Tag: biking

TST Leads on Combining Bike and Bus Trips

Posted on by Madi Carlson
A teenager poses next to his bike on a bus rack

 

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.

A woman holds a silver ebike aloft in front of her torso by the chainstay and downtube

Holding the chainstay and downtube

A teenager lifts a silver bike up onto a bus rack by holding its seatpost and headset

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…

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.

 

Sign up for email updates

What TST Learned at The Last Sunday Parkways of 2022

Posted on by Madi Carlson
A Sunday Parkways attendee on roller skates stops by The Street Trust corner

 

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!

Feedback from Sunday Parkways attendees
‘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.

A group of people on bikes visit TST's booth at Sunday Parkways

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!

 

Take Our Survey!

 

TST + BIKETOWN Announce Partnership

Posted on by Henry Latourette Miller

 

The Street Trust and BIKETOWN have just announced a creative partnership to bring BIKETOWN for All to BIPOC and underserved communities across the City of Portland.  The program will include community education, group rides led by compensated ride ambassadors, and engaging partners across the city. 

The Street Trust has worked with BIKETOWN for years to encourage Portlanders to embrace this healthy, low-carbon and fun mode of transportation. But this Summer we are taking our partnership with with Lyft and BIKETOWN to the next level to advance transportation justice.

BIKETOWN offers reliable, affordable, car-free mobility for Portland residents with lower incomes through its BIKETOWN For All program. Bike sharing supports cleaner air in frontline communities by reducing the number of cars on the road. To further advance the bike sharing’s positive impact on our priority communities, 

Partnerships power our advocacy efforts at The Street Trust. We work with everyone to achieve our vision and together we are dedicated to winning safe, clean, accessible transportation of the future. 

Thank you to Taylor Griggs of BikePortland for this great coverage of our launch party and happy 6th Birthday BIKETOWN!

Want to to be considered for one of this year’s BIKETOWN Community Ambassadors? Please complete this brief intake form and someone from our team will follow-up with you.

Think a strategic partnership between your company and The Street Trust could further our shared goals for better transportation? Schedule a conversation with Strategic Partnerships Manager Anouksha Gardner .

Growing Our Membership and Impact in Beaverton

Posted on by Madi Carlson

Pre-member meeting bike ride

 

Last month, The Street Trust held its June Member Meeting at BG’s Food Cartel food cart pod in Beaverton. 

The Street Trust members, board members, staff, Washington County elected officials, and Washington County community leaders came together to discuss our work and theirs, and find ways we can collaborate and support one another.

To emphasize our dedication to the entire region, The Street Trust has held our first

June Member Meetup at BG's Food Cartel

 two in-person member meetings in Milwaukie (May) and Beaverton (June). We’re actively recruiting to increase our membership in these communities, which have a big role to play in the future of our region. Through this outreach, we have found that these diverse communities also have an intense need for active transportation and transit organizing- and we are eager to support them. We’re particularly interested in organizing along corridors of concern, such as with our recent Farmington Road Study Tour.

We kicked off our June member meeting with a group bike ride that started at the Beaverton Transit Center. During this ride we experienced what Beaverton has to offer in terms of bike trails, multi-use paths, quiet greenways, bike lanes, sharrows, highway sidewalks, and highway-side railroad gravel. Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty generously shared details about the many City transportation projects and other community issues as we biked through Beaverton for a wonderfully in-depth look at the city.

We’re so grateful for everyone who could make it out! If you’re not a member yet, join us, July’s member meeting details will be announced soon–like our previous two meetings, it will be easy to access by walking, rolling, and transit. Save the date of Monday, July 18th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Become a member!

The Street Trust June Member Meeting participants at BG Food Cartel

Metro Councilor Juan Carlos González, Julian Dunn, The Street Trust Community Engagement Manager Madi Carlson, Nic Cota, Shawne Martinez, Councilor-Elect John Dugger, Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty, State Representative Dacia Grayber, Eric Wilhelm, State Representative WLnsvey Campos, Councilor-Elect Kevin Teater, The Street Trust Board Member Dave Roth, The Street Trust Strategic Partnerships Manager Anouksha Gardner.

