Amid spike in deaths City touts “foundation building” in first annual Vision Zero progress report

(All graphics from PBOT’s 2017 Vision Zero Annual Report.)

We haven’t turned back the rising tide of deaths and injuries on our streets; but we’re getting better at analyzing it and we’ve laid the groundwork for future progress.

That’s the vibe from the Portland Bureau of Transportation as noted in their first annual Vision Zero Progress Report published yesterday. Stating that 2017 was, “A year of tragedy and foundation building,” the agency detailed their policy and project efforts and offered a sad recap of all the traffic deaths last year.

Here are our takeaways…

The clock is ticking

We’re almost three years into our Vision Zero era. The resolution passed by City Council in June 2015 committed us to achieving “zero deaths and injuries” by 2025. Don’t look now, but we’ve only got about seven years to turn this thing around.

As you can see in PBOT’s graph, the uptick in deaths began around 2010 and overall deaths have gone up each year since 2012. The 45 deaths PBOT counted in 2017 (there were six other deaths excluded because the person, “died of causes not directly attributable to a traffic crash”) were the most since 2003. To reach our goal Portland needs to take even more “aggressive measures” and have even more “courageous conversations” — to use the words of PBOT’s own Director Leah Treat from a Vision Zero Task Force meeting two years ago.

PBOT echoes that sentiment in the new progress report by stating that, “Eliminating all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2025, while achieveable, will require considerable continued effort by the City of Portland and residents.”

Deaths aren’t the only measure

The conversation around Vision Zero mostly revolves around how many people die; but let’s not forget all the survivors whose lives are changed forever by our dysfunctional relationship with motor vehicle use.

One stat that jumped out at me in the report was that 275 people suffered an incapacitating injury in 2016 (2017 numbers aren’t available yet, but given other trends it’s probably inching close to 300). That’s over five people per week. And that doesn’t even count all the stress and emotional trauma suffered by families and friends.

A good effort on speeding

New yard signs seen in Montavilla neighborhood near SE 92nd Avenue yesterday.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Yes it’s a photo-op, but it’s also really important.
(Photo: PBOT)

The biggest bright spot in PBOT’s Vision Zero efforts thus far has been in lowering speeds. They’ve wrested authority away from the State of Oregon to change speeds on local streets, they’ve passed a new residential speed limit law, they’ve installed speed cameras, and they’ve worked with the Portland Police Bureau on regular enforcement campaigns.

While not directly related to speed policies, PBOT’s continued work to install traffic calming infrastructure — primarily through the neighborhood greenway program — is having a very positive impact on making people slow down. On a related note, they’ve also ramped up their speed-related educational campaigns. Earlier this month PBOT began handing out free “20 is Plenty” yard signs and I’ve already seen dozens of them in people’s front yards throughout the city.

Another bit of news from this progress report is that the City is developing a “Safe Speeds Save Lives” campaign that will launch this spring. They’ve already outfitted 1,000 vehicles in their city fleet with bumper stickers.

The who, when, and where

People who died in traffic crashes in 2017.

I’m pleased to know that PBOT understands this is whole thing isn’t just about policy and projects and data — it’s about people. Who dies and where and when it happens matter just as much as the more wonky details. Throughout their Vision Zero efforts I’ve noticed PBOT staff have put an emphasis on the people who’ve died. You can see most clearly in the graphics and reports they produce.

In 2017, fall was the deadliest time of year with October and November both recording eight deaths each. The median age of a person who died was 43 and victims ranged from 12 to 87 years old. In our own unofficial tally of last year’s fatalities we found that 60 percent of them (28 out of 47) happened after 6:00 pm and before 3:00 am.

We frequently cover the fact that the vast majority of Portland’s traffic deaths happen on big arterials (many of which are still unfortunately controlled by ODOT). In 2017, 69 percent of all deaths occurred on streets PBOT has labeled part of the High Crash Network. That number, “Indicates that street design remains an important factor in preventing traffic deaths and serious injuries,” reads the report. Demographics matter too. One in three deaths last year happened in a place with lower-than average incomes and higher than average amount of people of color.

