Portland’s proposals for redeveloping its downtown post office include what would be a huge biking upgrade for the north side of downtown.

The “preferred alternative” plan (PDF) currently being circulated by the Portland Development Commission includes not only some sort of new descent from the Broadway Bridge directly to the North Park Blocks, but also protected bike lanes extending south on Broadway and west on Lovejoy Street.

On Johnson and Flanders streets, meanwhile, the city transportation bureau has been angling for diverters, speed bumps or other measures that would make them comfortable as neighborhood greenways: traffic volumes below 1,500 cars per day and speeds of 20 mph or below.

“We want to make sure that traffic accessing the site is not using Johnson to get to and from I-405 in particular,” city transportation planner Zef Wagner wrote in an email. “We have also asked that parking garage access be from the edges of the site or short accessways, but not from Johnson or Park.”

These changes are all theoretical until a big and very specific event takes place: the actual sale of the post office site, which would let the U.S. Postal Service move its trucking-intense operation to a less traffic-congested area. As we wrote back in April, a sale is looking as likely as it ever has, but the USPS has backed out of similar plans before.

In April, the PDC (which is the city’s main economic development agency) put up $500,000 for exclusive negotiations to buy the site. Its goal is to sell the property to real estate developers who’ll build a combination of employment, residential and office space around a new public plaza surrounding Union Station.

If the city’s plan is going to work, it’s going to require extremely good bike access. That’s because the goal is for the new development to create 4 million new square feet of real estate in downtown but only 5,000 new daily auto trips — half the ratio for the rest of the central city. Only that’d mean only 15 percent of trips to the site would come from people driving alone. Elsewhere in the central city, about 30 percent of trips come in that way.

If the site misses that target, auto parking on the site is likely to be either hopelessly inadequate or deal-killingly expensive to build.

In that context, Wagner said, the PDC has been “very receptive to our suggestions regarding bicycle access through the site and bicycle improvements surrounding the site.”

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So, what exactly will the bikeways look like? Frustratingly, the numerous renderings of the preferred alternative don’t show the connection to the Park Blocks that PDC and PBOT officials say the plan will include. The closest the sketches come is this, with the pink arrows seemingly indicating possible routes for people biking and walking down to the Park Blocks:

There’s also this, which suggests that the new route down from the Broadway Bridge would land — presumably after some amount of weaving — on the west side of the Park Blocks, just east of Park Avenue.

The nature of the protected bike lanes on Lovejoy and Broadway is still an open question. But Wagner highlighted the two images below. They show how the ramps down from the Broadway Bridge could be connected to create an elevated “street level” entrance to the new buildings.

It’d be possible, Wagner said, to move the bike lanes entirely off the Broadway and Lovejoy road beds and put bidirectional protected lanes on in the wide “setback” area shown here.

“We’re still discussing with PDC what these could look like,” Wagner said.

Though it’s theoretical, all of this will be influenced by, and will influence, the big downtown project the city is starting work on: its Central City Multimodal Safety Project, which is likely to give serious thought to an improved bike facility on Broadway further south in downtown. It’s also a big deal for rapidly growing Northwest Portland, which would get a lot out of a better bike connection to the Lovejoy viaduct and has been waiting for almost a decade for a comfortable bike route into downtown. The Flanders neighborhood greenway pictured here makes sense mostly if it connects to a long-discussed biking-walking bridge over Interstate 405.

All of this street work will also cost money. Presumably that’s where the developers who’d buy the site from the city are supposed to come in.

The post City plans protected bike lanes for NW Lovejoy and Broadway at post office site appeared first on BikePortland.org.

We’re just two days away from our 10th Birthday Party!

This Friday night at Velo Cult a few hundred BikePortlanders will gather for a night of toasts to a great decade and hopefully many more to come. It will be a time to celebrate and it will be a time to step up and become an official supporter so we can have another big party in 2025. (Full details on our new BikePortlander subscription program will be announced on the site Friday before the party.)

Just so you know what you’re in for, here’s a quick update:

— BikeRacker has stepped up to provide parking for your bikes. Combined with existing racks we should have spaces for 200+ bikes at least. BikeRacker will be set up in the parking lot behind Velo Cult.

— We will have substantial finger foods and various salads and fixings thanks to Spin Events and Catering, a huge supporter of our local bike scene.

— For dessert, Whole Foods Market Laurelhurst has donated two massive chocolate cakes (thank you Helen!). There’s enough to feed around 200 people so don’t trample anyone trying to get a slice.

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— We’ll have excellent prizes to give away thanks to Orp, Walnut, Showers Pass, Bike Gallery, Fat Pencil Studio, Portland Design Works, books from Elly Blue Publishing, Outdoor Tech, and North St. Bags. To be eligible for prizes you’ll need to leave your email address on a free raffle ticket. We might also do some trivia questions so do your homework via the archives!

— Doors will officially open at 6:00 pm (but it’s Velo Cult so it’s always open of course) and we’ll start some live music at 8:00. Music will be an acoustic jam session by a few local pros led by the amazingly talented Mr. Robert Ping.

— Between 6:00 and 8:00 we’ll mingle, do a few little speeches, tell you why you should be a BikePortland supporter, and we’ll open up the mic for anyone that has something to share. I want to hear your best and worst BikePortland memories and would love to hear your thoughts on how we can grow and be even better in the future.

And I almost forgot, be sure to check out the fun story about us in this week’s issue of The Willamette Week.

OK that’s enough for now. Check out the Facebook invite if you want to RSVP.

We can’t wait to see you all on Friday night!

The post BikePortland 10th Birthday Party is Friday! Here’s an update appeared first on BikePortland.org.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s office announced today that they will not pursue criminal charges in the case of Alistair Corkett, the man whose leg was severed in a traffic collision at SE 26th and Powell back in May.

In a seven-page memo, Senior Deputy District Attorney Glen Banfield explains that the man driving the 1988 Dodge Pickup that collided with Corkett might have been careless or even negligent, but his actions do not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a finding of criminal negligence.

According to the DA’s office and the Portland Police Bureau’s investigation, here are some facts in the case:

— On May 10th at around 9:52 am Corkett and his riding partner Anthony Disano were riding southbound on 26th. At the same time, Barry Allen was driving northbound. As they approached the intersection with Powell, Allen was in the left turn lane preparing to go westbound and Corkett and Disano were going to continue south on 26th.

— Disano and Corkett told investigators they were riding at a speed of about 18-23 mph. The posted speed at the intersection is 25 mph. Speed was not considered a factor in this collision.

— As he approached the intersection with Powell, Disano said Corkett was just a bit behind him. With the light at Powell a steady green he saw a car turn left (westbound) onto Powell in front of him and proceeded into the intersection thinking it was safe. Then Disano saw Allen’s truck. “He said he saw into the cab as the driver hesitated, ‘like he was waiting for us,'” reads the DA’s memo. “Mr. Disano thought to himself ‘ok, we’re good’.” At that point Corkett was following right behind Disano.

— Seconds later Allen’s truck began to turn right in front of Disano, who then slammed on the brakes of his bicycle and veered to the left. Disano just missed hitting the rear passenger side of the Allen’s truck.

— Corkett told investigators he too believed Allen was going to wait for them to go through the intersection. There seems to have been a bit of miscommunication. The DA’s memo says that Allen began to turn left, right in front of Corkett, but then appeared (to Corkett’s perception) to have hesitated just a bit so he thought he could make it through the intersection.

— Corkett was unable to avoid Allen’s truck and collided with the rear passenger side bumper. He thought he had successfully avoided the truck, “But soon realized,” states the memo, “that he had lost his leg.” “… he looked up and saw his leg on the sidewalk,” states the memo.

— When PPB Traffic Division officer interviewed Allen he said he waited for a car in front of him to turn left and then waited for another car headed southbound to go by him. He says he did not see Disano or Corkett until he was already making his turn. They were “going faster than he realized”, he stated, and he tried to turn out of their path.

— The DA agrees with Allen and concluded that he was not aware of Corkett’s presence until he began his turn into the intersection.

— Allen was not under the influence of any intoxicants. He was remorseful at the scene, responded with aid for Corkett after the collision and cooperated with the investigation.

The investigation proves that Corkett was riding legally and had a green light. Therefore under Oregon law, Allen was required to yield the right-of-way. He didn’t do that, so there’s a possibility he’ll be given a traffic citation by the PPB.

When it comes to whether or not he deserves criminal prosecution, the DA would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Allen’s failure to yield the right-of-way was reckless or done intentionally to cause physically injury to Corkett.

Here are the legal definitions the DA works with in this case:

​Under Oregon law a person acts intentionally or with intent when that person acts with a conscious objective to cause a particular result or to engage in specific conduct. A person acts knowingly or with knowledge, when a person acts with an awareness that the conduct of the person is of a particular nature or that a particular circumstance exists.

A person acts recklessly if that person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.

Given the facts of the case, the DA feels they can’t prove Allen acted recklessly or intentionally. “When Mr. Allen began his turn into the intersection he believed he could safely proceed through the intersection,” DA Banfield wrote in conclusion. “As Mr. Allen proceeded through the intersection he saw Mr. Corkett and was unable to clear the intersection in time to avoid the collision.”

Whether or not Allen should have seen Corkett prior to the collision is the key point this all hinged on. If he could have been aware of Corkett, yet he still continued with the left turn, the DA might have had a case for reckless behavior. However, the DA relied on evidence gathered by a PPB officer who retraced Allen’s travel route a few weeks after the collision.

The PPB officer who retraced Allen’s route found that as he approached the intersection to make a left turn, “the north side of the intersection [where Corkett was coming from] appeared extremely busy and congested with activity… he observed pedestrians on the corners of the intersections waiting to cross as bicyclists, and vehicles entered and exited the intersection. The bicyclists he observed were ‘only visible for a short amount of time prior to entering the intersection southbound on SE. 26th Ave.'”

With that experience as part of their investigation, the DA was inclined to believe Allen’s claim that he wasn’t able to notice Corkett until it was too late.

Since the collision Corkett has raised over $90,000 to help with medical bills and physical therapy. In response to a community rally at the intersection The Oregon Department of Transportation installed a new left-turn signal.

​— Download the DA’s memo here (PDF).

