Cinco de Mayo

It was another clear & warm morning ride to kick-off a good Cinco de Mayo!
Spring is finally HERE!!!… and it seems like it might be here for good this time??
Fingers crossed.

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Teenaged Girl's Bedroom in Scandinavian Design

It has been several months since we redesigned my teenaged daughter's bedroom for her birthday, but I wanted to share how lovely it turned out. It's difficult to get into her room and photograph these days, as she is now homeschooled and spends an enormous amount of time in her room, and more specifically on her bed! If you've been following me for any time now, you may remember that we re-did her bedroom a few years ago! She is now a full fledge teenager and has very specific design ideas and so for her 14th birthday, I told her we could redecorate her room. It has been FIVE years and she's a lot different at 14 then she was at 9 years old! Here is what her room looked like before:

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Let’s help Kate Walker slow down drivers on Montavilla’s main street

SE Stark through the Montavilla commercial district.
(Photos: Jonathan Maus)

Kate Walker sharing her project at a recent Bike Loud PDX meeting.

Kate Walker lives in the Montavilla neighborhood and wants to make its main commercial street safer. Her focus: Reduce the speed limit on SE Stark from 30 to 20 miles per hour.

We first heard about Kate’s efforts at a meeting of Bike Loud PDX last month; but she’s been working on this issue since last year. Kate is a former staffer at The Street Trust how now works at local carbon bicycle repair company Ruckus Composites.

To help strengthen the case, Kate made this issue the focus of her project when she took the 10-week Traffic and Transportation Course at Portland State University (for more on that excellent course, see our 2016 profile).

According to Kate’s research and presentation, fast driving is a big problem on Stark between SE 76th and 82nd — the bustling core of the Montavilla Business District. “People who live and work in the area complain about speeding and unsafe intersections,” she says, “I’m suggesting to ODOT that they consider reducing the speed limit.”

Stark in this stretch has a five-lane, one-way (westbound) cross-section. There are two standard lanes, an unprotected bicycle lane, and two curbside lanes used for parking cars.

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(Graphic: Kate Walker)

As she learned in the PSU class, Kate has already taken the right steps to make this happen. While the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) sets speed limits statewide, a request to change them must originate from the local jurisdiction — which in this case is the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). And she’s done her homework. “My big idea isn’t that big; in fact, it’s entirely achievable and necessary.” Kate has learned that to qualify for a 20 mph speed limit, a street must be legally “in a business district”. This stretch of Stark straddles two such districts and according to PBOT it is indeed eligible for a speed limit reduction.

To get the process started, Kate submitted a request through the 823-SAFE system. She included the percentage of street frontage used for business and the latest crash data. And then there’s the public pressure aspect. Kate will pen a formal letter to PBOT Director Leah Treat and City Commissioner Dan Saltzman asking for the change. She’s started an online petition to garner as many names of support as she can in hopes of adding them to her letter. Kate has also curried support from local neighborhood and business associations.

This weekend Kate will put together her support letters and other documentation and send it all into PBOT. Then it will be time to wait for a response.

If you want safer streets in your neighborhood, “The best way to make change is to show up, do a little research, and be persistent,” Kate says. “Also,” she adds, “everything takes more time than you think it should.”

Thanks for sharing Kate! Good luck and let us know what you hear back.

In the meantime folks, please add your name to the petition to increase Kate’s chances of hearing good news.

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

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Jobs of the Week: Jimmy John’s, Portland Design Works, Clever Cycles

Looking for a new place to spread you cycling wings? We’ve got five great job opportunities that just went up this week.

Learn more about each one via the links below…

–> Bike Delivery Driver – Jimmy John’s NE Broadway

–> Marketing Manager – Portland Design Works

–> Mechanic – Clever Cycles

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For a complete list of available jobs, click here.

Be the first to know about new job opportunities by signing up for our daily Job Listings email or by following @BikePortland on Twitter.

These are paid listings. And they work! If you’d like to post a job on the Portland region’s “Best Local Blog” two years running, you can purchase a listing online for just $75. Learn more at our Job Listings page.

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

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Practical applications drill covering a whole Poomsae!

This is the first time I have made this public, but it is the first drill of its kind (as far as I know) where you apply a Poomsae from start to finish without overlooking any techniques, and you use all the sequences as is. I have many to thank for my jurney into Taekwondo applications, perhaps too many to mention, but a shoutout to Samir Bernardo who inspired me into making this drill, to Iain Abernethy who I have also taken inspiration from, to Stuart Anslow, Simon O'Neill, Colin Wee, Matthew Sylvester and many many more and of course my own instructors Master Cho and Master Oppedal :-) I have tried giving as much context as possible in the clip itself so it became pretty long, but if all you want to see is the drill itself you can skip to the end (about three minutes from the end). If you enjoyed the clip please consider subscribing to my channel if you have not already done so ;-), share the video etc. If you did NOT like it, please make your own version that you do like and share it with the world :-D

Do not hessitate to comment below if there is anything you would like me to explain further or if something is not made clear in the clip itself. It is a sumary drill, so the individual applications has to be mastered first, starting out with the complete flow drill without any basis to which to work from is futile.

And again, if you did enjoy the clip, please consider sharing it with others :-)

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ODOT’s McKenzie Pass is now carfree, but you ride at your own risk

Looks epic to me.
(Photo: ODOT)

This week is usually about the time we get to share the news that the McKenzie Highway (OR 242) is open only for biking, walking, and rolling. It’s a carfree wonderland on one of Oregon’s most scenic byways that usually happens in the period after crews have done their first pass of plowing, and before the road can open to cars and trucks.

