This Week in the Mercury
Bikes
Friday, November 20, 2009
Bikes Mercury News Team: We Would Never Block the Bike Lane With Our Giant Ass News Van
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:06 PM
That's right, the Mercury would never illegally park our giant ass news van in the westbound bike lane of the Burnside bridge, forcing all cyclists dangerously into speeding car traffic so we can film the first holiday lighting of the Made in Oregon reindeer from a competitive angle. UNLIKE THE FOX 12 NEWS TEAM.
- Fuck that.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
News / Bikes BREAKING: BTA Director Scott Bricker Fired
Posted by Matt Davis on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 12:03 PM
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance has fired its executive director, Scott Bricker. Here's a great, somewhat mood-inappropriate photo of Bricker from last year:
"He was let go," says Mary Roberts, Board Chair for the organization."The board decided, and it was a very difficult decision. We really thank Scott for all of his work, and we would not be here without his contribution over the last 11 years."
"The whole ecosystem for bicycling is moving out of it really being just about the bike to it being a much bigger agenda," says Roberts. "Bicycling really becomes about transforming a whole city and state, and so we're really looking to find an Executive Director who has worked on that stage."
Bricker has no future job lined up. He was told this morning at a meeting with the board, says Roberts. He has so far declined comment.
The BTA says it's now launching a "national search" for a new Executive Director.
Roberts says the BTA plans to "push much harder" for the bicycling agenda across the state, from now on.
"This is good news for the community and the state," she says.
Update, 12:15:
"The way I'm looking at this, I think that leadership within an organization is not black and white," says Bricker. "And bicycling has a lot of leaders in it already. What I think I brought to the organization was being a great partner and continuing to build the leadership overall in the community.
"It's a board's role to hire and fire an executive director," Bricker continues. "But this is their choice. The upshot is that a new person will take charge of the organization and walk into a strong, vibrant and financially solid organization. The staff is really energetic, and the board is strong and really opinionated. I feel really strong about the service I provided over the last 11 years, the organization is in great shape. From my personal standpoint, I've been doing this for a long time, and this was the most challenging role I had at the BTA. I feel wonderful about my accomplishments, and I'm looking forward to some vacation for myself and my family. I plan on volunteering for the tax measures that are coming up, and then on seeking opportunities in the public policy arena."
In 2008, the BTA had a significant financial loss. "Some of that was cash, some of it was accounting. But in 2009, we're actually going to have a really solid year," Bricker says. "While there's a lot of opportunity for financial growth, from my standpoint, that's not one of the things driving this."
"I think the board wanted someone else to lead the organization," he says. "They just wanted someone else, and the reality is is it's their choice, and leadership is a key aspect to that."
Update, 12:20:
"I've had mixed feelings about the direction that the BTA was going, definitely," says Jonathan Maus, editor of BikePortland.org. "I don't think there was the right vision, that the BTA was capturing the spirit of the community the way they can, and I think some of that can be attributed to the leadership."
"When was the last time the BTA had a rally at city hall?" asks Maus. "When did they last disagree with the mayor on a point? When did they last push people to really comment on the bicycle master plan? And when two people died in October it was the community that responded, and the BTA hasn't always been that quick to respond on these issues. They've clearly taken a more disengaged approach, in the past. What Bricker told me in the past was that they had a nuanced position, and I feel that given the place we're in in Portland right now, we need a really engaged advocacy group to push the city that's really getting comfortable with biking, and the BTA, I think, has thought that being strong, means you're losing your seat at the table. But I think there's a way to be strong and still stay respected."
"I think a lot of the community were disappointed that the BTA wasn't more of an advocate in the Columbia River Crossing process, too," Maus continues.
"I hope it's a realization at the BTA board about the changing nature of bike advocacy in general," says Maus. "Maybe they're recognizing that they need to hasten that shift in the way that it happens in Portland. We need to start looking beyond the "bicycle" in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and not continuing to segregate out bicycling from other modes of transportation advocacy."
From this reporter's perspective, an event at the Bagdad theater earlier this year certainly captured the "complacent" spirit of the biking community that Maus may have been referring to. I even wrote a column on the subject. But who's going to pet Portland's kittens, from now on?
Bricker says he's going to continue to be active in Oregon policy, and good luck to him.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Bikes Bicycle Master Plan on "Think Out Loud"
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 9:29 AM
Sorry to get this up a little late, but the Bike Master Plan is up for discussion on OPB RIGHT NOW! Listen live here over the next half hour to Bicycle Master Plan writers explain what the plan is and how the hell the city should pay for it.
It's shaping up to be a good show! I'll blog updates as it continues. My coverage of the plan is here.
9:40 AM
Emily Harris just asked BikePortland's Jonathan Maus about paying for and building the 600 miles of bike lanes called for in the plan.
"How much should be resources taken away from cars?" asked Harris.