The post DA declines criminal prosecution in case of man whose leg was severed in collision appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Updates below

The livery cab driver who sped onto a sidewalk and injured a woman and several children this morning in the Bronx was driving a vehicle affiliated with an Uber base, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

TLC spokesperson Allan Fromberg said the cab operates from Uber’s Schmecken hub. Fromberg said the driver has held a TLC for-hire vehicle license since 1998.

The driver’s name has been shielded by the TLC and NYPD. The Post reported that he is 57 years old.

Video of the crash, published by the Post, shows a group of kids standing next to a building at 229 E. Kingsbridge Road when the car, a Toyota Camry, enters the frame at high speed, running them over.

The driver told police he “lost control” of the cab, according to the Post. NYPD used the same language to describe the crash to Streetsblog this morning.

Three of the victims were a 33-year-old woman and her two kids. Two other children were also hurt. Injuries to the children included broken legs, head trauma, and chest trauma, the Post reported. FDNY said two of the children were hospitalized in critical condition.

Police had filed no charges or issued no summonses as of this afternoon. Unless the driver is convicted of a crime or traffic violation he will in all likelihood remain in good standing with the TLC.

Drivers working for Uber or driving Uber-affiliated vehicles have killed at least two New York City pedestrians this year, including a 12-year-old boy who was hit in a school zone. A lawsuit stemming from one of the crashes claims the driver was distracted by Uber software. Speed was reportedly a factor in both collisions.

We have a message in with Uber for further details on the driver and the crash.

Update: Uber says the driver was not using the company’s platform today and has been suspended from Uber pending an investigation. Like NYPD and TLC, Uber did not release the driver’s name. “Our thoughts are with the victims of this tragic accident and we are assisting the City with its investigation,” the company said in a statement.

Update: TLC says it has suspended the driver pending the outcome of the NYPD investigation.

The Randall’s Island Connector is still fenced off, but not for long. EDC says an opening date will be scheduled “in the coming weeks.” Photo: Stephen Miller

The Randall’s Island Connector, a greenway link between the South Bronx and Randall’s Island, is almost complete. Bronxites are anticipating a ribbon-cutting any day now from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is building the project.

The new path crosses the Bronx Kill, a narrow waterway separating Randall’s Island from the Bronx. Without it, the only way to bike or walk from the Bronx to Randall’s Island is over narrow paths on the Triborough Bridge that include stairs, sharp curves, and a steep ascent to bridge level.

In contrast, the connector will provide a flat, direct crossing from E. 132nd Street in Port Morris to 330 acres of public parks and greenways on Randall’s Island.

Construction crews are currently finishing up handrail installations and minor fencing work, EDC says, before the city schedules a grand opening.

EDC wouldn’t give an exact opening date — but it should be soon. “As we put the finishing touches on the Randall’s Island Connector and schedule a grand opening event in the coming weeks, we are excited for the many opportunities that this neighborhood asset will provide for the community,” an agency spokesperson said.

Queens DA Richard Brown

Last February Valentine Gonzalez hit an unidentified woman with a box truck while turning left at Woodside Avenue and 76th Street, NYPD told Gothamist and WPIX. “Gonzalez fled, but was stopped by police a few blocks away,” Gothamist reported.

The victim died at the scene.

According to court records the top charge against Gonzalez was leaving the scene of an accident resulting in injury, a class D felony with potential sentences ranging from probation to seven years in jail. He was also charged with violating the Right of Way Law — an unclassified misdemeanor — operating a motor vehicle while unlicensed, and operating an unregistered vehicle.

On Monday Gonzalez pled guilty to the Right of Way Law charge, court records say. The law carries a fine of up $250 and a maximum sentence of 30 days in jail. Court records indicate Gonzalez was in jail for four months after his arrest, then made bail.

Richard Brown routinely pleads down cases against drivers who kill people, rather than taking defendants to trial, to the extent that he files charges in the first place. Last week he allowed a repeat drunk driver who was charged with 10 felonies for killing a man to plead guilty to two low-level felony counts.

Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced in November.

America spends billions of dollars widening roads that don’t need widening, like Wisconsin State Route 23. Image: Google Maps

A new report by the Center for American Progress zeros in on an under-appreciated culprit in America’s much ballyhooed infrastructure crisis: All the money we waste on useless roads.

CAP highlights three “white elephant projects” that illustrate how billions of dollars in federal infrastructure funds are squandered thanks to a lack of accountability in the transportation funding process.

“States receive federal highway funding based on formulas set in law, which reflect political negotiations as opposed to objective measures of need or return on investment,” writes CAP’s Kevin DeGood. “This means that states are not required to demonstrate the social, environmental, or economic value of their projects.”

These three projects represent about $1 billion in frivolous spending — and that’s only a small fraction of what’s squandered on dubious road projects each year.

1. Gulf Coast Parkway, Panama City, Florida ($420 million)

The Gulf Coast Parkway: spending $422 million to accommodate traffic that will never exist. Image: FDOT

Florida’s “Gulf Coast Parkway” is a $420 million, 29-mile highway that will run east of Panama City. The stated purpose is to relieve congestion and promote economic development — boilerplate highway-building jargon. But if you take those objectives at face value, it’s very hard to see how the Gulf Coast Highway will deliver, writes DeGood.

First of all, the state’s traffic growth forecasts aren’t tethered to reality. Florida DOT predicts that traffic will increase 40 to 90 percent on US 98 — for which the Gulf Coast Parkway is held up as an alternative — in the next 20 years.

It’s hard to understand where all that traffic will come from. Panama City only added about 450 people in the last 13 years — a growth rate of about one percent. And the larger metro region is growing at a similar pace. So it can’t be new drivers.

Driving growth per capita isn’t on track to make up the difference. Total miles driven in Florida actually fell 1.7 percent between 2004 and 2014, DeGood reports.

The economic development claims are just as empty. For example, FDOT officials say the road is needed for better access to tourism destinations and transportation facilities. But FDOT’s own analysis says the Gulf Coast Parkway route won’t save travelers any time compared to US 98.

The flimsy rationale for the project is no obstacle to obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds — underscoring a major problem with U.S. transportation policy.

2. West Bay Parkway, Bay City, Florida ($556 million)

Florida wants to spend $556 million expanding the road to the Panama City Airport. Photo: Google Maps

Right around the corner, Florida is planning another new highway on the other side of Panama City with a lot of the same problems.

The West Bay Parkway is a $556 million highway project that will run east-west for 25 miles, connecting to the Panama City airport. It involves widening CR 388 and constructing a new 10-mile highway segment. Again, the justification is congestion, despite the slow growth of traffic and population in the region.

Only 5,200 vehicles per day currently travel CR 388, well within the comfortable carrying capacity of a two-lane road, according to FDOT. But transportation planners are inexplicably expecting huge growth. Their modeling assumes a 9.1 percent annual increase in traffic every year for 30 years.

FDOT does not explain why traffic growth would so radically outpace local population growth or statewide driving growth. Even the baseline traffic figure FDOT employs is 174 percent higher than current traffic counts on CR 388, “again, without explanation,” notes DeGood.

Even if everything accepting those outrageous projections, FDOT predicts the corridor will generate as few as 7,100 trips per day.

3. Wisconsin State Highway 23 ($145 million)

Downtown Plymouth, Wisconsin. Photo: Wikipedia

Florida isn’t the only state where the DOT runs amok. Wisconsin wants to spend $145 million widening State Highway 23 in the central part of the state, converting the rural road from two lanes to a four-lane divided highway for 19 miles between Fond du Lac and Plymouth. The widening would terminate just before reaching downtown Plymouth (right).

DeGood says the state’s case relies on “circular logic.” One of the stated reasons for widening the road is that it doesn’t meet a standard established by the state in a long-range plan called Corridors 2020, from 1989.

He explains:

Why are connector roads marked for expansion in the long-range plan? Because they are deficient. Why are connectors deficient? Because they fail to meet the standard set out by the long-range plan.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation projects traffic between these two little towns will grow by 70 percent over the next 25 years — which DeGood calls “bewildering.” That rate is 17 times faster than the growth of Fond du Lac’s population.

These outlandish projections were recently challenged in federal court by a lawsuit from 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, an environmental group, a case that is currently pending. Legal intervention like that is rare, even when traffic projections border on fraud. But without the lawsuit, this project would have been green-lighted for federal funding with almost no questions asked.

As lawmakers craft a federal transportation bill, DeGood recommends safeguards to protect dwindling funds from being wasted on white elephants:

These snapshots illustrate why more money should be distributed on a competitive basis — where project sponsors must demonstrate value — and that states that build costly projects that underperform should receive less formula money in the future.

People who participate in the weekly Blind Date at the Dairy cyclocross race series tonight will have a little extra motivation to pedal through the pain: They’ll be battling cancer with each spin of the legs.

Series organizers have teamed up with OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute for Bike Against Cancer, a one-lap fundraiser race. The race will start at 5:45 pm at Alpenrose Dairy in southwest Portland.

Blind Date organizer Joe Field says he’d doing the event to raise awareness and money for cancer research.

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In a fun and exciting twist, racers will raise money based on how many people they finish ahead of at the end of a 1.2 mile lap. By signing a pledge sheet, sponsors will pay a pre-determined amount for each person their racer beats (for example if you finish 15th and have a $1 pledge, that sponsor will owe OHSU $15). The lap will be handicapped with beginners and first-timers getting a big head start and expert riders starting in the back. Because the donation amount is based on the number of people you finish ahead of, the bigger the field the better! That also means there’s a reverse-incentive to finish last in order to help others raise money.

Here’s how Field describes it:

“The Bike Against Cancer is not just a race against each other, but it’s also a race against cancer. This is the one race in OBRA where the more racers that beat you, the more good you do, by helping the racers ahead of you raise more money from their pledge sponsors! I will be racing for last place!”

Entry to the race is just $5 and it’s open to OBRA members 12 and over. If you’re not an OBRA member you can get a one-day license for just $5 and juniors aged 12-18 race free. Registration is available on-site.

— Learn more at CrossSeries.com.

The post Cyclocross racers will ‘Bike Against Cancer’ tonight at Alpenrose appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Publisher’s note: I don’t work on weekends as much as I used to. That’s a bummer not only because I miss a lot of great events, but it also means you don’t see as many photos and recaps of them here on the Front Page. My goal is to hire a new writer soon that will be a weekend editor (among other things). For now we’ll be trying to post a weekend recap every Monday (I know, this one is late). If you’re an event organizer or attendee please send in your words and photos to jonathan@bikeportland.org. Thanks! — Jonathan

Last weekend’s event guide was packed with fun and important happenings. Today we’ve got recaps and photos of four of them that give you a little taste of the diverse array of rides and events that Portlanders who love bikes get to take part in: a scavenger hunt, a kids bike donation event, and two cyclocross races.

