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  #1  
Old Posted May 24, 2007, 5:54 PM
PacificNW PacificNW is offline
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Portland Bicycling News/Discussion









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  #2  
Old Posted May 24, 2007, 6:48 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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I wouldn't be able to watch or even be around that.
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  #3  
Old Posted May 24, 2007, 6:50 PM
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^me neither!
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  #4  
Old Posted May 24, 2007, 7:00 PM
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Talk about deathwish....
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  #5  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2007, 3:11 PM
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Portland Bicycling News

Portland ranks first in nation for biking to work
Census - The bureau director chooses the city to release 2005 commuting data
Thursday, June 14, 2007
JAMES MAYER
The Oregonian

A larger share of Portlanders commute by bicycle than in any other large city in America, eight times the national average, according to the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, who took note of the statistic during a presentation Wednesday at City Hall.

The city's love affair with bikes is not new, but it's nice to be noticed by the nation's top people counter.

"It's like a Swiss city, clean, with trains and bikes everywhere," said Louis Kincannon.

The census director chose Portland to release an analysis of 2005 commuting data to highlight the usefulness of the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey, which will take the place of the long-form census questionnaire in 2010.

The survey found that 3.5 percent of Portland workers commuted by bike in 2005. Ranking second was Minneapolis at 2.4 percent, then Seattle, at 2.3 percent. The national average for cities with more than 65,000 population was 0.4 percent.

"It's not surprising" that Portland ranked No. 1 in bike commuting, said Scott Bricker, policy director for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Portland has been ranked the nation's top cycling city in national cycling magazines in recent years.

Bricker said Portland has been working to improve cycling in the city for the past 10 or 15 years, and it has really paid off in the past two or three years. "This isn't peaking," he added.

Jonathan Maus, an advocate who runs the blog BikePortland.org, said the 2005 census data has been available since August, but he has focused more on the fact that bike commuting in Portland doubled in five years.

Portland looks better than the national average on other transportation measures as well.

Despite rising fuel costs, commuters continued to favor driving to work in 2005, but less so in Portland than in many cities. The survey found that 77 percent of Americans drove to work alone, compared with 62.4 percent of Portlanders.

In Portland, 13.3 percent of commuters took public transportation, twice the national average, but less than Seattle at 17 percent.

"With each succeeding year, we'll be able to see how people respond to changing circumstances, such as rising gas prices," instead of having to wait 10 years between census counts, Kincannon said.

Other commuting highlights:

About 3.6 percent of Americans worked from home in 2005. Portland ranked second behind San Francisco at 5.3 percent.

Boston had the highest percentage of employees who walk to work with 13 percent. Portland with 4.3 percent was more than the national average of 2.5.

The 2005 estimates are based on an annual, nationwide household sample of about 250,000 addresses a month.

James Mayer: 503-294-4109; jimmayer@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...160.xml&coll=7
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  #6  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2007, 4:01 PM
PDX City-State PDX City-State is offline
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Willy Week Chart

This is old, but no one posted it. It's a pdf, so hence the link:

http://media.wweek.com/attach/2007/0..._LedeChart.pdf
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  #7  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2007, 7:09 PM
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DUH, of course it is.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2007, 8:27 PM
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It's all relative of course; but ranking 1st in the US in bicycle commuting is small potatoes on a world scale.
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  #9  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2007, 4:23 PM
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der Reisender der Reisender is offline
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Does anybody else think its pretty good how well the big cities of the NW do in these regards compared to other places in North America? For relatively young cities with little in the way of dense historical centers like some of the eastern seaboard cities (and particular Portland's lower overall city density) to put up strong numbers like these says something good about how we plan out here. Our cities stack up pretty well against others in our peer group, but i'm not naming other city names, i dont want to be getting in trouble

Portland Seattle Vancouver
Public transit 13.3% 17% 17%
Walk 4.3% 6.9% 17%
Bike 3.5% 2.3% 3%
SOV 63.3% 58.4% 50%

Funny how the lower SOV rates correlate to higher densities...

Note- Vancouver numbers are from a City of Vancouver study cited in the Transportation forum, pdx/sea numbers come from the census data (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...ans_Tables.xls)
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  #10  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2007, 7:56 PM
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The Northwest is doing great! Good job Portland on the cycling numbers

I think these cycling figures are just the thin edge of the wedge as downtown populations and close-in suburbs increase in tandem with rising fuel costs. I'm heading down to Portland for my first trip on Monday and I am very excited.

Here are the Vancouver transportation numbers that were mentioned earlier. Bear in mind that these figures only apply to the City of Vancouver and not Greater Vancouver. The figures for the latter are not encouraging at all and are about to get even worse with the highly controversial "Gateway Project" of highway widening and bridge construction.