But this year is different. And if you’re planning to head out there to knock this classic ride of your bucket list (it is an official Oregon Scenic Bikeway after all), be advised: The Oregon Department of Transportation announced today that the management of McKenzie Pass will have some key changes this year.

Because of last summer’s Milli wildfire, there’s still a lot of work to be done to clear trees and debris along the highway. ODOT says they have to repair “serious damage on and adjacent to the highway.” During the week (Monday through Thursday) they have heavy equipment on the highway and no one is allowed to travel on it. From Friday through Sunday, however, the road is open. But conditions are much worse than past years.

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In fact, if ODOT’s “Extreme Danger” signs don’t scare you away, there’s this line from today’s statement:

“Visitors, including cyclists and pedestrians, must be aware that ODOT is not maintaining the highway for wheeled travel at this time, and visitors are on the highway at their own risk.”

ODOT also announced that the highway will open to all vehicles (including those pesky four-wheeled ones with big motors) on June 18th.

So if you head out there, be advised that conditions could be a bit more interesting than usual. Maybe throw on some bigger tires to roll over the debris and roots and such.

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

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Portland cycling rates highly in comprehensive new ratings of 480 U.S. cities

The top cities overall.

The world of bike wonks is abuzz this morning as national nonprofit advocacy group People for Bikes has released their much-anticipated city ratings. And Portland fared quite well with a score of 3.3 out of 5 that puts us first among big cities and fourth overall. A total of 480 cities were part of the analysis.

More awards for Portland’s bike-ability.
(Photo: Roger Geller)

Among big cities, the ratings put Tucson, Arizona; Madison, Wisconsin; Washington D.C.; and San Diego, California in the top five along with Portland.

In addition to our good showing in the ratings, Portland was given a special award for having the highest “ridership score” of any city — a 3.9. According to People for Bikes, Portland earned a perfect score of 100 in this ridership metric, in large part because it takes distance into account. “Contrary to some local narratives,” they shared on Twitter this morning. “Portland is truly extraordinary in the amount of bike commuting that happens far from its core.”

PFB Staff Writer Michael Andersen explained this further in a blog post about the ratings:

“Instead of comparing bike commuting rates the simplest possible way — the percentage of workers who live within city limits who report commuting mostly by bike on a random week — it introduces a much smarter way to weigh commuting rates against each other.

First, the method doesn’t penalize cities like New York or Boston for having lots of transit or foot commuting. Instead of measuring bike commuters as a share of all commuters, it compares bike commuters to the number of car commuters.

Second, the method doesn’t penalize cities like Indianapolis or Tucson for having far-flung city limits that happen to include suburban-style neighborhoods.

… But in the best bike cities, distance from the “biking core” matters less. We score cities not only by how much biking there is their core, but also how much biking there is one mile away, two miles away and so on. This removes city borders as a factor.”

These new ratings are unlike anything the bike advocacy world has seen before. In the past, the only rankings systems anyone paid much attention to were the Bicycle Friendly City designations (where we got “Platinum” in 2008) and statewide rankings from the League of American Bicyclists (where Oregon placed sixth in 2015), Bicycling Magazine’s “Best Bike City” issue (which lost all credibility when it took Portland’s #1 ranking away in 2010 just to sell more magazines), and, to a lesser extent, the “Bike Score” rankings from Walk Score.

People for Bikes’ (PFB) city ratings (a program funded by Trek Bicycles) look to be the most comprehensive and data-driven analysis yet. They are also the most transparent, which means anyone can delve deeper into the methodology and the raw numbers to find out how the sausage was made — and more importantly, what it would take to boost a rating.

The ratings were determined on a five-point scale across five major factors: Ridership, Safety, Network, Reach and Acceleration. Here’s how each of them is defined:

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RIDERSHIP
The Ridership score reflects how many people in the community ride bikes. It considers biking for both recreational biking and biking for transportation. Data Sources: ACS, SMS, Community Survey

SAFETY
The Safety score considers fatalities and injuries of people on bikes as well as those walking and driving. Perceptions of safety are also given weight. Data Sources: FARS, Community Survey, City Snapshot

NETWORK
The Network score evaluates the quality of the bike network — how completely it connects people to each other and local destinations using comfortable routes. Perceptions of the network are also given weight. Data Sources: BNA, Community Survey

REACH
The Reach score determines how well a community’s low-stress network serves all members of the community. It uses demographic data to understand differences in access and connectivity for traditionally underserved populations compared to the whole city. Data Sources: ACS, BNA

ACCELERATION
The Acceleration score assesses how quickly a community is improving its biking infrastructure and how successful its encouragement programs are at getting people to ride. Data Sources: City Snapshot, Community Survey

Head-to-head with Minneapolis.

Since PFB’s core mission is to improve bicycling in America, the rating system is targeted at agency staff and planners who want a tangible metric to help make decisions and track progress (or lack thereof) year-over-year.

In addition to using existing datasets, PFB input qualitative insights gleaned from thousands of surveys filled out by riders from every city. A total of 187 data points per city went into the overall scores. PFB has a full-time data researcher (Jennifer Boldy, Ph.D, the former president of Breakaway Research Group) on staff who has worked on this project since being hired two years ago.

The ratings are complemented with a useful website where you can sort cities by all metrics (including population) and even choose three cities for head-to-head comparisons (yes we beat Minneapolis, thank you very much).

PFB unveiled the listings at their annual Places for Bikes conference which wraps up today in Indianapolis. Portland Bureau of Transportation Bicycle Planner Roger Geller was in Indianapolis this week to learn more about the ratings and accept our awards.

If you’re so inclined, I recommend taking a closer look at the methodology to learn more about the analysis that went into these ratings. PFB says they plan to crunch the numbers every year.

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

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