Replies Maus:
It’s not an issue of taking away from cars… It’s clear that there’s too much space in our city given over to the moving of large motor vehicles and the parking of large motor vehicles, to the detriment of people walking around, people shopping. It’s clear that we could vastly improve our bikeways if we reduced the amount of car parking in the city. Unfortunately, one of the issues of that is the bureau of transportation gets a lot of its revenue from parking meters.
Maus called out NE Alberta as an example — it’s a narrow road with parking on both sides that cyclists still try to squeeze onto. “We’re too reluctant on a city level to really take back some of our public space,” says Maus.
9:48 AM
Small business owner and Central Eastside Industrial Council chair Juliana Lukasik
Isn’t sold on the idea. “Some businesses would appreciate the business of bike riders, but the reality is that a very large percentage of business really need car parking for their customers,” says Lukasik. She does think that removing parking on somewhere that’s both bike-accessible and has a lot of pedestrian-friendly stores like NE Alberta could actually be a good idea.
OPB asked Bike Master Plan chief Ellen Vanderslice what she thinks of requiring bike licenses or registration. “From the city’s point of view, anything that’s a barrier to someone biking is a problem,” says Vanderslice. “We want, at this point in time, not to put up barriers.” Vanderslice does support, though, some sort of statewide or citywide maintenance fee road users would pay based on weight and distance traveled (an idea Rep. Jules Kopel Bailey suggested to the legislature last spring). “It’s the weight on the road that really does the damage,” says Vanderslice.
9:53 AM
- Cycletrack on Broadway: Uh... some signs, please?
Lukasik complains that the new bike facilities downtown (like the cycletrack and the whole lane given over the bikes on SW Oak) just showed up with no education for drivers or very good signage. “I think the city needs to do a better job of letting drivers know what to do in those new areas,” says Lukasik. YES! I think the markings on the cycletrack are terrible—I still have no idea how you’re supposed to turn left off that thing. Just painting the word “parking” in the poorly-marked parking spaces next to the track would be a lot of help.
10 AM
God, I hate "World Have Your Say." They should bump this show to the middle of the night... or KBOO.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Bikes BTA Calls Out Lack of $$$ for Bike Master Plan
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 3:34 PM
No big surprise: City Council Planning Commission approved the city's new Bicycle Master Plan 5-0 last night, layering praise on the ambitious plan to build 600 new miles of bikeways around Portland and get thousands more urbanites on bikes by 2030.
That's the good news. But earlier this week, a post on BikePortland pointed out the bad news about the bike master plan—it's a lot of great talk, but the city needs to seriously get its rear in gear if all those beloved bike lanes are going to become a reality.
In a letter (pdf) posted on BikePortland, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) told the city's bike plan director, "To make and maintain this needed shift, the draft plan’s creative and thoughtful policies need to be matched by equally creative and thoughtful commitments and investments." Or, in the simpler English I put forward last week: SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Yeah, the BTA's letter could be sharper and more readable, but hopefully it's a sign that the advocacy group will start putting the screws on City Hall and the state transportation department to make bike funding actually match the big heap of hype showered on bikes in Oregon. In the letter, the BTA suggests some necessary benchmarks for success, including building 130 miles of bikeways by 2013 and bringing down Portland's bike crash rate to a quarter of what it is today by the year 2014.
All I'm saying is that after writing one, two, three, four, five articles about Portland's miserably low funding for bike infrastructure, it's good to hear the city's bike advocacy group make the same point to City Hall.
- Mark Searcy
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Bikes Fatal Bike Crash in North Portland Last Night
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:53 AM
A cyclist riding was struck and killed by two cars late last night at the intersection of N Willamette and Haven Road, right next to University of Portland.
- Victim Kipp Crawford
From the police:
This morning at 2:26 a.m., Portland Police responded to the area of North Willamette Blvd and North Haven Street on a call of a bicyclist that had been hit. Officers located an injured man at the scene and he was immediately taken to an area hospital. This man later died at the hospital. Police are attempting to identify the deceased man.The Major Crash Team is on scene investigating this incident. Both drivers and their vehicles are at the scene of this incident and investigators are interviewing both drivers. Police are still attempting to identify the man found at the scene.
That section of Willamette has a bike lane, but it's not clear at all what happened—whether the cyclist was in the bike lane or even whether the cars were going in opposite directions. This is the fourth fatal bike crash this year in Portland.
KATU reports that the police investigators have "at least one witness account of the cyclist being pushed into the road", after neighbors heard the sounds of an argument on the road. BikePortland also has some commentary on the tragedy and some photos of the crash scene.
More details as we have them.
UPDATE 12:31 PM: Both drivers were drunk. Police charged both 41-year old Carlos Tyrone McCall, the driver of a Cadillac, and 44-year-old Felisa Washington-Berry, driver of an Isuzu SUV, of driving under the influence.
