The Daily Journal of Commerce has a nice article on Tad Savinar’s efforts to tailor the urban design of the transit mall block-by-block to the needs of the local land uses. I blogged about this more than a year ago.
The Daily Journal of Commerce has a nice article on Tad Savinar’s efforts to tailor the urban design of the transit mall block-by-block to the needs of the local land uses. I blogged about this more than a year ago.
0 responses to “One Block at a Time”
Unfortunately – and probably not Tad’s fault – the redesign (at least near PSU, I don’t know about other places) appears to be reducing bike parking in critical places (like right near the 15 story Ondine student housing building across the street from Hotlips).
I think PSU is talking to TriMet about the situation.
Apparently there was not enough bicyclists reviewing plans earlier in the design stages.
That area is under active construction – is the removal of bicycle racks (and really, there’s not shortage down there. maybe you have to walk a block or two, but that’s no biggie) a permanent thing?
It might be permanent – something about a ditch full of vegetation… I could live with the reduced parking, but we’ve already been having people lock bikes to racks and poles so the bikes end up in the way.
IMHO, if we want to encourage biking, everything about it (including parking) needs to be as easy as possible.
We should just cut the locks and confiscate the bikes. More people would ride Trimet if we take away their alternatives.
I frequently ride my bike to PSU, and I don’t own a car. I support encouraging more people to walk/bike/tri-met around as opposed to driving.
But having to lock your bike to some sort of random pole is an inconvenience of NO DEGREE. Sorry. On the two or three times i’ve had to drive downtown, circling the same 4 blocks for 30 minutes is a much bigger inconvenience.
Asking the city to spend money to spare bike riders a token inconvenience (while disregarding a real inconvenience for many others) is totally arrogant and one of the reasons we have guys like Karlock around pissing in our fruit loops. “Park further away and take the bus in” aught to apply to bicycle riders as well, if we have any sense of fairness and justice.
Is locking to trees and poles illegal? I generally don’t do it, (many of the poles lift right out of the ground, and trees are too easy to cut,) but is it actually illegal? My favorite place to park when there isn’t bicycle parking, is the gas meter (on the street side of the shutoff valve,) or on an electrical conduit, (again, on the street side of the shutoff.) Nobody cuts through those things for some reason…
Mr Karlock, that is a good idea, we should do that to cars parked in the bike lane, (which is actually illegal.) Just confiscate the car and give the owner a bicycle instead.
“Park further away and take the bus in” ought to apply to bicycle riders as well, if we have any sense of fairness and justice.
There’s also the matter of providing the 180+/- square feet a car takes up vs. the 6+/- square feet a bicycle takes up. Car parking takes well over 300 s.f. per car once you factor in the drive aisles required in parking lots and decks. Providing adequate bike parking is pretty easy and cheap to do by comparison.
According to Portland City Code 16.70.320:
16.70.320 Operating Rules.
(Amended by Ord. No. 165594, July 8, 1992.) No person may:
A. Leave a bicycle so that it obstructs vehicle or pedestrian traffic on a roadway, sidewalk, driveway, handicap access ramp, building entrance, or so that it prevents operation of a parking meter or newspaper rack;
B. Leave a bicycle secured to a fire hydrant or to a police or fire call box;
C. Leave a bicycle on private property without consent of the owner or legal tenant. Consent is implied on private commercial property;
D. Leave a bicycle on a street or other public property for more than 72 hours; or
E. Ride a bicycle on a sidewalk, unless avoiding a traffic hazard in the immediate area, within the area bounded by and including SW Jefferson, Front Avenue, NW Hoyt and 13th Avenue, except:
1. On sidewalks designated as bike lanes or paths;
2. On the ramps or approaches to any Willamette River Bridge; or
3. In the area bounded by the west property line of SW Ninth Avenue, the east property line of SW Park Avenue, the north property line of SW Jefferson and the south property line of SW Salmon Street.
4. For police or special officers operating a bicycle in the course and scope of their duties; or
5. For employees of the Association for Portland Progress and companies providing security services operating a bicycle in the course and scope of their duties. These employees must have in possession an identification card issued by the Chief of Police certifying the rider has completed a training course in the use of a bicycle for security patrol.
So the way I read that, locking a tandem with one wheel to the building, and the other to a sign on the edge of the sidewalk would be bad. But locking to the same bike to the sign in the direction of travel of the sidewalk wouldn’t be obstructing it…
(And where the the law against locking the newspaper box up to a bike rack in such a way that it prevents operation of the bicycle rack?)