As I mentioned in the article I posted today, providing infrastructure for bikes is dirt cheap compared to cars and transit. With an iota of planning, we can have great facilities with just a little extra cost.

Anyway, that’s a topic for another thread. Re: Austin and Portland, I lived in the former for 15 years (and biked around on a visit in June) before moving to Portland. Austin could really learn a lot from Portland, particularly in making bicycling part of regular people’s lives, not just recreational (racing, mountain biking etc) specialists. I noticed a recent video about Austin’s bike culture had a city official talking about racing and long distance riding groups, but nothing at all about just using your bike to ride to work or school or on errands.

Austin’s hike and bike network is nice for exercise and getting to a few great places, but Portland’s bike planners have figured out where people need to go and provided extensive bikeways and information to make it possible to get there on a bike. As a result, we have thousands of bike commuters and thousands of Portlanders living car-free and thousands more who drive infrequently at most, preferring to rely on bikes or our light rail, streetcar and bus systems. Many, many magazine and newspaper stories have been written about Portland’s bike-friendliness in the past few years.

I was encouraged to see Mellow Johnny’s starting to emphasize biking for the rest of us when I was in Austin. But you’re right about Portland’s Clever Cycles, which is my fave bike shop (I have a Dutch bike) — its whole reason for being is providing bikes and accessories for regular people who bike primarily for transportation, not just the Lycra crowd who do it mostly for recreation. I drove every day in Austin; I might drive once a week, at most, in Portland.

You Austinites should check bikeportland.org frequently for ideas, like the bike corrals recently discussed, and maybe hire some of Portland’s bike planners (public and private) to consult with the city about massively improving the bike infrastructure. But bikability has to go beyond just spending tax money on bike infrastructure and planning. You also need compact growth laws and investment in public transportation to make the city truly hospitable to a bike centric lifestyle. The airport Max is a perfect example — I can get to the airport in half an hour or by walking a few blocks, paying $1.75, and riding the Max right to the terminal. No taxi fare, no parking fee.

None of this happened by accident. If you want to have an environmentally sustainable and bike friendly culture like Portland’s, you need to do some political organizing to make it happen. Get political candidates to commit to funding bike infrastructure. Portland is by no means perfect, despite all its awards as America’s best bike city. (You could learn even more from Copenhagen or Amsterdam.) But it really is becoming a bike nirvana, and I’d love to see the same thing happen to Austin, a city I still cherish. Hope you enjoy your Portland visit!

The site you referenced appears to be someone who is bitter the organization they were a part of has gone a different direction. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this person’s statements do not help his or her case. I would not base an opinion of Portland’s bikability based on someone who obviously has another agenda.

“Recent actions of the League’s Bicycle Friendly Communities program are an attack on core principles of the League and on the rights and welfare of cyclists. BFC has given its highest award to Portland, OR despite (or perhaps because of) its reckless program installing bike lanes in dangerous places. What makes it worse is that Oregon laws require cyclists to use these hazardous facilities.”

I’ve never been to Portland myself, so I can’t say who is right. Only that there seems to be a difference of opinion on the matter.

Cheers, Marc

Bicycles are definitely in the “toy/sporting good” category here, and not considered a legitimate form of transportation.

Really appreciate your comments, Jonathan and Matt!

The hardest thing about getting to the Portland airport (if you don’t take MAX) is the distance, but even that is manageable – it’s about 8 miles to get there from downtown Portland, with a 200′ tall ridge between you and the airport. The grade is really gentle in most spots, but if you’re used to flat rides, it can be a little strenuous the first time.

amsterdamize (#3) – There’s an ongoing battle in Oregon over the definition of “brake” – bicycles are indeed required to have a working brake, and that definition has been used to ticket fixed-gear riders who ride without an additional wheel brake. The problem seems to lie with the interpretation of certain officers of the Portland Police Bureau and certain Multnomah County Traffic Court judges, and the issue is ongoing. The Oregon legislature tried to remedy the situation by rewriting the statute, but the fixie-specific language was stripped before the bill was passed, removing most of the benefit of the change.

Jonathan Maus wrote extensively about it in bikeportland.org, but I don’t have time at the moement to delve through his archives to find it.

This is a great blog, BTW – it’s so nice to see what other cities are doing, we all learn from each other. (I found this site from a referral by someone else in Portland’s bike community)