The cyclist has been identified as 31-year-old Kipp Daniel Crawford. It turns out he was not actually on his bike at the time of the crash. According to police spokeswoman Mary Wheat, Crawford was "down in the roadway" when he was struck by the two cars traveling in the same direction.
Police are trying to piece together why Crawford was off his bike and in the road and are asking anyone who interacted with Crawford yesterday to call Officer Peter Kurronen at 503-823-2208.
Did anyone know Crawford?
Update 4:50PM: Crawford was a musician in a couple local bands, including Thanks Kipp and the drummer in Celilo. He will definitely be missed by a lot of friends.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
News / Bikes Bike Master Plan: Great! Now Where's the $$$?
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Here’s how the authors of the new Bicycle Master Plan imagine Portland in 2030: Portlanders make twenty-five percent of trips in the city by bike, riding along 600 new or improved miles of bikeways, many of them comfy bike boulevards. Gateway and the Lloyd District are transformed into “Bicycle Districts” and NE Going and will look like present-day SE Clinton. Portland east of I-205 will have more bike lanes than the entire city currently has.
Dozens of people turned out to the Planning Commission room downtown last night to express support for the first bike master plan for Portland since 1996. "I look at it as more than a bicycle plan. It’s a green transportation plan," sums up well-known bike consultant Mia Birk. The plan aims to make biking a pillar of the city and encourages linking land-use policy to biking as it has been linked to cars and mass transit.
But how is biking supposed to be a pillar of a city when it receives only a toothpick’s worth of funding? The plan’s ambitious goals shine a stark light on the percent of the Portland transportation budget spent on bike projects: a measly .7 percent.
Though the plan looks awesome, right now the funding is not in line to actually build the majority of the bikeways so painstakingly mapped out across Portland. “We could maybe squint our eyes and if some earmarks came through, we could maybe see $70 million,” project manager Eileen Vanderslice told the planning commission. The pricetag for just the first 123 miles of improved or new bikeways is $100 million. And those first projects are the relatively easy ones. The next round of projects include are major Springwater Corridor-esque routes like Sullivan’s Gulch and the North Portland Greenway, whose costs in the plan are described only as “substantial.” Vanderslice tentatively estimates the cost of the entire plan at $500 million. At our current level of bike funding, the plan would take about 330 years to finance. The city's going to have to really put its money where its mouth is to make these plans a reality by 2030.
Thoughts on how to fund our glorious bike future below the cut.
- Hooray!! In 2030, the sky rains money unto bicycles.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Bikes Bicycle Master Plan Hearing Starts in an Hour!
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Shit! I 100% meant to post this heads-up earlier today but got caught up reading blogs about black slaves in Disney's Fantasia.
The planning commission is holding a hearing tonight on the 2030 Bicycle Master Plan, the blueprint for the next two decades of bike projects in our fair city. You can download the plan and check it out for yourself here, but you might have already caught a sneak peak of the plan last spring at one of the open houses held around Portland.
The Bike Master Plan lays out 325 new miles of bike paths, lanes and boulevards the city is hoping to build in coming years. Though bikes are cheap compared to other transportation projects, the first wave of improvements has a $30,000,000 pricetag (about equal to constructing .5 miles of urban freeway).
Anyway, after months of gathering public opinion, the city officials spearheading the plan are presenting at 6 pm tonight at the planning commission HQ 1900 SW 4th Avenue, Room 2500a, 2nd floor. That means if you leave work now, you have just enough time for a beer before you head over.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Bikes Eugene Beats Portland on Bike Friendliness
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 10:27 AM
A while ago, I directed Blogtownies to take the Bicycle Transportation Alliance's big survey of cyclists. Well, BTA communications coordinator Margaux Mennesson just released the results. The questions posed to roughly 2,000 bike riders (and a handful of non cyclists) in Oregon and SW Washington reveal some interesting stats.
But it's obvious that the survey does not accurately represent most Portland cyclists: a whopping one-third of people who took the survey reported incomes of over $90,000. Ninety percent had a 4-year college degree. Unless there's a lot of Plaid Pantry workers hilariously screwing with the BTA survey, the participant demographics mean we now mostly know more about how rich people bike in Oregon.
From the survey results:
• 85 percent of local cyclists also own cars.
• Portland isn't the least car-centric city in the state. That honor goes to Eugene, where 20 percent of survey participants reported not owning a car. Thirteen percent of Portlanders surveyed did not own a car.
• Eugene survey participants also beat Portland on how frequently they ride. Eugene participants reported making 55 percent of trips by bike, Bend/Sisters reported 46 and Portland came in third at 43 percent.
• Why does Eugene rank higher? Cuz cyclists feel the roads there are safer and more accessible.
• Eleven percent of BTA memebers quit the organization because they disagreed with a policy, six percent because they were disappointed overall. But 41 percent of former members said they did not renew for financial reasons.
• BTA membership is predominantly "affluent intermediate and advanced cyclists" age 35 and up. (as seen in $90,000 disclaimer above...)
