Last Fall, many members of the Portland Office of Transportation and city administration were gracious enough to talk with me and show off some of the amazing features that make Portland, Oregon one of America's most livable places to reside.
You've previously seen bits and pieces of that trip here on StreetFilms, but we've never posted the entire half hour adventure which contains over 12 minutes of additional footage. And with the incredible turn in leadership in the past months and the speed at which changes are coming, it gives me hope that NYC could one day become as livable as Portland!
This is our first video posting over 15 minutes so we've tried to keep the file size as small as possible. Thus, the quality is a smidgen lower. Please send us feedback on how it looks and if your computer is able to play it.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[intro music]</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Tom Potter:</i> [00:16]
Transportation is so closely tied to Portland’s liveability.
In fact when people come here or businesses, it’s always one of the
things they talk about is how many choices they have with transportation.
And of course we encourage people to get out of their cars and ride
public transportation, use some of our several hundred miles of bike
lanes and our light rail and streetcars. You know we have… we
give people a lot of options. I think it pays off in the long
run because it not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions but it just
makes it a lot nicer getting around. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Sam Adams:</i> [00:50]
Portland has a long tradition of being a progressive community especially
in the areas of transportation. We’re number one rated for bicycling,
walking. We work really hard to be a multi-model system that allows
not only cars and buses and we brought streetcars back and light rail,
but also human powered transportation like bikes and walking.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Chris Smith:</i> [01:12]
I think that a lot of that is a very deliberate result following from
the Downtown plan of the 1970’s where we, unlike a lot of US cities,
decided to really maintain the Downtown, not let it decay. So
we have a great environment here for pedestrians, for cyclists, for
transit. It’s an easy place to get around without a car. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mia Birk:</i> [01:32]
There’s no better investment that the city has made than in bicycle
infrastructure and promotion. It has been an incredible bang for
the buck, very cost effective, great for liveability, great for health
of our citizens, great for air quality, great for congestion.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Jeff Mapes:</i> [01:47]
I myself am a bicycle commuter, started nine or ten years ago and I’ve
noticed it grow tremendously in popularity and it’s really become
a kind of a major transportation, social, cultural issue in Portland.
It’s pretty fascinating to see.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Ellen Vanderslice:</i>
[02:02] I think one of the strengths of Portland is that it is really
a very pedestrian friendly city, and that has to do not just with having
good places to walk, but with the fact that we do have this great transit
system that you can make linkages between all the different modes.
I like to say that walking’s the glue that holds everything together,
but I think Portland has really understood that in a way that a lot
of haven’t quite tumbled to yet. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Rex Burkholder:</i>
[02:26] We’ve seen the average vehicle miles travelled per person
dropping from about 23 miles per person in the early ‘90’s to about
19 today. That’s totally in contradiction to the national trend,
almost every other region in the country has had an increase in vehicle
miles travelled, and so the roads are full of people driving farther
and farther all the time. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Fred Hansen:</i> [02:48]
If you look at our transit ridership we rank in our population 25<sup>th</sup>
in the nation, and yet in terms of transit use we rank number 12.
Many more of our citizens are utilising our transit as a way to get
around. We’re one of the few places in the nation that has our
transit use growing faster than auto use and faster than our population. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [03:09]
Today we have almost 12,000 daily cyclists going across four bridges
into and out of Downtown. In the early ‘90’s that number was
just a few thousand so we’ve more than quadrupled that number.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Rex Burkholder:</i>
[03:21] The average work commute trip has dropped from ten to seven
miles now. The average family spends only 15% of their income
on transportation, nationally it’s around 19%.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Diana Christensen:</i>
[04:04] I’m Diana Christensen. I teach physical education here at
Sunnyside Environmental and we’re all into biking and riding and getting
to school in alternative methods. A lot of kids bus. We
have ride and walk and bike to school Fridays. Like Sarah, our
youngest, definitely are kindergartners, we have several parents who
ride to school, have their kids on the trailers on the bike, and then
we have few first and second graders that will be ridden in escort with
their parents. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [04:32]
We get really creative around here about how to get more than one kid
at a time on your bike, cos when you have two kids and neither of them
is riding their own bike yet, you’ve got to figure out a way to haul
everybody around. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [04:44]
We carry three kids. Seter our son’s five and Kyla is three
and Solson’s one, so we carry three and it works pretty well.