Ayleen Crotty (of Filmed by Bike fame, among many other things) organized the Bike Scout Scavenger Hunt. Teams in costumes rolled through the city looking for clues and completing challenges. Ayleen said it was a huge success. Check out some of her fantastic photos…

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(Photos by Ayleen Crotty)

Non-profit Bikes For Humanity partnered with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance on an event at Sitton Elementary School in North Portland. Bikes For Humanity board member Andrew Shaw-Kitch sent us a recap an photos…

“The event went really smoothly… 5th graders who just finished Safe Routes to School and were chosen to receive a bike came with their parents and siblings and chose their new ride from the fleet, get a new helmet, lights, u-lock and quick tutorial on the tether ball pole in the playground. Their brothers and sisters got their bikes worked on and back on the road. Members of the community saw our signs and brought in their bikes to finally get access to the full range of gears. And volunteers from both B4H and the BTA came out to make the event a success.

We brought 30 bikes, 16 of which were picked up and fitted, and 14 of which will stay at Sitton to granted and fitted in the coming weeks. We look forward to repeating the event a third time in December at another Title 1
school east of the river.”

Here’s what it looked like:

And finally, we’ve got some hot and fresh photos from some of the cyclocross action that’s flourishing across the region.

First a few shots from the legendary, challenging Battle at Barlow. These photos come from Oregon Bicycle Racing Association staffer Joel Fletcher…

And Sellwood Cycle’s Jake Ryder took these great shots of the action at the Ninkrossi race across the river in Washington…

And that’s just a tiny sliver of all the great things that happened on bikes in and around Portland this past weekend. Hope you enjoyed this recap. If you organize or photograph and event and want to see it here on the Front Page, please send us photos, links, and a summary to jonathan@bikeportland.org.

The post Weekend Recap: Scavenger hunt, cyclocross racing, and bikes for kids appeared first on BikePortland.org.

The proposed Salmonberry Trail, a path that would connect Washington County to the Pacific coast through the forest along a defunct rail line, has an official name and is about to get a full-time executive director.

Previously referred to as the “Salmonberry Corridor,” the trail also has an 11-member decision-making body with formal power to start raising the unknown millions that’d be required for the 86-mile proposal.

The Salmonberry Coalition will celebrate those milestones at its annual meeting next month. The public event is 10 a.m. to noon on Friday, Oct. 9, at Stub Stewart State Park.

“We’ve been having steering committee meetings about once a month,” state trails coordinator Rocky Houston said in an interview Tuesday about the coalition’s progress.

The biggest upcoming milestone for the path is likely to be the hiring of its first full-time staffer. Houston said the hiring process is underway for a two-year job to lay the groundwork for a major and ongoing search for grants, donations and other deals that could make the project possible.

Rail-with-trail (above) and rail-to-trail (below) renderings from the Salmonberry Corridor Draft Concept plan released last year. It’s not certain that all segments would be paved, especially at first.

The Salmonberry Trail would run through Washington and Tillamook counties along the route of a mostly unused rail line that has repeatedly been washed out by floods. It’d connect with the existing Banks-Vernonia Trail and the planned Council Creek Regional Trail between Hillsboro and Banks to create a continuous trail network from the Portland metro area to the Oregon coast.

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Houston said the executive director will be a state parks employee and that the position will come with a budget of about “$200,000 over two years for salaries and benefits and all those things.” It’ll continue through at least the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years.

The money comes from the state Department of Forestry, from the Washington County Visitors Association, from Tillamook County, from the state Parks Department and from the nonprofit Cycle Oregon, which has been an instigating advocate for the project along with state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose.

The forestry and parks departments, along with Tillamook County and the Port of Tillamook Bay, are the four voting members on the Salmonberry Trail Authority.

That group’s official creation last week was reported Monday by the Tillamook County Pioneer.

The Authority also has seven nonvoting members: representatives for Washington County, the Washington County Visitors Association, the Tillamook Forest Heritage Trust, Cycle Oregon, the regional solutions representative from the state governor’s office, the office of the state representative for District 32 (currently Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach) and the office of the state senator for District 16 (currently Johnson).

The post Salmonberry Trail to the coast hits milestone, begins fundraising effort appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Several people, including a number of children, were seriously injured when a livery cab driver drove onto a sidewalk in the Bronx this morning.

At around 7:45 the driver, a man whose name was not released, “lost control” of a Toyota Camry at 229 E. Kingsbridge Road, according to NYPD. A police spokesperson said the driver hit one woman and four children on the sidewalk. Four victims were hospitalized in stable condition and one in serious condition, NYPD said.

FDNY said there were six victims: two in critical condition, three in stable condition, and one with a minor injury. The two critically injured victims were children, according to a fire department spokesperson.

NYPD told Streetsblog the Collision Investigation Squad, which works only the most serious traffic crashes, was dispatched to the scene.

WNBC reported that the driver was taken into custody this morning, but NYPD could not confirm. Unnamed police sources told the Post “no criminality was suspected.”

From the Post:

A passer-by comforted a 5-year-old boy as emergency workers arrived at Valentine Avenue and East Kingsbridge Road in Fordham Manor after the 7:45 a.m. accident

“I held his hand and he said, ‘I want to see my sister, I want to see my sister!’ He was so scared. I said, ‘Look at me! Look at my eyes! You’re going to be OK,’” said Nilda Guerrero, 57.

“He was crying and he wanted to hold his mother’s hand. I pretended I was his mother. And I held his hand. And I said, ‘Miguel, you’re going to be fine,’” she added.

“I heard a noise — a loud boom and a crash. There were people screaming. I ran over and there was a mother and daughter under the car,” said Migdalia Morales, 42, a parks worker.

“There was a little girl that had her legs stuck under the car next to the building,” she said

The Post reported that the 5-year-old boy and his sister, age 8, suffered broken legs and chest trauma. The girl had two broken legs and was bleeding internally, the Post said.

“Neighbors say the school bus stop near the accident scene should have been moved years ago because it’s a high-traffic area with speeders,” WNBC reported.

The crash happened near the intersection of E. Kingsbridge Road and Valentine Avenue, an expanse of asphalt one block east of the Grand Concourse, in the 52nd Precinct. More than 300 people, including 97 pedestrians and 21 cyclists, have been injured in traffic crashes in the 52nd Precinct this year as of August, according to DOT’s Vision Zero View. There have been 189 injuries to motor vehicle occupants, indicating collisions at high speeds. Precinct officers ticket around two speeding drivers a day on average.

Today’s incident marks the fourth time in recent memory that a curb-jumping driver has injured or killed children in the Bronx. Last March a speeding green cab driver fatally struck 5-year-old Tierre Clark on a Grand Concourse sidewalk, and in October 2014 a motorist killed 8-year-old Rylee Ramos and hit nine other people on the sidewalk outside a school in Kingsbridge. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson filed no charges against either of those drivers. In June Johnson charged the driver accused of striking and killing 7-year-old Ethan Villavicencio inside a Pelham Bay restaurant with leaving the scene.

We have a message in with the Taxi and Limousine Commission for information on the driver.

Video via New York Post

Harrison Street in downtown Oakland cuts people off from the lakefront. Even after a “Green Streets” makeover, it will mostly stay that way. Photo: Google Streetview via GJEL Accident Attorneys

Downtown Oakland is growing and changing. Earlier this year, Mayor Libby Schaaf said it’s time for the city to “re-envision our roads.” That’s easier said than done, however, and it looks like Oakland is about to blow its chance to re-envision a major downtown street.

Ralph Jacobson at GJEL Accident Attorneys blog takes a close look at plans for Harrison Street, which runs along Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. Voters approved a measure intended to improve the downtown waterfront area, and while several of the resulting projects have been quite admirable, Jacobson says Harrison Street will remain a dangerous barrier between downtown and the lake:

The existing highway design of Harrison Street predates Oakland’s freeway system. Harrison was widened to six lanes in the 1930s, and widened again to eight lanes in the 1950s during the construction of the Kaiser Center to accommodate projected traffic growth (filling in part of Lake Merritt in the process, as shown in the image below). However, this traffic never materialized: freeway construction rendered the eight lane highway obsolete, and it has remained half-empty over the past sixty years.

Local planners have missed a prime opportunity to correct past mistakes, Jacobson says:

As a “major downtown roadway link,” the Lake Merritt Master Plan sought to maintain five lanes on Harrison Street based on projected growth in traffic volumes and associated impacts to level of service standards. Sound familiar? Only this time, not only did the projected growth in traffic volumes never materialize; traffic volumes declined. The City counted 3,000 peak hour vehicle trips along Harrison in 2001, and projected these trips would increase to 3,400 trips by 2021*. However, peak hour traffic volumes on Harrison actually decreased by 23 percent to 2,300 trips in 2013, according to the City’s traffic count website. Harrison Street now carries as many vehicles per day (23,900) as Grand Avenue in Adams Point (23,700 vehicles per day), which has four lanes and experiences little congestion, and slightly more than Lakeshore Avenue (21,000 vehicles per day), which has just two through lanes. The City’s five lane design, therefore, will be overbuilt by at least 50 percent for cars that don’t exist.

Considering the location of Harrison Street along Lake Merritt in Downtown Oakland — one of the densest, most transit rich locations in the Bay Area — are car-centric metrics like level of service an appropriate measure of success? A successful design should create a seamless gateway between Downtown and the Lake, one that’s delightful for walking and biking and encourages people to enjoy the location’s beauty. A successful project should also create a convenient connection to BART and Downtown Oakland via 20th Street. To be fair, the Lakeside Green Street project as a whole will incorporate some of these objectives via the revitalization and expansion of Snow Park and the Lakefront, plus a road diet on Lakeside Drive. But such people-focused metrics were barely considered in designing Harrison; in many ways, the new design reinforces Harrison as a barrier for people walking and bicycling.