Download the survey results with its plethora of nerdy graphs here.
You know how else Eugene kicks Portland's ass at biking? They have a genuine bike hearse. How are Portlanders supposed to die green eco-sustainable deaths without a fleet of bike hearses?!
- Via Dave Knows
Thursday, October 15, 2009
News / Bikes Cops/BTA Work Together On Training Video
Posted by Matt Davis on Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:43 PM
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman may not be too popular with mental health advocates at the moment, but he's done the bicycling community a favor by fostering a collaboration between the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and the police bureau on a new training video this afternoon.
"An apparently indifferent approach from the police bureau" greeted the death of Susan Kobota's niece, Tracy Sparling, in 2007, Kobota said. "The statements implied that it was not reasonable for bicyclists to expect safety." Kobota said things have improved since then. "The transformation has been remarkable," she said.
Here's the video that will be shown to police officers:
"The outlaw edginess that was a part of the old scene is being replaced," says city attorney David Woboril, on the video.
The video focuses on the right hook, "looking at the totality of circumstances" when it comes to riders filling the lane, group rides ("at first glance, the groups may resemble critical mass, but they are nothing like it"), "safety and sharing," speeding, stop signs, drivers blowing stop signs, failing to yield at crosswalks, and when to cite.
The subtext seems to be a focus on getting officers to enforce the law reasonably, and with respect to the goals Portland has to increase the number of bicycle commuters.
"We're all people just trying to get where we're trying to go, safely," said one person giving testimony from the group We Are All Traffic. "It's our job to debunk some of the stereotypes about bicyclists and car drivers."
503 823 SAFE is the number to call if you have concerns about a traffic issue near you.
"I want to thank the parties to this agreement," said Saltzman. "I think as was said on the video, bicycle commuting has gone from outlaw edginess to mainstream in this city. I don't feel safe on the road on a bike, and I think that's something that Mayor Adams is committed to, but I think the framework for this agreement, and bringing the parties together to talk about solutions is really what we need to get toward solutions."
"I was walking down the sidewalk the other day," said City Commissioner Amanda Fritz. "And a young man came skateboarding past me. I got him to take his iPod earplugs out, and I said excuse me, would you mind not skateboarding on the sidewalk, it's illegal and it makes people like me nervous. And he looked at me and got off his skateboard. It's about community policing, we don't all need to call 911, we need to share those feelings."
Friday, October 9, 2009
Mercury / Bikes We Biked 832 Miles.
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 11:21 AM
I don't have much to say about the wrap up of September's bike commute challenge at City Hall last night except:
1) It seems like every time I go to City Hall, someone offers me a free beer. If it's not bike commuters, it's Mexican Independence Day, an art party, celebration of diverse local cat breeders or stilt-walking performers or something.
2) The Portland Mercury Domination Team GO! kicked some ass, averaging 33.5 percent of the entire staff's commutes-to-work by bike in September. That put us solidly in the top section of the long list of teams displayed last night.
- suck it.
3) City Hall should look like this every day (except with nicer racks):
Thursday, October 8, 2009
News / Bikes Today In PDX
Posted by Matt Davis on Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 5:07 PM
Bike racks set up outside city hall for participants in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance's bike commute challenge. There'll be free Hotlips Pizza at tonight's event, and Widmer Brothers have donated a keg. It's a good job they are donations—BikePortland.org reports today that the BTA lost $92,509 last year, due to sloppy accounting.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Bikes The Most Photogenic Photo Op of 2009.
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 11:50 AM
Today is Walk and Bike to School Day which means it is the cutest day of the entire year. I stopped by Abernethy Elementary in Ladd's Addition, which was hosting its 2nd Annual bike-a-thon Tour de Ladd in honor of the nationwide kids on bikes day.
To fill your cute quota for the day, here is a shot of Abernethy first graders at the starting line:
More photos and commentary below the cut.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bikes Can Replacing Car Parking Help Business?
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
To certain business owners (all of Hawthorne, I'm looking at you) who go into hysterics when the city suggests doing away with some of Portland's free parking, there's heartening news from our Canadian friends: according to this Toronto study, replacing car parking with bike lanes or widened sidewalks helps local businesses.
According to the study, people walking or biking to stores are more likely to actually spend money than those who come by cars. And if the area seems like a good place to walk around, people are more likely to hang out at close-by stores for longer.
- via Portland Online
This is super relevant to Portland right now because the city is on a car to bike parking conversion spree. So far, Portland has converted 55 car parking spots into 664 bike parking spots in bike corrals. The on-street corrals cost about $3,000 each, including installation. And, according to city bike parking planner Sarah Figliozzi, Portland is going to try to double the number of corrals in the city within two years. Though a hard-numbers study of the economic impact of bike corrals is currently in process, Figliozzi says that anecdotally, "Everyone has been coming back super happy." The city is installing corrals only in front of businesses that request them and the wait list right now is 30 stores deep.