Here’s a list of the 51 people who died on our streets last year (I’m including the six unofficial ones too):

There’s no hiding from this list. To say it will take, “Considerable continued effort” to make it disappear is a huge understatement.

Keep track of the City’s Vision Zero progress here.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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PBOT begins effort to transform NE 7th Ave into a “calm, local street”

It was a big crowd.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

The City of Portland is in the planning stages of their Lloyd to Woodlawn Neighborhood Greenway project and they held the first open house last night.

When complete, the route will connect the forthcoming Sullivan’s Crossing bridge (cross I-84) to Dekum Street in Woodlawn with a low-stress street where people can feel walking and biking.

Billed as a “listening session,” the Bureau of Transportation was careful at last night’s jam-packed event to let residents know they haven’t made any concrete decisions about the designs or the alignment yet. As we reported earlier this month, PBOT has looked at both NE 7th and NE 9th and both streets are still technically on the table. The poster boards shown to attendees at the event were mostly about greenways in general. However, there were some design concepts shown and we learned a few new details about what’s in the works.

In addition to getting our first glimpse at what the future greenway could look like, we also began to see what a future debate about 7th or 9th might look like. Keep in mind that PBOT won’t put the route completely on either street. The two options — as presented last night in the graphic below — include a mix of 7th and 9th or what they’re calling, “NE 7th & Area Mitigation” where PBOT would focus mostly on 7th and heavily monitor adjacent streets to mitigate for any diverted traffic.

Two options on the table.

NE 7th & Area Mitigation

In a posterboard, PBOT claimed that after they finish this project NE 7th would, “Be transformed into a calm, local street.” That would be a major lift given that the average daily traffic volume between Broadway and Alberta averages about 5,000 drivers in the bottom half (to Fremont) and about 2,500 per day in the upper half. Those numbers, “far exceed” PBOT’s own guidelines for neighborhood greenways. They aim to create routes with an average of 1,000 drivers a day with 2,000 being the very upper limit. Not only are there a ton of cars being used, people are driving them way too fast. PBOT numbers shared last night revealed that a whopping 26 percent of all auto users on NE 7th between Broadway and Prescott were driving over the posted speed limit (25 mph).

One reason for the volume and speed of drivers on 7th is that it’s a cut-through for Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd a few blocks west. Another PBOT graphic shared last night revealed that only 14 percent of the people driving on 7th are considered “local traffic”. “Long distance neighborhood traffic” and “non-neighborhood traffic” made up 37 percent of the total.

As for what the design might look like, PBOT shared a before/after image of NE 7th north of Fremont. Today that 34-foot cross section includes two standard lanes and an on-street parking in one direction (northbound). The new cross-section would add parking to the west side of the street, remove the centerline, and add speed bumps and sharrows to calm things down. PBOT would also add “frequent and well-placed” diverters along 7th to “dramatically lower cut-through volumes.”

Yes we noticed that PBOT chose a “before” image that included an illegal and dangerous driver swerving around a bicycle rider.

Note the added on-street auto parking on the left side and removal of the centerline.

To calm residents who fear such changes to 7th will lead to chaos on other streets, PBOT is being proactive with promises about how they’ll handle that issue. They were eager to tell people they already have funding to update traffic signal equipment on MLK Blvd in order to improve driver flow and capacity on that arterial street. They would also look at operational and signal updates on NE 15th, the other major traffic street to the east.

NE 9th and NE 7th

Design concept for NE 9th at Fremont where the route would go into Irving Park.

This is the option that seems much less feasible. In this scenario, PBOT would make the greenway on 9th and do some less robust traffic calming on 7th. Community volunteers working with Bike Loud PDX strongly oppose using 9th for a variety of reasons: It doesn’t connect as well with existing bikeways, it has much more elevation gain, and it would require either going up-and-over a big hill in Irving Park or going around the park altogether.

Ironically, PBOT showed a before/after image of the potential design of 9th just south Fremont were the route would essentially dead-end into the park. To get through the park a new path would have to be built and it would likely eat up a huge portion of the project’s $522,000 budget. This option would also not allow PBOT to spend as much on traffic calming for 7th, which they admit would lead to, “Volumes lower than today, but not enough to meet neighborhood greenway guidelines.”

