City of Portland Last May, active transportation advocates convinced the city to shut-down a northbound lane of Naito Parkway to automobile traffic for two weeks. It was great if you were a cyclist or pedestrian looking to navigate—or avoid—the Rose Festival without dodging speeding SUVs. (We wrote about it in last June’s Mercury Bike Issue.) […]
Bikes
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Transformation PDX Is Breaking the Law to Guard Portland Bike Lanes
We Sat Down with Its Secretive Founder
We sat down with its secretive founder.
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Uncle Phil’s Buying Portland Upgraded Bike Share Bikes
Dirk VanderHart Biketown! Weeks after announcing a hefty $10 million bike share sponsorship deal with Nike, the Portland Bureau of Transportation finally released documents that lay out the agreement this morning. Those include a revamped contract [pdf] with Motivate, the company that will procure and run the forthcoming Biketown system here, and an agreement with […]
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Remember David Bowie By Bicycle This Evening
Every year when June rolls around, the Mercury issues its definitive list of Pedalpalooza rides you can’t miss. And pretty much every year, we urge you to saddle up for the Bowie vs. Prince ride, where rabid partisans dress up like their favorite glittery iconoclast and ride/dance their asses off. Well today, with news of […]
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Nike’s Throwing $10 Million At Portland’s Bike Share System, And That’s A Big Deal
Welcome to Portland, #BIKETOWNPDX. pic.twitter.com/vzVznxCQCS— PDX Transportation (@PBOTinfo) January 7, 2016 In December 2011, it was big news when Metro approved $2 million in funding that would be used to build a bike share system in Portland. Until today, those were about the gladdest tidings the city’s bike share ambitions have had. Not anymore. After […]
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Have Portland’s Bike Share Dreams Finally Found A Benefactor?
Is Swoosh Bikes coming to Portland? It looks more likely now than it did 20 minutes ago. The Portland Bureau of Transportation put out a cryptic news release this evening, announcing a “major bike share partnership” with Nike that’ll be formally unveiled tomorrow at 9 am. PBOT spokesman John Brady very adamantly refused to say […]
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The Driver Who Severed A Cyclist’s Leg In May Won’t Face Criminal Charges
More than four months after a 22-year-old cyclist lost his leg to an uninsured pickup driver’s inattention, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has decided that driver won’t face criminal charges. After repeated inquiries over months, the DA’s office finally released to the Mercury this afternoon a memo [pdf] indicating it won’t criminally charge 42-year-old […]
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We’re Back! Bike Commuting Shot Above 7 Percent Last Year
Illustration by Script and Seal Every year since 2009, Portlanders have been dealt gloomy news by the US Census Bureau. The bureau’s yearly estimates of how working adults (well, people 16 and over) get to work have been a source of jubilation and swagger in the last decade—with a relatively whopping 6 percent bike commuting […]
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Racist Graffiti, Surge Pricing, and Other Interesting Tidbits from Portland’s Proposed Bike Share Contract
What Portland bike share might look like if no sponsors emerge. When the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced last week it’s finally moving forward with a bike share program next year, many of the details were hard to come by. PBOT wouldn’t share a copy of an amended contract it wants to ink with New […]
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Here’s Where Bike Share Will (Maybe) Be Available Next Year
Bike share’s coming to Portland! Uh, well part of it. With PBOT’s announcement it’s going with a cheaper, more versatile bike share program than originally planned come inevitable concerns about access and equity. The city’s always proposed starting bike share in and around downtown, then expanding if/when the system gains popularity and more money from […]
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Bike Share’s Coming! PBOT Says It’ll Have a 600-Bike System Up Next Summer
Uploading a newspaper to the web is a long and tiresome process, but news is happening now. Here’s a special preview of this week’s news section. ON JULY 23, an odd-looking blue bicycle with a bulky computer on the back was locked up in front of Portland City Hall, conspicuous among the commuting rigs of […]
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Old Town’s About to Become A Lot More Bike-Friendly
PBOT Looks like Downtown Portland’s best bike lane is coming to Old Town. The Portland Bureau of Transportation is planning to chop one lane of automobile traffic on the mini-freeway that is 3rd Avenue, between Davis and Stark. That was first reported yesterday by bikeportland.org. For a cost of $40,000 (between installation and outreach/planning) the […]