For over 50 years, Portland area residents have welcomed the new year with a bike ride. The ride serves multiple purposes: to joyfully welcome in the new year, celebrate improvements to our streets, and provide an opportunity to experience new parts of the region with friends old and new. This year we gathered our members at The Street Trust HUB at Lloyd Center for a family-friendly seven-mile bike ride followed by a community gathering with hot food and drinks.

The New Year’s Day Ride stops to pose on the Willamette River Greenway Trail

We were joined by 60 friends, new and old, on all manner of bikes including cargo bikes, kid-assisted tandems, dog-friendly basket bikes, and recumbent trikes. We noted a lot of e-bikes this year which was very exciting given our increase in e-bike programming, like the Ride2Own community-powered e-bike ownership program in partnership with We All Rise and our Lloyd District E-Bike Lending Library in partnership with the City of Portland’s Clean Energy Fund. We were also joined by our friends at Cynergy E-Bikes who conducted bike safety checks before the ride.

The New Year’s Day Ride rides over the Blumenauer Bridge

In keeping things close to “home” this year so we could utilize the transit- and bike-accessible Lloyd Center as a starting spot–not to mention the empty parking lot for space to spread out in the sun–our ride featured three bridges and a jaunt along the picturesque Willamette River. We had figured correctly that this would be many attendees’ first ride along the Willamette River Greenway Trail–a bit of hidden gem! We also took some Blumenauer Bridge newbies for their first crossing. Our 2022 New Year’s Day Ride featured a peek at the soon-to-be Blumenauer Bridge (accompanied by an update from Friends of the Green Loop and little bow ties for everyone’s bikes!) so finishing our loop by traversing the new bridge was a lovely touch. Attendees loved the route so here’s a map if you’d like to explore it on your own:

The 2024 New Year’s Day Ride was a first for The Street Trust’s Community Engagement Coordinator Burgin Utaski, who shared, “What a great way to start the new year! While spending New Year’s Day in pajamas is fun and all, having the opportunity to connect with enthusiastic community members on a gorgeous day took the cake! Huge thanks to our Executive Director, Sarah Iannarone, for providing delicious chili to warm us up after the ride.”

Over the last couple years we’ve noticed that as people are getting back into the habit of gathering in public, connecting as a community is what we’re most aching for and we supported this need by hosting a cookie exchange at the end of the 2023 ride. This year we welcomed everyone at the end of the ride with veg*n Frito Pie, hot cocoa, random drawings featuring items to help keep warm and illuminated in cold and dark weather, and a Wishing Tree crafted out of a bike wheel and bike repair stand to which we hung our hopes and dreams for 2024.

Hanging resolutions, goals, wishes, and notes on the Wishing Tree

Happy 2024 from The Street Trust! We hope to see you at a future event. Please sign up for our newsletter to get updates on events, info on advocacy efforts, and to learn more about the impact we’re having in our community; sign up to volunteer to help assist events like this and others, and donate to The Street Trust to support multimodal transportation options that prioritize safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice.

Screenshot of Victor Duong Testifying Planning Commission

 

The national spotlight recently shone on Victor Duong, a distinguished board member of The Street Trust, in a Forbes article that delved into the complexity of bike parking regulations in Portland. As a housing architect of Vietnamese descent, an avid sport cyclist, and a former Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) member, Victor’s multifaceted background offers a fresh and informed perspective on the challenges and opportunities surrounding urban planning and transportation.

The piece highlighted the paradox of bike parking mandates in cities like Portland. While there’s a growing trend to reduce or eliminate car parking requirements, bike parking regulations seem to be on the rise. Such mandates, though well-intentioned, can inadvertently inflate housing costs. The logic is simple: when housing developers are compelled to allocate space for bike storage, it can lead to larger unit sizes, which in turn can push up rents.

Victor, in his professional capacity as a Project Manager at Leeb Architects, has witnessed firsthand the implications of these regulations. He notes, “The previous revision of the bike parking code removed approximately 1-2 units for every 200 units; the current bike parking code now removes approximately 1 out of 15 units.” Such reductions come at a time when housing efficiency is paramount.

The crux of the matter isn’t about diminishing the importance of bikes or undermining their role in sustainable urban mobility. It’s about striking a balance. As Victor aptly puts it, “We are crafting a city for people, not just buildings and bikes.”

