There are particular issues with cyclist/pedestrian conflicts at some key locations in the city and other areas in residential neighborhoods where cyclists disobey stop signs and/or traffic signals. I’ve frequently stopped at one particular intersection in Portland (Ladd’s Circle for you Portland locals) and had cyclists blow past me, even with pedestrians about to cross.

Note that the last is nowhere near a bike-only problem. At the intersection where I live I counted 24 of 27 cars failing to come to a complete stop at the sign – the 3 that stopped were directly in response to cross-traffic.

I’ve also had issues with “speed demons” whizzing past me on the bridges with less than a foot clearance and no advance warning, and there are a couple of cyclists who yell at other cyclists to get out of their way. It’s not that common, but yes, it’s noticeable, and yes, we have them.

Respectfully,

Does Portland have that aggressive rider problem?

My hope is that when there are loads of cyclists, they are forced to behave in a more organized manner. Or, that cycling becomes less of a rebellion, and just another way to get around.

Does Portland have that agressive

David Hillier: You’re right that there’s been a generation of work that’s laid the groundwork for what’s going on now. I don’t know that I’d think of Mia as “Earl’s Assistant”. She was hired to be the Bicycle Program Coordinator in PDOT while Earl was Commissioner. From what I hear, our current Commissioner is being fairly equivalently ascertive about bike issues as Earl was.

The other interesting thing is that there was certainly a spike of activity with the 1990′s crew (Earl, Mia, Roger, Jeff Smith, Barb Plummer, etc). However, as far as I can tell, the real work began in the early 70s. Those counts that are 14,000 people strong this year across 4 bridges had 15 — yes FIFTEEN — cyclists counted in 1974.

David H: You’ll find answers to your questions here (Aaron, you may want to use this link in the article as it’s the 2007 report): http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=169951

Have a nice weekend.
Greg

This is one reason why the “beautiful bike girls” are good publicity for cycling: if a skinny model feels safe riding in a dress and heels, how dangerous can it be?

It’s also why I think the city and/or MTA would be wasting time with “BRT” branding in New York City. Women already ride the bus, in great numbers.

(I mean by this that people who are willing to bicycle in a busy road with little bicycle infrastructure are probably pretty hardy people who will let cold weather get to them less (or don’t have children with them etc. etc). Now that there is better bicycle infrastructure and a safer environment for bicycling, people for whom risk-level and comfort-level play a greater role in deciding whether or not to bike are out in greater numbers — but what happens when the weather gets bad? I’d imagine many of them stop biking).

At the outset of the “velorution” in Portland they had an elected Commissioner making transportation decisions named Earl Blumenauer and an aide named Mia Birk. At now Congressman Blumenauer’s direction, Mia implemented first and asked for forgiveness later. To both their credit, they took what David S. Allen’s research inferred to heart – and knew that, “if you build it they will come.”

In Seattle, we’re in the first year of a quarter-billion dollar race to catch up with our neighbor to the south. Regardless of who wins, we’ll all benefit.

Ride safe,

David Hiller
Advocacy Director
Cascade Bicycle Club

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/09/03/070903ta_talk_paumgarten

(But I digress.)

Looks like they took back some space from the car lanes. And it is in a smart place, that little uphill stretch is well served by having a way to go around the slower cyclists so that they won’t feel under pressure to go faster than they want to.

Clarence’s post reminded me that we did just make an improvement to the westbound approach to the Hawthorne Bridge that is pretty neat.

We shifted the auto lanes (which actually helped straighten out an offset from one side of the intersection to the other) and increased the width of the bicycle space.

The result is that it went from one 6′ bike lane to two side-by-side 5′ bike lanes with skip stripe separation. So, it’s essentially a short bicycle passing lane.

You can see the before and after (photos taken immediately after construction) here:
ftp://ftp.trans.ci.portland.or.us/raisman/Hawthorne/before%20and%20after%20passing%20lane.pdf

phew got that out of my system.
Greg

Roger Geller, our Bicycle Coordinator led the effort. Denver Igarta from Transportation Planning and Dan Bower from Transportation Options also did major work on putting the report and data collection strategies together. So, the numbers really are “the latest numbers from PDOT.”

I just happened to be the person who sent the information on to Aaron.

If you want to see what the bridge looks like rush hour (and I swear this is really an average snap shot, there times when there are so many bikes pouring over it, it is incredible and might make this look paltry) just go to the freeze frame we have on Streetfilms we used for the Portland film here:

http://tinyurl.com/2ocmfm

http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1182207324154190.xml&coll=7

Thanks.
Greg

Why are they obsessed with examining gender and helmet use? And how did they determine individuals’ genders? You’d think Portland would be more open minded about definitions of gender. I would be more interested in data about bikers’ ages (although that could get people into trouble as well!).

To me there’s more likely a fabric of reasons that have encouraged the increases. Here’s a few:

1) Political will. Our mayor ran on a theme of “Vote Recumbent” in 2004. Our Commissioner of Transportation (elected) ran saying he wanted to turn Portland into Amsterdam (see http://www.commissionersam.com/).

2) Community engagement. Some estimates are showing that Portland has about 2,000 bicycle related events a year – 7 a day on average. For a little sampling, check out the the schedule from last year’s Pedalpalooza – http://www.pedalpalooza.org

3) Engineering improvements. We have a new aerial tram that you can bring your bike on. People who didn’t ride because they don’t want to go uphill don’t have to anymore (that’s not why it was built, but it sure is a nice side effect). New bike signals and HAWK signals. New pavement markings to guide people through bike boulevards. On-street bike parking. I could keep going.

There’s more. But, I think that what happens is that the people around you are riding bikes more and more and they enjoy it. Then, they invite you on a ride and you enjoy it. Then, it goes from there. I think our exponential growth is going to continue as riding a bike becomes a more and more normal part of everyday life.

Thanks.
Greg