Fort Worthology goes to Portland, Part Two: Bicycling

In today’s Portland post, we’re going to talk about bicycling in the Rose City, including our meet-up with fellow urbanism blogger Elly Blue of BikePortland.org.

(Note: this post contains video from our friends at StreetFilms, a fellow member of the StreetsBlog Network that Fort Worthology is part of. Clarence and the gang at StreetFilms do an awesome job translating examples of urbanism, transit, and bike advocacy into cool videos, and we’re glad to have them featured here.)

Bicycling in Portland is a big deal. The city consistently appears at or near the top of bike-friendly cities in the United States, and the results are plain to see. More people ride bikes in Portland than in any other United States city – 3.5 percent of the population rides every day. While that’s still a ways off from the huge number of bike commuters in European cities, compare it with Fort Worth’s current 0.2 percent figure.

Bicycling is popular in Portland at least in part because it has been made easy, convenient, and safe (at the very least, compared to most other American cities). As opposed to the viewpoint prevalent in most of the U. S. (including Fort Worth until recently), which is typically “we’ll only put bike infrastructure in if there are enough people riding bikes,” Portland took the “build it and they will come” approach – creating effective, efficient bike infrastructure which helped encourage ever-larger numbers of bike traffic. Here in Fort Worth, we’re only just seeing this reversal now, with the “Bike Fort Worth” plan we wrote about recently.

This is just a small segment of the Portland bike transportation map. It’s massively larger and more intricate compared to the current Fort Worth bike system – though it pleases us that the Bike Fort Worth maps much more closely resemble this sort of network. The Portland bike network makes getting around the city by bike very easy, safe, and efficient.

Further, transit options feature bike support – all buses feature bike racks on front, the MAX light rail features hooks to hang bikes on in the trains, and the streetcar’s center, low-floor car allows space for bikes on the streetcar.

Here’s a closer view of the bike network in Downtown Portland.

Here, a closer view of the Pearl District/Chinatown/Old Town network.

A small segment of the North Portland network.

And here is a small segment of the Southeast Portland network.

The Portland bike route maps not only show easy paths from one location to another, but they also mark out higher-traffic streets, difficult connections, and difficult intersections to avoid.

Several of the routes are “bicycle boulevards” – featuring strong traffic calming measures to slow and discourage car traffic in favor of bikes and pedestrians. These feature traffic diverters letting cars out but not in, signs blocking entrance except by bikes, frequent speed humps, and small roundabouts with large trees and plantings in the middle of the intersection to slow traffic and discourage through driving.

I took this shot from a bike in one of the bike boulevards, as we went around the traffic-calming roundabout.

Several of the dedicated bike lanes in Portland feature these “bike boxes” to help give cyclists a safer start at traffic signals, as seen in this StreetFilm.

As a result, one can’t help but see tons of bikes everywhere they go in Portland. People ride them for fun, for commuting, for trips to the store, to visit friends – whatever. Particularly pleasing to us is the number of people riding bikes in normal clothing, rather than the spandex & lycra numbers most often seen in Fort Worth. Bicycle usage in Portland has climbed much farther up the summit of “normal,” and there it’s not seen as a strictly exercise/speed thing requiring tight-fitting clothes and helmets.

With so many people on bikes, there’s a real sense of “safety in numbers” as the amount of bikes on the road helps reinforce the correct behavior of car drivers in a mixed environment. While, of course, accidents do still occur, riding bikes in Portland feels far safer than the atmosphere in most of North Central Texas.

Portland also features huge amounts of bike parking, further encouraging the use of bikes as normal transportation. Naturally, there are plenty of standard bike racks – much, much more than you find around these parts.

Every block has multiple bike racks in front of stores, cafes, and other destinations.

Most of the bike racks take the form of the simple blue inverted-U rack, as seen above. They’re easily identifiable, extremely simple to use, and each will hold a couple of bikes.