So will places like Hawthorne eventually come around to the idea of replacing their car parking with bike spots, lanes or more sidewalk? The Portland 2030 bike plan (which is looking for public comment starting today!) runs a bike lane up Hawthorne, aiming to add about 300 miles of bikeways in Portland over the next 20 years. There's no way the city can build those 300 miles if each mile is rammed down the throat of businesses upset about sacrificing space for cars. Instead, it would be great if businesses could drive the change for bike improvements, like they have been with the corrals, and make money with each switch.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Bikes Bikes, Blood, Beer: Perfect Weekend!
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 11:06 AM
I wanted to post a quick follow up to my feature in this week's paper that profiles a couple local bike builders. The builders crafted custom bikes for month-long bike design celebration Oregon Manifest and actually raced the handbuilt bikes 77 miles on Saturday.
As with all great plans, things did not quite go as expected. But you'll be glad to know that only one bike finished the race covered in blood! That would be the Boxer cycle, whose builder ate it on a gravel section of the course.
I didn't talk to the rider and find out exactly what happened, but there was also blood smeared on the beer bottle next to the bike at the post-race party, so I figure he's doing alright.
More photos of bikes from local builders and more about the race below the cut.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Bikes Five Steps to Make PDX the Best Bike City in the World (and Destroy Zoobomb in the Process)
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:54 PM
Five European bicycle ambassadors turned up in an unusual place yesterday: Beaverton City Hall. Metro received a grant to bring the five transportation experts from Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Lyons, Brussels and the Netherlands to Portland and its glorious suburbs to school us on how to make biking seriously mainstream transportation. Beaverton City Hall sits just off a four-lane highway, surrounded by parking lots and blocked from the road by a Noodles and Company, standing as physical proof of how far alternative transportation advocates still have to go in the Northwest.
Mayor Sam Adams and other local leaders aren't shy about their plan to make Portland the new Copenhagen, aiming to increase regular bike ridership to 20 percent of the city by 2020 (we're at about 8 percent right now). If Portland wants to hit that ambitious goal, the city and its suburbs should start taking the Europeans' advice to heart—and fast. Here's the quick hits from the ambassadors' presentations yesterday to the Beaverton crowd:
— Governments act too slowly. Get businesses to promote biking. According to Amsterdam bike ambassador Geert-Pieter Wagenmakers, employees who bike to work there have 10-12 percent less absences and they're much healthier. That helps the company save money, so they're happy to give employees $1000 every year to invest in buying a bike. "Everyone wins!" exclaimed Wagenmakers while I cried softly into my sweater. The cash-for-bikes idea blows my mind, but in Amsterdam, it's not radical. Seventeen big companies there, including U.S.-based firms like Microsoft and IBM, have signed on to reduce employee car miles traveled by 10 percent.
— Go for the children. Get bike education and safety programs into schools and then talk to parents about biking to school with their kids. As Margaux Mennesson at the Bicycle Transportation Alliance pointed out a few days ago, this is what school drop-off looks like in Amsterdam.
— Put bikes and pedestrians, not cars, at the center of urban planning. Making biking mainstream means making it swift, safe and easy. On some new roads in Amsterdam, the bike/pedestrian route is the most direct route. Cars routes get second priority and are routed around through side streets. Bikes are a no-brainer there because 85 percent of trips are faster by bike.
— Recognize that cars are deadly weapons. “Here they say bicycling is dangerous," says Copenhagen planner Niels Jensen. "In the Netherlands they say no, bicycling isn’t dangerous. The danger is cars. Car drivers need to be aware that they are in a vehicle that could kill.” Jensen says that in his country, any collision between a car and a child on a bike is deemed the drivers’ fault.
— Bikes are a cheap date. But not too cheap. Copenhagen spends 25 percent of its transportation budget on bikes. Portland spends .7 percent. THAT'S A PROBLEM. Seriously. Put your money where your big green mouth is, Portland!
Oh, also! Has anyone thought about what will happen when biking becomes mainstream culture in Portland? When biking is normal, says Jensen, all this crazy Zoobomb, bike-jousting fringey political biking culture will cease to exist. From Jensen:
"We have an anti-car culture, but they are organized against pollution. But the bikers are not against cars, no! We a have a bike club, but they are not activists. If everybody’s doing it, then you are not special anymore. If everybody eats, do you call yourself a ‘bread eater’? Nobody in the Netherlands calls themselves a biker except for the racing cyclists. The good thing is, in five or ten years, many people will bike. The bad thing is, that special culture will not exist anymore."
Bikes Just to Get You Excited for the Weekend...
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:26 PM
Here is a total bike nerd orgasm photo of a frame local builder Tony Pereira is unveiling this weekend at Oregon Manifest, a handbuilt bike fest that kicks off with tomorrow's 77-mile bike builders' race.
- Pereira's Flickr
- Kryptonite lock, PDX-made custom frame. Be still, my heart.