At a public hearing on October 24th before the Portland Planning Commission, Victor brought his unwavering commitment to fostering a safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation system, promoting a conversation and vision that harmoniously integrates the needs of all Portlanders. (Full  video of the meeting available on YouTube.) He followed up his terstimony with a think piece in Strongtowns, where he emphasized, “Our regulatory priorities are backwards… bike parking is important, but not more important than housing, not even close. Resources should first go to housing, then figure out bike parking from there.”

We are inspired by Victor’s unique insights and dedication to service on our board’s Policy Working Group, where he reminds us weekly that when we advocate, it must be through an equity lens, via respectful dialogue, and with a focus on the collective well-being of our community.

The Street Trust's 2023 New Year's Day Ride poses in front of the Welcome to Milwaukie mural by Jeremy Okai Davis featuring Ah Bing alongside Dorothy and Hurtis Hadley.

For over 50 years, Portland area residents have welcomed the new year with a bike ride. The ride serves multiple purposes: to joyfully welcome in the new year, celebrate improvements to our streets, and provide an opportunity to experience new parts of the region with friends old and new. This year, we headed to Clackamas County to explore Milwaukie’s SAFE (Safe Access For Everyone) program innovations and investments.

Outgoing Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba addresses the crowd of 80 in front of a MAX train in Milwaukie.
Outgoing Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba addresses the crowd of 80 in front of a MAX train in Milwaukie. (Photo by Julian Dunn)

One of our favorite things about riding in a group on New Year’s Day is that streets are generally quieter, allowing us to take routes that at busier times are unfriendly (or highly unpleasant) for less experienced riders. This year, that meant we could comfortably check out both completed and not-yet-implemented SAFE project streets.

Our special guest was outgoing Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba and incoming State Representative (D- HD 41), who led on many of these investments. He addressed our assembly of 80 New Year’s Day riders before venturing out with us on our five-mile, family-friendly ride.

What a great turnout we had! Our events in central Portland historically have attracted more participants than in more suburban parts of the region, so the fact that this year’s Milwaukie ride saw a larger crowd than last year’s in downtown Portland is something to celebrate! This is The Street Trust’s mission in action–centering the people, voices, and needs of communities too often left out of transportation decision-making.

The 2023 New Year’s Day Ride was a first for The Street Trust’s Education and Engagement Assistant Citlaly Ramirez-Sierra, a resident of Clackamas County, who shared, “I thoroughly enjoyed the event. It was great to see so many community members show up and ride together. Growing up in the Milwaukie area, I didn’t see many outdoor community-oriented events; it was heartwarming to see Milwaukie shine the way it did in this event.”

The Route
We got a lot of positive feedback about the route so here’s a map if you’d like to explore it on your own, with a description of what you’ll see below:

  • We began our ride at the end of the MAX Orange Line to provide easy access to those arriving multimodally and started out along the Trolley Trail, which predates SAFE and is a regional gem.
  • We left the Trolley Trail to wind our way along the Kronberg Park Multi-Use Trail (SAFE phase 2020) and traversed downtown Milwaukie on quiet streets to reach…
  • Washington Street (SAFE phase 2024) where we climbed uphill alongside what will soon be improved sidewalk and stormwater management.
  • We took advantage of the reduced holiday car traffic to utilize the traffic lights into and out of the Safeway parking lot and easily make our way to the very-recently-completed 43rd Avenue Improvements (SAFE phase 2022). In keeping our ride to a family-friendly/all-ages-and-abilities length and steepness we didn’t pedal all the way to Linwood Avenue (SAFE phase 2021), our favorite new shared pedestrian/bike path, but 43rd Avenue’s shared path is similarly spectactacular and is also the start of a safe and connected network.
  • We finished up along a portion of the future Monroe Street Greenway (SAFE phase 2022 & some segments TBD).
  • Our ride ended at the Milwaukie Station Food Cart Pod, conveniently sited next to the penultimate Orange Line MAX station for those leaving multimodally.

The route proved fun and accessible for all manner of bikes including recumbent trikes, young kids on their own bikes, families on cargo bikes, and EUCs (electric unicycles).

A collage of photos of people (and one dog) at the New Year's Day Ride

But that’s not all! We’ve noticed that as people are getting back into the habit of gathering in public, connecting as a community is what we’re most aching for. So, we book-ended the ride with hot drinks at the start, and a cookie exchange at the end. Over cookies (and other less sugary snacks) we collected “Transportation hopes and dreams for 2023” on index cards from the group, and had a random drawing for four The Street Trust knit caps.

