BEHOLD! Deer antler bicycle handlebars as created by Brooklyn designer Taylor Simpson.

• via taylorsimpsondesign.com

• via taylorsimpsondesign.com

If you missed the much-hyped Oprah inquisition of doper Lance Armstrong last night, the highlights are here.

But here was my highlight: Lance admits to taking drugs. He admits to lying to millions of fans. He admits to suing the living daylights out of everyone who said he took drugs and lied to millions of fans, especially his ex-teammate's wife Betsy Andreu. Yes, Armstrong tells Oprah, he phoned Andreu to call her some terrible names. “I called you crazy," he says. "I called you a bitch, but I never called you fat.”

Apparently, to Lance, the worst thing you could do in the world is call a woman fat. Paint her to be a liar, call her crazy, sue her, sure. That's worth apologizing for. But, by God, he did not call her fat! You gotta give him some points for that! I guess he's still a decent person!

Good on Andreu for immediately having her own response to his madness.

• One of Mexico City's bike share stations

Today, Portland city council signed off 4-0 on a contract with Portland-based Alta Bike Share to roll out a bike sharing system in the central city.

Alta has run into trouble launching New York's bike share system, where the company is essentially caught in a messy battle between the contractors that build the hardware and software for their bike share system. That program is now slated to launch in May and, regardless, Portland city commissioners are confident that Alta will be able to handle Portland's plan for 75 bike share stations hosting 750 bikes citywide.

Bike share systems exist in 26 other American cities already and function sort of like Zipcar for bikes. Anyone can use a credit card to check out a bike for short trips from a high-tech kiosk, paying a set price per hour to ride the bike wherever they like, then return it to any station. When launched next year, the system aims to increase the number of Portlanders and tourists turning to bikes as the method-of-choice for trips under three miles.

The hang-up for Portland's system turned out to be not price or subcontractor battles but helmets. Commissioner Amanda Fritz—a nurse, of course, wary of head injuries—is not sold on the idea of renting hundreds of bikes to people who would pedal around without helmets. I'm not going to delve into the pro-con war on helmets, but some poor transportation bureau staffers likely will over coming months. In approving the bike share contract today, Commissioner Fritz added an amendment that directs the city and Alta to explore ways to make helmets part of the bike share system (pdf). We might wind up with an option Alta pitched in Vancouver, BC: helmet vending machines.

Now as for the money...

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Check out this brilliant green lane:

The vivid green paint is an upgrade for downtown Portland's only coupled east-west bike lanes on SW Oak and SW Stark. The city installed the buffered lanes in 2009, with only green splashes in the lane at intersections, but they seem to be confusing to drivers—often cars will obliviously drive in the lane or use it as a loading zone. In a city survey (pdf) of how the lanes were working, 44 percent of cyclists reported seeing at least one car driving or parked in the lane every week. The city hopes that going all-green will make the lanes' bike-only designation immediately obvious.

But do the boxes actually make cyclists safer? Just this year, Portlander Kathryn Rickson was killed at an intersection with a bike box on SW 3rd and Madison and many people have complained that the bike box on NE Couch is still a right hook zone. A 2010 study found that the bike boxes make cyclists and drivers feel safer at the intersections, but we've never had hard data on whether the boxes actually reduce the number of crashes.

Until now. Yesterday, the city released a depressing letter (PDF) to the Federal Highway Administration that shows the bike boxes may have actually doubled the number of crashes.

In the four years leading up the installation of the bike boxes, there were 16 right hook crashes at the problem intersections involving bikes. In the four years since their installation, the intersections had 32 right hook crashes involving bikes.

The vast majority of the new crashes—81 percent—occurred at just four of the eleven intersections, at SW 3rd and Madison, SE 7th and Hawthorne, SE 11th and Hawthorne, and NW Everett and 16th. At the other seven intersections, right hook crashes slightly declined.

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I didn't ever really give a thought to Swan Island—you know, the not-even-really-an-island business park that's at the base of North Portland's Willamette Bluffs?—until a couple weeks ago when people started telling me about the big issues going on with North Portland Greenway down there. I finally spent some time on Swan Island in past week and, oh man, the place is interesting. Here's why you should care:

1. How people get to work on Swan Island is no small deal: the island is home to 10,000 jobs. That's about 2.6 percent of the city's whole workforce and some of the city's only big employers, like Daimler Trucks, who aren't out in the 'burbs. If the city is able to work with employers there to make it possible to safely and easily bike to the island, it could reduce a ton of car trips and improve traffic around North Portland.

2. It's actually really scenic, guys. I think of Swan Island and I think of super-wide roads running past warehouses. But the west side of the island is home to some beautiful beaches that would be awesome to visit. No one will believe me, so check it out:

There's already a nice biking and walking path along the beach, but it doesn't connect to the rest of the city, instead just dead-ending into a fence lined with razor wire. If Swan Island's beaches were easy to get to from the rest of the city, they could be a whole new place for people to go.