Feedback

With the changes that are likely to come to NE 7th, there will undoubtedly be strong reactions from residents. But from my observation of post-it notes and conversations at the open house, a majority of people prefer 7th. Here are some of those comments:

It should be on 7th. Put lots of diverters!

7th is more direct, less hills, no park in the way.

9th has obvious attributes sought for a bikeway. Solve traffic problems on 7th some other way.

7th is better. Straight, safe route to school. Eyes on school street.

2-sided parking on 7th would be safer for pedestrians and improve livability.

People already use 7th as a N-S bikeway. Keeping it would promote more biking.

As for next steps, PBOT host a series of “community design discussions” in spring and then we’ll see the final proposed designs in June or July. Construction is scheduled to start in 2019. Stay tuned for more coverage and get on the project’s email list on PBOT’s website.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Guest post: Virginia’s Creeper Trail offers an inspiring model for the Salmonberry

The Whitetip Station along the Creeper Trail.
(Photos by Tom Howe)

This guest post is by Tom Howe, the man behind the Puddlecycle ride series. His last post was about biking to the solar eclipse.

“If you had told me at that time that those tracks would one day be a bike path with 250,000 riders annually, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

The Salmonberry Trail is a project that will make use of a derelict rail line from the current end of the Banks-Vernonia Trail all the way to the Oregon coast. The trail has been in the planning stages for a long time, but if Virginia’s experience with the state’s 34-mile Creeper Trail is any indication, Oregon would do well to complete the Salmonberry sooner rather than later.

Back in the 1980s, the Virginia Creeper was itself an abandoned rail line that the US Forest Service decided to make into a recreation trail. Given the very rural nature of the area, this idea was met with some skepticism, but the trail has become wildly successful beyond anyone’s expectations. The trail holds special significance to me, as I once lived in Abingdon just a few blocks from the abandoned rail line. As neighborhood kids, we’d go over to the tracks and walk over the high trestles as a foolish/daring/scary thing to do. The only thing I ever saw on the tracks was a Drasine – a motorized vehicle about the size of an automobile.

If you had told me at that time that those tracks would one day be a bike path with 250,000 riders annually, I wouldn’t have believed it. That figure is over 25 times the combined populations of the two towns along the trail – Abingdon and Damascus. Trail-related tourism is estimated at $25 million per year, and each overnight visitor spends about $700 in the area.

Green Cove station.

Businesses have flourished along the trail.

The Creeper Trail has transformed the economy of Damascus. Back in the day, my mother liked to drive over there to visit “The Damascus Junkman” – an antique and local curiosity shop. My memory of the main drag through Damascus is that it consisted of this antique shop, a convenience store, and a gas station. Today the town has a variety of restaurants and lodging options, and incredibly, seven bike shops all within a few blocks of each other.

So how do all these bike shops stay in business? Well, it’s not via sales, but through bike rentals and bike shuttle service. Part of the attraction of the Creeper Trial is that for 18 miles it gradually descends from 3,600 feet at Whitetop Station to about 2,000 feet in Damascus. This makes for a relaxed ride going in the downhill direction, so many visitors opt to have a Damascus bike shop drive them to the top in a passenger van with a large bike trailer in tow. Whitetop Station is named for the adjacent Whitetop Mountain, which at 5,520 feet is the second highest peak in Virginia. The remaining 16 miles of the trail from Damascus to Abingdon is fairly flat with some minor ups and downs.

The trail has mix of surfaces, primarily hard-packed gravel.

Another thing to note about the Creeper Trail is that it is entirely gravel except for the wooden decks of the 47 trestles along the route. This gravel is a finely-ground type called Compact Aggregate that is easy to ride on, even with narrow tires. The fact that the trail is unpaved seems to have done nothing to quell enthusiasm, and it might have even increased its popularity, as tourists riding the trail feel it is more akin to mountain biking. This type of surface is one of the possible choices for the Salmonberry and deserves serious consideration with its ease of maintenance compared to asphalt.