Index cards with transportation hopes and dreams for 2023

Happy 2023 from The Street Trust! We hope you’ll walk and roll through Milwaukie this year and see us at a future event. Please sign up for our newsletter to get updates on events, info on advocacy efforts, and to learn more about the impact we’re having in our community; sign up to volunteer to help assist events like this and others, and donate to The Street Trust to support multimodal transportation options that prioritize safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice.

 

The Street Trust is tired of issuing statements and offering condolences for the loss of life and limb due to government inaction on SE Powell Blvd. in Portland and are demanding immediate action -today- from local and state government to prevent future injuries and deaths. 

On May 10th, 2015 at this intersection, Alistair Corkett was struck by the driver of a pick-up truck, resulting in the loss of one of his legs. Just a few weeks later, on May 29th, Peter Anderson was bicycling through the intersection and had his leg broken by the driver of a Jeep Cherokee. On Tuesday, October 4, Aviary restaurant founder Chef Sarah Pliner was killed there while bicycling by the operator of a semi-truck. Our condolences go out to Sarah’s family and community as well as the over 400 families affected by traffic violence this year across Oregon. (Read the BikePortland report.)

These injuries and Sarah’s death were preventable and the lives of the Cleveland High School population and other street users in the area remain at risk. The Street Trust is demanding that the City of Portland and State of Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) cooperate to immediately physically separate from motor vehicle traffic all vulnerable street users including people on bicycles, pedestrians, and transit riders until a full investigation of yesterday’s killing is completed.

The Street Trust proposes immediate emergency installation of a protected intersection for people walking and biking, as illustrated. This could be constructed immediately with concrete jersey barriers, event fencing, or other materials the DOTs have on hand, similar to those implemented for pedestrian safety during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.  The Street Trust is also asking that Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) install metal signs that read, “High Crash Intersection” in that location. 

NACTO Illustration of protected initersection
Source: NACTO, “Don’t Give Up at the Intersection”

Powell is owned and maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation and The Street Trust has long protested against their mismanagement of this street, a so-called “Orphan Highway,” which is a state highway forced to function as a city street, (Read former ED Rob Sadowsky’s statement on violence in this intersection from 2015.) Powell Blvd. is notoriously dangerous. The intersection of SE 26th and Powell Blvd. is considered a high crash intersection for people traveling by bicycle, in particular. Between 2010-2019, there were two pedestrians and seven people riding bicycles injured there. 

“We’ve accepted death and serious injury as a product of our transportation system and desensitized ourselves to the severity of its violence. We’ve convinced ourselves that death and injury are the expected outcome for people who navigate our transportation system outside of a motor vehicle… that is absurd!” says André Lightsey-Walker, Policy Transformation Manager at The Street Trust. “We have the data and tools necessary to solve these problems but we need the political will to redirect energy and resources toward our most vulnerable and historically disadvantaged street users or we’ll continue to see tragedies like yesterday’s occur.” 

High Crash Intersection Sign
Source: The Oregonian

One year ago, on November 16, 2021, The Street Trust Executive Director, Sarah Iannarone, emailed ODOT Region 1 Manager, Rian Windsheimer, with her concerns about safety on this stretch of Powell Blvd., excerpted below:

“As the parent of a Cleveland High School grad who worried – quite rationally –  whether my child would make it back and forth across Powell alive each school day, I can’t help but wonder what criteria (such as the presence of schools or community centers) and/or how many deaths in a concentrated area it takes before we’re willing to fully commit to Vision Zero? I am excited to hear that ODOT is planning an emergency speed reduction between SE 20th – SE 36th but hope you’ll consider an Emergency Speed Reduction to 20 MPH in that stretch rather than 30 MPH until the fatalities stop. 

Please let us know how The Street Trust can support you in this effort, the jurisdictional transfer, or other safety improvements on this and other orphan highways across our metro region.”

Iannarone was joining a chorus of voices from the public and active transportation advocacy community in demanding critical investments in Powell Blvd., including the jurisdictional transfer of Inner Powell Blvd. to Portland Bureau of Transportation in a state of readiness and with an adequate -and mutually agreed upon- level of resources to upgrade the street to ensure safety for all users regardless of mode. 

Given how long the transfer of 82nd Avenue from ODOT to PBOT took, we understand that this heavy lift could take years to research, negotiate, and fully fund. In the meantime, we are demanding that ODOT adhere to its own Blueprint for Urban Design (BUD) guidelines how streets like Powell Blvd. should be updated to meet the needs of multimodal transportation. To date, ODOT Region 1 Manager Rian Windsheimer and his enginners are using their discretion and choosing to NOT implement the BUD in Region 1. The public does not need to wait for a jurisditional transfer to see upgrades on Inner Powell: if ODOT is truly prioritizing safety (as they claim) and focused on reducing the number of crashes, injuries, and fatalities on their facilities, it will implement their existing policy standards on Inner Powell in advance of the jurisdictional transfer.