Some areas feature more stylized racks. For example, in the north end of the Pearl District, bike racks take on the appearance of the nearby Fremont Bridge.

The racks installed by the legendary Powell’s Books feature the titles and authors of some bike-related books that can be found inside.

Rows of bike racks are often spotted filled with bikes, such as this scene in the “Vegan District,” home to Food Fight (an all-vegan grocery store), Herbivore Clothing, and Sweetpea Bakery.

Here, clusters of bikes park outside businesses in the North Mississippi district.

Another scene along North Mississippi.

Bike racks are only the start of bike parking infrastructure in Portland, though. Here, a covered bike rack setup, built on an extended sidewalk, is seen in the Hawthorne Boulevard district. This is known as a “bike oasis” and is something the city is starting to install more of around neighborhoods.

Huge amounts of bike parking are provided at major transit/commuter centers. Here, we see just a small portion of the rows upon rows of filled bike racks surrounding the OHSU South Waterfront office building & cafe, where bicyclists transfer to and from the Portland Streetcar and the Portland Aerial Tram discussed in yesterday’s post.

Another major bike parking initiative in Portland is the “bike corral.” This is where one or two on-street car parking spaces are removed and replaced with on-street parking for 25+ bicycles. The corrals are wildly popular with cyclists, and have been good for adjacent businesses, too – where once they had the capacity to have one or two vehicles parked, they now have the ability to have 25-65 vehicles in front of their business. In this shot, Elly Blue from BikePortland.org shows us a bike corral in the North Mississippi district. Elly gave us a great rundown on bike infrastructure projects in the city.

As an aside, we met Elly in the North Mississippi district, at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican diner & taqueria called Por Que No. Not knowing what to expect of Oregonian Mexican food, we were pleasantly surprised – the food was flavorful and vegetarian options abounded (as they do virtually everywhere in Portland – more on this in another post).

I really want to thank Elly from BikePortland for giving us her own personal resident’s perspective on the goings-on in her city, and for showing us the hospitality she did as we chowed down at Por Que No and then hung out at a nearby coffee shop. It’s always great to get the chance to interact with fellow urbanism/transit/bicycling bloggers, and Elly & the gang at BikePortland.org have got a great thing going. Thanks a bunch for everything, Elly – if you ever find yourself in Fort Worth, you have an open invitation to hang with the Fort Worthology crew, and we hope we can pay a visit to your city again.

Here is another heavily-used bike corral, this time in the Belmont district, on a drizzly day in front of It’s a Beautiful Pizza and a branch of local legends Stumptown Coffee. Fort Worthology’s own bikes, provided very graciously by the Ace Hotel in Downtown, are parked somewhere in the mass of bikes.

Speaking of the Ace, here’s another very popular bike corral, this time in front of their building in Downtown Portland.

Another bike corral in Belmont, next to some local establishments and across the street from one of Portland’s many urban grocery stores.

A rainy day hasn’t stopped the heavy use of this bike corral, also in the Belmont district.

A mom transports her kid in a popular Dutch cargo bike known as a Bakfiets past a bike corral in front of Fresh Pot in the North Mississippi district.

This Streetfilms video features both the Portland bike corrals and bike oases.

Portland’s river has not stopped them from connecting districts, either. While here, crossing the Trinity on the 7th Street or Lancaster bridges can be a hair-raising and frankly dangerous experience on a bike, the bridges in Portland feature much more effective infrastructure. Several bridges feature pedestrian & bike-only levels, such as on the Steel Bridge, while others feature wider pathways and signage for directing bikes & pedestrians. Here, on the Hawthorne bridge, cyclists and pedestrians have much more ample room to maneuver, and dedicated signage to help cross safely. Compare and contrast with the scene on 7th Street or Lancaster.

Here, a cyclist heading from Downtown to Southeast Portland (wearing fishnets, no less) waits for the Hawthorne bridge to lower again after allowing a sailboat to pass.