Building a U-lock right into a bike?! AGGHHHHHH I'M GETTING JEALOUS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT! The bike is made specifically to fit Portland's blue "staple" racks. AGGHHHHHH! I have no coherent thought to convey except that grumble of pleasure. I steered clear of profiling Tony in my story this week about local bike builders because I wanted to compare very new builders to old-timer Mark DiNucci and Tony's been around for a while. But, as evidenced above, he crafts great bikes in Southeast Portland and, as evidenced by the rain outside, will have a helluva time racing this fancy new bike 77 miles this weekend.
More info about the race and awesome local builders in this week's Mercury or the Manifest homepage.
Thank you Bike Portland twitter for alerting me to the existence of my new favorite thing in the entire world.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
News / Bikes Byrne-Ing Down The Bagdad
Posted by Matt Davis on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 8:15 PM
David Byrne at the Bagdad Theater is Portland's hot ticket tonight. "Why are they getting in but I'm not?!" screamed a middle aged lady at the poor desk clerk on my way in. "Because they're on the list," he said. "You people are full of it," she said. And we are.
Byrne's book is brilliant, before I go any further. And I'm delighted to finally hear what he has to say about it, after reviewing the thing without being granted an interview by his publicist. Seriously: I was willing to do anything for that interview, but no dice. These publicists are full of it.
The evening began with calming music playing over clips of bicycles from Hollywood movies—presumably collated by some poor intern: Meg Ryan, Lucille Ball, the Muppets, Marilyn Monroe, Sean Connery, Jackie Chan, Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Pee Wee Herman, they've all ridden bikes on celluloid. Presenters were Byrne, Mia Birk, a PSU professor and urban planner, Timo Forsberg from the Portland bureau of transportation, and Bikeportland.org's Jonathan Maus. Read about what was said, after the jump.
Bikes Interview: Amazing Oregon Bike Builder Mark DiNucci
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:53 AM
- Doris DiNucci
- Mark Dinucci (long-haired ne'er-do-well at right) & Andy Newland build their first ridable bike circa 1971.
People warned me that DiNucci would be gruff and shy, but when I talked to him on the phone, he was just the opposite. He speaks in a laid-back drawl that makes you take time to listen, but I found him to be funny, open and insightful. My interview with him is long, but it includes discussion of prematurely celebrating the death of the car 30 years ago, tips on how to harass a curmudgeon out of retirement and tales of real-life bike race sabotage so I recommend you read it.
Are you still working on the bike for manifest or is it all done?
It’s got some bits left to do and then parts, so I’ll be there with no paint.
How much time have you put into the bike so far?
Hours, weeks, cause I don’t have any tools and I don’t have a shop.
How do you make bikes without any tools?
I know how to make bikes. It’s a lot slower this way, I’m going to get a shop going for sure. Because this is crazy, it’s bordering on insanity. Having some tools to make the job go as fast as you can is actually the builder’s responsibility, I think. They should always endeavor to have the most efficient means.
Read on!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Bikes Fewer Portland Women than Men Ride Bikes. Why?
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:07 PM
Last week's announcement that Portland is America's #1 bike commute city created a lot of discussion on the blog, so check out this statistical tidbit: there's a roughly 3 percent bike gender split among Portland bike commuters. In 2008, 7.3 percent of Portland males reported their bikes are their primary mode of transportation to work compared to 4.4 percent of women.
This is a nationwide trend that likely has a lot of roots and Portland has recently started organizing women on bikes promotion programs. I called up two female bike advocates to see what they thought creates the biking gender split.
- Via Sprockettes.org
- FACT! Women outnumber men on tiny pink and/or blue bicycles 2:1
Bicycle Transportation Alliance staffer Steph Noll is coordinating this year's bike commute challenge and attributes the gender split mostly to safety concerns. "The conventional wisdom is that women identify themselves as more concerned about safety. Conditions have to feel safer for women to bike," says Noll, identifying infrastructure like bike lanes and separate bike boulevards as key to getting more women on bikes. "There’s a lot of situations where people are just as safe riding in traffic, but they don’t feel safe so they’re not going to try it."
In places without many bike lanes or good paths, women can get turned off to biking because it requires a more aggressive attitude, says Noll. "Years ago in any major American city you had to feel tough and aggressive to bike in any major American city and assert yourself on the road."
The Mayor's Transportation Director Catherine Ciarlo, who bikes with her four and seven year old kids on an Xtracycle, points out child-rearing duties as a factor keeping women off bikes. "Women are often tasked with more household and child responsibilities, which means multiple trips and different kinds of bikes and different kinds of arrangements. It’s kind of a supernatural feat to make it work by bike and I mostly do, but there aren’t a lot of models out there to make that easy," says Ciarlo. Not only do you need a bike that can safety fit your kid, but to see other women riding bikes, too. "Picturing yourself doing it is easier because someone else who’s perfectly normal is doing it."
