Ghost Bike Juanita Drive

Ghost Bike U District

When colleague Tony Abbo, NMDOT, asked if  I’d ever heard of Ghost Bikes a year + ago, I had to search it out.  With the grim irony of the Beatles verse “now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall“, folks in Seattle have three ghost bikes as reminders of biker vulnerability on the roads.  Ghost bikes have become memorials of bike fatalities (bikes were struck by autos) in Seattle and Kirkland. They also serve as reminders to be cautious in mixed mode environments.  With daylight shrinking everyday, it even more important to be vigilant when you are driving a bike or auto.

East Portland vs. Inner Portland

We have been following Portland’s bike plans since day 1, when they officially adopted the Portland Bicycle Master Plan for 2030. Now we are beginning to see common citizens like Nathan McNeil do research to help Portland create that “20 minute neighborhood” and reach the 25% mode share for bicycle ridership by 2030. His paper on how infrastructure and destinations influence bicycle accessibility “explores methodology for assessing a neighborhood’s bikeability based on its mix of infrastructure and destinations.”

He compares the bikeability of East Portland with that of inner-city Portland to find that the scores compare, respectively, at 76 vs. 96. And he goes on to suggest what improvements can be made to increase bikeability all around, for example higher street connectivity, better placed grocery stores, and new developments to exert positive influence on bikeability.

Link to the full report after the break…

Bikeability and the Twenty-Minute Neighborhood [pdf] by Nathan McNeil

Top posts for the past week:

1. Power up your iRoad ITS with these glass solar roadways [Video]

2. San Francisco Considers Mobility Pricing

3. Introducing EnzymePDX: Portland’s Newest News Source [feature]

Other magnificent posts during the week were (in order):

• Summer Bike Images
• The Harpoon House

• Tuesday, September 14 through Thursday, September 16, 5-7 PM or 4- 6 or 7PM
• Saturday, September 18 through Sunday, September 19, Noon- 2 PM

This survey and count is an effort to overcome one of the greatest challenges facing the bicycle and pedestrian field; the lack of documentation on usage and demand. This data is needed to increase investment in these fields. This nationwide effort will provide data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals.

For more information about how to volunteer and help with this effort, go to the National Project Website.

Typical volunteer activities will include:

* A brief Volunteer Training

* A 2-3 hour traffic count and half hour of survey distribution

In Portland, you can volunteer by contacting April Bertelsen, Pedestrian Coordinator, 503-823-6177, april.bertelsen@portlandoregon.gov.

Sharrows in Richmond BC

Not only do bikers need to worry about being hit by cars while riding, but now research shows they have to worry about the tens of millions of toxic particles that fill their lungs on each breath. Researchers in Belgian used devices to count the particles that bicyclists encountered and the rate at which they breathed to determine that in a whole journey of biking, billions of toxic nanochemicals, emitted mostly by car tailpipes, will enter the bicyclists body.

And bikers beware, before you start thinking about wearing a mask to mitigate the damage these toxins do to your body, think again because nanoparticles are too small to be filtered out by such a basic device. Instead, Jonathan Hiskes suggests that planners be more aware of the dangers floating in the air to and create some better buffers with trees, parked cars, or something else that will keep a bulk of the nasty air away from their mouths.

This suggestion comes a little counter-point to the ideas of sharrows that are spreading quickly around the Northwest. Me, I’m not sure how to solve this issue – to separate vehicles and bikes or to integrate them into denser areas…that is the question.

[Via: Grist]
[Source: The U.K. Times]

View from the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland on my morning commute

As a transit rider, I jealously watched bikers eating pastries and drinking coffee on the Hawthorne Bridge on my way to work Friday morning. I’ve known about Breakfast on the Bridges for a few years and think it is a great program. Transit riders really need some type of catalyst to make riding the bus as fun as riding your bike. We don’t have a bike polo equivalent for the bus (and probably shouldn’t) but is there a way to make riding the bus more of a group activity that encourages more transit use?

What about?

• Bus to beer trips (instead of the usual pub crawl – designated driver already included)
• Transit nature walks (take transit to a natural area as a group – just like a field-trip)
• Transit travel guide (people pay to ride buses and get a tour, why can’t we do something similar with free podcasts or cooperative bus drivers – I know a few who always call out city landmarks).
• Other ideas for creating a transit community? Please share!

Enjoy the weekly re-cap. Oh and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Top posts for the past week:

1. Leonardo DiCaprio to promote Tesla Motors Roadster

2. Building Transit into Suburban Communities – Newcastle, WA

3. Mercedes-Benz goes green with SLS E-Cell – 0 to 60 in 4s

Other magnificent posts during the week were (in order):

• Your Daily Zen
• People Powered Transportation: Spiderman Edition
• Tesla Roadster comes to the office [Gallery]
• What bikes and knitting have in common
• “Better infrastructure in Newcastle” honor from Seattle Transit Blog
• Bike Speak du Jour
• Toshiba announces futuristic solar panel charge station for electric vehicles
• Livability: Is it more than coffee?

Ghost Bike Memorials

New bike terms I hope to go viral:

Aggromuter – a combination of aggressive and commuter.  From Bike Portland was coined by Joe Doebele of local shop Joe Bike to describe a line of bikes he sells. Specifically, Joe says the Proletariat model from Portland-based bike brand, Stop Cycles is the bike for aggromuters (it caught my eye at the recent Pedal Nation Bike Show).

And “Policy Crush” from the same Bike Portland site — to mean to have an affinity for someone because you love their policy ideas. In common usage, the term has so far been mostly associated with NYC DOT’s Janette Sadik-Khan — the much-loved, bike-riding visionary who has spearheaded a transformation of public space in that formerly (but not as much now) car-choked metropolis.

Fit these into your conversations around the bike rack.

And one more form our Green Growth Terms “Ghost Bike”.  How many have heard of these?

Knitted bike rack in Portland

This was the rack I recently locked up to – conveniently located at one of my favorite yarn stores in Portland – Happy Knits.

It got me thinking about the way that we interact with our urban setting and how, some people try to make it more beautiful, soft, human, or other adjectives to fill a void that many city dwellers have. Enter Urban Knitting or Yarnbombing. You can see this local example on the bike rack, but there are even larger examples of this type of “graffiti” being used for social causes.

I like that this is a very non-offensive way to create a connection to place. For me, seeing this knitted bike rack, it was almost a friendly welcome mat. Inviting me to bike to the places around town that I love and to see them for a different perspective. I feel that way in general about biking – so it was a good reminder that slowing down (by knitting or biking) is a good way to reconnect with your city.

Top posts for the past week:

1. New Portland magazine launches for a “low car lifestyle”

2. The Birds, the Bees and the Worms

3. STARS – New LEED-like rating for sustainable streets

Other magnificent posts during the week were (in order):

• DecoBike brings bike-sharing to Miami Beach [Video]
• Scooters in Sorrento [Video]
• When Being Green, Safety First! Helmets that stink when damaged
• Forget the Vuvuzela – The Legacy of South Africa’s World Cup 2010 is Public Transport! [Video]
• Discussion: The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See