Park(ing) Day: BES and PDOT show off their green

By Shoshanah Oppenheim

Bijou Cafe CorralThe Portland Office of Transportation (PDOT) celebrated National PARK(ing) Day on Friday, September 19, with its four newest on-street bicycle parking facilities. The four locations are as follows:

• Ace Hotel, south side of SW Stark St. at SW 10th Ave.
• Bijou Café and Stumptown coffee, east side of SW 3rd Ave. at SW Pine St.
• Powell's Books, south side of NW Couch St. at NW 11th Ave.
• Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar, west side of SW 9th Ave./SW Park at SW Salmon St.

The new on-street bicycle parking facilities (a.k.a. bike corrals) will Almost No Occupancy at Ace Hotel.provide parking for 16 to 24 bicycles in two motor vehicle parking spaces. These corrals, joining the five existing corrals already in place in Portland, are intended to serve the high volume of people arriving by bicycles at these locations. They also improve the sidewalk environment by reducing the number of bicycles that lock onto signs and railings.

Southpark busy as ever.The above named businesses advocated for this increased bicycle parking and were integral in the decision to swap the auto parking spaces for bicycle parking. "We feel that the installation of a bike corral in front of our restaurant will be an asset to our guests and our employees. We believe it helps us support the Portland lifestyle," said Karin Devencenzi, General Manager, Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar.

To date PDOT has received over 30 requests for on-street bicycle parking installations from across the city. Many businesses are recognizing that an increasing number of their clientele are arriving by bike and the infrastructure to serve them is lacking. Not only businesses, but property owners and developers as well, are requesting these facilities.

"These businesses understand that on-street corralsPark your bike and stay a while at Powells. mean more efficient use of on-street parking to better meet their customers' needs. For PDOT, this is a smart move to support downtown retailers. It's a win-win situation," said City Commissioner Sam Adams.

Laughing Planet Café has had a bike corral in front of their business since June 2007. "We've always been a very bicycling oriented company. When they came to me about the idea about doing these corrals it was instantaneous ‘oh yeah - let's do it.' They've been very successful, they're used all the time, and the usual business argument that you can't take away parking just doesn't work here," said founder Richard Satnick.

BACKGROUND

The five existing bike corrals in North Portland along North Mississippi Avenue and in Southeast Portland along SE Belmont Street have are widely deemed successful. The positive response, especially from the business community and the neighborhood associations, encouraged the City to investigate locations in Downtown and the Pearl District.

PDOT believes that the demand for bicycle parking is only likely to increase as rates of cycling increase across the city. On-street bicycle parking can provide many advantages in areas of the city where bicycle-use is high and growing.

National PARK(ing) Day is a nationwide event sponsored by the Trust for Public Lands, in which individuals create park-like settings in 8 x 20 feet parking spaces as a way of recognizing the large amount of land that is devoted to auto use.

The collaborating businesses - Powell's Books, Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar, Bijou Café, Ace Hotel, and Stumptown Coffee - will be contributing furnishings to outfit the locations. Plants are being provided by the Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau. Flowers have been donated by The Garden Corner.

Park(ing) dayIn honor of Park(ing) Day the Bureau of Environmental Services "rolled" out a green street curb extension on SE Clinton. It was a fun way to show how important the "green" is to our urban environments. The curb extension was a true to size plastic tarp portraying what it would look like to have a green street facility at this location capturing stormwater from along the street curb, filtering and infiltrating the water for watershed and other community benefits...... this instead of the asphalt that exists there today.

Also highlighted were the benefits of trees to watershed health in Community in the street.intercepting stormwater, cooling the air and filtering out particulates not to mention providing habitat and neighborhood amenities. According to a recent Portland Parks & Recreation study, every dollar spent in tree planting and maintenance yields $3.80 in environmental and aesthetic benefits.

The SE Clinton location was chosen specifically because it is located within the Brooklyn Creek Basin: Tabor to the River program area. The Bureau of Environmental Services is combining innovative stormwater management techniques with sewer repairs and improvements to solve a variety of urban challenges. The work will stop basement flooding, manage stormwater more naturally, and begin to restore the health of our watersheds.

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Posted Mon, 09/22/2008 - 11:02am.