So could the Salmonberry become as popular as the Creeper Trail with the more challenging terrain of the Oregon Coast range? I believe it could, given the increasing popularity of e-bikes, if a means is developed to rent e-bikes along the Salmonberry just like regular mountain bikes have been rented in Damascus, Virginia for the past 30 years. Once the trail is built there will undoubtedly be additional opportunities for tourism in the Oregon towns the trail will pass through like Buxton, Timber, Batterson, Mohler, and Wheeler. There was nothing along the Virginia Creeper when it was an abandoned rail line, but today the old train stations have been converted to businesses, and enterprising landowners adjacent to the trail have opened up additional shops.

I know the Salmonberry is a challenging project and there are already a lot of great people working hard to make it a reality. Hopefully this peek at the Creeper Trail offers some inspiration.

Browse all our Salmonberry Trail stories here.

— Tom Howe

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Throwdown Thrown-Back!!!

Last week my class tackled sgraffito for the first time!
They worked on cylinders and then were challenged to throw and finish a sgraffito platter by next Thursday.

So last night I was at the studio and I saw a handful of my students working hard on their assignment. So good to see them all taking the challenge to heart… and helping each other so much. So supportive. So encouraging. But then the Throwdown Challenge was Thrown Back at ME!!! One of my students challenged me to do the sgraffito platter challenge as well. And you know how I LOVE a challenge!!!

I’m in.
So last night I threw my porcelain platter… and tried to dry it a bit faster than normal.

After awhile, I added a band of black slip along the perimeter. This will be the “canvas” for my sgraffito decoration. Now I just need to figure out a plan… what my design is going to be.

Oh yeah, and I need to find some time to work on this before Thursday night’s class?!!!!
That’s the really tough part!

Save

Save

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Oregon mulls bike tax expansion that would include more kids bikes, recumbents, and folders

Pay up young lady.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Oregon Legislature is considering dozens of changes to the major transportation bill they passed last year. Among them are two substantive changes to the $15 bike tax.

The Oregon Department of Revenue (DOR) thinks the existing tax is too complicated and they want to make sure it captures as many bicycles as possible.

In a nutshell, if House Bill 4059 is signed by Governor Brown, the tax will apply to more bicycles than before. The proposal has caught the ire of national bike industry leaders who have written a letter to lawmakers opposing the idea.

As currently written, “taxable bicycle” is defined as a bicycle with a wheel diameter of 26-inches or larger (so as not to tax children’s bikes) and a retail price of $200 or more. DOR’s proposal would drop the wheel-size stipulation from the definition and the tax would then apply to all bikes over $200.

“There are a whole bunch of adult and kids bikes you can buy for under $200.”
— Senator Lee Beyer, committee co-chair

DOR has also requested that the definition of “bicycle” explicitly includes electric assisted bicycles (by striking the phrase “propelled exclusively by human power”) so that e-bikes can be charged the tax as well. The change to the e-bike definition would also fix the confusion with the vehicle privilege tax. (Because of a quirk in the existing bike tax law, buyers of electric-assist bikes must pay the “vehicle privilege tax” of 0.5 percent of the purchase price. However the law only applies to e-bikes sold at certified automobile dealers — and since most e-bikes are sold at bike shops, they are currently exempt.)

The Joint Committee on Transportation is debating these changes in House Bill 4059. Committee Administrator Patrick Brennan addressed the confusion over the bicycle wheel sizes at a public hearing on February 12th.

“The tax was designed to exclude children’s bicycles,” he said. “However, bicycles come in all sorts of shapes and sizes… Some bicycles have one big wheel and one small wheel and the existing law says ‘two wheels’ of a certain size.” To clear this up, Brennan explained to committee members that the “simplest solution” would be to just remove all references to wheel size entirely. “Just say the excise tax applies to all bicycles over $200. Period. Regardless of wheel size.”

Examples of bikes currently exempt from the tax that would be taxed under the new law.

Senator Betsy Johnson then asked the committee what kids bikes cost these days. “About $100 bucks” committee Co-Chair Lee Beyer replied. “There are a whole bunch of adult and kids bikes you can buy for under $200,” he added. “That seems to be a benchmark.”

Xann Culver with the Department of Revenue testified that, “Limiting it to just the dollar amount would be much more clear to the bicycle retailers as to which bicycles would be subject to the tax.”