3. The city is at a crucial point of deciding what the route is going to be for the bike-walk trail planned through Swan Island. Will it run on-street along North Greeley, or will it go where neighborhood advocates want, on a stretch of flat, paved road currently owned by Union Pacific? As reported this week, that route would take substantial negotiation and pressure from the city. From the story: "There's a joke among planners about dealing with the railroads: On the spectrum of tough negotiations, first there's neighbors, then there's other local governments, the state government, and then the feds. Then God. And then the railroads."

• GOTHAMIST

"Alta Bicycle Share is a good, homegrown company that has emerged as an international leader in operating bike share systems," said Mayor Sam Adams, in a statement.

The proposal calls for 74 stations around downtown and the inner eastside hosting 740 bikes that anyone can check out with a credit card and be billed by the hour—sort of like Zipcar for bikes. It's hard to imagine just how much bike sharing will change the experience of being downtown, but imagine if everyone who worked in or visited downtown could hop on a bike whenever they wanted. This will mean a lot more bikes on the streets.

This is the point where things get nitty-gritty for the city as it will now start to negotiate its contract with Alta. The contract here has serious stakes, as Alta has been involved in high-profile chaos surrounding bike share in New York City and Chattanooga.

Alta is caught in a messy battle between the companies that build the hardware and software for their bike share system. The Gothamist has a rundown of the drama, but basically, Alta works with Canadian company Public Bike Share System Company to provide the actual bikes and locking stations for the bike share program. For the roll-out of its sharing systems in Washington DC and Boston, Public Bike contracted a company called 8D to create and run the bike-renting software.

But after it landed the contract for New York, Public Bike ditched the software company and tried to develop the bike-sharing software in house. The results have been rather buggy and unreliable, prompting New York City to delay its roll-out and creating major embarrassment for Alta. Meanwhile, the software company is suing Public Bike and Public Bike is counter-suing the software company and it's not clear when exactly New York will gets its system. Ugh.

New York's system is entirely privately funded by Citibank. In Portland, the $4.5 million system will initially be funded by private money and $2 million in federal funds that city council voted last year to use for bike sharing.

Portland is supposed to cut the ribbon on its bike sharing system by spring of 2013—less than a year from now. It's possible that Alta's partners could have their legal mess sorted out by then. In its deal with Alta, the city will definitely need to nail down the details and make sure we're not left on the hook.

On May 16, 29-year-old Kathryn Rickson was killed in downtown Portland, just a block from city hall, when she and a truck turning right onto SW 3rd Avenue from Madison collided as she was biking east on the same street.

Today, the district attorney finished its investigation into the crash (PDF). The result? The truck driver, Dawayne Eacret, will not be charged with a crime, or even given a traffic ticket. "This tragic event was an accident," determined investigators.

Rickson collided with the truck's fender and the DA's investigation determined that the scratches on the fender show that the truck was turning right onto SW 3rd before it was hit by Rickson on her bike. Two witnesses said the truck had its turn signal on and both said there was nothing the driver could have done to avoid the crash.

Video footage from city hall's security cameras was used to approximate that Rickson would have been about half a block away from the truck when it started turning. The footage captured that Rickson was riding in the middle of the right-hand lane between SW 4th and SW 5th—there's no bike lane on Madison, so in the middle of the lane is the safest place to ride. It's not clear whether she was in the bike lane when it starts up after SW 4th, but even if she was, investigators determined, she would be "very small and difficult to see in the truck’s convex mirror."

Charging someone with a crime for killing someone with their vehicle requires meeting a rather high legal standard. In this case, Eacret would have to have charged with felony homicide for being "criminally negligent" or a traffic crime for being "reckless," which means he would been "aware of and consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk" or "grossly deviate from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation."

Eacret did what a normal person would do in this situation. He stopped at the light. He started turning on green. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't on his phone. Whether he checked his mirrors or not may not have mattered. Rickson was unlucky. She was doing what thousands of Portlanders do every day—biking safely on a "bike-friendly" street in the center of town. She just happened to be a few seconds behind a large truck that was turning right. She might have been able to slam on her brakes within half a block, but maybe not.

The story here is: No one should die on Portland's streets for using the streets in a safe, normal way. We may be the "most bike friendly city" in America, but that means nothing if a regular person riding in a regular way can be crushed any day of the week by a truck. We need to design streets and train road users to protect against terrible luck. "Normal" isn't good enough.

That intersection has a bright green bike box painted on it, a safety measure meant to deter crashes exactly like this one. Now, next to the bike box lives a white ghost bike and bouquet of flowers.

Businesses in Portland and around the country sometimes push back against bike and pedestrian projects because they think removing space from cars will hurt their businesses. Customers who bike, walk, or take transit to bars, restaurants, and markets are a drop in the bucket, right?

A new study shows that people who walk and bike are actually more valuable as customers to bars, restaurants, and convenience stores, spending more per person each month than people who walk, drive, or take transit to the establishments. Meanwhile, for supermarkets, people who arrive by car are the most valuable customers.