 

Source: Kittelson & Associates

 

Alice Awards

2022 has been a busy year in our community and we couldn’t be more excited about this year’s Alice Awards ceremony honoring champions for our mission this Saturday, September 24th, at Lloyd Center.

Thank you to everyone who nominated someone in our community who works tirelessly to improve mobility and transportation in the Greater Portland Metro Region and beyond. Dozens of people were nominated and the wealth of talent, creativity, energy, and innovation uplifted through the nomination process keeps us optimistic about the future!

This year, we’re giving two awards and the winners will be announced at the ceremony.

The Alice Award is given to a community member or organization forwarding The Street Trust’s mission of advocating for multimodal transportation options that prioritize safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice in the Portland Metro Region and beyond.

2022 Alice Award Finalists

  • Franklin Jones, CEO and Founder of B-Line Urban Delivery
  • Portland Streetcar Ambassador Program in partnership with OPAL Environmental Justice
  • Robin Straughan, Sustainability Manager at Washington County
Franklin Jones
Franklin Jones
Portland Streetcar Ambassador Program
Portland Streetcar Ambassador Program
Robin Straughan
Robin Straughan

The Elizabeth Jennings Graham Award is given to a community member or organization actively championing transportation justice and equity.

2022 Elizabeth Award Finalists

  • Maritza Arango, Disability Justice Coordinator at Latino Network
  • Charlene McGee, Program Manager for Multnomah County Health Department, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)
  • Christine Watts, Founder/President of Civil Unrest Bicycle Club
Maritza Arango
Maritza Arango
Charlene McGee
Charlene McGee
Christine Watts
Christine Watts

The Event

The fabulous Poison Waters will emcee the Alice Awards and DJ Aquaman will be on the decks. Dress up in your favorite early 90’s attire and get ready for a night full of food and fun with catering provided by Kim Jong Grillin’, craft cocktails from Merit Badge, a wine wall, special appeal fundraising, and more!

Giveaway with Ticket Purchase

We’re giving away a special prize pack every 12 hours between now and the awards party! Buy your tickets now and be entered to win a $20 gift card from Floating World Comics (now in the Lloyd Center!), plus TST hip pouch, logo beanie, Spin socks, and the not-yet-released new limited-edition TST t-shirt … over a $100 value!

Tickets are just $40 for general admission, $30 for current TST members. Or add a HALF-PRICE membership with a $60 Alice ticket+membership bundle.

Space is limited, so get your tickets now!

Buy tickets!

A Very Special Afterparty

Join us after the Alice Awards for an open-to-the-public Secret Roller Disco afterparty, to take place in the former Marshalls from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. This event is in collaboration with Secret Roller Disco, guest DJ SlimKid3, Rose City Rollers, and the Lloyd Center.

Volunteers Needed

Attend the Alice Awards free of charge in exchange for three or four hours of help!

Sign up to volunteer

 

 

Last Friday, The Street Trust kicked off Pride Month and celebrated World Bicycle Day at the same time by hosting a family-friendly, rolling parade withDowntown Portland and hosted by celebrated Portland drag queen Poison Waters.

Participants gathered in Shemanski Park, which is conveniently located near Biketown stations a block in either direction – in front of the Portland Art Museum and at Director Park. Several attendees checked out a Biketown bike for the parade, including celebrity guests the Gay Beards.

The parade was also joined by everyone’s favorite one-wheeled hero, the Unipiper, and the Multnomah County Library book trike. Our two-mile parade route bounced between points of interest from Portland’s LGBTQIA2S+ past and present, including the office and residence of famed 1900’s lesbian Doc Marie Equi; Vera Katz Park, named for former mayor and gay ally; and Pride Plaza, one of our new street plazas filled with street art, public seating, and community activities.

The Street Trust offers a special thanks to our ride ambassadors from BikePOC PNW, an organization that actively creates space for BIPOC folks to ride bikes, build community, forge life-long friendships, and challenge the status quo.

Ryan Hashagen and Cory Poole pushed the pedicab up hills

This ride would not have been possible without the generosity of Icicle Tricycles,   who provided a pedicab in which we conveyed our host Poison Waters, not to mention the pedicab training sessions and assistive pushes uphill from Icicle Tricycle owner (and Better Block PDX Principal) Ryan Hashagen. Additional thanks to longboard skateboard advocate Cory Poole, who also pushed the pedicab and took many of the photos shared in this post.

