There's been a lot of energy lately aimed at improving Portland's streets for cyclists and pedestrians, but it's not so often that Portland City Council gets the shouting brought into meetings.

True, the council just formally endorsed Vision Zero last week, in a somber and sometimes tearful hearing. But commissioners refused to set any firm deadlines for the goal of eliminating traffic-related deaths and serious injuries.

This morning, the shouting stopped by. The group BikeLoudPDX staged a rally outside City Hall beginning at 8 am, then helped pack out council chambers for the 9:30 am meeting. The cyclists weren't there to speak on any current agenda item. Instead, they'd come to speak to agenda items of the past: the bike and pedestrian plans that City Council has approved over the years, but not followed through on.

"I am here today to express the desperation, sadness, anger, and fear that cyclists are starting to feel in this city," said BikeLoud member Jessica Engelman, one of four people who'd signed up to urge council to get serious about road safety. "The conversation is now: Who’s it going to be next? Is it going to be a young child who gets killed or maimed? Is it going to be a friend of mine? Is it going to be me?"

"As I stand here asking you to make safe roads a priority, I am not a special interest," said Soren Impey, another BikeLoud member. "Vision Zero is not a future goal. It is not a series of committee meetings. It is an ethical duty. The safety of people walking in our city should be a priority."

Each of the speakers did what they could with their 3 minutes. City commissioners were given handouts demanding that the city put more money to safer streets, enforce speed limits, investigate all crashes involving cyclists and pedestrians, and crackdown on bad drivers. Engelman and another speaker, Gerald Fittipaldi, yelled at times to drive home their points. And they offered enticements to a city council that's going to see the majority of its members running for re-election next year.

"When the politics of bike infrastructure get contentious, we of Bike PSU [Portland State University] will give you the political will to make things safer," Fittipaldi said of a group he's starting. "We’ve got your back."

That's not such an outlandish offer. Sam Adams, still revered as cyclists' staunchest ally at City Hall in decades, relied on the cycling community to back him on his way to the mayor's office. (The relationship later soured somewhat.)

But there was no outward sign anyone on council had been moved or swayed by the remarks.
Hales—who’d urged demonstrators to make their case in Salem earlier in the morning—did his typical, Elvis-inspired “thank you, thanks very much” and the meeting moved on to a Travel Portland presentation that touched on a cuckoo clock, a “Santa-squatch” stunt, and a video that claimed Portland is a "diverse city."

Bike activists planned to be back this afternoon, as council considers updates to the city and county Climate Action Plan, which in part directs the Portland Bureau of Transportation "to prioritize transportation investments which expand the number and diversity of people using low-carbon transportation options."