On July 10th, Metro published a whopping 572 page dossier on the policies, projects, and funding necessary to meet its vision for the region’s transportation system for the next two decades.
This government document is officially known as a Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). It is the blueprint that guides investments for all forms of travel – driving, transit, biking and walking – and the movement of goods and services throughout greater Portland.
The plan identifies nearly $43 billion in investments in operations, maintenance, and preservation of the transportation system through 2045. The plan includes another $25.5 billion to manage/optimize and expand the region’s highway and transit systems, improve access to freight destinations and complete gaps in biking and walking connections and regional trails that provide important access to transit, downtowns, schools, services and other community destinations.
The Mix of Investments in the Public Review Draft Regional Transportation Plan Project List
Usually, RTPs are updated every five years, as required by federal law. The 2023 Metro RTP update started 18 months ago and must be completed by Wednesday, December 6th.
The plan is currently in its draft stage, where public comments and questions are welcomed. Now through Friday August 25th, Metro wants to hear from YOU! Visit our Community Engagement page to explore your options.
For over 50 years, Portland area residents have welcomed the new year with a bike ride. The ride serves multiple purposes: to joyfully welcome in the new year, celebrate improvements to our streets, and provide an opportunity to experience new parts of the region with friends old and new. This year, we headed to Clackamas County to explore Milwaukie’s SAFE (Safe Access For Everyone) program innovations and investments.
Outgoing Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba addresses the crowd of 80 in front of a MAX train in Milwaukie. (Photo by Julian Dunn)
One of our favorite things about riding in a group on New Year’s Day is that streets are generally quieter, allowing us to take routes that at busier times are unfriendly (or highly unpleasant) for less experienced riders. This year, that meant we could comfortably check out both completed and not-yet-implemented SAFE project streets.
Our special guest was outgoing Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba and incoming State Representative (D- HD 41), who led on many of these investments. He addressed our assembly of 80 New Year’s Day riders before venturing out with us on our five-mile, family-friendly ride.
What a great turnout we had! Our events in central Portland historically have attracted more participants than in more suburban parts of the region, so the fact that this year’s Milwaukie ride saw a larger crowd than last year’s in downtown Portland is something to celebrate! This is The Street Trust’s mission in action–centering the people, voices, and needs of communities too often left out of transportation decision-making.
The 2023 New Year’s Day Ride was a first for The Street Trust’s Education and Engagement Assistant Citlaly Ramirez-Sierra, a resident of Clackamas County, who shared, “I thoroughly enjoyed the event. It was great to see so many community members show up and ride together. Growing up in the Milwaukie area, I didn’t see many outdoor community-oriented events; it was heartwarming to see Milwaukie shine the way it did in this event.”
The Route
We got a lot of positive feedback about the route so here’s a map if you’d like to explore it on your own, with a description of what you’ll see below:
We began our ride at the end of the MAX Orange Line to provide easy access to those arriving multimodally and started out along the Trolley Trail, which predates SAFE and is a regional gem.
We left the Trolley Trail to wind our way along the Kronberg Park Multi-Use Trail (SAFE phase 2020) and traversed downtown Milwaukie on quiet streets to reach…
Washington Street (SAFE phase 2024) where we climbed uphill alongside what will soon be improved sidewalk and stormwater management.
We took advantage of the reduced holiday car traffic to utilize the traffic lights into and out of the Safeway parking lot and easily make our way to the very-recently-completed 43rd Avenue Improvements (SAFE phase 2022). In keeping our ride to a family-friendly/all-ages-and-abilities length and steepness we didn’t pedal all the way to Linwood Avenue (SAFE phase 2021), our favorite new shared pedestrian/bike path, but 43rd Avenue’s shared path is similarly spectactacular and is also the start of a safe and connected network.
We finished up along a portion of the future Monroe Street Greenway (SAFE phase 2022 & some segments TBD).
Our ride ended at the Milwaukie Station Food Cart Pod, conveniently sited next to the penultimate Orange Line MAX station for those leaving multimodally.
The route proved fun and accessible for all manner of bikes including recumbent trikes, young kids on their own bikes, families on cargo bikes, and EUCs (electric unicycles).
