Cycling in Portland, Oregon

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A station for Biketown, the city's new bicycle-sharing system Biketown station.jpg
A station for Biketown, the city's new bicycle-sharing system
Bicycle mural in Portland, 2014 Bicycle capital, Portland, Oregon (2014).JPG
Bicycle mural in Portland, 2014

Bicycle use in Portland, Oregon has been growing rapidly, having nearly tripled since 2001; for example, bicycle traffic on four of the Willamette River bridges has increased from 2,855 before 1992 to over 16,000 in 2008, partly due to improved facilities. [1] The Portland Bureau of Transportation says 6% of commuters bike to work in Portland, the highest proportion of any major U.S. city and about 10 times the national average. [2]

Contents

Due to its urban bicycling efforts, Portland has earned multiple "bicycle-friendly city" awards, [3] [4] [5] including being awarded platinum status by the League of American Bicyclists, [6] [7] and it ranked second in the CNBC's 2019 most bicycle-friendly cities in the US. [8]

In July 2016, Portland launched a bike share program, [9] named "Biketown" because of a naming rights deal with Nike, [10] with 1,000 bikes and 100 stations. It is operated by Motivate. [9] The new system logged more than 100,000 rides in its first two months of operation. [11]

History

Portland's reputation as a bike-friendly City was enhanced by The Yellow Bike Project, a 1994 civic engagement action led by local activists Tom O'Keefe, Joe Keating and Steve Gunther.[ citation needed ] O'Keefe proposed painting donated bikes – repaired by at-risk-youth served by the Community Cycling Center – bright yellow, and deploying them for free use around Portland. O'Keefe cited the Provo movement's White Bicycle Plan in Amsterdam as inspiration after watching the documentary "Sex Drugs & Democracy". [12] "Gratis Pedalis Feralvus"[ citation needed ] was a tongue-in-cheek slogan for the quirky eco-transportation project. About a dozen yellow bikes, painted for free by a local auto body shop were launched. Eventually 60 [13] to 100 [12] bicycles were part of the project. Ultimately the project failed after bikes were stolen, vandalized, or thrown into the Willamette River. [14]

Bicycle Transportation Alliance

The bicycle revolution in Portland started taking off with the founding of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance in November 1990. The first project of the BTA was persuading TriMet, the regional transit agency, to carry bicycles on its buses and light rail trains. BTA gathered over 7000 signatures and the support of numerous local city councils, prompting TriMet to conduct a one-year trial on a few bus lines. After a year of no significant problems and an increase in transit ridership by cyclists, TriMet instituted the first 100% bicycle accessible major transit system in the U.S. The Bicycle Transportation Alliance grew into one of the most effective cycling advocacy organizations in the U.S. The BTA focused on making major streets safe for cycling by advocating bicycle lanes, improvements to all seven pedestrian-accessible Willamette River bridges linking the downtown to the rest of the city and for safe, secure bicycle parking. In 1992, BTA successfully sued the City of Portland under ORS 366.514, the Oregon "Bicycle Bill," forcing the city to provide bicycle facilities as part of all projects. The City appealed this to the Oregon Court of Appeals which upheld the BTA's position, solidifying the responsibility of all governments in Oregon to provide safe bicycle and pedestrian facilities in all projects. [15]

Portland Bike Plan

Interest in city transportation planning began in the early 1970s after the state of Oregon passed comprehensive state land use laws with the city of Portland drafting its first 'Bicycle Master Plan' in 1973. [16]

1973

The city's first bike plan that was adopted in 1973, titled the '1973 Portland Bike Plan', called for nearly 190 miles of bicycle infrastructure to be built in the city and created a citizen's Bicycle Advisory Committee along with a Bicycle Program within the city's Transportation Bureau. [17]

1996

By 1996, after the city had created the nearly 190 miles of initial bicycle infrastructure from the first plan, the city adopted its second bike plan in 1996, titled the 'Portland Bicycle Master Plan', which called for an additional 445 miles of bicycle infrastructure to be built over the next 20 years (cumulative of 630 miles by 2016). [17]

2010

The city revised its bicycle plan again in February 2010 when the Portland City Council unanimously adopted its third bike plan, titled the 'Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030', which called for $613 million of spending on bicycle infrastructure over the next 20 years to expand the bicycle infrastructure target from 630 miles by 2016 to 962 miles by 2030 and increase the daily bicycle modal share from the current 7-8% to 25% by 2030. [17] [18] With only about 300 miles of bicycle infrastructure built by the end of 2009, the plan sets a target of building 662 miles of new bicycle infrastructure in the city over the next 20 years. [17]

2012

With enabling legislation from the 2011 session, Portland lowered speed limits from 25 to 20 miles per hour (40 to 32 km/h) on 70 miles (110 km) of designated neighborhood greenway streets to increase safety for increasingly heavy use by pedestrians and bicyclists. [19]

Bicycle infrastructure

Bridge over Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard, a part of the Springwater Corridor Trail along Johnson Creek Johnsoncreek2.jpg
Bridge over Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard, a part of the Springwater Corridor Trail along Johnson Creek

Portland is developing a network of bicycle boulevards to make cycling easier and safer. [20] The east side of Portland is particularly well-suited for this technique due to its consistent grid of north–south and east–west streets. The boulevards are defined with a combination of street markings, signs, and better signals for crossing busy intersections. [21]

Another route is the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade.

