Dreams On Wheels

Dreams on Wheels Manifest Event November 3, 2009 at 11:11

The title of Last Thursday’s Manifest event, Dreams on Wheels, captured the magical, childlike quality of cycling. And for a small group of us it was kicked off in the same vain – a group ride from City Hall to the site in the Pearl.

To me nothing captures the childhood fun of cycling as a group ride and I felt that same delight as Mayor Sam Adams, Mikael Colville-Andersen, Roger Gellar, Bike builder Tony Pereira, Slate Olson with Rapha, Tom Miller, Jonathan Maus, and I headed down the street with our red bike lights flashing. Upon arrival Mikael Colville-Andersen, Denmark’s cycling Ambassador, set the stage for the Q & A session by opening the evening with a presentation describing “cycling” in Denmark and how Copenhagen achieved getting its population to take 55% of all their trips on bicycles.

In Mikael’s humorous and engaging presentation he shared with the audience that “cyclist” in Denmark are in fact not cyclist at all, they happen to be people who ride their bikes everyday to get to where they’re going. He also shared that the general public in Copenhagen is polled every two years to inquire as to why people ride their bikes and have found that:

56% ride because easy and fast
19% ride to get their daily exercise
6 % ride because it is cheap
1 % ride to for environmental reasons

Amongst all the hard numbers – the statistics and the data – the magical quality of riding a bike got buried. Granted, Mikael was preaching to the choir, but he left out the main reason I ride – it’s fun. Yes, riding my bike to work everyday is faster than taking the bus and it sure is a lot cheaper then paying for gas and parking to drive downtown, but it’s fun. For a set time everyday I get to experience movement – the world glides past me as my legs are in motion setting the pace. Simply fun. For me riding my bike has always retained some of that magic I experienced the first time I rode without training wheels on a sunny Saturday afternoon, my Dad chasing after me to make sure I was going to be okay.

Though magical experiences are not always synonymous with dreams, it brings me back to Portland’s dream on wheels: that 25% of all trips are taken by bicycle by 2030. To turn a dream into reality there must be a plan and the proposed Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030 outlines how Portland can turn its dream into reality. And speaking of dreams, my personal dream is a little different: the next time my mom comes to visit that she and I can go for a bike ride together. I have a distinct feeling the Portland Bicycle Plan can help achieve it a well. So what exactly does the Portland Bicycle Plan propose?
You can read the Draft Plan to find out more. The public comment period is open until November 8, 2009.

The plan recommends expanding the network of planned bikeways based on 3 key strategies:

1) Introduce safe, comfortable, attractive bikeways that can carry more bicyclists and serve all types and all ages of users, building on the best design practices of great bicycling cities around the world.
• This includes considering children and senior bike users. Check out Safe Routes to School program
• Also check out Sunday Parkways an amazing community building activity that reached out to the Burmese immigrant communities.
2) Construct dense network of bikeways so that all Portland residents can easily find and access a route
3) Create a cohesive network with direct routes that take people where they want to go.

A few highlighted strategic implementation recommendations:

• Develop a street design guide that includes bicycle design guidelines
• Expand encouragement programs that provide services and equipment, support behavior changes, raise awareness and provide incentives that increase bicycling
• Build as much of the bicycle transportation system as possible, as quickly as possible
• Fund and construct projects in areas underserved by the bikeway network that score high in indicators of disadvantage

By Katja Dillmann, Press release from the Danish Embassy in Washington DC

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