Sunday Parkways are Back! A Ride Around NE Cully

Posted on by Madi Carlson
Two people pedal an adaptive quadricycle past The Street Trust's booth

 

We at The Street Trust love activating public spaces, like we did for last year’s Alice Awards. While there are a lot of parks and squares in Portland, the city’s largest public space is its streets, and there’s no more rewarding way to experience them than through Sunday Parkways.

After a two-year hiatus, Sunday Parkways returned with a splash on June 26th for Northeast Cully Sunday Parkways. The Street Trust staffed an intersection along the course to cheer on walkers and rollers, distribute snacks, bike lights, and temporary tattoos- all while preventing unnecessary car traffic in the event.

We stationed ourselves near our friends at Adaptive Biketown and Biketown, so we could easily send people down the block for test rides. (Side note: we’re hosting a Harry Styles themed Pedalpalooza bike ride with Adaptive Biketown on July 28th–RSVP here!)

With temperatures in the 90’s we weren’t sure what to expect, but our region’s love for open street events was reflected by the tons of people who came out. Everyone stayed hydrated thanks to water refill stations along the entire course (some volunteers even carried water dispensers on bike trailers!). Our booth canopy provided ample shade that walkers and rollers could use to rest from the heat for a spell, while joining us for snacks and refreshments too.

Being part of an open streets event is tremendously fun. We engaged with hundreds of event participants thanks to the help of our wonderful volunteers, and our staff members on duty engaged residents who needed help safely driving around the event. These events give us a glimpse of what a car free city could feel like, but more importantly, they show us that people enjoy walking and rolling around town.

We’d love to have you join us for an upcoming open streets event, Carefree Sunday in Milwaukie on Sunday, August 7th. Sign up to volunteer with us at Carefree Sunday, or if that date doesn’t work for you and you’re not yet on our volunteer mailing list, add your name now.

 

Volunteer at Carefree Sunday!

RSVP To TST’s Harry Styles Adaptive Biketown Ride!

Continue reading “Sunday Parkways are Back! A Ride Around NE Cully” →

Celebrating Pride on World Bicycle Day

Posted on by Madi Carlson

 

Last Friday, The Street Trust kicked off Pride Month and celebrated World Bicycle Day at the same time by hosting a family-friendly, rolling parade withDowntown Portland and hosted by celebrated Portland drag queen Poison Waters.

Participants gathered in Shemanski Park, which is conveniently located near Biketown stations a block in either direction – in front of the Portland Art Museum and at Director Park. Several attendees checked out a Biketown bike for the parade, including celebrity guests the Gay Beards.

The parade was also joined by everyone’s favorite one-wheeled hero, the Unipiper, and the Multnomah County Library book trike. Our two-mile parade route bounced between points of interest from Portland’s LGBTQIA2S+ past and present, including the office and residence of famed 1900’s lesbian Doc Marie Equi; Vera Katz Park, named for former mayor and gay ally; and Pride Plaza, one of our new street plazas filled with street art, public seating, and community activities.

The Street Trust offers a special thanks to our ride ambassadors from BikePOC PNW, an organization that actively creates space for BIPOC folks to ride bikes, build community, forge life-long friendships, and challenge the status quo.

Ryan Hashagen and Cory Poole pushed the pedicab up hills

This ride would not have been possible without the generosity of Icicle Tricycles,   who provided a pedicab in which we conveyed our host Poison Waters, not to mention the pedicab training sessions and assistive pushes uphill from Icicle Tricycle owner (and Better Block PDX Principal) Ryan Hashagen. Additional thanks to longboard skateboard advocate Cory Poole, who also pushed the pedicab and took many of the photos shared in this post.

We stopped for mini dance parties in three Portland Public Street Plazas and ended our parade with a big dance party at the Cart Blocks Food Cart Pod at Ankeny West, which featured a surprise appearance from Darcelle, the Guinness World Record holding “Oldest Working Drag Queen”. Umpqua Bank greeted our arrival with tricycles filled with ice cream and ice pops.