The bike industry supports the change in how e-bikes are handled; but they oppose the expansion of the bike tax to all wheel sizes.

In a letter dated February 21st, the Director of State and Local Policy for the PeopleForBikes Coalition Alex Logemann, National Bicycle Dealers Association Board Chair Brandee Lepak, and Bicycle Product Suppliers Association President Adam Micklin urged Committee members to maintain the 26-inch wheel diameter requirement.

“Our objection to altering the minimum wheel size requirement is premised on two issues,” they wrote, “1) the new bicycles that will be subject to taxation will primarily be children’s bikes; and 2) it will place an additional burden on bicycle shops that have already invested resources to comply with the tax.”

These bicycle industry experts say the existing tax leaves out only some children’s bikes, folding bikes, BMX bikes, and some recumbents. In total, these, “make up an exceedingly small portion of the bicycle market” and have a much larger impact on bikes ridden by children and teens. “Eliminating the minimum wheel diameter requirement will subject very few bicycles used by adults to taxation, and many more bicycles used by children to taxation,” they wrote.

Here’s a longer excerpt from their letter:

The elimination of the 26 inch wheel diameter requirement in the existing statute will undermine the Committee’s objective of ensuring that bicycles ridden by kids are not subject to the bicycle excise tax. Discussion at the February 11th hearing indicated that many members believe that children’s bicycles rarely meet or exceed a $200 retail price. This is simply not true. We have included examples of children’s bicycles that retail for more than $200 from some of the most popular brands on the market to demonstrate that children’s bicycles are commonly priced between $200 and $350. These bicycles all have wheel diameters between 12 inches and 24 inches, and they only avoid being subject to the bicycle excise tax due to the minimum wheel diameter requirement in existing law. If the statute is amended to remove the minimum wheel diameter requirement, the primary effect will be to tax more of these children’s bicycles.

Beyond the issue of which bicycles would be subject to the tax if the minimum wheel size requirement were to be eliminated, we question amending the tax after bicycle retailers have diligently worked to align their inventory and point of sale systems to the requirements of the bicycle tax. Relying on the statute, retailers have made substantial investments in efforts to comply with requirements of tax. Mandating that these businesses go back and make changes to these procedures, only two months after the tax has been implemented, will be a burden.

The bike tax is expected to raise about $1.2 million per year with funds going into the Connect Oregon grant program where they’ll be spent on “off-highway” paths.

The Joint Committee has still not taken a formal vote on the amendments and no further public meetings have been scheduled. You can find contact information for committee members here.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Tips for tackling toddler helmet hesitancy

Decorations — like these R2D2 stylings for a Star Wars themed ride — make wearing a helmet fun.
(Photos by Madi Carlson)

Our Family Biking column is sponsored by Clever Cycles.

➤ Read past entries here.

There’s no debate about helmet use for kids (heck, even most kids in Copenhagen wear them!). Opinions aside, it’s an Oregon law that everyone 15 years or younger has to wear one. But that doesn’t mean it’s as easy as snapping a buckle.

Getting a helmet on a kid is one of the toughest parts of family biking.

Over the years I’ve developed my own collection of tricks to take the hassle out of helmets. Today we’ll talk about where to buy them, choosing the right one, how to fit them — and of course, how to have fun while doing it.

Fit

Helmet fit isn’t exactly the same as helmet comfort, but they’re related. And since they’re going to wear a helmet anyways, it should fit them well. I’m partial to the eyes/ears/mouth helmet fit test and have demonstrated it to hundreds of kids before Kidical Mass rides and bike rodeos:

Covered in yellow puppy stickers and comfortable enough to sleep in

➤ Eyes: When you look up you should see the brim of your helmet. This lets you know it’s positioned level on your head.

➤ Ears: Your helmet straps should form a V right under your ear.

➤ Mouth: When you open your mouth, you should feel the straps against your chin. You can also check proper chin strap tightness by being able to fit only two fingers between your chin and strap when your mouth is closed.

I like the additional step on the City of Portland’s How to Fit a Helmet web page: “When the helmet is sitting on your head (even when it’s not buckled) it shouldn’t move very much when shaking your head ‘yes’ or ‘no.'”

