Legislative Update - Week 10: Stops & Yields

Another Whoo-boy week! This time it was the proposed bicycle yield law. As usual, Bikeportland has extensive coverage! Here's an article on the way it is appearing in the media. Here's liveblogging from the hearing on Wednesday. More thoughts on the media reception. And a story on its recovery and a scheduled work session.

Rep. Vicki Berger is one of the members of the Transportation Committee, and during the hearing she indicated she had some questions about the legislation. Consider contacting her by email (rep.vickiberger@state.or.us) or by phone (503-986-1420) if you support the bill.

Update - On Monday Rep. Berger will have the following schedule to meet with constituents!
Monmouth: 7:30 a.m., Rick's Place, 123 S. Main St.
Independence: 11:30 a.m., Independence Library, 175 Monmouth St.
South Salem: 2 p.m., Courthouse Athletic Club, 2795 River Road S.
West Salem: 5 p.m., Courthouse Athletic Club, 300 Glen Creek Road NW.

In New Business:
Working with the BTA, the widow of Tim O'Donnell, Mary, introduced House Bill 3399, legislation that would create the crime of "vehicular homicide."

Here's more on the initial press conference announcing the proposed legislation last summer.

Old Business:
Senate Bill 267 - no change
Senate Bill 276 - no change
Senate Bill 291 - no change
Senate Bill 292 - no change
Senate Bill 635 - no change

House Bill 2106 - no change
House Bill 2120 - no change (but there must be more hearings scheduled)
House Bill 2681 - Work Session, March 25
House Bill 2690 - Work Session for some point in April, as I understand it
House Bill 2902 - no change
House Bill 2946 - There was a Hearing on the 19th...I missed this.
House Bill 2971 - Hearing, March 25
House Bill 3008 - no change
House Bill 3137 - Referred to Transportation Committee
House Bill 3164 - Referred to Revenue Committee
House Bill 3399 - Referred to Ways and Means Committee; Hearing and Work Session scheduled for March 31 (details not yet available online).

Transportation Committee Hearing Details:
Date: Wednesday-March 25
Time: 1:00 P.M.
Room: HR D

Public Hearing
HB 2971 Increases allocation of State Highway Fund moneys for footpaths and bicycle trails.
HB 2817 (unrelated to bicycling)

Work Session
HB 2040 (unrelated to bicycling)
HB 2681 Adds green, yellow and red bicycle signals to list of traffic control devices.

Staff respectfully requests that you submit 25 collated copies of written materials at the time of your testimony. Persons making presentations including the use of video, DVD, PowerPoint or overhead projection equipment are asked to contact committee staff 24 hours prior to the meeting.

City Council on Monday; Median at 17th & Chemeketa

Lots of bikey activity at City Council this Monday!

Over at Friends of Two Bridges they have a note about City Council on Monday and the Proposed Minto Island Bike and Pedestrian Bridge.

Also on the City Council docket are three Resolutions supporting the TGM grant applications. The Safe Routes to School application, the Downtown Vision 2020 Bike/Ped application, and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Elements of the TSP application.

All this bikey language is great to see! Consider coming to council to show your support.

In other city news, cones have gone up in the northbound turn lane at 17th & Chemeketa. This is a prelude to a pedestrian median and crossing. Bike by it, and see how it works for you, especially when you are going E-W on Chemeketa. Does it help with safety and/or ease of crossing? And if you're out walking, try that too!

Welcome to Spring Breakfast

The March breakfast is in a week! Please join us and fellow bicyclists!

On Friday, March 27th, Breakfast on Bikes will be at 12th & Chemeketa on the Promenade just east of the railroad tracks. We'll have free coffee, pastries, and fruit for bicyclists between 7am and 9am.

Please support our generous sponsors, Cascade Baking Company, Coffee House Cafe, LifeSource Natural Foods, Salem Bicycle Club, and Willamette University.


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Latest Round of Stimulus Funds

Yesterday the Oregon Transportation Commission met and designated projects for the latest round of stimulus funds. There are no bike/ped projects in the Salem area, unfortunately, but about 7% of the $101 million did got to bike/ped projects statewide.

In an Oregonian article, Dylan Rivera quotes Doug Tindall, an ODOT deputy director:

ODOT officials said they achieved a better balance between mass transit and highway spending than perhaps any other state in the nation. Railroad officials have told ODOT that they haven't heard of any other state offering stimulus transportation money for rail and other non-highway projects.