The Harrison project is labeled as a “Green Street,” which in this day and age, Jacobson says, should at least have a protected bike lane. Instead, there will be minimal improvements for cycling. Jacobson is encouraging readers to reach out to city officials and ask for changes that could help salvage the project.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Pittsburgh tallies up the thoroughly impressive active commuting stats from the Steel City. Greater Greater Washington says “zombie” subdivisions in Prince George’s County should not be revived. And Plan Charlotte writes about the city’s ambitions to become a more mixed-use, walkable place, and the slow pace of change.

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

Welcome to one of the first in our series of occasional “Advocate” posts. These are quick, simple opportunities to get involved in making the Portland area better for biking.

Multnomah County is updating its wide-reaching long-range plans in ways that matter deeply to residents of the relatively few urban streets owned by the county government.

The result is that people who live on those streets — notably for bike users, Northwest Skyline Boulevard and Corbett in the western Colombia Gorge — have weighed in about the importance of bike transportation to the county, but most residents of the county haven’t.

“It appears that the only active outreach has occurred at two open houses held along Skyline and in Corbett,” Multnomah County Bicycle and Pedestrian Citizen Advisory Committee member Andrew Holtz wrote in an email to BikePortland. “Not surprisingly, the attendees at these meetings put bicycling, walking and other active transportation projects at the bottom of their priority lists.”

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“The survey is open only until 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, so there are just a few days to make your priorities known,” Holtz wrote. “Unfortunately, the key transportation questions are buried deep into the survey, so people have answer several pages of land use, agritourism and other questions before getting to the bike and ped stuff.”

If you’d like to weigh in, go for it.

The post Advocate: County survey needs input from rural road users, not just residents appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Woodhaven Boulevard needs BRT not only to move transit riders faster, but also to save lives and prevent traffic injuries. Map: Transportation Alternatives [PDF]

Woodhaven Boulevard regularly appears near the top of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s list of the city’s most dangerous streets. More pedestrians were killed by motorists on Woodhaven from 2011 to 2013 than on any other street in Queens, Tri-State reported in March, outpacing notorious roads like Queens Boulevard and Northern Boulevard. Citywide, only Flatbush Avenue and the Grand Concourse saw more pedestrian deaths.

An analysis released today by BRT for NYC coalition member Transportation Alternatives pinpoints the intersections with the most crashes on Woodhaven [PDF], based on NYPD crash data from July 2012 to December 2014. They are:

• 101st Ave & Woodhaven Blvd: 42 crashes, 62 injuries, 1 fatality

• Jamaica Ave & Woodhaven Blvd: 38 crashes, 52 injuries, 2 fatalities

• Queens Blvd & Woodhaven Blvd: 32 crashes, 42 injuries, 0 fatalities

• Atlantic Ave & Woodhaven Blvd: 32 crashes, 55 injuries, 1 fatality

• Rockaway Blvd & Woodhaven Blvd: 30 crashes, 18 injuries, 0 fatalities

Among the victims was Yunior Antonio Perez Rodriguez, 35, killed by a hit-and-run driver after he stepped off a pedestrian island near Jamaica Avenue in December 2013 — just months after another man was killed trying to cross Woodhaven at the same location.

On Woodhaven at Atlantic Avenue, 90-year-old Roger Pariente was killed in a five-car crash triggered when two southbound drivers side-swiped each other in December 2014. Pariente was a passenger in a car going the other direction when the two drivers crossed the median and struck cars in front of him, reports the Forum. Pariente’s vehicle rear-ended one of those cars and he suffered a fatal head injury.

The death toll on Woodhaven has been high for years. Fatal crashes happened at 101st Avenue in 2007 and in 2005, when a 77-year-old man was killed as he tried to cross Woodhaven.

Woodhaven’s high crash rate came up in the news again last month when a bus driver heading to the Resorts World casino crashed into a Rego Park building after making an illegal U-turn, colliding with another vehicle. Six people were injured in the crash.

“Recent car and bus crashes on Woodhaven Boulevard have gotten a lot of attention, but unfortunately they’re nothing new. We need transportation options that are safe for bus riders, for car drivers and for pedestrians trying to cross the street,” Riders Alliance Executive Director John Raskin said in a press release. “Bus Rapid Transit will help thousands of people get to work and get around the neighborhood, but it will also make the street safer.”

“We can vastly reduce the number of crashes on these deadly intersections by implementing BRT,” said TA Executive Director Paul Steely White. “With dedicated bus lanes and an overall safer environment for drivers and pedestrians, BRT can help mitigate the risk at these dangerous intersections along Woodhaven Bus Rapid Transit corridor.”

DOT is still developing the details of its plan for Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards, which is scheduled to begin construction in 2017.

Father-son soccer in the street on 16th near Spruce pic.twitter.com/Mt47dbiHJo — Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) September 27, 2015

The official name for it was the “traffic box” — the 4.7-square-mile chunk of center city Philadelphia where incoming motor vehicles weren’t allowed when Pope Francis was in town this weekend. But rather than the traffic nightmare some anticipated, something wonderful happened: #popenstreets.

Suddenly the streets felt public. Neighbors were hanging out together. Kids played. Holly Otterbein at Philadelphia Magazine called it “an urbanist utopia”:

Blissed-out pedestrians are walking down the middle of roads as big as Broad and Market, and hordes of people are crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Cyclists are giddy by the extra room. Some residents are even turning the streets into impromptu picnic spots and playgrounds.

The local media, and a lot of residents, were generally euphoric about the situation. In another article, Philly Mag listed “10 Reasons Why Philadelphia Is a Better Version of Itself Right Now.” One reason being: “There’s none of the undercurrent of anger and tension that you see when bikes and cars are on the road at the same time.”

This whole #PopenStreets thing is phenomenal. @JimFKenney seriously this plus @septa let’s ban cars all the time pic.twitter.com/ko1D0CxRfZ — Victoria (@108_Victoria_St) September 26, 2015

“It’s like a block party,” one reveler told the City Paper, which was a common sentiment. The inquirer wrote that the closed Ben Franklin Bridge was “one big block party.”

Biggest crowd of the day so far…Priests playing frisbee on 2nd. @CBSPhilly #CBSPhillyPope pic.twitter.com/5t08Ylb8qE — Michael Cerio (@TheMichaelCerio) September 26, 2015

Large group of pilgrims from Newark makes its way crossing BFB to attend #PopeInPhilly (photo for @NewsWorksWHYY ) pic.twitter.com/soA49bSFgM

— Bastiaan Slabbers (@BasSlabbers) September 26, 2015

Rebuilding the Rust Belt said the car-free days enabled “people to experience human-oriented streets, the sudden and widespread freedom from cars had an effect no amount of logic, graphics, advocacy, or public meetings could achieve.”

Photo: Patrick Miner

There was even a Pope Ride, where swarms of people on bikes took advantage of the absence of cars to take part in a 10-mile group ride.

  At the starting line for the #poperide. [ Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ RideIndego for weekend updates, puns and more ] #rideindego #popeinphilly   A photo posted by Indego (@rideindego) on Sep 26, 2015 at 6:58am PDT

Following the PopeRide, the city’s likely next mayor, Jim Kenney, said Philly should open its streets “even when the pope’s not here.” Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron agreed.

Hat tip: Plan Philly

Participants enjoying July’s OpenStreets event

Trends from ten years of ACS data

Here it is, our annual look at commuting trends in Pittsburgh and beyond. Every September, the US Census posts their American Community Survey (ACS) transportation stats for the previous year.

This is now our ninth year reporting on the data for the 60 largest US cities, and the 2014 results are impressive for biking and walking, to say the least (2006) (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2013). As the ACS has some flaws, these numbers should not be taken at face value (see below). Rather they offer insight into the trends within the city and across the nation. The City’s new bike count program will help us gain a better picture of what is going on in the real world.

This year, we decided to do something a bit different and show how Pittsburgh has changed over the past 10 years of the survey.

Some 2014 Pittsburgh highlights:

• Doubling of bike commuters since city began installing bike lanes in 2007
• Top 4 walking city
• Top 11 biking city
• Top 5 bike+walk
• Top 8 bike+walk+transit
• 9th least single occupancy drivers
• 10th most transit

click tabs to toggle between modes

Here is a breakdown of the top 20 “green” transportation cities, aka bike, walk, transit.

Click tabs to toggle between modes

Below is a chart representing the commuter breakdown of biking, walking, public transit, and driving alone in the top biking cities. This is simply here to see how these cities compare in modal breakdown. Note that these won’t add up to 100% since we didn’t add carpooling, taxi, or working from home in the chart.

Modal breakdown of top biking cities – click image to enlarge

Snapshot of the past decade 2005-2014

We’ve come a long way in the past 10 years. Anyone who’s been here since then can tell you there are way more people riding bikes now than there were back then. Below is a snapshot of Pittsburgh commuting trends over the last decade. Note that the city began installing bike lanes in earnest in 2007, with the installation of the Liberty Ave bike lanes in Bloomfield.

Pittsburgh bike commuter trend 2005-2014

Below is a chart of commuting trends for biking, walking, transit, and driving alone over the past decade. Notice how closely the “drove alone” category inversely mimics the public transit ridership. The effect of the transit cuts over time can be seen, so next time you’re driving and stuck in traffic or looking for parking, think about this chart and how important it is to support transit.

Select commuter trend 2005-2014

While not perfect, the ACS data is the best data available to help us understand trends in the United States. These stats specifically look at “what is the primary way that Pittsburgh residents get to their job (wherever that may be)?” And of course, because we love cities, not to mention a friendly competition, we’ve included the largest 60 cities in our analysis. This is not a sample of “how many Pittsburghers ride bikes.”For instance, if you take the bus to your job, but ride a bicycle the rest of the time, you are counted as “transit.” Likewise if you ride a bicycle 3 days and drive 2 days, you are counted as “bicycle.” And if you have no job, are under 16, or are a student, well you’re just not counted. Although this is most likely the best data that we have available on this subject, please see the caveats at the end of this post regarding the ACS data.

What is the American Community Survey?

The American Community Survey is the country’s largest household survey, reporting its findings every year.  With a sample size of about 3 million addresses, this is only an estimate, but is by far the best tool that we have understanding trends in the United States.  The survey uses questionnaires and interviews to gather information on demographic, economic, and housing characteristics.