If you’re more of a video learner, here’s a 27-second helmet fit video from Safe Kids Worldwide:

Choosing a helmet

Helmets fit differently, so the best way to ensure a good fit is to bring your kiddo along when you shop. Comfort is important in finding a helmet your tot will want to wear, but depending on age and personality the look of the helmet might also dictate the one you go home with.

Comfy helmet = happy kids.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Here are a few other variables that might steer you to specific brands or styles:

➤ Clasp: all Nutcase (based here in Portland) models and some Lazer helmets have magnetic clasps that won’t pinch skin.

➤ Adjustability: helmet straps will routinely work their way loose. Without fail, I discover my own are loose when conducting my helmet-fit spiel to a group of kids and make tightening my straps part of my fit demonstration. Sometimes dials and buckles bother (or conversely, intrigue) some kids, so keep that mind when choosing. The Autofit® system used on some Lazer helmets hugs the head, avoiding the need to make adjustments.

➤ Venting: Some styles have more vents for better air flow. I’m miserable in the summer with my heavy bike and heavy hair if I’m not in the most vented helmet on the market, but my kids have never complained of hot heads whether in a trailer or pedaling their own bikes. However, if you have a sweaty baby it’s something to consider.

➤ Shape: If your kid will spend any time in a trailer, some brands are flatter in the back (Nutcase and Bern to name a couple) and will be more comfortable. Some trailers boast recessed areas for helmets, but many of us use trailers before the kids are tall enough to reach the recessed area and even so, a pointy aerodynamic shaped helmet won’t recess as comfortably as a smooth one. Related, if you’ve got a tall kid in a front seat with a pointy helmet, you’ll get jabbed in the chest occasionally.

➤ MIPS: Multi-Directional Impact Protection System is available in some helmets. If this is a feature you want, it will help narrow down your choices. When I browsed kid helmets at Clever Cycles last week, shop owner Eva Frazier tipped me off that Nutcase will introduce a MIPS helmet for the 2018 season. Clever currently carries Lazer helmets with MIPS and non-MIPS versions.

Practice practice practice

Skip this section if your kid is happy to wear a helmet (and then color me jealous). In our family, we did a lot of preemptive helmet wearing — that is, putting one on before we started to ride — just to make it a non-issue when it came time to buckle into the bike seat. It made all the difference.

Before getting on the bike, I helped him associate the helmet with his favorite ride-along toy.

➤ Practice with a ride-on toy. I didn’t start biking with my first baby until he was one, but when he was eight months old we got a helmet and a horribly loud ride-on toy. He adored everything about that little truck–beeping, blinking, dials, buttons — so much so that he didn’t object to donning his helmet to play with it.

➤ Practice together in the house. Wearing helmets together in the house is a wonderful way to get used to feeling the weight of a helmet on your head and get proficient at adjusting straps when you’re not in a rush to get out the door and on the bike. There’s a chance this practice might start with only you wearing your helmet around the house before your tot is ready to join you.

➤ Practice with toys. I’ve made helmets, balaclavas, and mittens for my kids’ stuffed animals just to help get them in the mood. I’m not very crafty and have found paper and tape or cut-up mateless socks do the trick.

Decorate

Art-loving toddlers and older kids might enjoy personalizing their helmets.

Pipe cleaner helmet antennas are weatherproof and long lasting

➤ Stickers! I first saw Fun Reflector reflective sticker sets (based in Beaverton) years ago at Clever Cycles and have purchased several there and ordered even more. Even regular stickers will do the trick for making a helmet fun, but these bike-specific stickers are strong and stand up to the weather. Other sticker operations can make custom vinyl stickers (I order these each time the kids go up a bike size to ensure they will use the new, bigger bike). If you’ve used a local print shop for this, I’d love to hear your recommendations in the comments.

➤ Pipe cleaners! I’ve run a lot of helmet decorating stations at street fairs and love making helmet antennas out of pipe cleaners. Simple antennas are pretty fun, but flowers and coils are great, too.