Kyla rides after we drop off Seter and the kids are happy. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Diana Christensen:</i>
[04:58] Originally when we first got here there weren’t any bike racks
beyond the lawn out there on the playground. We had a set installed
and kind of beginning to take a bend around the wall, you can see that
they… already we’ve spilled over to the railing here. Need
definitely more. You can also see that the structure’s covered.
We have a pretty active volunteer group and a lot of parents who help,
so they came out and installed the covers. Everybody brings their
own locks, you know, and we certainly talk about the need to respect
others property and how if it were your bike out here you wouldn’t
want to come out here and find the lights on or somebody had taken something
and that we just are going to be respectful of others property and recognising
that that’s somebody’s transportation. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Sarah Taylor:</i>
[05:41] Our goal here is to actually bring the neighbourhood in and
have the neighbourhood be a teacher to the kids as well as the kids
being a teacher to the neighbourhood. And we love what we see
here at Sunnyside. We love the relationships that we’re having
with the community and having people be able to bike to school is really
an important part of that. And we also teach a bike curriculum
as part of the school.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Diana Christensen:</i>
[06:05] Fifth grader every year gets a ten hour instruction of Oregon
traffic safety law around the use of their bicycle. And over the
course of the week from Monday through Friday, by Friday we’re taking
them on a trip around the city.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [06:20]
Portland is a liveable city, as a bikeable city, is an amazing place
to live because we can get almost everywhere as a family on our bikes
and there’s nowhere else I’d live where you can do that as efficiently,
as relatively safely. There’s a lot more awareness here among
drivers… of bicyclists as equal users of the streets than there is
in other places.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [06:46]
There are two busy streets we have to cross to get here and we use crosswalks
for both of those. And in fact today, you know, I was kind of
nosing the chariot out there, looking both ways to see if any cars were
coming and on my left somebody stopped and then a big truck was coming
on the right, kind of a little maybe over the speed limit and he totally
put on his brakes and stopped and we crossed the street. So that’s
what I mean by a community, people care about each other and care about
the kids and… so I feel really safe. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Rex Burkholder:</i>
[07:21] Here’s a really cool innovation that the City of Portland
has done. This intersection is right where you’re coming off
a major recreational trail and transportation corridor that goes along
both sides of the river. And then the cyclists that use it are
going in two different directions, to North Portland and to North East
Portland, so it’s kind of a bicycle scramble call it where the lights
are triggered by bicyclists pavement signal loop and this allows the
bicyclist to stop all the traffic by parking the bicycle on a signal
that’s actually marked just like this on the ground, and then it stops
traffic in all directions, so the bicyclist can leave from here and
go in all directions, instead of having say if you want to go north
you’d have to cross one time and then cross again which creates a
lot of hazards for people and especially if you’re not a very experienced
cyclist which we get a lot on the trail here. They’re less experienced
and don’t know quite how to deal with traffic as well. So this
is a major safety feature, convenience feature, it makes it easier and
faster to get through if you’re a cyclist. And we have literally
thousands of cyclists that use this facility everyday and so it helps
to manage the traffic and makes it much safer. Another sign of
innovation is something that has been used in other places, but the
fact that it hasn’t swept the country until we started doing it here.
