Portland took a big stride (so to speak) yesterday and closed six miles of city streets to car traffic, enabling bicyclists and pedestrians to stroll freely down the middle of the road with little fear of vehicular homicide or road rage. The event, named Sunday Parkways, lasted from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. –a mere six hours of freedom from automotive dominance on a small portion of the city’s vast street network. It is my hope that Sunday Parkways will help Portlanders understand that the pain created by $4.50/gallon gasoline does not have to be so severe. Yes, we all experience this pain indirectly through food and other transportation hikes, but a large portion of personal trips taken via automobile simply don’t require that we burn petroleum. In fact, 50 percent of all car trips are less than two miles in total distance. I love traffic stats.
Regardless of its scale, Sunday Parkways was six hours of immense joy and immediately brought to mind my experience strolling down the streets of Amsterdam this past March, mixing rather effortlessly with streetcars, bicycles, pedestrians and the occasional automobile. Yes, we Americans have a way to go before we can get some folks to shed all the unnecessary spandex (what is this, the Giro?) and over-engineered bicycles (carbon Rolf wheels on a bike that rarely leaves the garage?), but hey, one Sunday for six hours is far more than I ever imagined we’d ever take away from the petroleum lifestyle that touches us all.
For me, Sunday Parkways was experienced in a far different fashion than I originally planned. I was going to take advantage of the opportunity to show Yuba Mundo utility bikes, extolling the virtues of living with the biking industry’s answer to the Ford Super Duty. Instead, I made an 11th hour decision to simply spend the time with my family as a pedestrian. With family in town from Idaho, I thought it a far better use of my time to show them that Portland is much more than a bicycle town; it’s a town that often thinks well beyond the gas pump, considering all modes of transportation, including the most basic of all: feet. Armed with three out-of-town guests, my wife, two daughters, a stroller and a book of Tri-Met tickets, we hopped from the red line MAX to the yellow line, then hoofed it across I-5 to Peninsula Park. From this point we were able to see just what is possible when the city takes the gloves off and let’s people just exist in their daily environment without the fear of automobiles. It also let us experience what it’s like when you let people have open access to hula-hoops and pumping techno.
I don’t hate automobiles. Heck, I logged 12 miles in a Zipcar later the same afternoon. Sunday Parkways isn’t about the like or dislike of automobiles; it’s far more important than something so visceral. Sunday Parkways represents a community’s attempt at envisioning something more for their home than that which every other city has. Sunday Parkways represents an acknowledgment that communities exist at street-level and at human-speed. Sunday Parkways represents a step towards communities that embrace a life that doesn’t rely so heavily on an unsustainable, environmentally irresponsible way of living –a way of living that we have fostered for far too long.
{ 12 comments }
The principal reason I used to love participating in the Bridge Pedal was the sheer pleasure of being able to ride without worrying about getting hit. Being able to actually ride on a street and enjoy the view without constantly checking the rear view mirror, it’s a wonderful feeling.
Unfortunately, Bridge Pedal is now so crowded that in some ways it’s WORSE than riding in traffic.
It was a great event.
A friend (who didn’t know about the event beforehand) was in the neighborhood and was startled to stumble across what she called a “white power parade.” I assured her that there was at least one black person for every thousand whites (heh), and even took some pictures to prove it.
Now, my black neighbors, who have occasionally expressed anxiety that gentrifiers like Sam Adams are all about bringing rich white people on bikes into their neighborhoods, pushing their friends and family out to east county, may indeed see this as a show of force.
But if you can overlook that (ahem) slightly uncomfortable little angle, it’s a really cool idea, and it’s great to get out and mingle with the neighbors on a Sunday morning.
I’m hoping this becomes a weekly affair.
We had a great time at this event. It was freaking fantastic to see the streets packed with bikes. And no worries about leaving the Mundo at home, we saw two different Mundos (Munden? Mundes?) on the route.
good comments, steve r. i’m a firm believer that the bicycle is a true social equalizer. the bicycle is (typically) affordable, accessible, relatively non-polluting to operate, and good for personal and community health. yes, you can spend upwards of $5K on an over-engineered road bike, but a $80 1976 raleigh will also work just fine for 90% of the population. my comment about spandex and carbon wheels was initially tongue-in-cheek, yet indicative of the visual indicators that bring up comments like ‘rich white people on bikes’. on my trip to amsterdam i saw two racing bikes and zero spandex –among thousands of bikes. mind you, it was cold and rainy in early march. we `mericans will get there, eventually. all hail the social equalizers!
I think the best thing about the Sunday Parkways event is that it was a good show of how many different type of people ride and enjoy bicycling.
