Bicycle Transportation Alliance

A banner for the BTA's campaign seenat an event this summer.(Photos © J. Maus) Back in August, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) announced that Going Street would be the focus of their first major effort to create a new bike boulevard in Portland. Since then, BTA staffer Emily Gardner has been busy shoring up neighborhood support for [...]

"We're not going to put our blinders on and say ‘no, we refuse to talk about it'."–BTA lobbyist Karl Rohde One of the many interesting conversations that we'll follow in the upcoming legislative session is the concept of a bike tax. We shared news of the tax last week and reported that the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) [...]

Jessica Roberts(Photo © J. Maus) This article was written by Jessica Roberts. Jessica is the former metro area advocate for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and she is now a planner with Alta Planning and Design, one of the nation's premier bike and pedestrian planning firms. Jessica previously wrote about how to get letters published [...]

Oregon's Transportation Vision Committee released its report to Gov. Kulongoski last week, laying out a multi-year strategy for infrastructure investments and policy changes. Reading through it more closely today, something odd jumped out at me.

The long list of committee members mostly consists of the usual suspects in transportation planning -- the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, Associated General Contractors, etc. -- but somewhat new to the scene are Oregon's two largest utilities. Pat Reiten, the president of Pacific Power, was front and center in the report, as the author of the introduction and committee chairman.

When I spoke to Pat just before the release he emphasized the report's focus on plug-in hybrid electric cars and the governor's proposed retooling of the Residential and Business Energy Tax Credits toward the purchase and development of those vehicles. I was surprised because PGE has been very vocal about its support of hybrid cars, launching its pilot program for electric car charging stations this summer. But Pacificorp has been more cautious.

It now seems that Pacificorp is gearing up for the transition to electric vehicles, too.

*[UPDATE: I have edited this story to clarify that the bike tax is not, at this time, a part of Governor Kulongoski's Jobs and Transportation Act.] The BTA's Karl Rohde (in red) says he supports the concept of a bike tax.(Photo ? J. Maus) Both Metro and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) are supportive of an [...]

The BTA's Karl Rohde (in red) says he supports the concept of a bike tax.(Photo © J. Maus) Both Metro and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) are supportive of an idea to create a bike tax. The idea came up as a small (and for the most part unnoticed) part of the Governor Kulongoski's announcement [...]

Portland's Bicycle Count Report for 2008 is available, and the news keeps getting better for America's first major city to be designated a Platinum level bicycle community. The report is filled with statistics and graphs that should warm the heart of any bicycle advocate.

Here are some of the highlights:

? Compared to 2007, bicycle transit in Portland has increased by 28 percent.
? Bicycle transit has almost tripled since 2000.
? On Portland's four bicycle friendly bridges the, Hawthorne, Burnside, Steel, and Broadway bridges, bikes account for 13 percent of all vehicles.
? The bike culture has become increasingly egalitarian. Last year, 32 percent of all cyclists were women, as compared to 26 percent in 1997.
? The report supports Sam's position that a mandatory helmet law is unnecessary, and that education is a more effective way to increase safety for all road users. 80 percent of riders surveyed were wearing helmets, up from 63 percent in 1997.

The report is positive confirmation that the efforts of PDOT, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and the rest of the Portland bicycling community are achieving results. So why stop here? As Portland continues to invest in bicycle infrastructure, we anticipate encourage Bicycle Count Reports for years to come.

To read the entire report, head to the PDOT website at

http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=44597

 

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winter biking workshop
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