The barrier to #30daysOfBiking for most people was never the weather, hills, or distance, it has always been the luxury car and/or SUV #drivers with tinted windows who don't stop for crosswalks, or otherwise brandish their vehicle as a weapon to cow people into giving up their rights to public space.
the SUV driver did stop for the kids standing in their way with the neon flags and school staff supervisor, but only after they had started turning and already blocking the bike lane 🙃 #SafeRoutesToSchool
Here comes Byron's DGAF, stinking his way past two schools and over a hill to avoid some traffic signals on the way to make a U-turn and then fill a yard with fumes on the other side of the neighborhood. Shovels sticking out behind the foldaway mirror probably won't fold the same. Might need a #trafficEngineer to look at what traffic this Local Service Traffic Street is carrying. #BanCars#SafeRoutesToSchool
#drivers always have trouble getting traction here. I think #PBOT should close the left turn from Terwilliger that brings them to this spot, but what do I know about #SafeRoutesToSchool etc
Makes my heart sing to see these two friends biking home from school together.
Makes my stomach turn to see the crappy infrastructure they've been provided.
We are failing our children when we refuse to provide them safe, dignified streets.
“I hope PPS takes note of the turnout and will offer our educators a better package, and I hope PBOT takes note of how many parents and kids will bike when the atmosphere is safe and supportive — so many families biking today told me they don’t ride nearly as often as they want because they don’t feel safe or confident on our streets.” 👈 #BikeBus#BikeTooter#SafeRoutesToSchool#Portland
My new hill to die on as an urbanist transportation engineer is stop requiring traffic studies with development applications. They are an insidious cousin of parking minima, where some licensed engineer applies the ITE Trip Generation Manual, a collection of weak statistical analyses of very small samples, to figure out "how many cars to accommodate."
Yesterday, this cool kid--with her bright red bike, hot pink helmet, dual blinkies, and rotating rainbow wheel lights--waited at a high-viz crosswalk in a school zone while 7 adult drivers pretended not to see her.
Tonight from Multnomah Arts Center at 5pm, a route between the Multnomah and Hillsdale neighborhoods -- one that's not #BarburBlvd and doesn't go over too many hills, but does get too much car traffic. Join us for a look at the issues and #PBOT's plans to build stuff that would still leave us with incomplete #pdxBikes and #SafeRoutesToSchool networks in 2026. Ends at 6pm Multnomah NA #transportation open house event at the MAC.
How many cars per minute should kids encounter on their #SafeRoutesToSchool? How about ten or fifteen? Does that seem safe? There's almost 3ft of sidewalk on one side of the street even. 🙄 SW #pdx
I'm not sure who's more excited about tomorrow morning's #BikeBus -- my kid or me. I've heard from 8 families who are definitely coming, and evidently kids are talking it about it all over school.
I'm bracing for the most glorious, chaotic morning I've had in a very long time.
Person gets hit biking on left sidewalk / counterflow, because driver turning right out of parking lot onto busy street was only looking left. Do we think this is a driver error? (Driver was not cited. 🙃) Street has four lanes for trucks and none for bikes. 😞 infrastructure damnit #crashNotAccident
@bluGill yes but I bet if we had infrastructure which caused damage to the car when you make those mistakes, we would get the insurance companies to put that together for us. We could put buckets of sand in the street with a flag in them & be having some car-free #schoolStreets tomorrow #tacticalUrbanism, pilot projects, #StuffInTheStreet needs to be the way we do transportation project design + outreach, as operational problem-solving on a #SafeRoutesToSchool scale that gets kids out of cars.
Sign this letter to let #Portland leaders know you support the Safer #SchoolStreets Pilot to not only enhance the safety, physical health, and academic performance of our children, but also contribute to the overall sustainability and livability of our city by reducing traffic, carbon emissions, and promoting #community connections. #ClimateAction#pdxBikes#BikeBus#FreeRangeKids#SafeRoutesToSchool
Who TF are these people cutting-through the neighborhood past the schools at dropoff time? Passing me on a blind curve and then here we are 1min 48s later she's yet another road hazard and congestion at the school crosswalk. #trafficEngineers need to run the cost-benefit analysis on this BS behavior. We need #SchoolStreets to make these people go another way around, open up some car-free space so we don't have a mess of cars everywhere on the "#SafeRoutesToSchool"
"Legislative advocacy to address environmental and urban design factors that impact pedestrian safety. Pediatricians can work with local, state, or federal lawmakers to do the following..." (1/)
"b. Support, or introduce and promote, community-level #VisionZero interventions."
c. Support, or introduce and promote, #SafeRoutesToSchool interventions.
d. Promote safe and #ActiveTransport, including #walking, as an alternative to motorized conveyance, to reduce vehicular #traffic and increase demand for pedestrian amenities." #AAP (4/)
Last day of #school. The kid's biking all the way home on her own for the first time.
We've been practicing for this day for weeks. She knows the rules, knows how to handle her bike, knows to look out for drivers because they're not looking out for her.
We can do this.
If you are out on the roads this afternoon, PLEASE keep your eyes peeled for happy kids about to embark on the best summer of their lives.