Update 2:43 pm— A couple readers sent along this interesting Scientific American article about women on bikes. It quotes a PSU researcher and notes that the U.S. biking gender split stands in contrast to biking demographics in Europe.
P.S. The crappy graph on last week's post about commuting made it look like the number of people using public transit had dropped. The numbers from the Census show that 12.7 percent of Portlanders used primarily public transit to get to work in 1998 compared to 13.4 percent in 2008. Carpooling, though, dropped two percent and driving alone fell from 68.6 percent to 64.6 percent. Just FYI.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Bikes Portland is America's #1 Bike Commute City!
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:51 PM
This exciting news just in from the Census Bureau: Portland has the highest percentage of commutes to work by bike of any city in the entire goddamn U.S. of A!
The numbers collected by the census show a huge jump in biking to work in Portland over the last decade. In 1996, fewer than two percent of Portlanders biked to work. Since then, the number of Portlanders who say they get to work primarily by bike has increased a whopping 250 percent. In 2008, 6.5 percent of Portlanders said their primary mode of transportation to work is a bike. That's just about 35,000 people. Holy shit.
Also, if you're wondering, the Portland Mercury domination team has already logged 609 miles in the annual Bike Commute Challenge.
- This graph may have been drawn on MS Paint, but that doesn't mean it's not astounding and accurate!
So, what's changed since 1996? The city has doubled the number of bike lanes from 100 miles of bikeways around Portland to over 300 miles today. We've replaced 20 car parking spots with bike corrals that can fit about a dozen parked bikes each. We've signed on to the Safe Routes to School program, which teaches a two-week long bike safety class to students in almost every public Portland elementary school. We've hosted national bike building conferences, created the nation's largest free bike-fun festival and patronized bike-friendly businesses. All these changes show that creating a bike-friendly city doesn't just happen. Infrastructure matters. Education matters. Culture matters.
The bad news? Beating the rest of America in bike commuting is a pretty low bar. In Amsterdam, 30 to 40 percent of people bike to work. Next weekend, big time Danish urban planners are coming to Portland as part of bike-builder festival Oregon Manifest to present how biking has transformed transportation in Denmark. We may be #1 in the home country, but as a city we've still got a lot to learn.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Food / Bikes Burgerville Cycle-thru
Posted by Patrick Alan Coleman on Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 12:08 PM
Let me ask you hard-core cyclists out there a couple questions. 1) Is your desire for fast food really strong enough to have forced Burgerville to change their drive-thru policy? 2) Isn’t it difficult to bike with a combo meal?
I ask because I'm not a cyclist (my ride is too slow and uncomfortable), and also because Burgerville has indeed changed their drive-thru policy to accommodate patrons on two wheels—a change they’ll be celebrating this Thursday from 2 pm to 4 pm at their Hawthorne location with free blackberry smoothies (contingent on bikers purchasing a menu item of equal or greater value).
There was a bit of hubbub early last month when bicycling mother Sarah Gilbert was denied service at the Burgerville drive-thru on Powell Blvd. The incident, widely tweeted and aggressively re-tweeted, prompted protests that flooded the offending location with burger-loving bicyclists. In response Burgerville announced that all of its locations would be opened to cyclists, and have even taken to calling the drive-thru a “cycle-thru.” Signs posted at the Hawthorne store, and other popular bikey locations, warn drivers of cyclists in the drive-thru lane.
While this is a nice victory for cyclists, and has reaffirmed my fondness for the local fast-food chain, I will refer back to my two questions.
Maybe I’m being naïve (no, actually I’m certain I’m being naïve) but I always thought cyclists were on the whole a health-conscious bunch. While I’m sure Burgerville’s goodies are healthier than the crap being shoveled into bags at the clown’s place, I still wonder how many cyclists will be taking advantage of the new policy. I’ll admit cyclists probably burn more calories than I normally do sitting on my ass all day. I suppose it’s better for cyclists to eat a Tillamook bacon cheeseburger than it is for me to eat one.
But that brings me to my second question. If you don’t have a basket, how will you be carrying away your Burgerville bounty, and will attempts to juggle seasonal shake, combo meal, and proper hand signals lead to certain safety issues? Obviously a basket is the best course of action here—shoulder bags will only crush your meal, and trying to hold your bag and steer seems like a dubious practice (especially as the grease begins to soak through the paper). I wonder if the bike-thru will lead to certain bicycle accessory innovation or prompt Burgerville to create branded products for cyclists? I can see it now… Bags with hooks to hang off your frame (Will Radik’s idea)… Burgerville shake holders, designed to keep a large shake upright… Burgerville messenger bags with a reinforced combo-meal pocket area to keep your burger from being squished.