Portland State University civil engineering professor Kelly Clifton presented her super interesting report at city hall yesterday. She and some assistants spent five months interviewing Portlanders at local supermarkets, convenience stores, bars, and restaurants, about how they got to their destination, how much they spent, and some other details.

Over the course of a month, Professor Clifton found, people who bike to restaurants, bars, and convenience stores spend more money than people who arrive via car, transit, or their own two feet. This doesn't mean that those businesses make the majority of their money off cyclists—in many cases, most customers still arrive by car. But the ones who go out by bike often spend more money per person over time.

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• Biking: Always extremely healthy.

I think of Swan Island as being the place for giant trucks, but actually 20 percent of workers on the island get to their job by biking, transit, or carpooling. We interviewed a couple of surprisingly bikey boilermakers on the island back in 2010.

This weekend, USA Today gave Portland its classic USA Today take, meaning a well-known, absolutely unsurprising narrative run roughly three years too late.* The story In Portland, Ore, Bikes Rule the Road is a "Gee whiz, guys! People bicycling to work!" perspective on the city and just to reiterate the outside world's view of Portland, look at the first person the story quotes:

Even kids get around differently. Nationally, only 13% of children walk or bike to school, according to the National Household Travel Survey. Here, 31% do, in part because of a program that gives every public school student between fourth and 10th grade a 12-week course on how to ride a bicycle safely.

For Tree Marie WoodSmith, the evolution here has already made "life so incredibly easier." She and her husband moved to Portland from rural California where "to go anywhere you had to get into your car." Portland is the opposite, she says. Now WoodSmith can go "days on end and never even get in a car. It was pretty amazing."

*Did you guys know USA Today is the second-most read newspaper in America? Ugh.

The police staged a traffic enforcement sting on NE Broadway and Wheeler this morning, citing cyclists for running the stop sign near the intersection that was officially closed to car traffic last week. It's a dangerous spot, notorious for cars right hooking people on bikes as they turn across the bike lane onto Wheeler.

During today's sting, the police also cited four drivers, including two for driving on the newly closed road. From the police press release:

A team of four motorcycle officers and a sergeant started the mission at 8:30 a.m. and finished up at 10:30 a.m.

During the mission, officers encountered mostly cyclists who were in violation of the law. Every cyclist who was stopped and cited was offered the "Share the Road Safety Class" in exchange for a dismissal to the citation.

A total of 53 citations were issued, along with three written warnings.

50 cyclists and four motor vehicles were stopped.

Most citations were for Fail to Obey a Traffic Control Device (Stop Sign) from the North Broadway and Flint intersection; however, there were some citations for the same violation at the intersection of North Flint and Tillamook.

This week, Mayor Sam Adams' office and the Portland Bureau of Transportation took a big step in improving safety for bikes on one street in Portland by deciding to close North Wheeler to traffic where the street intersects with Broadway. I didn't get a chance to report on the closure then because, ironically, I was doored in Northwest and out of commission for a while. But here's the rundown, two days late!

• A rather complicated map of the closure from the city.

As the city tries to make its streets safer for all road users, one of the most effective thing the transportation bureau can do is fix up the problem areas where the most crashes occur. Sure, turning neighborhood streets into bike-friendly greenways is nice, but that safer-streets strategy is moot if the greenways empty out into dangerous intersections. North Wheeler is just such a notorious problem area. The intersection of North Wheeler and Broadway is right along the route from the busy bike lane on North Vancouver and the Broadway Bridge, so thousands of people bike past the street everyday. Meanwhile, drivers zip across the bike lane regularly to get onto North Wheeler, where there are some major employers.

According to the mayor's office, the intersection there were 20 reported crashes at this intersection from 2000-2010 and seventeen of them were right-hook crashes involving a bike and a car. Ouch. The situation was so bad that the Portland Water Bureau banned its employees from driving on Wheeler.

The city has gone through a series of measures to try to improve safety on the street without closing Wheeler, like stepping up traffic enforcement in the area, installing a left-turn lane on North Wheeler, and painting a big "BIKES STOP" reminder on North Flint. Nothing has had the dramatic turn-around in safety we need, so as of Tuesday this week, no one will be turning onto North Wheeler from Broadway at all.

Let's hope it works!

Laugh if you want—but I just saw three of these things parked outside Stumptown.

How many people bike over the Hawthorne bridge every day? Now anyone walking, biking, or driving past will be able to see. Thanks to a $20,000 grant from Cycle Oregon, the city installed an electronic bike counter on the bridge yesterday.

When I stopped by yesterday afternoon, a crew was putting down the cords that will count bikes as they zip past. So it's not functional yet, but here's what the counter looks like (bigger photo below the cut):

I've seen these counters in other countries, but this is the first in the US. The counters are made by a Canadian company called Eco-Counter and the point of them—besides being interesting to wonks—is to raise visibility of the sheer number of people who are biking. The last city bike count tallied by over 8,000 people biking across the Hawthorne during a normal day.

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