But that’s not all! We’ve noticed that as people are getting back into the habit of gathering in public, connecting as a community is what we’re most aching for. So, we book-ended the ride with hot drinks at the start, and a cookie exchange at the end. Over cookies (and other less sugary snacks) we collected “Transportation hopes and dreams for 2023” on index cards from the group, and had a random drawing for four The Street Trust knit caps.
Happy 2023 from The Street Trust! We hope you’ll walk and roll through Milwaukie this year and see us at a future event. Please sign up for our newsletter to get updates on events, info on advocacy efforts, and to learn more about the impact we’re having in our community; sign up to volunteer to help assist events like this and others, and donate to The Street Trust to support multimodal transportation options that prioritize safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice.
Back in September, The Street Trust published our first annual impact report. This report details our most transformational successes that we were able to achieve in FY 21-22. These successes would not have been possible without the dedicated support from our board, our members, and our partnerships. To everyone who has been part of our hard work over the past year:
In my thirteen years living in Oregon, the protest on Powell Blvd last week was the first I’ve ever attended.
Assembling peacefully in the street demanding government accountability on traffic safety was my first exercise of my First Amendment right to assemble as a U.S. Citizen. I’m originally from Nepal and was proud to be naturalized this past year. At this protest, I witnessed firsthand the power of the community coming together to demand something like safer streets from our officials.
Not only was it my first time at a protest, it was my first time being a ‘Human Bike Box,’ meaning participants stood together with our bodies in front of traffic in the intersection representing where safety infrastructure used to be. Each time the light would turn red, I’d step into traffic to form the Human Bike Box; each time, so many feelings welled up within me. I felt a sense of power, to be able to stand arm in arm with other community members, I felt a sense of strength in the statement we all were making. I felt brave and a little bit scared to be standing in front of an oncoming car, especially since I’d brought with me my mother, who is visiting the U.S. from Nepal. Most of all, I felt connected to diverse people from parts of society who use the street in different ways – people who walk, people who ride bikes, people who ride transit and people who drive. There were young people and elders, families, and people with disabilities.
Standing in traffic changes your perspective. Even though as Strategic Partnerships Manager for The Street Trust it’s my job to connect with a wide range of people around our mission, it was a new experience to talk with people sitting in stopped cars right in the middle of street – answering questions, sharing information, and for the majority of people, sharing sadness around Chef Pliner’s death and wanting safer intersection for everyone whether they’re walking, rolling, or motoring through it. Many people in cars wanted to know how they could help and how the demands we were making would be put into effect and when. It really put our current strategy in context, and drove home why it’s important to include people who drive cars in the movement for safer streets and a better transportation system.
I live in Washington County but decided to take my mother to the protest because we wanted to gather in solidarity to honor Sarah Pliner, who was killed the previous week in the intersection where we were protesting. My mother shared with me how when they protest in Nepal, the tactics and demands differed a lot from what we were doing at our protest. But at the end of the day, the goal was the same – accountability from the government and justice for the people.
Participating in the protest in the streets was an empowering, and satisfying experience for me, but it was also scary. Scary because there were motorists who didn’t like us being there in the streets. Scary big trucks passing so close to our feet while we stood on the sidelines. And scary because of the aggressive drivers intentionally racing through at high speeds and loudly revving vehicles to make some sort of misguided point.
At the end of the day, the protest on Powell was amazing to see because not only did nearly 200 people come together in silence, with signs and solidarity, to convey the message that enough is enough: we demand safer streets for people now.
The Street Trust is tired of issuing statements and offering condolences for the loss of life and limb due to government inaction on SE Powell Blvd. in Portland and are demanding immediate action -today- from local and state government to prevent future injuries and deaths.
On May 10th, 2015 at this intersection, Alistair Corkett was struck by the driver of a pick-up truck, resulting in the loss of one of his legs. Just a few weeks later, on May 29th, Peter Anderson was bicycling through the intersection and had his leg broken by the driver of a Jeep Cherokee. On Tuesday, October 4, Aviary restaurant founder Chef Sarah Pliner was killed there while bicycling by the operator of a semi-truck. Our condolences go out to Sarah’s family and community as well as the over 400 families affected by traffic violence this year across Oregon. (Read the BikePortland report.)