Until that day comes, Blogtownies, I’d like to know if you plan to avail yourself of the “new” Burgerville cycle-thrus, and how you plan on carrying all that delicious fast-food.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Bikes / Crime Witnesses Detail Near-Fatal Bike/Car Crash
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:59 AM
There are some interesting witness accounts contained within the now-public police request for a search warrant in the case of Wayne Conrad Thompson, the Kia Sportage driver who struck and nearly killed Portland cyclist Mike Luther two weeks ago. Conrad is currently being held in jail on charges of first and second degree assault with a deadly weapon (the deadly weapon being his car) while Luther remains in Legacy Emanuel hospital, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Luther's family met with reporters last week to emphasize that Mike was a safety-first, pacifistic guy. "He's not a fighter at all. Whenever there's a squabble, he's always the one in the middle, calming everyone down," said Mike's sister Traci. But according to witnesses, the incident that left Luther seriously injured seems to have originated from some sort of altercation—how or if Luther was involved is not clear. For his part, Thompson has a clean record and was not drunk at the time.
From the police affidavit:
Alme Joseph Franklin, a white male, who was seated in his van in the parking lot near the collision told Officer Robertson he heard someone yell, "Fuck you, mother fucker!" Franklin told Officer Robertson he looked toward the direction of the yelling and observed a white colored SUV type vehicle being driven by a white male who "threw it into reverse and backed up at full speed." Franklin added that the vehicle hit a male riding on a bicycle. He estimated that the vehicle was traveling in reverse at approximately 40 miles an hour... Franklin also told Officer Sweeney the driver of the vehicle was looking backwards over his left shoulder, in the direction of travel, and appeared agitated.
A second witness, Eugene Jackson, was in his car in the parking lot when he heard someone say, "Fuck you!"
Jackson said he then observed a white colored Kia vehicle traveling south in the parking lot in reverse, when it backed over a male that was on a bike. Jackson added that the vehicle struck the bicyclist so hard that the male victim appeared to be stuck to the back of the vehicle.
A traffic officer trained in accident reconstruction arrived on the scene and tried to piece together what happened.
It was his belief that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate when it struck the bicyclist, continued through a planter area, subsequently forcibly dislodging a boulder I estimated to be in excess of 100 pounds.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
News / Politics / Bikes British Transportation Minister In Portland
Posted by Matt Davis on Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:53 PM
British transportation minister Sadiq Khan was in Portland today, meeting with Metro Regional Council President David Bragdon to talk about Portland's active transportation management strategies:
Khan is a Labour Member of Parliament for Tooting—a district of South London just four miles from my own native Croydon. At 38, the former civil rights attorney is a rising star. He is also the first Islamic member of Parliament there, and flew on to Washington this afternoon to discuss airline security issues with the Obama administration following the conviction of three would-be British terrorists earlier this week. During our 15 minutes together at Metro headquarters, Khan introduced me to his private secretary and someone from the British embassy. As I said to him, "they would never let me near you in the UK." So it was quite an honor to meet the UK's equivalent to Ray LaHood here in Oregon.
As the son of a bus driver one would expect Khan to have a firm grasp of the realities of British transportation, as well as a top-down policy perspective. But why was he here in Portland?
Friday, September 4, 2009
Bikes Cyclist Hit By Car Was Uninsured Safety Advocate
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:51 AM
One week after Portlander Mike Luther was seriously injured while biking in a parking lot off NE 122nd, his family has released a statement asking for help covering Luther's medical costs and bringing justice to the Kia Sportage driver who allegedly backed into him while going 40 MPH in reverse.
The driver, Wayne Conrad Thompson, earlier this week pled not guilty to charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon (the weapon being his car). Luther is currently in fair condition at the hospital but that doesn't mean he's out of the woods. His family is holding a mini press-conference later today but, for now, here's their statement which hits home our need for a much more inclusive and affordable healthcare system:
Mike Luther is a public transportation and safe biking advocate. His chosen method of transportation is his bicycle, and he taught his daughter and nieces and nephews how to navigate and enjoy Portland’s rich public bus and light-rail system. At the apartment complex where he lives, Mike’s the guy the children of the area go to when they need a helmet.
Mike remains hospitalized with substantial injuries. His prognosis is unclear; all we know for certain is there will be a long recovery for Mike that will include a lengthy rehabilitation period. The family thanks the Portland Police Bureau and in particular the homicide detectives for their quick and rapid response and continued support. Witnesses are encouraged to contact the Portland Police detectives at 503-839-0692.
Mike is one of the 649,000 Oregonians not covered by a health insurance plan and according to preliminary legal counsel it is unclear if the driver of the car has insurance to cover Mike’s medical bills. Because of this, a Special Needs contribution account has been opened in Mike’s behalf at US Bank. Donations can be made to the Mike Luther fund at any US Bank branch. The family thanks contributors in advance and those who have already contributed for assisting with medical costs.
Again, the family thanks Mike’s community, his friends and extended family for the support through this difficult time.
Bikes "Did I Win?"
Posted by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey on Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:48 AM
YES! You did win! (If by "winning" you mean "laughed at on the internet.")
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