The most irritating aspect of Portland bike culture is the nuts who proclaim revolution and position cycling as a “movement” against [cause du jour]. They make the most noise and get the most press, which turns off a lot of people who would otherwise find bicycling to be an effective and enjoyable way to get around town.
Sunday Parkways was a great way to open the doors to those people. It’s really refreshing to see families, friends, the young and the old, rich and poor, hipsters, yuppies, and everyone in between rolling through the neighborhoods and hanging out in the parks.
Portland took some big strides all week last week—and it sounds like Sunday Parkway was the crowning achievement (was bummed I could not make it).
I was at the Toward Carfree Cities closing event on Friday night, and met people from all over the country who look to Portland as a model for urban planning when it comes to bike-ability. A big shout out to all the folks at Carfree Portland who did an amazing job all week long and really represented our fair city well!
The spandex set was in the extreme minority from what I saw. That was nice.
Still, the crowd was considerably whiter than many of the neighborhoods it moved through, which some neighbors found unnerving.
It is a difficult concept to grasp, but it parallels what we see on the international stage with China: Who are we, as (relatively) wealthy white people, to tell poor people of color they shouldn’t have economic development or drive cars?
At the bottom of the economic rung, car ownership often means the difference between being able to hold a job and being chronically unemployed.
So we have a conundrum of trying to cut carbon emissions in ways that don’t hold back the economic development of half the world’s population.
I think bikes are a great way to do this, but try telling the man in China, who can finally afford a car, to get back on his bike.
Likewise in Portland, the bike community has a lot of work to reach out to non-white communities. To many of them, thousands of whites on bikes in their neighborhood doesn’t augur a new day environmentally, it just looks like another sign of gentrification and their own marginalization.
great comments again, steve. i think you’ve identified some very important issues, including:
1) the auto as necessity for working class who have been priced out of the city core
2) the perception of bicyclist as part of a bicycling community
i think the issue around the auto as a necessity is ripe for another post. i’m digging into it now. for me personally, i couldn’t afford to live in the city if i had a car payment. that was one of many reasons that we sold our car more than a year ago. taking money from the car meant having money for the mortgage.
as for the bike community, you’ve tapped into something very interesting to me. motorists do not typically see themselves as part of the ‘motoring community’ and i don’t believe that bicycles should be any different. you see, that’s my point as it originally related to some of the significant differences between the u.s. and our european partners. in my opinion, you shouldn’t need to feel compelled to identify yourself by how you get from a to b. i do not identify myself as a cyclist, but rather a person who rides a bike. and i used to be one of those chaps that invested way to much in my campy groupo and spandex.
for a myriad of reasons, if you ride a bike in this town, many folks who don’t ride see you as a cyclist -that is, part of a cycling community. i think the bike can exist as an equalizer if it is seen for what it really is: transportation. yes, it can be a bond as well (as with car clubs), but I believe those are effective secondary and tertiary identifiers. most folks who possess a car simply ‘have a car’; they don’t start out desperately wanting to be part of the kia spectra owners car club. what they really want is a way to move their family around.
i think the difference between perception of motoring versus cycling comes from two very important places:
1) the dominance of the automobile (thanks in part to legislation and industry)
2) the bicycling industry’s focus on sport
american cycling culture benefits from –and is harmed by– the trickle down affect of bicycle racing and cycling as a hobby. i thank the racing industry for helping to make great bike technology available and eventually affordable. i dislike it for propelling the perception of cycling as mere hobby or sport. it has the potential to be so much more important to the future sustainability of our world.
as for china, they’re experiencing a cycle that we already experienced. because of our early start, we’re now the largest polluting nation on the planet as it relates to automotive emissions. china will top us once more of its citizens start driving down roads with even more lax emissions controls than our own. but we can’t control that. what we can do is change our behavior and help turn the tide while other nations hopefully benefit from better technology than when america started its great automotive climate assault.
rich issues, steve… very rich. more fodder for future posts!
I love stuff like this. I look forward to bringing the wife and kids out to one of these in the future.
How do neighborhoods get picked?
Our entire family rode the route including my recently modified Mundo! Wherever we stopped it drew a crowd and Gabriel and I enjoyed the attention from other families with small children asking us “how does it work/ride”.
Thanks Jeremy
yes, we had a lovely time
it was nice to see so many people on Dutch bikes like mine. I sometimes feel self conscious on it when there are so few around. The ride was so nice and comfortable that my daughter actually fell asleep in her bike seat 
nice work mike and mona! some good pics of sunday parkways as well. i keep my mundo basically ’stock’ for test rides and such, so i envy your ride all the more. and the amsterdam looked awesome, mona. cheers!
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