The following represent the City of Vancouver's findings ten years (1994-2004) after initiating the City of Vancouver transportation plan. (All figures apply to the 578,000 people in the city proper, out of a metro population of 2.2 million)

How we get around
Vancouver at large
Single Occupancy vehicle: 50%
Walk: 17%
Transit: 17%
Vehicle with passenger: 12%
Bike: 3%

To Downtown Vancouver
Transit: 30%
Single Occupancy Vehicle: 30%
Walk: 27%
Vehicle with passenger: 9%
Bike 3%

Vancouver Transportation Priorities (from highest to lowest)
1. Walking (highest priority, manifested in a good and improving public realm)
2. Biking
3. Transit
4. Goods Movement
5. Single Occupancy Vehicles (lowest priority, manifested by a zero increase in road surface area in a decade)

Mode-specific Updates
Vancouver at large
Walking: Up 44% in the decade to 310,000 trips a day. 27% of trips to downtown and 65% of all trips within downtown are on foot. 17% of all trips within Vancouver at large are on foot. For what it is worth, proportionately more people walk to work in Vancouver than in Montreal, Toronto, Seattle or Portland and this is thanks almost entirely to the fact that 100,000+ people live downtown.

Cycling: Up 180% in the decade to about 50,000 trips a day. Approximately 2,700 trips a day into downtown alone during the morning rush hour, equaling 50-60 full transit buses. Bike network doubled to 170km during the measured period of time. Vast majority of bike trips are not into the core.

Transit: Up 20% in the decade to about 330,000 trips a day. Trips to UBC increased by 62% in two years due to the UPASS. Growth in transit ridership is outpacing all other major Canadian transit systems.

Vehicles:Down 10% in the decade to about 390,000 trips a day. The number of vehicles entering the City of Vancouver has fallen 10%, the number entering downtown has fallen by 7%, and vehicles trips, including carpools represent only 10% of all trips within downtown.

Last edited by SFUVancouver; Jun 15, 2007 at 8:01 PM.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2007, 7:19 AM
CUclimber CUclimber is offline
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I'm glad to be doing my part. I have an incredibly easy commute (just 1.5 miles from Lair Hill to downtown), but I know at least a dozen other close friends, a dozen people in my small office building, and tons of others who do the same.

Hell, even my yuppie dad bought a Vespa to commute to the golf course from his house. :p
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  #12  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2007, 7:30 AM
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how do we NW forumers commute?

i live in irvington and work downtown, taking either MAX or riding my bike, depending on just how rainy it is, although if i was picking a census box i'd go with public transit as my 'primary mode'. one thing i love about portland is waiting in a queue of 10 bikes for a light to change...its a nice type of congestion
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  #13  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2007, 11:30 AM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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Bus, bicycle, and scooter; in that order. I live on the eastside close in off of Stark street, go to school and work downtown.
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  #14  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2007, 1:25 PM
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put some hills in there and see how you guys do.

I'm actually taking my bike to Portland on Amtrak, looking for a place to live. Right now in fact. Wish me luck.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2007, 7:48 AM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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Oh, we've got hills in Portland. Thank god they're not like Seattle or San Fran, but the West Hills are a pretty damn big deterrent for normal people to bicycle from downtown to SW/Beaverton.
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  #16  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2007, 12:58 PM
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^^^^
Deterrent? You haven't driven Cornell through Forest Park, have you? I can't believe how many cyclist tackle that hill every day, all day long.
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  #17  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2007, 5:29 PM
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I bike pretty much everywhere, although I enjoy walking too.

I live in inner NE between Fremont and Alberta and have a 5 mile commute to my job in SE, but also ride downtown a lot and have an art studio in the CEID.

I ride the MAX and streetcar when I have the opportunity. When the weather is particularly bad, or I'm feeling exhausted or lazy, I'll ride Interstate MAX up the hill, then ride east.

Good luck, herb. Welcome to town.
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  #18  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2007, 9:53 PM
nehalem5 nehalem5 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zilfondel View Post
Oh, we've got hills in Portland. Thank god they're not like Seattle or San Fran, but the West Hills are a pretty damn big deterrent for normal people to bicycle from downtown to SW/Beaverton.
Interesting thread...at least 3 times a week I ride over the west hills to hillsboro. less in the winter, but its amazing how many people I see riding up there in them hills, both ways. I'm no lance armstrong, but every time I'm feeling really great and making good time up a hill, someone always passes me like I'm going still. Its like a superrace of human cyclists up there, I've never seen anything like it.
The beauty of the west hills is that there are so many ways to get over them from Portland, some roads have 4-5 cars per hour. Descending into the sprawl is another story, but that 26 bike path is a blessing. I do find that if you choose to descend west via skyline or cornell (insane), its best to just take up the whole lane, that way cars wont take chances trying to pass you.

Herb, if you are cycling masochist like myself and apparently lots of others in Portland, check out this website that calculates the %grades of roads in the west hills. (I think it undercalculates the steepness of some roads)
http://www.lclark.edu/~kolitch/cycling.html
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  #19  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2007, 2:06 AM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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Hmm, I was actually thinking about access to SW Portland, like along Barbur... that's a pretty long and steep hill that I think most people would rather not attempt...

but you guys are right - the hills in town here are pretty tame. Still, riding around SE/NE Portland seems easier than riding to downtown.
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  #20  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2007, 4:33 AM
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I only bike to work. Sometimes I walk to work. I walk and take the bus on weekends. If I ride my bike on weekends, it is for leisure.

Last edited by Black Box; Jun 18, 2007 at 5:49 PM.
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