Bike & pedestrian routing signs headed out of Downtown on the Hawthorne bridge.

Cyclists and pedestrians crossing the Willamette River on the Hawthorne bridge.

Cyclists headed out of Downtown on the Hawthorne bridge.

Leaving the Hawothorne bridge and headed into the Hawthorne district proper, the wide sidepath transitions here into a conventional pedestrian sidewalk and a dedicated on-street bike lane.

Cyclists transitioning to on-street bike lanes off the Hawthorne bridge.

Dedicated bike lane as the Hawthorne bridge exits onto conventional streets.

Headed back into Downtown on Hawthorne, dedicated bike lanes lead to a transition to wide bike/pedestrian side path.

The bike lane & pedestrian path merge on the entrance to the Hawthorne bridge.

Approaching the bike & pedestrian-only lower level of the Steel Bridge from the Eastbank Esplanade.

The bike & pedestrian-only lower level of the Steel Bridge, a recent addition to the impressive 1912 structure.

One sight that is not to be missed in Portland is “bike rush hour,” as commuters head from Downtown to areas like Southeast and Northeast Portland. This Streetfilms video shows bike rush hour on the Hawthorne bridge.

Portland’s bike signage is also quite good. Far from Fort Worth’s current obscure bike route signs (a bicycle icon and a random number do not make clear, effective signage), Portland’s bike signage clearly marks bike infrastructure and gives useful information to cyclists. These signs, for example, appear all over the city. They give directions to destinations along bike routes and even give distance and average bike travel time to bike operators.

Improved bike signage similar to this is a part of the new Bike Fort Worth plan.

Where off-street bike paths meet on-street bike lanes & routes, Portland helps make the transition easy and safe for cyclists. In this StreetFilm, Rex Burkholder from PDOT explains a bike signal at one of the these intersections.

Portland also puts on bike & pedestrian events, such as the Portland Sunday Parkways. Here, six miles of streets are closed for a day to cars and used only by cyclists and pedestrians to create a giant neighborhood street festival.

Events such as these are another item mentioned in the Bike Fort Worth plan.

Here’s a few random bike scenes – this is in the Pearl District.

One of the many cyclists in the near Southeast Portland neighborhoods.

Always bikes around the countless neighborhood cafe/coffee shop hangouts that are sprinkled through every Portland neighborhood, such as the 3 Friends Coffee/Hungry Tiger Too building near the “Vegan District.”

Bikes out and about as evening approaches in the Pearl District.

A cyclist rounds a corner in the Pearl headed to the waterfront.

Parents on Bakfiets in the North Mississippi district.

Cyclists riding south through the Pearl near Jamison Square along the route of the Portland Streetcar.

The bike culture in Portland is truly impressive. Bikes are treated as serious transportation by the city, and as a result of their bike routes, lanes, parking facilities, and other support infrastructure, bicycling as transportation has exploded in Portland in recent years.

What’s encouraging is that while Fort Worth’s present bike plan leaves a lot to be desired, the new Bike Fort Worth plan goes in a very Portland direction, in keeping with the city’s goal of tripling bicycle usage by 2015. It’s a far more equitable attitude on bicycles than Fort Worth has shown in the past, and we can’t wait to see progress made on getting it implemented. Spearheaded by Fort Worth Transportation & Planning’s new senior planner Don Koski, Bike Fort Worth will be a radical upgrade to the city’s bike infrastructure and will give us at least a taste of the kind of bike friendliness that Portland exhibits.

More Portland posts to come, including:

Bicycling
Parks & Plazas
Architecture
Residential Development
Local Businesses
The retail scene in urban Portland
The brewpub culture
The vegan/vegetarian culture
The Ira Keller Fountain, a beautifully restored plaza space designed by Lawrence Halprin, in stark contrast to our own decaying Halprin space, Heritage Park
Food Carts (seriously)

And more.