Especially decorative helmets

I’m sure I don’t know all the cute helmet options out there, but here are some I’ve come across:

A friend’s Wipeout Dry Erase Helmet

Wipeout Youth Dry Erase Helmet by Triple Eight is made to draw on! I saw these at REI a couple years ago, but they might only be at big-box stores now.

Another brand you’ll find at big-box stores are Raskullz which feature mohawks and amazing animal looks. (Note that as of today they are among the bike brands owned by Vista Outdoor, a company that has come under scrutiny for their support of the National Rifle Association.)

Two models of Lazer helmets (P’Nut and Nut’Z) have an optional Crazy Nutshell snap on cover. I know several little fire fighters who rarely take off their helmets they love them so much.

This one is probably more for the adults as I know a few fashion-conscious grown ups who have ordered YAKKAY helmets and covers, but since their small is listed as 51-54cm (the same size as Nutcase youth small) they seem worth mentioning here.

I’m giving up!

So what happens when you’ve tried every trick in the book and nothing seems to work? There’s a very good chance that as soon as you start moving, the uncomfortable helmet will be forgotten.

There are also times when you’re far from home and the helmet suddenly becomes unbearable. If you’re also a baby-wearer and bring your carrier with you everywhere, it might be easiest to remove the helmet and strap the fussy toddler to your back and walk the bike a bit. Or, leave the toddler seated on the bike without the helmet and walk the bike (I don’t know if this follows the letter of the law, but I’ve done this many times). Just know we’ve all been there and it won’t last forever and you’ll both be helmeted and rolling again soon.

Free and cheap helmets

There are three sources for reduced-price kid bike helmets listed on the PBOT Bike Resources on a Budget page:

Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Safety Center
700 SW Campus Drive Portland, OR 97239
Monday – Friday; 9:30am-3:30pm (or by appointment)
503-418-5666
safety@ohsu.edu

Randall Children’s Hospital Safety Center
501 N Graham St. Portland, OR 97227
Monday – Thursday 9:00am-12:00pm (or by appointment)
503-413-4600 – please call before visiting to ensure they are open

Bikes for Humanity PDX
3354 SE Powell Blvd. Portland, OR 97202
503-496-6941
b4hpdx@gmail.com

And coming up Saturday, March 24th you can get free bike helmets for low-income children at the Brian Duncan Bicycle Helmet Giveaway hosted by Portland Police Bureau: Youth Services Division and Alberta Abbey.

The legal stuff

Per Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 814.485 anyone under 16 is required to wear a helmet on a bike. Helmets generally fit babies starting around age one. For advice on whether you should ride with kids younger than that, see this 2009 BikePortland.org post by Marion Rice, Carrying your infant by bike: How young is too young? (I plan to revisit that topic soon!)

Thanks for reading. We’ve had a great response to this column! Feel free ask questions in the comments below or email me your story ideas and insights at madidotcom [at] gmail [dot] com.

— Madi Carlson, @familyride on Instagram and Twitter

Browse past Family Biking posts here.

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Help wanted: Crowdfunded Video editing software

www.gofundme.com/traditionaltaekwondoramblings

I wish to provide the readers with much more video content in the future. It has been one of the things that continues to be take up with feedback from the readers: Messages, comments etc on this issue goes a little something like this: "This application is great! Do you have a video of it so I can see it performed as the pictures are a little lacking?" 

So if you are one of the people that wishes for more video content (applications, drills, etc) here is a chance to help me to make that happen. I have a camera (and even my phone takes decent video) but I am lacking a video editing software. I found one of the affordable ones in Filmora which lets me do pretty much everything I want to do, it is easy to use and it is fast to use. The trial version watermarks everything I make however and it kinda spoils the finished product and makes stuff harder to see. To get rid of the watermark and unlock even more features I need to get a licenced product. I have therefore gotten myself a GoFundMe-page on www.gofundme.com/traditionaltaekwondoramblings where you can donate to help me in my cause. Everything helps :-)

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A Sunny Repeat

It was SO pretty yesterday morning, that I thought I’d repeat again today as it was another morning with not a single cloud in the sky!!! But there are some new tents being built down on North Avenue Beach for this weekend’s POLAR PLUNGE. And no, for the record, I will NOT be plunging! I may be crazy, but…

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