Go Portland. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mia Birk:</i> [08:54]
This is South East Lincoln that we’re standing on here and the South
East Lincoln Bike Boulevard is… it’s really cool because it’s
like a metaphor for all that we’ve done in Portland. In the
‘80’s South East Lincoln here was what we call a traffic collector,
there was quite a bit of auto traffic on the street and it was a major
thoroughfare. And in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s the
city, really with pressure from neighbourhoods and citizens, turned
this street as well as a number of other streets into what we call bicycle
boulevards where we did traffic calming elements to make this street
more liveable and slower traffic, reduced traffic and much more friendly
for bicyclists and pedestrians. So let me tell you what we did
to this street. At a couple of key points on this street at South
East 39<sup>th</sup>, two blocks this way, and South East 20<sup>th</sup>,
which is about almost a mile that way, we put in what we call traffic
diverters and so traffic has to turn.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Lear:</i> [09:51]
One of the biggest challenges to developing a bike boulevard is you
can’t make it easy for cars to get onto the bike boulevard off of
a busy street. If you fail to make those kinds of improvements,
what will happen is you’ll have a lot more cars on the bike boulevard
and we don’t want a lot of cars on our bike boulevards. So what
we do at this location is only allow cars to come out off the local
service street onto 39<sup>th</sup> but we don’t allow cars to come
in from 39<sup>th</sup> onto Clinton. In this case this project
has worked really well. It’s made it so bicyclists can pass
through easily, but it keeps cars off, it actually acts as a good treatment
and diverts cars that would otherwise be on this facility. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mia Birk:</i> [10:31]
We also put in things that slow traffic down which includes the traffic
circle that you can see over there, and speed bumps along the street
to slow traffic down so that the speed of cars is pretty similar to
the speed of cyclists, which creates a more comfortable environment
for everyone. And then more recently we have put in signs and
circles to identify the street as well as other bike boulevards as being
part of this special bike boulevard network. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mia Birk:</i> [11:07]
People were very concerned about diverting traffic off of a street,
how are they going to get to their houses and it might cause traffic
on other streets to go up. So, and this was… that happened here,
there was a lot of fight, it was a difficult project and what happened
as a result is also very similar to what happens in many other cities
and that it’s so pleasant afterwards that property values go up, becomes
a wonderful thoroughfare for people walking their dogs and jogging.
It’s a very popular street for people bicycling, for people walking,
for kids to be out and about and it’s just become this wonderful community
street. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [11:45]
Come on young lady.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Sam Adams:</i> [11:55]
I particularly spend as much of my time outside of City Hall as I can
because, you know, this is where it happens. This is where we’re
either going to succeed or fail around, you know, bridges and viaducts
and bike paths like this and, you know, I work on a lot of policy, but
the best way to learn if those policies are really working is to go
out there and see it and do hands-on yourself. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Chris Smith:</i> [12:19]
Robert Puttnam who wrote the book, Bowling Alone, which sort of chronicles
the decline of citizen engagement and sort of participation in the country,
studied Portland and found that the trend was exactly the opposite. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong:</i>
[12:29] Most of what I do in this job is actually getting people to
do things that they would probably like to be able to do anyway.
So it’s a lot about kind of identifying people’s self interest and
promoting positive incentives to voice what you’d like to see in the
city.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Ellen Vanderslice:</i>
[12:46] We’re standing here on the Davis Festival Street. It’s
one of two Festival Streets that we’re building… building right
now as a matter of fact as part of the old town Chinatown 3<sup>rd</sup>
and 4<sup>th</sup> Avenue streetscape project. The whole streetscape
project that redevelops all this area is something the community wanted
for a long time. And when they sat down and started working on
what would actually be done, one of the things they identified was really
a lack of public space. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lloyd D. Lindley:</i>
[13:13] In Portland we’ve tried to get as much out of our streets
as we possibly can, for example, developing streets that do more than
just drive and park cars. So what we’ve tried to do is create
a hybrid street that functions for cars, functions for parking, but
at the same time can be conveniently closed off and function as a small
piazza, a small plaza for festivals and functions that the local neighbourhood
can engage in. Some of the things that get in the way with a standard
street are things like curbs, light poles, fire hydrants, all kinds
of utilities. And those kinds of things typically get in the way
of a really clean pedestrian environment. What you might also
see here that you don’t see on a typical intersection is a very flat
open area. What this does is provide a very pedestrian oriented
kind of intersection for people who may have maybe wheelchair bound,
they have an easy way to access this place. And it also creates
an even transition from the street into the inner plaza area.
Right over here these are large plinths and what these are going to
be for are art installations. They also function to direct traffic
and control and slow down traffic as it enters this place. The
plantings are actually an extension of the Chinese garden. Some
years ago we opened our classical Chinese garden and what we’ve tried
to do is bring the plant material such as palm trees out into the street.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Ellen Vanderslice:</i>
[14:51] This is really an experiment for the Portland Office of Transportation
and if it goes well I think there are a lot of people around this city
that would like to see this implemented in other places. I think
that any time you make a space that doesn’t say right off the bat
first of all I’m for cars, that you make a place that really says
I’m for people, that that in itself contributes to the liveability.