"To my knowledge, we're the only state in the nation that has opened up this sort of opportunity," said Doug Tindall.

Bikeportland shows a terrific pie chart of the distribution by project type.

Here's a pdf of the spreadsheet with each project, project type, geographic distribution, and dollar amount.

There were many more proposed projects than funds to complete them. One report suggested a 5:1 ratio of proposed to funded projects. So for bike/ped, transit, and rail together to get about 28% of the funds looks on the surface like substantive progress.

[update follows]

In a sidebar to the Statesman article, the paper notes

Now it's Salem-Keizer's turn to decide how the region will spend its own $6 million from the federal economic-recovery plan for road and transit projects.

The decision is scheduled by the policy committee of the Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study Metropolitan Planning Organization at noon Tuesday at 109 High St. SE, Salem. Salem City Councilor Dan Clem leads the committee.

Among the 17 projects proposed are a bicycle and pedestrian path by Wallace Marine Park in West Salem and a signal replacement and sidewalk engineering for Chicago Street in Turner.

The article also quotes Bob Stacy on the rail-transit-bike/ped proportions:

Bob Stacey, the executive director of the land-use watchdog group 1000 Friends of Oregon, said the slowdown allowed for some alternatives to highway projects to move forward — but not enough to suit him.

Of 93 bicycle/pedestrian and transit projects submitted at a total of $60 million, 27 were approved at a total of $14.6 million.

"We're not going to have this infusion of flexible federal funds of this magnitude — twice the size of an ordinary appropriation — for a long time to come," Stacey said. "It was a chance missed to provide more balance to Oregon's transportation system."

Want to be a Better Biker?

Ever wondered how to fix a flat? How best to ride safely in traffic? What common mistakes do new bicyclists make?

Wonder no longer! Two area residents, Robert Fox and Gary Obery have teamed to offer Salem's first intensive effective cycling classes, Bicycle Traffic Skills 101. The League of American Bicyclists offers a curriculum for a full day introductory course on bicycling.

Robert and Gary are League Certified Instructors, having completed significant coursework. Robert (with tire) is Salem's longtime BTA Bicycle Safety Education instructor, and Gary (at whiteboard) is a longtime bike commuter and traffic
engineer.


A few of us took the course this past weekend. After the morning's classwork, we biked to a parking lot and practiced our emergency stopping skills, quick turns to evade a right-hook, rock dodging, and other skills many of us had learned informally, but had never actually practiced. We also discussed lane positioning at tricky intersections, and the best balance between being visible to cars and staying out of harm's way (values that often lead to the same decision, but not always).

The next Bicycle Traffic Skills 101 class will be Saturday, April 11th. Class runs 8:30 am - 4:30 pm. It costs $45 per person. Contact Robert Fox (refox1@comcast.net) or Gary Obery (oberyfamily@comcast.net) to reserve your place or for more information.

Legislative Update - Week 9: The Bike Tax

Whoo-boy! House Bill 3008 has got the lion's share of attention this week. The most compelling analysis is likely OSU Economics Professor Patrick Emerson. He writes

Perhaps the stupidest public policy idea I have ever heard of is the proposed bike tax. It is not worth talking about the proposal itself as it is not going anywhere and is, as I think I mentioned, stupid. But what is interesting to me is that, in fact, the appropriate public policy is to subsidize bikes, not tax them.

Many of the arguments have a weird airlessness as if no time had passed. The New York Times reported in 1898 that League of American Wheelmen president Isaac B. Potter considered bicycle taxes to fund roads "just as sensible as to tax boots and shoes for wearing the sidewalks, and he called it a tax on the only kind of vehicle that does no injury whatever to the roads." Yes, over a century ago this was a hot issue! More things change, the more they stay the same?...

The BTA also came out strongly against the tax. Here's their statement on Bikeportland.

Bikeportland has extensive coverage here, and here, and an interview with Rep. Krieger here. He'll tag and collect ongoing stories here.

The Oregonian's right-leaning columnist, Elizabeth Hovde writes

Cyclists are part of the transportation solution, not part of the problem. Suggesting that people who commute by bike aren't paying their fair share in Oregon is ridiculous.

Salem residents should remember they just passed a $100 million bond measure, paid by property taxes. Motor vehicle user fees, whether gas taxes, licensing, or registration, don't come close to paying the full cost of the roads. Bicyclists pay for roads through property taxes they pay directly on the houses they own, or through rents and costs of goods passed on by merchants. Bicyclists often own cars. And because of the externalities Emerson points out, bicyclists actually subsidize auto drivers. The interstate highways system alone is a massive subsidy for autoists! BTA Board Member Doug Parrow offers a more extensive analysis here.