These injuries and Sarah’s death were preventable and the lives of the Cleveland High School population and other street users in the area remain at risk. The Street Trust is demanding that the City of Portland and State of Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) cooperate to immediately physically separate from motor vehicle traffic all vulnerable street users including people on bicycles, pedestrians, and transit riders until a full investigation of yesterday’s killing is completed.
The Street Trust proposesimmediate emergency installation of a protected intersection for people walking and biking, as illustrated. This could be constructed immediately with concrete jersey barriers, event fencing, or other materials the DOTs have on hand, similar to those implemented for pedestrian safety during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The Street Trust is also asking that Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) install metal signs that read, “High Crash Intersection” in that location.
Source: NACTO, “Don’t Give Up at the Intersection”
Powell is owned and maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation and The Street Trust has long protested against their mismanagement of this street, a so-called “Orphan Highway,” which is a state highway forced to function as a city street, (Read former ED Rob Sadowsky’s statement on violence in this intersection from 2015.) Powell Blvd. is notoriously dangerous. The intersection of SE 26th and Powell Blvd. is considered a high crash intersection for people traveling by bicycle, in particular. Between 2010-2019, there were two pedestrians and seven people riding bicycles injured there.
“We’ve accepted death and serious injury as a product of our transportation system and desensitized ourselves to the severity of its violence. We’ve convinced ourselves that death and injury are the expected outcome for people who navigate our transportation system outside of a motor vehicle… that is absurd!” says André Lightsey-Walker, Policy Transformation Manager at The Street Trust. “We have the data and tools necessary to solve these problems but we need the political will to redirect energy and resources toward our most vulnerable and historically disadvantaged street users or we’ll continue to see tragedies like yesterday’s occur.”
Source: The Oregonian
One year ago, on November 16, 2021, The Street Trust Executive Director, Sarah Iannarone, emailed ODOT Region 1 Manager, Rian Windsheimer, with her concerns about safety on this stretch of Powell Blvd., excerpted below:
“As the parent of a Cleveland High School grad who worried – quite rationally – whether my child would make it back and forth across Powell alive each school day, I can’t help but wonder what criteria (such as the presence of schools or community centers) and/or how many deaths in a concentrated area it takes before we’re willing to fully commit to Vision Zero? I am excited to hear that ODOT is planning an emergency speed reduction between SE 20th – SE 36th but hope you’ll consider an Emergency Speed Reduction to 20 MPH in that stretch rather than 30 MPH until the fatalities stop.
Please let us know how The Street Trust can support you in this effort, the jurisdictional transfer, or other safety improvements on this and other orphan highways across our metro region.”
Iannarone was joining a chorus of voices from the public and active transportation advocacy community in demanding critical investments in Powell Blvd., including the jurisdictional transfer of Inner Powell Blvd. to Portland Bureau of Transportation in a state of readiness and with an adequate -and mutually agreed upon- level of resources to upgrade the street to ensure safety for all users regardless of mode.
Given how long the transfer of 82nd Avenue from ODOT to PBOT took, we understand that this heavy lift could take years to research, negotiate, and fully fund. In the meantime, we are demanding that ODOT adhere to its own Blueprint for Urban Design (BUD) guidelines how streets like Powell Blvd. should be updated to meet the needs of multimodal transportation. To date, ODOT Region 1 Manager Rian Windsheimer and his enginners are using their discretion and choosing to NOT implement the BUD in Region 1. The public does not need to wait for a jurisditional transfer to see upgrades on Inner Powell: if ODOT is truly prioritizing safety (as they claim) and focused on reducing the number of crashes, injuries, and fatalities on their facilities, it will implement their existing policy standards on Inner Powell in advance of the jurisdictional transfer.
2022 has been a busy year in our community and we couldn’t be more excited about this year’s Alice Awards ceremony honoring champions for our mission this Saturday, September 24th, at Lloyd Center.