But I think there’s something more that we’re looking at here and
that is that the making of this place is more than just about the concrete
and the granite and the surfaces that we’re putting here and the beautiful
design that we have, it’s really about finding a way to create community,
the activity of managing these streets and the fact that the community
has to form some kind of an entity to… to manage the Festival Streets,
that is part of building this community. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[16:00] Behind me is called a diagonal diverter and there’s a busy
street that direction, there’s a busy street that direction in one
block. So if motor vehicles wanted to avoid being on those busy
streets they might try to cut down by either this residential street
behind me or that residential street. But what happens is because
this diagonal diverter is in place, they’re forced as they turn off
of those busy streets back onto the busy street. And it keeps
these residential streets behind it residential. It keeps it so
there’s fewer cars, fewer people cutting through the neighbourhood,
and it keeps it so that the cars are on the busier streets where we
really want more cars to be because they’re designed to handle heavier
traffic. This diagonal diverter was designed with pedestrians
and bicyclists in mind. It’s really nice as a pedestrian to
walk by it, but at the same time it’s a cut-through on a bicycle boulevard
that goes east and west through North East Portland. And there’s
actually little pavement markings on the street that point bicyclists
through it, to really let them know that yes, indeed, they should be
using these cut-throughs through the diverter as they’re travelling
through the neighbourhood.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Lear:</i> [17:02]
Where I’m standing now is on a curb extension that actually is a green
curb extension, it has a bioswale that treats soil and water that’s
running into this facility. What’s cool about this curb extension,
not only does it treat storm water but it shortens the distance for
pedestrians that are crossing 21<sup>st</sup>. One of the other
really great things about this project is that it incorporates speed
bumps. About three years ago citizens that lived on 21<sup>st</sup>
came to the city and said that they wanted speed bumps and the city
said no. The reason for that was 21<sup>st</sup> carries just
under 5,000 cars a day, and as a local service street our upper limits
for where we would put speed bumps was 2,500 cars a day. So the
neighbours just kept coming back for about three years asking us if
there was a special process that they could go through. We worked
hard to look at whether we could put the project in and not have diversion
going into neighbourhoods, and we actually started a pilot programme.
And we’ve had speed bumps in now for over a year and we haven’t
had any complaints that I’m aware of from the neighbourhood of the
diversion. It’s an excellent example of one of those projects
where you can do speed bumps on a higher volume street without problems,
and if we didn’t have the speed bumps here, we’d have 85<sup>th</sup>
percentile speeds of 32 miles per hour, now we have speed down to about
25 miles an hour/26 miles an hour, so it’s really reduced speeds. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Fred Hansen:</i> [18:47]
Two-thirds of our riders are on our bus system and our commitment is
to be able to make that bus ride be every bit of quality that the light
rail is. You can call up at any one of our almost 8,000 bus stops
throughout this whole region and find out not just the next schedule
time, but the actual arrival time. All of our buses have the ability
to carry up to two bicycles on the front when people want to be able
to use bus to make at least part of their trip. Likewise on light
rail, we have the ability to be able to have specially dedicated places
where bicycles maybe hung so that people can make use of that system
as well. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Chris Smith:</i> [19:24]
The streetcars actually a great story of partnerships here in Portland.