[update - Kenji from OBRA also posted a nice letter to his legislators.]

In New Business:
House Bill 2946 - Requires Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission to develop better siting rules and land use planning for public schools, and would promote "walking and bicycling."

House Bill 3137 comes out of the Committee on Transportation. It increases the bicycle allocation from 1% to 2% and also prioritizes transportation funding in order of 1) Repair and Maintenance of existing infrastructure, 2) demand management, 3)modernizing and/or widening, 4) new capacity. New capacity is last! Repair and more efficient use of existing capacity is first! This looks reasonable.

House Bill 3164 - "Establishes Transportation Choices Fund...intended to increase numbers of Oregon employees who commute via mass transit, bicycle or walking."

Old Business:
Senate Bill 267 - no change
Senate Bill 276 - no change
Senate Bill 291 - no change
Senate Bill 292 - no change
Senate Bill 635 - no change
House Bill 2106 - no change
House Bill 2120 - no change (but there must be more hearings scheduled)
House Bill 2681 - Hearing, March 18
House Bill 2690 - It's now on the official schedule for a hearing on March 18th. (Bikeportland's note on the hearing.)
House Bill 2902 - no change
House Bill 2946 - referred to Land Use Committee
House Bill 2971 - Hearing, March 18
House Bill 3008 - referred to Ways and Means Committee

Transportation Committee Hearing Details:
Date: Wednesday-March 18
Time: 1:00 P.M.
Room: HR D

HB 2681 - FIRST PUBLIC HEARING - Adds green, yellow and red bicycle signals to list of traffic control devices.
HB 2690 - FIRST PUBLIC HEARING - Permits person operating bicycle to enter intersection with specified traffic control device without stopping, provided that person operating bicycle slows to safe speed and yields right of way to traffic or pedestrians.
HB 2971 - FIRST PUBLIC HEARING - Increases allocation of State Highway Fund moneys for footpaths and bicycle trails.

Staff respectfully requests that you submit 25 collated copies of written materials at the time of your testimony. Persons making presentations including the use of video, DVD, PowerPoint or overhead projection equipment are asked to contact committee staff 24 hours prior to the meeting.

Want More Inspiration? National Bike Summit and the Dutch!

The National Bike Summit is going on. Right now! Reports are that a record 550 bicycle activists are in Washington DC to work on better biking. Check out Bikeportland's amazing coverage! Secretary of Transportation LaHood pledges the DOT will be a "full partner" and work towards "livable communities."

For those of us who can't make it, the Netherlands just released a new edition of a bicycling pamphlet.

Tineke Huizinga, State Secretary of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, writes in the preface to the substantial pamphlet, Cycling in the Netherlands 2009:

‘I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike’. Queen’s ‘Bicycle race’ could easily be the Dutch national anthem. That’s how much and how often we use our bicycles.

Why? Because cycling means arriving at work, school or the gym in a more alert frame of mind, feeling creative and positive. So I hope that this brochure will help boost the number of kilometres cycled worldwide.

The Netherlands has a great cycling reputation, but cycling is currently trendy all over the world. In many countries, the bicycle is becoming more and more important, in traffic as well as in transport policy.

Here are some very good reasons why:
One: it improves the flow of traffic in towns. The bicycle does not take up much room, either on the road or when parked and travels flexibly from door to door. The bicycle oils the wheels of the municipal traffic system.

Two: cycling and walking are by far the most sustainable way of getting around. No emissions, no noise.

Three: cycling is healthy, making it easy to get your vital daily exercise. If you cycle, you not only combat obesity, you also help prevent heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It makes people fitter and more alert.

Other countries regularly ask the Netherlands to help them shape their own bicycle policy. We welcome such requests, because we want to contribute to a more sustainable, cleaner, healthier and more efficient transport system. With this brochure, for example, which introduces you to cycling in the Netherlands.

After the successful last edition, we now present the new, updated edition. We also invite you to visit the website www.fietsberaad.org or www.bicyclecouncil.org where you will find lots of information about cycling in the Netherlands and experiences in other countries, presented in a clear and well organised way.

Keep cycling!

Here's a link to the pdf.

It's great to see two important transportation leaders talk about bicycling as real rather than second-class transportation. And gotta love the Queen reference!

(h/t - Tom Vanderbilt's How We Drive)