Thank you to everyone who nominated someone in our community who works tirelessly to improve mobility and transportation in the Greater Portland Metro Region and beyond. Dozens of people were nominated and the wealth of talent, creativity, energy, and innovation uplifted through the nomination process keeps us optimistic about the future!
This year, we’re giving two awards and the winners will be announced at the ceremony.
The Alice Award is given to a community member or organization forwarding The Street Trust’s mission of advocating for multimodal transportation options that prioritize safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice in the Portland Metro Region and beyond.
2022 Alice Award Finalists
Franklin Jones, CEO and Founder of B-Line Urban Delivery
Portland Streetcar Ambassador Program in partnership with OPAL Environmental Justice
Robin Straughan, Sustainability Manager at Washington County
Franklin Jones
Portland Streetcar Ambassador Program
Robin Straughan
The Elizabeth Jennings Graham Award is given to a community member or organization actively championing transportation justice and equity.
2022 Elizabeth Award Finalists
Maritza Arango, Disability Justice Coordinator at Latino Network
Charlene McGee, Program Manager for Multnomah County Health Department, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)
Christine Watts, Founder/President of Civil Unrest Bicycle Club
Maritza Arango
Charlene McGee
Christine Watts
The Event
The fabulous Poison Waters will emcee the Alice Awards and DJ Aquaman will be on the decks. Dress up in your favorite early 90’s attire and get ready for a night full of food and fun with catering provided by Kim Jong Grillin’, craft cocktails from Merit Badge, a wine wall, special appeal fundraising, and more!
Giveaway with Ticket Purchase
We’re giving away a special prize pack every 12 hours between now and the awards party! Buy your tickets now and be entered to win a $20 gift card from Floating World Comics (now in the Lloyd Center!), plus TST hip pouch, logo beanie, Spin socks, and the not-yet-released new limited-edition TST t-shirt … over a $100 value!
Tickets are just $40 for general admission, $30 for current TST members. Or add a HALF-PRICE membership with a $60 Alice ticket+membership bundle.
Join us after the Alice Awards for an open-to-the-public Secret Roller Disco afterparty, to take place in the former Marshalls from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. This event is in collaboration with Secret Roller Disco, guest DJ SlimKid3, Rose City Rollers, and the Lloyd Center.
Volunteers Needed
Attend the Alice Awards free of charge in exchange for three or four hours of help!
Over the Summer, the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes To School program unveiled the pilot of the new Jump Start Train-the-Trainer program. This program helps school districts, staff, and other safe routes advocates learn the skills to teach bicycle and pedestrian safety to students across Oregon through onsite training.
Street Trust staff lead the pedestrian safety part of this program. In August, these staff members visited Baker City along with other members of the ODOT SRTS team and worked with advocates to help them prepare for bicycle and pedestrian safety lessons this Fall. Recently, Baker County received funds from a grant to purchase a fleet of bicycles for schools to encourage safe biking practices.
The team provided the participants lessons in bicycle and pedestrian safety, along with resources so they can easily implement the lessons in their own programming.
“The hands-on portion of the training gave a very informative example of what we will have to do”, said Jessie Wilson, SRTS Coordinator in La Grande, of her time at the training. “I really appreciated this experience”.
Thank you to the great team in Baker City for inviting us to do this training! We are excited to continue to bring Jump Start to more communities throughout the state.
Interested in bringing the pilot Jump Start training to your school district? Send in your interest to our form to be considered for the pilot!
The school year has kicked off and it’s time to prepare for this year’s five Walk+Roll to School events!
This year The Street Trust is supporting five unique events that hundreds of K – 12 schools will participate in across Oregon:
International Walk+Roll to School Day – October 12, 2022
Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day – November 14, 2022
Winter Walk to School Day – February 2023
Earth Month – April 2023
Walk+Roll May Challenge – May 2023
Interested in hosting one of these events at your school? Please visit our webpage here to learn more about hosting an event and to order free incentives for the students at your school.
Combining bike and bus trips opens up a world of possibilities, making it possible to access places far away, exhaustingly hilly, and otherwise hard to reach.
This is why The Street Trust loves helping people learn and practice this important skill.