We stopped for mini dance parties in three Portland Public Street Plazas and ended our parade with a big dance party at the Cart Blocks Food Cart Pod at Ankeny West, which featured a surprise appearance from Darcelle, the Guinness World Record holding “Oldest Working Drag Queen”. Umpqua Bank greeted our arrival with tricycles filled with ice cream and ice pops.

Bikes, trikes, unicycles, skateboards, and longboards– this year’s Pride parade had all manner of environmentally-friendly wheeled vehicles (we love our multimodal life) and The Street Trust can’t wait to do this again for next World Bicycle Day 2023!

TST staff Anouksha Gardner, Madi Carlson and Board member Jackie Yerby, with Darcelle

WeBike participants in Beaverton

 

WeBike is The Street Trust’s program to inspire more trans people of all genders, gender non-conforming people, Two Spirit, and women (both trans and cis) to incorporate a bike into their lives and use biking as a way to meet their transportation needs and personal goals. WeBike dismantles the barriers of cycling through rides, knowledge-sharing events, meet and greets, and mentorship.

Last weekend, WeBike’s May ride ventured into new territory: Beaverton! The 10-mile loop started at the Beaverton Farmers Market and utilized many quiet greenway-type streets, the Westside Trail, several bike-friendly cut-throughs (one gravel!), and creatively utilized a shopping center parking lot, an office park parking lot, and some sidewalk to avoid a couple not-so-bike-friendly roads. The ride passed many points of interested including two entrances to Tualatin Hills Nature Park, the Aloha Mall shopping center, and BG Food Cartel food cart pod.

In June, WeBike will have a meet-up to talk about bike camping! We are always looking for new participants- no experience necessary. Learn about all the ways you can carry camping gear by bike, what you need to bring, where to go, and get all your questions answered! Camp coffee and snacks provided. Read all the details on the Shift/Pedalpalooza calendar listing and RSVP here.

Find WeBike events on The Street Trust events calendar and shared to the WeBike Instagram and Twitter.

The WeBike-Portland private Facebook group is a resource, hub, and a way to connect with others riding in the area. If you have any questions about biking or great biking tips you want to share, post them there!

Ways allies can support WeBike: promote events on socials, print a poster, and donate to The Street Trust.

 

Join WeBike’s Next Ride!

 

Donate to support WeBike!

 

Enter the Walk+Roll May Challenge Art Contest!

 

 The Walk+Roll May Challenge Is On!

Kids across Oregon are getting outside to move and celebrate active living with their schools for the Walk+Roll May Challenge. This month, The Street Trust is encouraging and supporting students who choose to ‘walk and roll’ outside for transportation and exercise, and asking K – 8 students to draw why they walk+roll for our May Challenge art contest.

Click here to learn more and submit art by June 15 to win cool Walk+Roll prizes. Art will be judged based on the inclusion of walking and/or rolling safety features and creativity. Drawings can include anything from students’ imaginations or experiences, so wackiness and fantasy are encouraged!

Winners will be selected in the following grade groupings: Kindergarten – 2nd grades, 3rd – 5th grades, and 6th – 8th grades.

In Oregon, we celebrate the Walk+Roll May Challenge in conjunction with National Bike to School Day. The first-ever National Bike to School Day took place on May 9, 2012, in coordination with the League of American Bicyclists’ National Bike Month. Almost 1,000 local events in 49 states and the District of Columbia joined together to encourage children to safely bicycle or walk to school.

The event builds on the popularity of Walk to School Day, which is celebrated across the country – and the world – every October. Many communities and schools have been holding spring walk and bicycle to school events for years, and National Bike to School Day provides an opportunity for schools across the country to come together to celebrate and to build off of the energy of National Bike Month.

Submit Art To Be Eligible For Prizes!

Learn More About Our Walk + Roll Programs!

 

 

 

We’d like to thank our long time partners Nelson\Nygaard for supporting The Street Trust and contributing to an amazing closing event at Lucky Lab NW for the 2022 Oregon Active Transportation Summit.

During the Summit’s closing party The Street Trust’s new staff were finally able to connect in person with Nelson/Nygaard’s team and talk about all the wonderful things our  organizations are working on. This includes Nelson/Nygaard’s newTransportation Demand Management guide, which helps local leaders work with their communities to implement TDM measures that advance health and sustainability goals. The Street Trust is proud to support their efforts to reduce collective VMT levels. 

