is, “Creating streets safe in every community.”

Portland for All is an all-volunteer group that is organizing around ideas. Their website says they were, “born out of conversations folks were having with friends and neighbors concerned about the challenges facing our City, and all of the negative rhetoric about this place we call home,” and that they believe, “there is a hopeful, positive, and inclusive future that’s possible for our City.” This is the third event in their Policy Talks series. The first two were about public safety and homelessness.

Joining me on the 19th at this virtual event will be two folks you’ve read about a lot on BikePortland over the years: former Oregon Walks executive director and current Metro Councilor Ashton Simpson, and veteran community advocate and current Portland City Council (D1) candidate Steph Routh. It just so happens I’ve already had both Ashton and Steph on our podcast. I spoke with Ashton in March 2022 during his run for Metro Council and I shared an interview with Steph from Bike Happy Hour back in November.

To give you a sense of the focus of our upcoming panel, here’s the blurb from Portland for All:

A runner takes advantage of the new path. View is looking north onto NE 72nd Drive from NE Tillamook. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

PBOT graphic.

After its first iteration was destroyed by driving advocates, the newly hardened carfree path through Rose City Golf Course (built as a key section of the 70s Neighborhood Greenway project) has survived for a few weeks. Given that it’s now made of concrete poured onto the ground and in the form of multi-ton barriers, it would take a mighty effort to remove it.

I took a closer look at the project yesterday and experienced the anger some folks in the neighborhood feel about the project first-hand.

While I was standing in the golf course parking lot taking video and photos, a full-sized Chevy pickup rumbled toward me (you can see the truck in a photo in the gallery below). I ignored it at first, then a window came down and I heard yelling in my direction. I bent over and peered into the rolled-down passenger-side window to pay attention to what an older mas was saying to me. I felt his anger and hatred immediately — even though we exchanged no small talk. He didn’t ask me any questions or try to understand what I was doing out there. He just went right into tirade-mode: “You have nothing better to do with your time than film people going up this hill?!! You’re a bike Nazi! I bet you got beat up in high school!” It was all so random and strange, yet I understood exactly what was going on (I’m well-aware how our society has become tremendously tribalist and divided). I actually felt bad for the guy. I barely replied. Just looked at him with a shocked face. “I’m just documenting the infrastructure!” I replied. “The infrastructure? Yeah it’s really messing things up for everyone who lives up on the hill! I’m glad you got beat up in high school! You bike Nazi!!”

This comment came in early last week, in response to the first of two BikePortland posts about a man killed by a driver on Southeast Belmont and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The posts caused a whiplash of reaction as the details of the story emerged over several days. What had begun as another dangerous infrastructure story morphed into an intentional-act-of-violence story. Between them, they managed to touch upon all of our frustrations and hot-button issues. The constant was that people living on the streets are vulnerable.

This thoughtful comment by SD remained relevant even as the story changed. SD stepped back from the immediate incident to notice the cityscape that car infrastructure creates, specifically “dead zones,” and why those locations might appeal to someone living outside. It got me thinking about how a city takes its form, and how it forms the people who live in it.

Here’s what SD had to say:

An important point that may be missed here is that the interviews with the residents of this camp show that they are aware of how dangerous it is because of speeding cars, yet they choose to be here. Relative to other dangers or difficulties they face, the risk of cars, noise and exhaust are acceptable. I hope that people who read this story take a moment to consider how hard it is to be homeless. Homeless people are in many cases trying their best to be out of the way of society, but at the same time need to be close enough to meet basic needs and have the safety of being in a place where someone might hear you if you scream for help.