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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Bikes House Passes Bill to Let Cities Say, "Slow Down!"

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 4:18 PM

Portland representative Ben Cannon scored a win today in Salem when the House overwhelmingly passed his bill, HB 3150, that will allow cities to lower the speed limits by five miles per hour on their neighborhood streets.

Right now if Portland wants to lower the speed limit on any of its streets, (say, like, new bike route NE Going) the city has to petition the state transportation department to make the change. It's a cumbersome process that can take time and money. Cannon, who can sometimes be spotted biking around town with his adorable three-year-old, wanted cities to have a say over how fast people can drive on their own streets.

This wouldn't affect major arterial streets, just ones that already have average speeds of under 30 MPH and 2,000 or less daily car trips. Yay safety! I don't really see any legitimate argument against this (even the strongly-divided house passed it 45-14) except that people who don't follow the speed limit now probably won't change their ways to follow it when it's lower.

In other news, check out this awesome infographic about US bike commuting rates a University of Oregon student made. Here's a detail:

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Comments (14) RSS

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1
Is the real story here that men are more green than women?
Posted by frankieb on March 9, 2011 at 5:22 PM · Report
2
Car drivers are the jew of urban planning fascism.
Posted by eldepeche on March 9, 2011 at 6:00 PM · Report
3
@eldepeche Blabby bait?
Posted by not Mel Gibson on March 9, 2011 at 7:20 PM · Report
4
Fuehrer Sam Adams and his brownshirts are trying to socially engineer a reduction in speed because they hate the natural order, which is for all streets to be full of speeding cars morning, noon and night. Freedom-loving people should fight this by moving to the suburbs.
Posted by eldepeche on March 9, 2011 at 8:05 PM · Report
5
I thought it was pretty slick how they initially introduced it as only being allowed in cities over 100,000 people to motivate people from smaller places to get up in arms and contact their legislators to ask them to support it.
Posted by econoline on March 9, 2011 at 9:06 PM · Report
6
I am confused since any street in Portland not posted with higher limit defaults to 25 MPH. Anyone who has gotten a photo radar ticket should know this.
Posted by Rosy on March 10, 2011 at 1:11 AM · Report
7
I just looked at the infographic on bike commuters. We are bowing down to 0.260580802% (800,000/307,006,550) of our population ? Gosh there are 40 times as many gays we could subsidize.
Posted by Rosy on March 10, 2011 at 1:19 AM · Report
8
the point, Rosy, is to set the limit on some streets to 20. these would be streets that are used heavily by pedestrians and bicycles; automobile traffic is local - people going to homes on the street - and with no need to zoom along at 25mph. it creates safer, more human streets where people in that neighborhood have shown, thru use, that they want such streets. (democracy, baby.) feel free to object to local preference of how to use a street.

almost any law can be objected to as opening the door to something more insidious, a slippery slope, etc. that was trotted out for this, as well as (unsaid) "Portland wants it? fuck 'em." one Republican yes vote said, to general laughter, words to the effect of "I'm not going to impose rural will on urban areas." the Leg gets it.
Posted by tabarnhart on March 10, 2011 at 5:44 AM · Report
9
Cyclists would be safer if we increase enforcement of the speed limits we already have. Speed limit enforcement in Portland metro is a joke. And I say that as someone who's been speeding my ass off all over this town since '96 without a single citation.
Posted by TWSS on March 10, 2011 at 9:28 AM · Report
10
@TWSS -- yeah! ticket those speeding cyclists who run stop signs and redlight with no bike lights that are legally drunk. Make them get some accident insurance so they quit being a drain on the local emergency room.
Posted by Rosy on March 10, 2011 at 11:16 AM · Report
11
Rosy is the most annoying troll on Blogtown. Period.
Posted by ($8239f8h248cerfehjf23@&*@ebdjhb23f237OCDBO#BD*(# on March 10, 2011 at 11:26 AM · Report
12
TWSS, it's so great you're aware you've been endangering cyclists for the past 15 years straight. People on bikes can and do die when hit by speeding cars, you know.
Posted by geyser on March 10, 2011 at 11:28 AM · Report
13
So the legislature pass a law to protect pedestrians, and people use that as another excuse to complain about cyclists? It's almost as though you're just looking for an excuse to whine...

(don't worry, you can just switch from off-topic whining about cyclists to off-topic whining about immigrants and there's a home for you on the Snoregonian website)
Posted by Stu on March 10, 2011 at 11:31 AM · Report
14
The cyclists the police should really crack down on are all these undocumented, socialist, gay Muslims who ride their bikes (because they believe in global warming) while under the influence of drugs, on the way to their jobs performing taxpayer-funded abortions on rich welfare mothers.
Posted by geyser on March 10, 2011 at 12:15 PM · Report

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