We wanted the streetcar to work with the whole transit system even though
it’s owned and operated by the City of Portland, not by our Regional
Transit Agency. The fare system is completely seamless, so if
you buy a streetcar ticket it works in the bus, the bus ticket works
in the streetcar. You can see that this stop actually serves both
buses and streetcars so if you happen to be on the street going in this
direction, you can take the first vehicle that comes, whether it’s
a bus or a streetcar. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Don Baack:</i> [19:52]
About 15% of our streets are all in southwest which is an area about
35 square miles. We have 15% sidewalks. 43% of our arterials
have no sidewalks. Result of all that is that were many places
where it was really, really difficult for pedestrians to get from place
to place and most of them didn’t know how to get around because there
was no signage. So we put together the network, then we began
working on building connections. And as soon as we got one network
completed we put signs on it so people could find their way. We’ve
probably got close to 500 of these around southwest. And the arrow
indicates the direction. The walker indicates it’s a pedestrian
path. The 6 is the number of the route and South West Trails is
simply identifying as part of the South West trail network. The
other thing that we’ve done is do up maps and the maps are pretty
thorough. Our trails group, this is our little logo here, and
the Department of Transportation worked on these jointly. It was
our job to figure out the connections and it was PDOT’s job to actually
publish the maps. This street is a trail the way we call it because
it’s point to point trail, so the trail comes here and we’ve got
about 1,000 feet of trail that is really in the woods and no cars on
it, and then we got more streets and then they’ll end up going through
a park or a school ground or something like that. So we end up
with, you know, a combination of things where people want to walk but
it isn’t necessarily trail as we would think of walking through the
woods. You know the majority of the routes, because we’re trying
to get pedestrians from place to place on a linear trail, we’re using
the streets where we can. And then we went from that to figuring
out where we wanted to have the most important routes and the criteria
we used is walkable streets. The other things we have on the map
is features that you’d want to know if you were walking, like where
are the bathrooms, where are the water fountains, where are the parks,
other major things of interest, where are the commercial areas.
We’ve got the grocery stores noted so someone looking at this could
say, oh there’s a grocery store, I can walk to that. The whole
thing’s focused on where people want to walk. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Linda Ginenthal:</i>
[22:01] This is the bike parking that we put in for city employees.
Over the years as we’ve been promoting getting more people on their
bikes that we needed to add… last year we needed to add 40 more, and
we added those and we’re running out of bike space. They’re
on every little post and every corner we can sort of sneak them in,
so it’s been pretty spectacular to grow this quickly. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[22:25] This is an on-street bike parking facility where we converted
one and a half automobile spaces into 13 bike racks, by placing these
bike racks right on the asphalt and then provided a barrier with reflectors
on it so it would be visible. And we did it because the street
that’s behind me is Mississippi Avenue in North Portland. There’s
a lot of bicycle traffic, there’s a lot of pedestrians and what was
happening was there was a lot of bicycles that were congregating on
the street and on the sidewalks, and because the sidewalks were so narrow
it was starting to create some issues. After we put it in it was
so successful that businesses two blocks away unanimously asked for
another one.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Sharon White:</i>
[23:08] I coordinate the crosswalk enforcement actions as a partnership
and the whole point of it is is to bring more awareness and education
about what the Oregon crosswalk law is. If I go ahead and find
a location and where we’ve received community complaints about cars
not stopping for pedestrians, we also take into consideration locations
that have had pedestrian collisions and also feedback that we get from
Portland Police. So once we decide on a location, we go ahead
and scope it out and make sure it’s appropriate, see which time period
during the day would be best. Usually for a two hour time period
I’m a pedestrian decoy and I cross back and forth in a crossing.
It’s usually a marked crossing but sometimes we do signalise crossings
as well. There’s one police spotter and he tells officers on
either side of the street that are tucked away that a certain car or
bicyclist or pedestrian has violated the law. Then the police
officer pulls over that individual. If it’s a clear violation
they’re given a citation. If it was not 100% clear, then they’re
given a warning. Here in the City of Portland our citations for
not… failure to yield to the pedestrian is a Class B violation and
a $242 fine.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kirsty Hall:</i> [24:43]
This is a programme we just started running in the past week and it’s
a new programme especially designed for senior citizens. Here
we have five seniors who are going to be riding today with us from Elders
in Action and we’re going to be riding around Mallament Park here
in South West Portland.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [24:58]
This bike project to me is another example of how Portland cares for
its seniors, or is starting to care for its seniors. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[25:08] Are you looking forward to riding today?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [25:08]
Yes I am, I’ve only done it once before and I hadn’t been on a bike
since I was 15 years old. It’s a lot of fun.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[25:17] How long’s it been since you’ve ridden the bike?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [25:22]
A good 50 years. Loved to ride a bike when I was a kid and so
now I think, you know, a bike would be great. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kirsty Hall:</i> [25:31]
Initially we’re hoping the programme is just going to help seniors
stay fit and healthy and active, and we’re partnering with Oregon
Health and Sciences University. We have a PhD researcher there
who’s looking into seniors and how they can retain function as they
age. And so we’re going to be using some valuable survey work
and feedback from this programme. But we do have another goal
and that is also in the long run to hopefully have bikes at senior centres
around Portland, and seniors can just hop on to a bike and hopefully
if they need to go to pick up a prescription or if they’d like to
run to a friend’s house nearby, just run some errands, get some exercise,
they can also do that. So those are some longer term goals.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [26:10]
It gets me out of the house and also it’s good exercise.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [26:13]
And I had thought that maybe, you know, I could go to my condo down
here, get a little older and I’m not standing on my feet, you know,
to walk, I’d get my exercise this way.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kirsty Hall:</i> [26:25]
A big concern is safety and perception of safety. A lot of seniors
have told us that they feel very afraid of falling off a bike.