ACS limitations, notes, and cautions

• The ACS asks only about commuting. It does not tell us about bicycling for non-work purposes.
• Results are based on a survey of a sample of the population. Surveys take place throughout the year. The journey to work question asks respondents about the previous week.
• The journey to work question asks about the primary mode of transportation to work. The wording of the question undercounts the actual amount of bike commuting that occurs. It does not count people who rode once or twice a week or people who bike to transit (if the transit leg is longer than the bike leg).
• Since the ACS is a survey of a sample, the results are estimates. The ACS releases a margin of error along with the estimate. Users can add and subtract the margin of error value from the estimate to find the top and bottom of the range within which the ACS is 90 percent confident in their estimate lies. Margins of error are reported on with the data on the ACS site.
• Changes among years may not be statistically significant.
• The numbers reported here are for the “principal city,” not the larger Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

Not a member of BikePGH? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership.....230;..

I’ve been seeing a deluge of bike theft headlines in my media streams these past few weeks and I’m really getting tired of it.

Now I just got this alert from the PPB:

On Friday September 25, 2015, a 65-year-old woman called police to report that her two custom tricycles were stolen from the back porch of her Centennial Neighborhood home in Southeast Portland.

The victim told police that her tricycles were on the back porch of her home in the 2200 block of Southeast 145th Avenue and out of sight from the street. The suspect or suspects entered her locked backyard and stole both tricycles sometime during the night between Thursday September 24 and Friday September 25.

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Both tricycles were custom made and allow the victim to transition from her wheelchair to the trike.

That is not cool. Please keep an eye out for these trikes. If you see them or have any information about the theft, please contact Detective Pandra Parks at 503-823-0414 or pandra.parks@portlandoregon.gov and reference Portland Police Bureau Case #15-332712.

The post Let’s find these tricycles stolen from a 65-year old wheelchair user appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Update: NYPD said as of today no charges have been filed against the driver who killed Alexa Cioffi.

Reporter and Streetsblog reader Joe Enoch produced this “Inside Edition” piece on the prevalence of improperly secured trailers on U.S. roads. It features an interview with Kristi Cox, a Minnesota woman whose husband and child were killed by a negligent driver whose trailer hit their car. According to the story, hundreds of people a year are killed by drivers who fail to follow proper trailer safety procedures.

“The word ‘accident’ bothers me,” says Cox. “If they would have hooked that up correctly that day, if they would have put the two chains on and the pin, then right now as I sit here, then Liam would still have his dad and his sister.”

Another victim might have been 21-year-old Alexa Cioffi. On September 14, Cioffi and a friend were hit by a detached boat trailer as they rode bikes on Staten Island’s Hylan Boulevard. Cioffi died, and Briana Emanuele was hospitalized in critical condition. NYPD did not immediately file charges against the driver who was towing the boat. As is customary when police file no charges after a fatal crash, the driver’s name was not released.

The Daily News quoted a police source who said the trailer that hit Cioffi and Emanuele was not properly attached to the truck. Otherwise media outlets for the most part ignored the driver’s role in the crash. Instead, the Staten Island Advance said it would be “disrespectful” to discuss safer street designs — i.e. bike lanes — in the wake of Cioffi’s death. Less than two weeks later the paper railed against the city for installing bike infrastructure at the expense of unfettered space for cars and trucks.

When I called NYPD for an update on Cioffi’s case, Detective Kelly Ort directed me to email my questions. This is what happens when the person who answers the phone at the NYPD public information office doesn’t want to look up or give out information.

Weeks after a woman lost her life in circumstances that strongly suggest criminal negligence, the public still does not have the smallest sliver of information from NYPD about what caused the incident and how the investigation is proceeding.

You’ve seen it. We’ve seen it. Portland mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler has seen it.

Since Wheeler entered the mayoral race earlier this month Mayor Charlie Hales has been on a tear. From climate change to homelessness to bicycling, Hales has become more animated and action-oriented.

In a letter to Hales today, Wheeler all but accused the incumbent of copying his stance on issues and then challenged him to 12 “in-depth” debates.

“When I announced my candidacy for mayor,” Wheeler states in the letter, “I noted that our city had a homelessness crisis; last week, you declared it an emergency. Two weeks ago, I voiced my support for a gas tax; last Friday, you decided to agree.”

Wheeler has a point. And he could add bicycling to that list. Just a day after he announced his candidacy, Wheeler had an invite-only, sit-down meeting with a handful of bike advocates and experts to learn more about cycling in Portland. Meanwhile, Hales has upped his cycling and active transportation game significantly in the past month or so. Since he and Wheeler had that secret meeting on August 20th, Hales has shepherded major plans through city council and yesterday completed his fourth consecutive Monday morning commute by bike.

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I met up with Wheeler before Sunday Parkways and asked him what he thought about all of Hales’ headline-grabbing actions since he jumped into the race. “I think democracy is a good thing and a healthy thing,” he said carefully, “and I think competition is good and healthy thing. If my presence in the race lights a fire under the mayor, how can that be anything but a good thing?”

With this letter (that the local media has quickly gobbled up), Wheeler wants to re-focus the city’s attention back on him. In his letter he says, “This campaign shouldn’t become a game of political tit for tat.” Instead, he wants to give voters, “an honest comparison” of he Hales’ ideas about 12 major issues with a separate debate for each. Here’s the list of issues:

• Jobs and the Economy
• Homelessness
• Affordable Housing
• Roads and Infrastructure
• Education
• Government Ethics and Transparency
• Growth and Development
• Sustainability
• Police and Criminal Justice Policy
• Budget and Taxes
• Transportation and Transit
• Eastside Services

When I see that list the first thing I think is how they are almost all connected. Seems like it’d be impossible to talk in-depth about one of them without four or five others coming up. For instance, how can you have a debate about “roads and infrastructure” and then a separate debate about “transportation and transit”? And isn’t transit just a form of transportation?

So far we haven’t heard a response from the Hales camp.

Stay tuned. This race is going to be very fun to watch.

The post With Hales hogging headlines, Wheeler challenges him to 12 “in-depth” debates appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Ever Thought About Why You Bike?

At Bike Pittsburgh we spend a great deal of time talking about bike lanes and bumpouts, planning fun events for people who bike and walk, and talking about the benefits the community reaps from these activities.

Now we’re carving out some time to talk about the individual and what makes each of us so eager to get out and ride in the first place.

We’ve teamed up with Chancelor Humphrey, the man behind the camera at @KeepPittsburghDope, and we’ll spend the next 10 days bringing you a portraits of Pittsburghers who will each explain why they bike. Stay tuned to our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates!

Share your stories and photos about why you bike with us using #whyibike & @bikepgh.

Sign up for Bike Pittsburgh’s newsletter, The Messenger, to get the latest news on events, bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and fun, delivered straight to your inbox. Twice monthly emails, no spam.

Recreational marijuana will be available for retail purchase in Oregon starting this Thursday (October 1st) and Portland-based Pedal Bike Tours is looking to take advantage of the legal marijuana craze with a new weekly offering: A “Pot Tour” by bike.

Like all their tours, your price of admission ($69 in this case) includes a bike, a helmet, an expert guide and a snack. But unlike any tour they’ve done, this one comes with a “joint of local marijuana to take home.” And in case you’re wondering, they will not smoke it on the tour.

The tour’s creator, Pedal Bike Tours guide Sarah Gilbert said she’s excited for the inaugural ride on October 1st. “Even though I’m not a habitual pot smoker myself, I’ve had a great time learning about the history of pot and hemp in the state and worldwide. It’s been fascinating to connect with lots of leaders in the pot community and I’ve become pretty passionate about legalization.”

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Check out the full description of the tour from PedalBikeTours.com:

Tour Portland like a true Portlandian: through the history, culture and brand-new retail industry of pot. Did you know one of the Willamette Valley’s first commercial crops was hemp? Our city’s fortunes have been tied to the cannabis plant since Oregon Country included all of present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana possession, and now you can explore some of the finest pot available — by bike.

Our relaxed eleven-mile journey will introduce you to the art of cannabis in Portland, whether you are a pot newbie or a connoisseur of the herb. We’ll start with describing the history of hemp and pot in this country and state, and detail exactly what, where and how purchasing and consuming cannabis products is legal. We’ll take you to some of our favorite dispensaries and head shops; true legends in the cannabis society both locally and nationwide; and let you browse and shop for the finest locally-grown and organic strains, hand-blown art glass and carved wooden pipes. We’ll also make some suggested “pairings”; when Portlandians get the munchies, we look for the best sweet and salty food available. Think sustainable ingredients, locally-grown produce, hand-harvested salt, and yes: vegan options are available.

The tour will be offered once daily at 3:00pm. The inaugural ride will be this Thursday, the first day recreational marijuana will be legally for sale in Oregon.

Pedal Bike Tours has been in business in Portland since 2008. Company founder Todd Roll has since expanded his company to Hawaii, written the excellent guidebook, Pedal Portland, and gained a bit of notoriety for painting “America’s Bicycle Capital” in huge letters on the side of his downtown location (only to see it painted over a few years later).

The post Portland company’s “Pot Tour” by bike includes free joint appeared first on BikePortland.org.

Boulder’s Folsom Street on Friday afternoon. Photo: Eric Budd

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Boulder, Colorado, will vote today on whether to become the fourth U.S. city to remove a modern protected bike lane.

The others are Memphis, where a riverside project was removed this year after the end of a one-year pilot; Boise, where a downtown network was removed last year after the end of a one-month trial; and Portland, Oregon, where in 2012 the city decided not to replace a series of posts that had been torn out by car collisions on one of its bridges.

As of last month, 75 U.S. cities (including Memphis, Portland, and Boulder) have built permanent protected bike lanes, and the number of such projects is doubling every two years or so.

But in Boulder, as Streetsblog reported last week, the latest project has taken a turn. On Thursday, city staff recommended scaling back what was planned as a year-long pilot just 11 weeks in.

That’s an unexpected change of direction for one of the four cities in the country rated as “platinum” by the League of American Bicyclists.

“This is not what we would ever expect to see for a platinum city,” League spokesman Steve Clark said in an email Friday. “Or gold, or silver. Extremely bad precedent.”

The protected bike lanes on Folsom Street were added in July as part of a redesign that replaced two general travel lanes in each direction with one general travel lane in each direction plus a new center turn lane.

The number of reported collisions on the street dropped immediately, city data show.