I think it is a good idea

Submitted by jim on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 10:42pm.

I think it is a good idea to provide places to park bikes downtown, especially with so many more people riding now. I think special consideration should be given to areas where car parking is allready low. Perhaps in those areas it would be better to find places off the street tp add bike parking. Are these corals all meeting ADA rules and standards? Is there a 36 inch wide space between the bars? rolling access to the sidewalk?...

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More Collective Social Engineering and Discrimination

Submitted by Terry Parker on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 10:14am.

These bike corrals are yet another exhibition of the Mayor elect’s socialistic misaligned priorities in addition to clearly demonstrating the need to start directly taxing bicyclists for their use of the roadways. In downtown Portland where the four new bike corrals are located, they take away a combined total of eight metered parking places, therefore taking a way needed street maintenance funds that are in addition to the funds already being raided from parking meter revenues to subsidize streetcar operations where the majority of passengers ride free of charge. Not only should the streetcar passengers pay the cost of their ride, but the bicyclists using these corrals must also be required to pay to park their bikes. If not the bicyclists themselves, then the businesses that requested the bike corrals need to be required to replace the lost parking meter revenue.

It is totally incongruous for Sam to stump for a Street Maintenance Fee and then poach dollars from existing street maintenance resources for his collective social engineering agenda. Allowing free bicycle parking on the same streets where motor vehicles are charged a fee is outright discrimination aimed at drivers. If the bicyclists or the businesses are not required to directly reimburse the loss of parking meter revenues/street maintenance funds from their own pockets, then the business that have requested these corrals in parking meter zones ought to be boycotted by the motoring public.

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....Now Bikes?

Submitted by Shannon on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 11:50am.

Terry first you don't want anyone expressing their concern with plastic bags which takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the amount of plastic bags the US uses per year.

And now you don't want to give ease to those who choose to use alternative transportation some easy way for them to park their bikes, this is all for the betterment of the community and the world at large.

These people are in many cases changing the way the live and do things to save "our" (yours and mine) environment. Maybe we should actually give them tax breaks for not bringing their cars and pollution into the city, and for helping to curb congestion on the streets of the city.

I really hope you are just playing the "devils advocate"

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Sharing the Road is also Sharing the Financial Responsibility.

Submitted by Terry Parker on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 7:46pm.

Shannon, it seems you do not want anyone disclosing the reality that bicyclists in actuality are financially subsidized freeloaders feeding off of the taxes motorist road users are assessed instead of paying their own way for what they use. Sharing the road must also require sharing the financial responsibility which includes paying for street parking in areas that have metered parking.

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Response

Submitted by Paul on Sat, 10/04/2008 - 10:04pm.

You're worried about 8 spaces??? Out of what, 8,000 street parking spaces? Why do you care about cars so much? The idea of charging for street parking came about to curb the amount of auto parking, and yeah, to help put some money in the city pool. If you charged bikes to park in the corral, people would just park them on the sidewalk for free. By offering these corrals we're showing that there are other ways to get around a city. We should be encouraging less motor vehicle traffic downtown by offering more alternatives and solutions so that cars and trucks that really need to be there have more room to move freely, park and load. For me, as a driver and casual 3-speed bike rider, your agenda makes no sense. A bicycle isn't even close to the same class as a motor vehicle. And why aren't there turnstiles on sidewalks so that pedestrians have to pay to use them? Tax my shoes while you're at it because they're wearing down our sidewalks. Oh, and make people pay to park their dogs when they tie them up outside of stores.

You should be more worried about how are taxes are spent and not how they are accumulated. Seriously, you need to get real and embrace a good thing.

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Hey Sam!

Submitted by BR on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 5:02pm.

Thanks for taking the long view, trying to make our city a more open, livable and less ignorant place.

Some of us taxpaying voters realize that encouraging bicycling actually reduces the need for street maintenance in the first place.

Some of us taxpaying voters realize that the street-maintenance impact of a bicycle over its entire life is miniscule compared to the impact of a car in just a few months.

Some of us taxpaying voters realize that a balanced transportation system that allows for free enterprise and personal freedom helps create a healthy, vibrant community.

Some of us taxpaying voters make it a point to patronize locally-owned businesses, especially those that take an active role in making our city a more friendly and inclusive place.