Bikes, trikes, unicycles, skateboards, and longboards– this year’s Pride parade had all manner of environmentally-friendly wheeled vehicles (we love our multimodal life) and The Street Trust can’t wait to do this again for next World Bicycle Day 2023!

TST staff Anouksha Gardner, Madi Carlson and Board member Jackie Yerby, with Darcelle

Expanding WeBike Into Washington County

Posted on by Madi Carlson
WeBike participants in Beaverton

 

WeBike is The Street Trust’s program to inspire more trans people of all genders, gender non-conforming people, Two Spirit, and women (both trans and cis) to incorporate a bike into their lives and use biking as a way to meet their transportation needs and personal goals. WeBike dismantles the barriers of cycling through rides, knowledge-sharing events, meet and greets, and mentorship.

Last weekend, WeBike’s May ride ventured into new territory: Beaverton! The 10-mile loop started at the Beaverton Farmers Market and utilized many quiet greenway-type streets, the Westside Trail, several bike-friendly cut-throughs (one gravel!), and creatively utilized a shopping center parking lot, an office park parking lot, and some sidewalk to avoid a couple not-so-bike-friendly roads. The ride passed many points of interested including two entrances to Tualatin Hills Nature Park, the Aloha Mall shopping center, and BG Food Cartel food cart pod.

In June, WeBike will have a meet-up to talk about bike camping! We are always looking for new participants- no experience necessary. Learn about all the ways you can carry camping gear by bike, what you need to bring, where to go, and get all your questions answered! Camp coffee and snacks provided. Read all the details on the Shift/Pedalpalooza calendar listing and RSVP here.

Find WeBike events on The Street Trust events calendar and shared to the WeBike Instagram and Twitter.

The WeBike-Portland private Facebook group is a resource, hub, and a way to connect with others riding in the area. If you have any questions about biking or great biking tips you want to share, post them there!

Ways allies can support WeBike: promote events on socials, print a poster, and donate to The Street Trust.

 

Join WeBike’s Next Ride!

 

Donate to support WeBike!

 

Ten Tips for Biking Through Winter

Posted on by Madi Carlson

 

A Pacific Northwest winter provides so many exciting bicycling environments: relentless rain, very cold temperatures, long hours of darkness, snow, and ice!

Here are 10 tips to help you bike in some of the conditions winter might present.

And if you’re a member of The Street Trust or Business for a Better Portland, join us for an hour-long virtual Winter Biking Clinic on January 24th to learn even more.

  1. Fender up! Full-coverage fenders will keep that dirty, gritty water and slush on the ground from getting on you, but they also prevent it from making its way into your bike where it will slowly grind away at your drivetrain.
  2. Clean your chain. Wiping your chain clean and applying lube more often throughout the winter will keep your bike running smoothly. Also wipe accumulated snow off your chain as it builds up.
  3. Shield your glasses. Get a visor for your helmet to keep rain and snow off yoBiking in snowur glasses. Or you can make one: remove the button from the top of a baseball cap and it will fit nicely under a helmet.
  4. Wool is warm! Wool keeps you warm even if it gets wet. There’s no great vegan alternative to wool so whether or not you’re wearing wool:
  5. Layer up. Wear base layers under jeans, jeans under rain pants, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks.
  6. Re-waterproof gear. Check your soggy rain gear’s tag or online to see howto reactivate it–many items just need a spray-on or wash-in coating andthey’re like new. 
  7. Bring extras. If you’ve got room to stow extra gloves, socks, or even shoes, do it! You’ll use these extras to replace wet items or to add as extra layers.
  8. Avoid wet metal. Metal plates and grates can be slippery in the rain so go around them whenever you can.
  9. Long stops. Give yourself extra stopping space when the ground is wet–especially if you have rim brakes rather than disc brakes.
  10. Light up! You’re required to have a front light visible from 500 feet away, but a stronger light that illuminates potholes and other hazards is great for riding in the dark.

Join us with your lunch on Wednesday, January 26th to learn even more about biking in winter. Email [email protected] if you haven’t received your invite yet or to check the status of your membership. Not a member yet? Join for $5 a month or $40 a year here.

Winter Biking Clinic