Design concept for Heights Bike Garden on Mill Plan Blvd in Vancouver. (Jonathan Maus / BikePortland) Vancouver’s first-ever traffic garden will open in June. According to the City of Vancouver, The Heights Bike Garden will, “Provide a fun, community-serving space at the site of the former Tower Mall.” The location — a large development site bordered by Mill Plan and MacArthur boulevards — is about two miles north of Portland’s Marine Drive (as the crow flies over the Columbia River) and about a six mile bike ride from the Kenton neighborhood in north Portland. The Bike Garden will be a space ..read more

Portland bicycle riders doing their part to raise PBOT revenue. Just kidding. This photo is from a protest against oil companies in 2012. (Jonathan Maus / BikePortland) Commissioner Mingus Mapps and leaders of the Portland Bureau of Transportation can breathe a sigh of relief this morning as their 10-cent per gallon gas tax was approved by voters last night. Known as Fixing Our Streets, the program will now pump an estimated $70.5 million into city coffers over the next four years. While its success was never seriously in doubt, there was mild consternation given the extremely sour mood of som ..read more

The current cross-section with five lanes for car users was established in 1996. The stars are aligning for inner Northeast Broadway to become a true main street where people are prioritized over cars. In the coming years we could see a major transformation of this key east-west corridor as a mix of federal funding and a local paving project create a golden opportunity for a redesign between the Broadway Bridge and NE 24th. As BikePortland reported back in March, the Portland Bureau of Transportation won a $38 million federal grant to create a “civic main street” on Broadway between the bridge ..read more

(Shannon Johnson / BikePortland) “Am I doing the right thing? Am I taking a frivolous risk and putting my children in harm’s way?” It’s been a challenging few weeks. I have two newly independent riders: my hesitant nine-year-old daughter and my exceptionally eager six-year-old son. As we have memorialized the loss of a 12-year-old boy in our community who was fatally struck while riding his bicycle, the risks of cycling have weighed heavily on me. And my children can tell you that weight has burdened our rides.  I have over-coached my kids, yelled out so many commands that everyone is l ..read more

Newly paved portion of the Ch-ak Ch-ak Trail in Troutdale. View (I think!) is looking northeast east with Sandy River to the right. (Photos: Frank Stevens) (Map: BikePortland) An exciting extension of the 40-Mile Loop route in Troutdale is nearing completion. Reader Frank Stevens shared images of a newly paved path along the Columbia River just north of Blue Lake Park. The new path, which was officially named the Ch’ak Ch’ak Trail by the City of Troutdale in October 2023 (the name means Bald Eagle in the Chinuk Wawa language) hardens an unimproved dirt road that some cyclists have enjoyed for ..read more

Tiffany Koyama Lane (L), Jeremy Beausoleil Smith (R) I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at Bike Happy Hour this week! Last Wednesday it was warm and the patio was full. We turned the misters on for the first time this year and it was glorious.  This week we have two special guests confirmed so far: city council candidates Jeremy Beausoleil Smith and Tiffany Koyama Lane. They’ll both be on the patio for meeting and greeting. And as per usual, we’ll give them an opportunity to share a speech and answer your questions. Beausoleil Smith is running to represent District 4 (Sellwood and wes ..read more

The driver was finally stopped thanks to this bollard at SE Spokane at Sellwood Park. Kyle Lewis was out for an evening spin. He planned to do a loop from his home in the Buckman neighborhood south to Milwaukie. A few miles in, while pedaling on the Springwater Corridor path about one-third of a mile from the entrance at SE 4th and Ivon, he heard something strange: a car’s engine. “I heard them coming up behind me,” Lewis shared with BikePortland. “I looked over my shoulder and had just enough time to swerve onto the grass before the car blew past me on the pavement doing what felt like at lea ..read more

This week’s Roundup is sponsored by Trike Fest, coming to Portland June 15th. If you’re curious about riding in a more laid-back style, you might love trikes. They’re fast and fun! Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. I had to make an unplanned visit down to Medford to be with my dad (again) in the hospital, so I missed all the Parkways fun. Looked like a great day and I can’t wait for the next one. Here are the most interesting stories our community has come across in the past seven days… Street Wars: As New York City gears up to implement America’s first ever congestion pricing system ..read more

Happy Friday and Welcome back to The Shed. Retired bike shop co-owner and BikeLoud PDX Board Member Eva Frazier and I (BikePortland Publisher & Editor Jonathan Maus) had a wonderful chat and I can’t wait to share it with you. Here’s what we talked about: That awful bumpy section on NE Tillamook between Rodney and MLK. How I keep track of so many meetings. Why Mayor Wheeler is a PCEF superfan (related BikePortland story) Eva’s report back from Future Sandy open house (related BikePortland story) Who’s lying, Commissioner Mapps or business leader Andrew Hoan? Why I’m so mad about Rose Cit ..read more

Thanks PCEF!!! (City of Portland) The Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) was created to save low-income and Portlanders of color from the ravages of climate change, but with approval of the $8.2 billion City of Portland budget this week, the fund has also managed to save all Portlanders from fiscal doom. And it might have saved part of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s legacy, allowing him to avoid severe cuts in his final budget as leader of our city. Those cuts might have hit the Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) hardest. Back in September, PBOT Commissioner-in-charge Mingus Mapps and agency staff painted a ..read more