That’s consistent with similar turn-lane road diet projects around the country. The Federal Highway Administration says these redesigns lead to a 19 to 47 percent drop in collisions, because they prevent the most reckless drivers from weaving between travel lanes and because they give everyone driving a clear view of people crossing the street on foot — a car driving in the curbside lane won’t block the sight line of someone else driving in the same direction.

The new center turn lane, meanwhile, cancels out most of the potential traffic delay because it gives left-turning cars a place to wait without blocking other traffic.

“Injuries from vehicle crashes rise as the width of a road increases,” says the AARP in its fact sheet about turn-lane projects.

In the case of Folsom, the redesign had a side benefit: It let the city widen the existing bike lanes and add plastic posts to turn them into protected bike lanes.

Just as they do in almost every case, the protected bike lanes almost immediately attracted more people to bike on Folsom.

But because rush-hour auto volumes were so high on Folsom, and because the city had previously installed a pair of mid-block crossing signals in an effort to make the street safer to walk across, safety and increased bike use weren’t the only effects.

During its busiest time and direction, the southbound evening rush hour, it took an extra 104 seconds on average to travel the eight-tenths of a mile on Folsom between Valmont Road and Canyon Boulevard.

This made some Boulder residents furious.

In a letter to the Boulder Daily Camera, one week after the city’s first responders had told the newspaper that the redesign would have no effect on their work, resident Jeff Schulz painted a satirically dire scenario of what might happen in a future fire:

The Boulder Fire Department is ready to roll, but, unfortunately, it’s rush hour and the recent lane reductions combined with all the flashing crosswalks have caused perfect gridlock everywhere. Smoke can now be seen from the downtown treehouse where council members are playing rock-paper-scissors to decide on whom to train their high-powered bureaucracy cannon at next.

Other Boulder residents favor the Folsom redesign. In part due to an organized effort from Boulder-based advocacy group PeopleForBikes to rally the city’s bike supporters, 57 percent of the comments the city received about the project by late August were in support.

But the other 43 percent tended to be angrier, and more likely to have contacted the city of their own volition.

“The community has been pretty clear that parts of this project are not successful for them,” Councilman Sam Weaver, who had voted for the plan in June, told the Camera on Friday.

Change of course for staff and council members

Boulder council member Lisa Morzel, left, at a 2011 election forum. Photo: Zane Selvans

One month ago, Boulder’s council had seemingly agreed to stick with the Folsom redesign for a while.

That changed last week. Go Boulder Manager Kathleen Bracke said in an interview that staff from the city’s transportation, public works, and city manager’s offices had come to a mutual decision to recommend reversing the southern half of Folsom’s redesign, a sharp turnaround from August.

Sue Prant, executive director of Boulder-based advocacy group Community Cycles, said her understanding was that renewed discussion among the city council preceded the sudden change of direction from staff.

Prant said Boulder’s change of direction is upsetting because it suggests to her that many residents of the famously green and well-to-do city aren’t willing to actually change their habits in order to preserve the climate.

“How can you not think that you’re going to do a little bit more because you’re leaving your kids with a shitty world?” she said of Boulder “environmentalists who should be our allies.”

“If they can buy their way out of the climate problem, then it’s OK, but if it’s behavior change — or allowing someone else to have behavior change — they can’t make the connection,” Prant said. “You’re never going to get everybody everywhere they want to go on multi-use paths.”

“We’re not anti-car,” Prant added. “But we are pro making safe places for people to ride bicycles. And sometimes that means that a decision needs to be made between 100 percent accommodation of automobiles and something less than that.”

If car lanes are untouchable, how can car dependence be reduced?

Photo: Eric Budd

Former Boulder mayor Will Toor said in an interview that the fight over Folsom reminded him of a similar battle, when he was elected mayor in 1998, over whether the city should invest in biking and walking or should keep building ever-wider roads.

“What really brought the community to a consensus… was that this is about giving people choices that they don’t have today,” he said. “We’ve got lots of ways that you can safely drive around town. We don’t have a lot of ways that you can safely bike around town.”

“That seemed to be a really powerful and positive argument that a wide variety of people in the community were able to see,” Toor said.

As for Boulder’s current council, Toor said that if they agree to reverse the changes to Folsom, he hopes they’ll propose alternative ways to reduce the city’s dependence on cars.

“Certainly everybody on council and who is running for council who is opposed to the protected lanes keeps saying that they want to make biking safer and more attractive,” Toor said. “I’ll take them at their word. What I would like to see people asking is, if you don’t think this is the solution, what do you think the solutions are, especially for those north-south routes?”

Prant predicted that such a high-profile retreat by the city would mean that “it’s going to be a long time before you can do any major on-street improvements.” She said the city will probably try to refocus its biking investments on more off-street paths where they’re possible.

“Can you build that in every situation?” she said. “No. Even in Boulder. Even with all the money in the world.”

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Governor Cuomo has the power to take driving privileges away from chronic reckless drivers, whether or not they drive drunk. Photo: Families for Safe Streets

In 2012 Cuomo oversaw an update to DMV rules to target the worst drunk driving offenders. Now the DMV permanently revokes licenses from people who have five or more DWI convictions in a lifetime, or three or more DWI convictions in 25 years plus other offenses, such as a fatal crash or the accumulation of 20 or more license points.

As lenient as those standards are, they used to be worse. In the past, repeat drunk drivers whose licenses were suspended or revoked could regain driving privileges in weeks by completing an education program, and drivers with multiple DWI convictions did not permanently lose their licenses unless they were convicted for two DWI crashes resulting in injury.

A Cuomo press release said the reforms have taken more than 8,000 dangerous drivers off the roads in the three years since they took effect. “Impaired and irresponsible driving far too often results in needless tragedy and ramifications that can last a lifetime,” Cuomo said. “These tough regulations have taken chronically dangerous drivers off the roads and helped make this a safer state.”

The updated DMV rules are an improvement, but they don’t do enough to keep reckless drivers from harming people. Four DWI convictions doesn’t mean a person drove drunk four times. It means that person was caught, arrested, and convicted four times. By allowing repeat DWI offenders to keep driving, the DMV is playing Russian roulette with New Yorkers’ lives.

In addition, Cuomo’s DMV reforms don’t address behaviors that cause as many or more serious crashes than drunk driving. In 2013, alcohol contributed to 132 deadly collisions and 4,097 injury crashes in New York State, according to the DMV. By way of comparison, unsafe speed was determined to be a factor in 313 fatal crashes and 12,613 injury crashes, failure to yield in 165 fatal crashes and 21,355 injury crashes, and driver distraction in 127 fatal crashes and 25,098 injury crashes.

In New York City, alcohol was identified as a factor in 15 fatal and 996 injury crashes in 2013, speeding in 69 fatal crashes and 2,933 injury crashes, failure to yield in 52 fatal crashes and 6,369 injury crashes, and distracted driving in 49 fatal crashes and 10,270 injury crashes.

Though their actions harm many more people than drunk drivers, motorists who hurt and kill others while speeding or failing to yield are usually not penalized in any way, and investigators rarely subpoena cell phone records after a crash to determine whether a driver was distracted.

As we reported in 2013, the DMV rule changes ordered by Cuomo are not as comprehensive as policies proposed under “Charlotte’s Law,” which would permanently revoke licenses of people convicted of any of the following offenses three or more times in 25 years: DUI or DWI, careless driving that injures a pedestrian or cyclist, or vehicular manslaughter. Under Charlotte’s Law, someone caught driving after a permanent license revocation, regardless of the reason for the traffic stop, would be subject to a felony charge and a jail sentence of up to four years.

Charlotte’s Law was named after Charlotte Gallo, a Schenectady pedestrian who in 2010 was killed by a driver who reportedly had 23 prior citations for traffic offenses and had been involved in 10 crashes. It was first introduced in 2012, months before Cuomo announced his slate of DMV rule updates. State lawmakers have failed to pass the bill, which stalled in the Assembly and Senate transportation committees in the 2015 legislative session. It was sponsored this year by Assembly Member James Tedisco and Senator Hugh T. Farley, both Republicans from Schenectady.

Prodding state legislators to improve traffic safety is usually a Sisyphean task. But Cuomo has already demonstrated he doesn’t need the legislature to strengthen regulations against serial deadly driving. With one phone call, he could direct the DMV to ramp up sanctions against all motorists who repeatedly put lives at risk.

Portand, Maine’s car-share fleet is growing as its parking mandates shrink. Image: Rights of Way

Network blog Rights of Way reports that this city of 66,000 pairs the reduction of parking mandates with the expansion of car-share. C Neal MilNeil writes:

It’s hard to believe, but UhaulCarShare has been operating in Portland for over six years now.

They started with four cars parked near Monument Square and the ferry terminal.

As of this fall, they’ve doubled the local fleet to 8 cars and expanded into South Portland with a car parked at the Southern Maine Community College campus.

A lot of UhaulCarShare’s success here comes from a helpful new reform of parking rules in the city’s zoning requirements. For the last few years now, city planners have allowed a reduction in developers’ expensive parking-construction mandates if the developers agree to sponsor a carsharing vehicle on-site.

Several new apartment buildings have taken advantage of this incentive, most recently Avesta Housing’s 409 Cumberland Avenue apartment block, which built only 18 basement parking spaces for its 57 new apartment units and sponsored a new UhaulCarShare vehicle to be parked on-site. This arrangement benefits everyone: reduced construction costs for the developers, reduced housing costs and more mobility options for residents, and a more convenient carsharing network for neighbors.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Portland reports from Mayor Charlie Hales’ bike commute yesterday, his fourth Monday in a row riding to work. Urban Review STL photo blogs the experience of navigating the way to St. Louis’s new Ikea store by wheelchair. And Plan Philly wonders if SEPTA should provide all the city’s students with discount transit passes.

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

Add Pope Francis’s tour of New York to the long list of carmageddon scares that successfully frightened off would-be motorists. I grabbed these two shots of traffic from Google Maps, and despite all the alarming car detour icons, you can see that traffic was lighter during peak Francis than it normally is on a New York City weekday.