And some of us taxpaying voters appreciate that despite the taxes levied on private automobiles, they are still an expensive and highly subsidized transportation choice.

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freeloaders

Submitted by R on Fri, 09/26/2008 - 12:39pm.

Terry-

Will your next campaign be to go after the freeloading churches that get police and fire protection without paying taxes?

What about my neighbors whose house fire gets put out by the fire bureau even though their taxes paid for only a fraction of the true cost? Since my house didn't burn, I subsidized them.

Get on it man, there is work to be done!

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Numara taşınabilirliği,

Submitted by Numara taşınabilirliği on Mon, 09/29/2008 - 12:43am.

Numara taşınabilirliği, cep telefonu kullanıcılarının mevcut numaralarını aynen koruyarak hizmet aldıkları operatörü özgürce değiştirebilmeleridir. Bu şekilde kullanıcılar operatörünü değiştirdiklerinde kullandıkları numara 11 hane olarak bütünüyle aynı kalacağından, o döneme kadar kendilerine mevcut numaralarından ulaşmış olan kişiler aynı şekilde ulaşmaya devam edebileceklerdir.Numara taşıma Böylece kullanıcılar operatörlerini değiştirdiklerinde kendilerine ulaşmalarını istedikleri kişilere yeni bir numaralarını bildirmek durumunda kalmayacaklardır.

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It's nice that the City of

Submitted by Erik H. on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 8:42pm.

It's nice that the City of Portland can commit to providing safe, secure places for people to park their bikes.

When is the City of Portland going to recognize the 205,700 daily TriMet bus riders each day that DON'T have a safe place to board or disembark their bus, within the City of Portland?

When is the City of Portland going to take public transit seriously for the entire city, not just where the City is in bed with rich developers for the Streetcar, and provide modern, safe, comfortable bus stop locations, since apparently it is deemed a city responsibility to provide transit access? When is the City going to follow the lead of other cities that have actually had contests to design bus stops, provide art at bus stops, improve sidewalks and crosswalks within 500 feet of EVERY SINGLE BUS STOP in the City of Portland, make sure that each bus stop is well-lit, has accurate schedule information (and preferably electronic arrival displays), and other amenities so that those 205,700 daily bus riders get the same treatment as the 12,611 daily Streetcar riders?

As Sam Adams' campaign slogan stated, Portland belongs to all of us. Those 205,700 bus riders are JUST AS IMPORTANT as the 12,611 Streetcar riders. Those 205,700 bus riders deserve the SAME amount of attention and investment towards public transit, as those 12,611 Streetcar riders. Those bus riders actually pay a fare to ride the bus, which can't be said about the majority of Streetcar riders or bike riders who are virtually exempt from taxes for the services they use - therefore shouldn't bus riders get a better service because they are paying a fare on top of taxes?

Of course, I don't expect Sam Adams' administration to care. Because the history proves that he does not care about the 205,700 bus riders. His staff does not care about the 205,700 bus riders. He cares about the 12,611 Streetcar riders and those bike riders (whose numbers cannot be accurately counted, but we do know that bicycling as a percentage of total trips taken is less than transit as a percentage of total trips taken). I am a Portland resident but when is Sam Adams going to represent me and my neighbors who just don't happen to have a Streetcar line running down our street? All I want is a safe place to get on and off my bus. And the best Sam Adams can do is build a bicycle parking lot somewhere downtown.

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Sam doesn't run TriMet.

Submitted by Umm... on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 12:23pm.

Nope. That would be Fred Hansen.

And Sam has focused a lot on increasing pedestrian safety, especially around transit stops.

Of course, PDOT is in financial crisis, though, so he can't do it all.

Stop expecting something for nothing and buck up. Either be willing to pay for the stops through taxes or quit complaining.

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"Either be willing to pay

Submitted by Erik H. on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 9:35pm.

"Either be willing to pay for the stops through taxes or quit complaining."

I **do** pay for the stops through taxes. Why should I voluntarily pay MORE in taxes for something that I'm already paying for, but the city refuses to spend appropriately and instead spends it on frivilous things?

And if Sam doesn't run TriMet, why does Sam care about MAX or the Streetcar when those are transit issues that belong to TriMet?

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