On Monday we took a group to visit the PSU Transportation Center demonstration rack. In addition to the usual discussion of rack specs, gear, and security, we took a deep dive into bike lifting–which is a great first step anyone with a bike can practice at home beforehand. There are a variety of spots to place each hand on your bike to comfortably lift it a couple feet straight off the ground and then move forward onto the rack. The weight of your bike and how that weight is distributed will influence what works best for you. You’ll probably put one hand somewhere below your saddle and one on or near your handlebars.
Holding the chainstay and downtube
Holding the seatpost and headset
New to us this session was someone hefting their bike by the chainstay! (The chainstay is the short tube parallel to the ground between pedals and rear wheel.) The chainstay on the far side of the bike, no less! Grasping that and the top of the downtube (the lower main tube between handlebars and pedals) was this person’s preferred method of lifting a very light bike.
Requirements
Not every bike fits on the rack. The below requirements from TriMet are spot on, as we’ve learned from explorations in pushing the boundaries during practice sessions:
Wheel sizes 20-29 inches
Wheelbase up to 44 inches (this is the distance from the *center* of your front wheel to rear wheel, not end-to-end of your wheel edges)
Tires up to 2.35 inches wide
55 pounds and lighter
Tutorials
There are some terrific resources you can watch before setting hand to top tube…or stem, down tube, chain stay, headset, etc…
If music videos are more your thing, rock out to I Put My Bike On The Bus from Vancouver, Canada–but note that our hooks are easier than those ones!
Want to try?
The PSU Transportation Center is located at 1812 SW 6th Ave, next door to the PSU Bike Hub. The demonstration rack is indoors and masks are encouraged. Summer hours are Monday through Thursday 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and once classes begin on September 26th hours will change to Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It’s convenient to arrive by MAX: catch the green or yellow line to PSU Urban Center/SW 6th & Montgomery.
What about FX?
FX2-Division is TriMet’s new high-capacity bus service along Division Street in Southeast Portland, starting September 18th. FX bendy buses have interior floor racks and TriMet has produced a video tutorial: How to load your bike on an FX bus.
Practice with us!
We’ll visit the PSU demo rack again soon, and we’re in the process of coordinating visits to Portland’s other demo rack at Community Cycling Center. These sessions and all our other events can be found on our event calendar. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll let you know via email.
With August coming to a close, we say goodbye to another epic Sunday Parkways season after a fun finish with East Portland Sunday Parkways. We rocked the day away at an intersection near Gateway Discovery Park with DJ Doc Rock and, thanks to the out-and-back route, were able to interact with tons of event participants–some twice!
Our volunteers polled hundreds of walkers and rollers to find out how they arrived at the event and the results were enlightening.
Bikes for the win!
‘What would make it easier for you to drive less?’ feedback from Sunday Parkways attendees
A solid 33% of the participants we polled arrived by bike or ebike. A small portion of these came multimodally– by combining their ride to East Portland with MAX, bus, or car- but for the most part people used a single mode of transportation.
A lot of folks drove to Sunday Parkways, but 24% of the people we polled were part of a carpool rather than driving alone.
Anecdotally, a great many of the people we spoke to lived very close to the route and walked or biked over. It’s wonderful when open streets events pull crowds from both near and far.
As The Street Trust looks to reevaluate and evolve some of our programs to adapt to a post-pandemic world, we were eager to ask everyone one question: What would make it easier for you to drive less?
“More car-free streets” is always a popular answer to this question during an open streets event, as well as one of the next best things in many respondents’ opinions: “Protected bike lanes.” With ebikes gaining in popularity, it was nice to see a lot of ebike-related responses, like:
Ebike incentives
Plugins for ebikes
Cheaper ebikes
In transit-related answers a few we got were:
A third slot on bus bike racks like in Seattle and Vancouver
Transit to nature
Willamette ferry
For the first time ever we had a clear fan favorite of an answer: moving sidewalks. While this inspired a lot of people to consider more fanciful responses, the 10-year old who made the suggestion had recently visited Hong Kong’s Central–Mid-Levels escalator and walkway system and experienced a moving sidewalk firsthand.
How do you get around? And what would make it easier and/or more likely for you to go places more often without driving? Help shape The Street Trust of the future by taking our survey!