While the pope’s motorcade was wending through a crowd of 80,000 people in Central Park Friday afternoon, typical pre-weekend traffic bottlenecks were eerily quiet. The approach to the Holland Tunnel, usually a non-stop symphonic blast of car horns at that time of day, looked like this:

The #PopeinNYC traffic effect: people, this is the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. ON FRIDAY RUSH. cc: @WNYC pic.twitter.com/hSbOC0hFit

— Kate Hinds (@katehinds) September 25, 2015

Meanwhile, if you were on the Upper West Side that afternoon, you could walk anywhere in the road on your way to see the pontiff, or learn to ride a bike on 72nd Street. There was a de facto bikeway down the middle of 57th Street for much of the pope’s visit, space cleared away for emergency access that people on two wheels gravitated to immediately, happy not to mix it up with 30-foot long flat-bed trailers.

A large number of people probably put off car trips to avoid the pope crowds. Did they take transit instead? Figures from the MTA’s commuter railroads are mixed — fewer people than normal took the train during morning commute hours, according to the agency, while passenger counts were higher than normal during the middle of the day. (Numbers for subways and buses are not yet available.)

Regardless, the streets didn’t jam up any more than they normally do, by and large, despite several large disruptions of the grid and the huge turnout for Francis. His visit was a testament to the flexibility of NYC’s transportation network.

This is a good occasion to revisit Bruce Schaller’s 2006 report, “Necessity or Choice” [PDF], which remains an extremely valuable source of information about Manhattan car commuters. According to Schaller, 90 percent of people who drive to work in the Manhattan Central Business District live in areas where transit would be a viable option for that commute. In addition, a large chunk of the car traffic in Manhattan is simply passing through, with no actual destination in the most congested part of town.

The flexibility we can observe when the pope swings by is there all along. We just don’t see it, thanks to the force of habit and the skewed incentives created by free roads and parking. New York could have bigger pedestrian zones and safe bikeways all the time, not just when a global megastar like Francis comes to town.

A new study published by the Transportation Research Board quantifies the spatial impact of transit in new ways [PDF]. Without transit, the researchers found, American cities would take up 37 percent more space.

Transit-oriented development in Portland’s Pearl District. Photo: Smartgrowth.org

The research team from New York, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City modeled not just how many driving miles are directly averted by people riding transit, but how the availability of transit affects the way we build cities.

By allowing urban areas to be built more compactly, the “land use effect” of transit reduces driving much more than the substitution of car trips with transit trips. Total miles driven in American cities would be 8 percent higher without the land use effect of transit, the researchers concluded, compared to 2 percent higher if you forced everyone who rides transit to drive.

On average, the study found, the land use effect of transit is four times greater than the “ridership effect,” or the substitution of car trips with transit trips. But the land use effect of transit varies a great deal across urban areas. In places like Greenville, South Carolina, it’s responsible for reducing driving 3 percent, the researchers estimate, while in San Francisco and New York City, it’s 18 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

The authors suggest their model can help assess the effect of transit investments on travel behavior with greater sophistication. For example, adding a rail station to a neighborhood without one increased the density of jobs and residences by 9 percent within a one-mile radius, the study found. That would reduce driving about 2 percent for all the households across the area.

In addition to new infrastructure, increasing the frequency of transit service reduces traffic too. The researchers estimate that a 1 percent increase in transit frequency across a region would be expected to bring about a 0.045 percent decrease in miles driven. And a 1 percent increase in route density — a measure of how many transit lines serve a given area — would be expected to produce a 0.047 percent reduction in traffic.

The report includes a “Land Use Benefit Calculator” [XLS] to help determine the total environmental benefits of transit projects.

Hat tip to Green City Blue Lake. 

A 34th Precinct officer cites a driver blocking a bike lane on Sherman Avenue in Inwood. Photo: 34th Precinct/Facebook

When DOT installed new bike lanes on Sherman Avenue in Inwood a few weeks back, it didn’t take long before they were blocked by double-parked drivers.

Sherman is one of many Inwood streets that effectively has four parking lanes. This isn’t good for anyone, as it makes it dangerous to walk and bike, and creates aggravation for drivers — which, in turn, makes it dangerous to walk and bike.

Responding to residents’ complaints, on Friday the 34th Precinct announced a double-parking crackdown. Deputy Inspector Chris Morello, the precinct’s commanding officer, posted photos of officers issuing tickets on Facebook.

Well, you asked for it, and you got it: we had a double parking initiative yesterday in the 34 Pct. Summonses were issued for double parking (particularly in bike lanes) on Broadway, Sherman, Dyckman and Post (these are our most congested and dangerous roadways).

In the past month, we have issued 632 double parking summonses, up 10% from last year. And we have issued a total of 7,711 parking summonses this year. This is all done in an effort to keep traffic moving and keep our residents safe.

Hats off to Deputy Inspector Morello and precinct officers for taking on what is mainly a symptom of dysfunctional curb management. Now if DOT would help out by swapping private car parking for commercial loading zones, traffic would flow more smoothly and Inwood streets would be safer.

The air was noticeably clearer yesterday over the city of Paris, where people walking, biking, skating, and otherwise getting around without a motor took over streets generally packed with cars, including the Champs Elysées.

About a third of Paris was free of motorized vehicles from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for buses and taxis. Car speeds were capped at 20 kilometers per hour in the rest of the city.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo, at the urging of activists, initiated the massive car-free event as a lead-in to the city hosting COP21, the United Nations’ upcoming conference on climate change. Paris is plagued by diesel exhaust, and the skies over the city were noticeably bluer yesterday, according to the Guardian. The exhaust cleared. The rumble of traffic was gone. People seemed happier and less stressed.

One of the tens of thousands who took to the streets told the Guardian it was “like a headache lifting.”

Camille Carnoz of the bike activist group Vélorution said she hopes the car-free day leads to permanent changes:

Today is symbolic, it’s about giving people a dream, showing us what a city could look like without cars, a type of utopia. But we need to go further, with more and larger cycle routes, better parking spots for bicycles, slower speed limits. There’s a lot to be done.

Here are a few more views of the day without cars.

Faire du foot sur les champs élysées A photo posted by Chloé (@chloemyrtille) on Sep 27, 2015 at 7:53am PDT

#speedsail #skate #journeesansvoitures #ruederivoli #paris   A photo posted by Guido Romero Pierini (@guidoromeropierini) on Sep 27, 2015 at 9:43am PDT

#journeesansvoitures A photo posted by Lucy Marchand (@luwith1y) on Sep 28, 2015 at 12:07am PDT

#Paris #avenuedeschampselysees 27 septembre #journeesansvoitures #paris_maville @Paris @paris_maville   A photo posted by Sylvaine Caron Paris 19ème (@sylvainecaron) on Sep 27, 2015 at 4:27pm PDT

Drôles d’engins dans les rues de #paris aujourd’hui ! #journeesansvoitures #carsfreeday #insolite A photo posted by Héloise Fayet (@heloise.fayet) on Sep 27, 2015 at 5:49am PDT

• Today: Ferries serve fewer people at much greater cost than other forms of transit, and electeds can’t get enough of them. Mayor de Blasio and NYC EDC are embarking on a plan to expand ferry service citywide. This evening EDC will host a scoping session at Brooklyn Borough Hall. 6 p.m.
• Tuesday: On the agenda for the Queens CB 5 transportation committee: street resurfacings, light rail, freight rail, and a review of traffic safety issues and public requests. 7:30 p.m.
• Wednesday: International trade group Business Sweden will host a Vision Zero seminar, featuring local and Swedish political and business interests who will discuss the implementation of Vision Zero in NYC. 8:30 a.m. Registration required.
• Thursday: More Vision Zero lessons from Sweden. Matts-Ake Belin, director of the Vision Zero Academy at Trafikverket, Sweden’s transportation agency, will explain how data-driven policy and design are making streets safer. 10 a.m. Registration required.
• Saturday: Friends of Stryker Park is partnering with DOT for a “One Day Plaza” event on the west side of W. 97th Street near Columbus Avenue. There will be live music, games, and free coffee and snacks. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Keep an eye on the calendar for updated listings. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.

This section of the Hudson River Greenway, closed since 2007, is set to reopen in mid-November. Photo: Stephen Miller

An eight-year Hudson River Greenway detour is set to conclude in less than two months, restoring a direct bike route along West Street near the World Trade Center site.

Since 2007, the greenway has been closed near Brookfield Place, the office and retail complex on the west side of West Street formerly known as the World Financial Center. For eight years, cyclists (and on many blocks, pedestrians) have been detoured to the streets and waterfront promenades of Battery Park City.

The area covered by the greenway closure has varied over the years. As of today, the greenway remains closed between Vesey and Thames streets.

The detour was put in place while Brookfield and the Port Authority built an underground passageway connecting the winter garden at Brookfield Place with the World Trade Center PATH station. The detour was originally supposed to end in spring 2010, according to a NYC DOT announcement, but delays ensued: the PATH tunnel didn’t open until 2013. When Downtown Express checked in on the situation last year, state DOT said the detour would end sometime late this year.

It seems that timetable will hold. Work is almost done on rebuilding the separated bicycle and pedestrian paths between Vesey and Albany streets, and construction equipment stored on the greenway between Albany and Thames streets should eventually be cleared out.

The southern end of the closure, looking north from Liberty Street. Photo: Stephen Miller

The entire greenway will reopen in mid-November, according to state DOT spokesperson Diane Park. The finished greenway will include an extra-wide curb cut just north of Liberty Street for garage access to Brookfield Place.

“The area near the World Trade Center site is very dense with visitors, workers and residents, so every sidewalk and bike path that is turned back to the community relieves congestion elsewhere,” Community Board 1 chair Catherine McVay Hughes said in a statement.

Hughes added that CB 1 is anticipating the reopening of sidewalks on the east side of West Street between Albany and Liberty, which are closed for construction of the pedestrian bridge between Battery Park City and Liberty Park. The bridge is set for completion in spring 2016, she said.

The greenway closure has long rankled path users, and for good reason: While pedestrians and cyclists on the nation’s busiest greenway had to navigate eight years of detours, car and truck traffic on West Street next to the greenway was never seriously affected.

Ride Your Bike Down to the Bike Valet at Thrival Music Festival

Thrival Music Festival weekend is here! Bike down to the Almono site in Hazelwood through the VIP entrance to get to the FREE BikePGH bike valet. You can eave your bike lock at home and BikePGH employees and volunteers will watch it for you – just be sure to retrieve your bike by 11pm, when the festival closes.