Closing event sponsor Nelson\Nygaard

We also want to celebrate The Street Trust’s Chair Drusilla van Hengel, a Senior Principal at Nelson/Nygaard and an esteemed and beloved professor at Portland State University. Along with being a transformational leader in her field, Dru has been instrumental in the The Street Trust’s success since she joined the board in October 2021. Through hard work and determination, Dru helped guide our organization through the many trials of the pandemic, ensuring that the Greater Portland metropolitan region would continue to have a powerful voice advocating for a safer, more accessible, more equitable, and more sustainable transportation system. In keeping with The Street Trust’s mission, Dru gets around the region using both TriMet and her Xtracycle — except when she uses carsharing to take her dog somewhere exciting. 

When we asked Dru what an ideal transportation system would look like for her, she told us it would be on in which, “No people using our streets are required to trade personal safety or time to make up for gaps in our public space, walking, transit, or bike systems”. 

Below are photos of Dru and many of our other wonderful supporters having fun at the 2022 Summit closing party. With help from generous sponsors like Nelson/Nygaard, The Street Trust hosts a wide variety ofevents like this one throughout the year. Our biggest annual events are the Oregon Active Transportation Summit and the Alice Awards, which take place in the Spring and Fall. If you are Interested in becoming a sponsor or a business member, please contact our Strategic Partnerships Manager at [email protected].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Civic Leaders on Bikes in Nashville

 

For more than thirty years, greater Portland’s civic leaders led by The Street Trust Board of Directors Vice-Chair, Randy Miller, have been traveling together to other cities and regions seeking tools to improve outcomes here at home.

The past couple of years have been challenging for Oregonians as we came together to face the intersecting crises of the COVID pandemic, the racial justice reckoning of the Black Lives Matter movement, and unprecedented wildfires in our state made worse by the climate crisis. For Nashville, these crises were compounded by multiple natural disasters and a Christmas morning bombing that shook their downtown.

John Lewis mural in Nashville Over the decades, Portland’s leaders have worked to ensure our civic learning trips are more intentional, effective, and inclusive. Now, as our region finds itself in transition -at a crossroads, some would say- it is more important than ever that we invest as a community in increasing our capacity for addressing the various challenges we face, including population growth and housing affordability, congestion and the need for transit investments, and deepening social and economic inequality.

Prior to joining The Street Trust, our Executive Director, Sarah Iannarone, worked full-time hosting inbound and outbound delegations of urban leaders seeking tools for improving conditions in their places. An expert in educating policy makers, she led the design and execution of a transportation focused learning experience in Nashville for over 100 Portland officials and civic leaders. She and Strategic Partnerships Manager, Anouksha Gardner, worked with Walk Bike Nashville and Bike Fun Nashville to expose Portland’s leadership to a range of active transportation, Music City style.

The three-day deep-dive into policies and best practices encouraged our local leaders to explore what’s working and what’s not in another city, and to better understand what tools they should bring home to help Portland grow smarter. It also reminded many participants how fortunate we are for robust transportation tools already in place in Portland – from TriMet’s regional cooperation with Oregon Metro to local mobility solutions such as PBOT’s Biketown for All

People in a conference panel discussion, professional setting.

In addition to walking and e-bike tours, the trip included a transportation deep dive moderated by Sarah Iannarone with Diana Alarcon, Director, Department of Transportation & Multimodal Infrastructure, Nashville  and Steve Bland, CEO, WeGo Public Transit. The group was later joined by Ashley Northington, Vice-President and Managing Director, Moving Forward Nashville. They discussed similarities between our two regions including the challenges of getting people back on transit post-COVID and ways to fund transportation in the wake of failed multi-billion dollar ballot measures. The delegation also spent an afternoon at Vanderbilt University which included a presentation on Sensing and Control of Traffic on the I-24 Smart Corridor, an innovative public-university partnership to manage congestion on highways. 

Other topics on the agenda? Regional economic development led by Monqiue Claiborne of Greater Portland, Inc, preserving indie culture led by Music Portland‘s Meara McLaughlin, and a thought-provoking conversation about treating mental illness as a health (not criminal) issue led by Multnomah County DA, Mike Schmidt.

Want to learn more about the trip? Read a reflection from our partners at Business for a Better Portland and coverage in the Portland Business Journal.

Civic leaders lined up side by side for group shot in sunshine

Thank you to our generous sponsors!

Sponsor Logos - Greater Portland, Melvin Mark, The Street Trust, AAA, PGE, Port of Portland