In order to try to prevent car-bike crashes the city has painted sections of hazardous bike lanes blue. [22]

More recently, the city has installed experimental bike boxes that allow bicyclists to wait ahead of motorized traffic at red lights. [23]

An important milestone in Portland's utility cycling infrastructure was the expansion of the sidewalks of Hawthorne Bridge in 1997, which significantly improved the safety and ease of bicycle commuting across the Willamette River. [24]

In 2004, a bike path along the Sunset Highway between Sylvan and Cedar Hills was completed, helping to link Beaverton and downtown Portland.

Bicycle access to the Morrison Bridge opened to mixed reviews in March 2010. [25] [26] [27]

In recent years, the City of Portland has built personal motor-vehicle free bridges for pedestrians and cyclists whose commute crosses busy interstates or the Willamette river, and need a safe route. Some of these bridges include the Blumenauer Bridge (2022), Ned Flanders Crossing (2021), and the Tilikum Crossing (2015), which is open to pedestrians and cyclists, as well as MAX, buses, and Streetcar.

In 2021, PBOT began to place large, concrete planters to replace the traffic cones they had used for the previous year, in order to slow down traffic on neighborhood streets. They were strategically placed at intersections in residential neighborhoods, and most have signage above them which indicate a recommended speed limit of 15 mph. [28]

Bicycle parking

A recent project will bring covered bicycle parking to the popular southeast Hawthorne Boulevard shopping district. [29]

Events

2007 Tour de Fat group ride Bikes in Portland.jpg
2007 Tour de Fat group ride

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance sponsors an annual Bike Commute Challenge, in which thousands of commuters compete for prizes and recognition based on the length and frequency of their commutes. [30]

Pedalpalooza is an annual festival with hundreds of community-organized free bike events. [31]

Statistics

The following table shows Portland's historical bike commuting mode share with data coming from the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey: [32] [33] [34] [35]

Calendar year19902000200520102014
Portland bike c. share1.2%1.8%3.5%6.0%7.2%
National bike c. share0.4%0.4%0.4%0.5%0.6%

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawthorne Bridge</span> Bridge over the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon

The Hawthorne Bridge is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, joining Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in the United States and the oldest highway bridge in Portland. It is also the busiest bicycle bridge in Oregon, with over 8,000 cyclists and 800 TriMet buses daily. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sellwood Bridge</span> Bridge in Portland, OR

The Sellwood Bridge is a deck arch bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. The current bridge opened in 2016 and replaced a 1925 span that had carried the same name. The original bridge was Portland's first fixed-span bridge and, being the only river crossing for miles in each direction, the busiest two-lane bridge in Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 205 (Oregon–Washington)</span> Interstate Highway in Oregon and Washington

Interstate 205 (I-205) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon and Washington, United States. The north–south freeway serves as a bypass route of I-5 along the east side of Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. It intersects several major highways and serves Portland International Airport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transportation in Portland, Oregon</span> Overview of movement of goods and passengers in Portland

Like transportation in the rest of the United States, the primary mode of local transportation in Portland, Oregon is the automobile. Metro, the metropolitan area's regional government, has a regional master plan in which transit-oriented development plays a major role. This approach, part of the new urbanism, promotes mixed-use and high-density development around light rail stops and transit centers, and the investment of the metropolitan area's share of federal tax dollars into multiple modes of transportation. In the United States, this focus is atypical in an era when automobile use led many areas to neglect their core cities in favor of development along interstate highways, in suburbs, and satellite cities.

Portland is "an international pioneer in transit orientated developments."

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bicycle boulevard</span> Street designed as a bicycle route

A bicycle boulevard, sometimes referred to as a neighborhood greenway, neighborway, neighborhood bikeway or neighborhood byway is a type of bikeway composed of a low-speed street which has been "optimized" for bicycle traffic. Bicycle boulevards discourage cut-through motor-vehicle traffic but may allow local motor-vehicle traffic at low speeds. They are designed to give priority to bicyclists as through-going traffic. They are intended as a low-cost, politically popular way to create a connected network of streets with good bicyclist comfort and/or safety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 5 in Oregon</span> Interstate highway in Oregon

Interstate 5 (I-5) in the U.S. state of Oregon is a major Interstate Highway that traverses the state from north to south. It travels to the west of the Cascade Mountains, connecting Portland to Salem, Eugene, Medford, and other major cities in the Willamette Valley and across the northern Siskiyou Mountains. The highway runs 308 miles (496 km) from the California state line near Ashland to the Washington state line in northern Portland, forming the central part of Interstate 5's route between Mexico and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Springwater Corridor</span> Bicycle and pedestrian trail in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area

The Springwater Corridor Trail is a bicycle and pedestrian rail trail in the Portland metropolitan area in Oregon, United States. It follows a former railway line from Boring through Gresham to Portland, where it ends south of the Eastbank Esplanade. Most of the corridor, about 21 miles (34 km) long, consists of paved, off-street trail, though about 1 mile (1.6 km) overlaps city streets in Portland's Sellwood neighborhood. A large segment roughly follows the course of Johnson Creek and crosses it on bridges many times. Much of the corridor was acquired by the City of Portland in 1990; remaining segments were acquired by Metro thereafter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Street Trust</span> American non-profit organization

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cycling in San Francisco</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cycling in Canada</span> Overview of cycling in Canada

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ned Flanders Crossing</span> Bicycle and pedestrian bridge in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

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References

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