And this is why we have these three wheeled tricycles here, they’re
much more stable for seniors to ride, and that was a very conscious
decision that the Office of Transportation took when we purchased these
bikes.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [26:55]
I just like to do stuff that would improve the quality of senior life
and for myself also of course. And I’ve always wanted one of these
bikes. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kirsty Hall:</i> [27:07]
They love it. Everybody was a little apprehensive when they turn
up. You can see the fear in their faces sometimes cos they haven’t
ridden in such a long time. As soon as they get on the bike and
we get everything adjusted for them, they just take off and it’s like
a duck to water, they’re just so happy to be riding again. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kirsty Hall:</i> [27:28]
I hadn’t ridden a bike in three years and I remember when I hopped
on again it just felt like… it was just… I felt like I was a child
again and I definitely get that impression from the seniors that are
riding on this programme. It makes them feel young again and it
makes them feel healthy again. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Diana Christensen:</i>
[27:54] I love being in Portland, it’s a great place. My car
died last year in August and I was like, whoa, what am I going to do?
So I said, well I guess I’m going to ride my bike to school tomorrow,
and then I rode it the next day, and then I rode it the next day and
now I’m a commuter and I dig that Portland allows me to do that safely. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [28:13]
The major thing that everybody’s going to tell you about Portland
is what a great outdoor lifestyle it is here. You know you’re
close to the ocean, you’re close to the mountains, rivers, wilderness
and the city itself is a wonderful place to get around. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [28:28]
Everyone on a bike is glad to see someone else on a bike. You
ring your bell, you wave, you smile, it’s a great sense of community.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[28:34] I really feel like I’m in a place where we can showcase our
people getting to know each other and working together can really make
a difference in making a place that really works for people. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Fred Hansen:</i> [28:44]
Portland is my home. I was born and raised here and although I’ve
certainly lived in a lot of other parts of the country over the years,
it’s liveability, it’s walkability, it’s the fact that we’re
weird.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [28:57]
I’m always glad to come back to Portland because as far as I’m concerned
Portland is the place to be. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [29:03]
Between the bus and walking I hardly ever drive anymore. It’s
great.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [29:07]
We like to come out and visit the West Coast. The main thing I’d
say is this is easily the most liveable city in the United States that
I’ve been to so far. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [29:15]
It’s great for walking around, people actually stop at crosswalks
for you.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mia Birk:</i> [29:19]
If you stood out here all night you would see that every… almost every
other minute all night long there’s a cyclist coming through.
And it’s so pleasant. I sit on my front porch and I wave at
the people and have a glass of wine and I listen to jingling of bells
and the swishing of wheels and the chattering of people back and forth.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [29:37]
It’s got the dynamism of a big city but it’s got the… it’s got
the community orientation of a smaller city.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Lear:</i> [29:44]
When we take speed bumps off a street when we’re doing maintenance,
we get a flurry of phone calls where people are saying, what happened
to my speed bumps? We’re constantly getting people that are
calling us and wanting bike lanes or sidewalk improvements, and when
we make those improvements we get thank you letters and people send
us chocolates.</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Linda Ginenthal:</i>
[30:02] We get love letters on a regular basis for our programmes.
No kidding. I mean just delightful, delightful notes that say
we love Portland because of the work that you do and you know you can’t...
you can’t buy that. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/
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