Getting to Thrival

On 2nd Avenue in the South Side right by the chute (sidewalk protected by concrete barriers that connects Panther Hollow to the parking lot before the Eliza Furnace trail) there’s an industrial site that is usually gated, but it’s open! This is the VIP/Bike entrance. Proceed straight through the gates here off of 2nd Ave and then you’ll see about two block’s distance away next to the VIP check-in.

Look for the BikePGH flag! The FREE BikePGH Bike Valet is located at the blue tents.

Red line indicates the portion that will soon be fenced off

Trail Users Should Take Marked Route

By Ngani Ndimbie
Beginning Friday, October 2nd a stretch of the CSX Railway property in the South Side parallel to the river will be temporarily blocked off off to pedestrians and people on bikes between 2nd and 4th Street*. This section of railroad property is a commonly used connection on the South Side segment of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.

The temporary fencing will prohibit people who are walking and biking from accessing and using CSX property from 2nd Street to 4th Street.

We’ve been told that an an opening of 10 feet will be created at 2nd Street and believe that this opening will allow for trail users to for trail users to continue west along the trail from 2nd Street.

Since this stretch isn’t actually an official part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail system, there is existing “River Trail Detour” signage that routes bicyclists and pedestrians around that section of CSX property using South 2nd Street, South 4th Street and McKean Street (right by the Terminal Building).
 

Wait. Where Again?

*This length of land is actually pretty hard to describe as it doesn’t have a street name. So here’s my best shot: You know when you’re riding on the South Side segment of the trail towards Station Square and you pass through or near a parking lot and then make a left to go over some train tracks (the trail dead ends into a building otherwise)? Right after that things get a little sketchy if you take a sometimes narrow, sometimes graveley, not-well-maintained path next to the train tracks for about two blocks. That’s the part that will be closed. If you’re coming from the other direction this is what you may know as the sketchy portion shortly after the Smithfield Street Bridge.

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When even crosswalks don’t help

Creating a safe environment for pedestrian should be a priority for each and every municipality. In new segment from KDKA, reporter take a look at just how difficult it can be to cross the street – even in the crosswalks.

Mt. Lebanon is responding to deaths, crashes and concerns by stepping up law enforcement in areas with heavy pedestrian activity.

Visit the KDKA website for the full report.

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We’ve Got Good News

By Ngani Ndimbie, Communications Manager
The Strip District Trail portion of the riverfront trail starts at 23rd Street and connects all the way to Point State Park. But the trail has been closed from 23rd Street to 11th Street for over two years now due to a Buncher construction project adjacent to the trail.

Luckily, for many months scores of people who run, walk, commute by bike, and ride for recreation have been reminding, emailing, calling, and tweeting elected officials to respectfully ask “When in the heck will the Strip District Trail be reopened?!”

If I could hire a gospel choir to make this announcement I most certainly would.

The we have it on really, really good authority that the trail will open no later than Saturday, October 31, 2015. No, seriously! If you’re thinking “I’ll believe it when I see it,” that’s completely understandable. But even Eric Boerer, BikePGH’s advocacy director and office pessimist – i.e. the person who is most in-the-know about these things and least likely to trust something unfeasible – really believes this is true. Not too long from now, we’ll be able to enjoy a car-free ride or walk from 23rd Street all the way to Point State Park again.

Thank you to everyone who has advocated for this important connection to reopen. See you on the trail!

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Walk or Bike to School on October 7th

International Walk to School Day builds awareness of the need for walkable communities, safer and more accessible streets, and building healthy lifestyles for kids. Beginning in the US in 1997, the event is now celebrated in over 40 countries. A National Bike to School Day was established in 2012; last year, more than 2,200 schools participated.

Bike Pittsburgh encourages parents to bike or walk with your kids to school on October 7 — all forms of active transportation, including biking, are welcome as part of the event. To participate: post a picture from your trip and let us know your child’s opinion of the best part of the day’s journey.

Use @BikePGH, #BikePGH and #SafeRoutes to share your photos on Twitter and Facebook.

If you want to get even more involved and plan a larger event for your local school, the National Center for Safe Routes to School has put together a guide for planning an event in 7 days.

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Fall is here – time to go for a bike ride

By Mike Carroll, Events Manager
With the seasons and leaves changing it makes for an ideal time to grab your bike and go for a ride before the winter chill sets in. Here are just a couple ways to get away for a weekend.

October 9-11, 2015

Adventure Fest

Bicycle Times Magazine, your hometown pedal-powered publication, are bringing people on bikes together to share a weekend of riding under a canopy of spectacular fall foliage for the first ever Bicycle Times Adventure Fest Presented by Trek Bikes.

Road or Gravel you can choose your own adventure at Lake Raystown Resort. Take out a demo bike on a 13 mile loop around the lake, or go out all day 106 mile epic, the adventure is up to you.  Choose carefully. In addition to rides there will be live entertainment, food, and adult beverages from our new fat tire riding friends, New Belgium Brewing.

Great Allegheny Passage: Confluence to Ohiopyle 

Meander 11 gently curving miles among the fall foliage and trees along the Youghiogheny River from Confluence to Ohiopyle and enjoy the scenery.  Between watching the rafters battle the rapids, stopping to take in the rock formations and rich colors along the trail. This section of the Great Allegheny Passage is one of the most popular trips in the region. Completed in the mid-80s and its popularity spurred development of the entire system.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your bike, get off the internet, and go for a fall bike ride with your friends and family!

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NOW HIRING: VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR (FULL-TIME)

BikePGH is looking for another person to join our team to help recruit and coordinate volunteers year round for our ever-growing number of programs. We are looking for a highly organized, outgoing person who understands the importance of volunteering for a small non-profit.

Job responsibilities include but are not limited to coordinating volunteers for programs and events for BikePGH. These include Volunteer Nights, Bike to Work Day, OpenStreetsPGH, PedalPGH, BikeFest, the BikeFest Party, BikePGH Member Meeting, and other programs. The Volunteer Coordinator will be an exempt salaried employee based on a 40-hour workweek. Hours may increase during peak event dates.

Responsibilities include:

• Work under the guidance of Events Manager
• Recruit and coordinate volunteers.
• Ensure there is appropriate support and training for volunteers.
• Develop relationships and strategies for partnering with other organizations and businesses to volunteer with BikePGH.
• Organize events to attract new volunteers.
• Provide on-site event assistance in event / program execution with direction from the Events Manager.
• Use Salesforce membership database to track volunteer hours, recruit and thank volunteers
• Aid BikePGH members and participants with questions and concerns before, during and after programs.
• Evaluate, critique, and offer constructive feedback about volunteer policies and procedures.
• Serve as a BikePGH representative when needed at health fairs and other external events that BikePGH is participating in.
• The job duties listed above should not be construed as an exhaustive list of all job duties required. Other duties will be assigned as need arises and according to programmatic need.

Qualifications:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Customer service skills and experience
• Self-motivation and ability to create and move complex projects forward.
• Ability to identify, set priorities, and coordinate staff and volunteers in a manner that is in line with BikePGH’s goals and strategic direction
• Ability to plan, schedule, and conduct orientations, meetings, trainings, and public presentations.
• Outgoing personality
• Successful track record of at least 2 years in community outreach or volunteer coordinating.
• Data base management experience – Salesforce CRM experience is preferred.

This position pays between $28-$35,000 dependent upon experience, not including employee benefits.

To Apply

Please send your resume and cover letter to jobs@bikepgh.org by October 7th. Please include “Volunteer Coordinator” in the subject line.

Sign up for Bike Pittsburgh’s newsletter, The Messenger, to get the latest news on events, bike and pedestrian infrastructure, jobs, and fun; delivered straight to your inbox. Twice monthly emails, no spam.

Image courtesy of City of Bloomington, In

A quick guide to understanding the new bike boxes appearing on the Bayard St bike lanes

The City of Pittsburgh will be installing a road marking on the new Bayard St bike lane project that may be new to many road users: bike boxes. The bike boxes will be appearing at the intersection of Craig St and Bayard St.

A bike box (or an “advanced stop line” if you want to impress your friends) is a designated area for bicyclists to wait at a red light. The main purposes of a bike box is to prevent collisions between cyclists and right-turning motorists, as well as help bicyclists make a left turn from the bike lane. The box creates space between motor vehicles and the crosswalk that allows bicyclists to position themselves where they need to be ahead of motor vehicle traffic at an intersection. Bicyclists are more visible to motorists when waiting in a bike box because they are in front of them, rather than beside them.

A bike box is marked by a stop bar for motor vehicles, white lines to designate the waiting space for bikes, and a bike symbol. The box itself is often painted green, along with the approaching bike lane that feeds it. Drivers must stop behind the stop bar, and not in the bike box.

Benefits of a bike box

• Increases visibility of bicyclists.
• Reduces signal delay for bicyclists.
• Facilitates bicyclist left turn positioning at intersections during red signal indication. This only applies to bike boxes that extend across the entire intersection.
• Helps prevent ‘right-hook’ conflicts with turning vehicles at the start of the green indication.
• Groups bicyclists together to clear an intersection quickly, minimizing impediment to transit or other traffic.
• Pedestrians benefit from reduced vehicle encroachment into the crosswalk.
• For further reading, check out a Seattle study on bike boxes

When You Drive

• If the traffic signal is green, proceed as through the intersection in the same way as next to a bike lane. Note that you can drive over or on top of the bike box.
• If turning right, always signal, check your blind spot, and yield to bicyclists going straight.
• If the traffic signal is red, you must stop behind the advanced stop bar. Don’t stop on top of the green bike box. This positioning provides you greater visibility of adjacent bicyclists.
• When the traffic signal changes to green, proceed through as usual. You must yield to bicyclists who are waiting in the bike box to go straight or to turn right. Before turning right, look for additional bicyclists that may be approaching on your side.

When You Bike

• When the traffic signal is yellow or red, enter the bike box from the approaching bike lane. Stop before the crosswalk. You may ride up to the front of the traffic queue where you may wait in the bike box. This positioning increases your visibility to adjacent motorists.
• Turning left: Move to the left of the bike box and signal that you’re turning left.
  Going through: Position yourself in front of the through lane
  Turning right: Move close to the right edge of the roadway and signal that you’re turning right.
• When the traffic signal changes to green, look behind you to verify yielding from adjacent vehicles, then proceed as usual. Be aware of right-turning motorists.

Videos

Check out this video produced by the City of Edmonton, ON

Portland (Green) Bike Box! from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

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