Alice Nominee: Jason Gately

By Jason Gately, who has been nominated for an Alice B. Toeclips Award for his responsiveness to demand for customer bike parking at the Portland Airport.

I am an urban planner with the Port of Portland focusing primarily on planning issues at the Port’s four airports, PDX, Hillsboro, Troutdale and Mulino. I’m 36 years old and a native Oregonian who grew up in Salem. I lived in a neighborhood that allowed me to either walk or bicycle to school all the way from first grade until I graduated from high-school. My neighborhood had alleys and pathways and was close in to the center of the city. Walking and cycling were integral parts of my life growing up and spurred my interest in urban planning.

I have been with the Port since 1998 when I graduated from the Portland State University Masters program in Urban and Regional Planning. My wife, Babette – a native of the Philippines – and I now live in Camas with our two daughters. Camas, for those that don’t know, is a small city just east of Vancouver with a fantastic parks and open space program, and a very up and coming downtown – check it out! My interest in planning for bicycles and pedestrians also flows from my general interest in broader urban planning concepts and the problems our transportation systems face.

The Port has been engaged in promoting alternative transportation modes at PDX for at least 10 years. In 1998, we completed a study looking at how people get to and from the airport and what strategies could be developed to offer more alternative modes. We found, among other things, that a significant number of passengers were being picked up and dropped off in front of the terminal, thus creating 4 auto trips for every airplane passenger roundtrip flight.

Along with such modes as carpooling, shuttle buses, and light rail, planning for the needs of bicyclists is something the Port is committed to. Planning for bikes also meshes with our interest in the larger issue of sustainability and how we can reduce the impact our facilities have on the environment. In the last PDX Master Plan in 2000, we looked at ways to preserve capacity and manage demand and how we could do more with the facilities we already have. With the current planning efforts at PDX, we are looking at ways to make the airport a truly sustainable facility long term. Developing bike and pedestrian facilities is part of that. The airport has 10,000+ employees, making it one of the largest employment nodes in the region. It’s a no brainer that we should offer good facilities for bicyclists. We also have on average over 38,000 passengers passing through the airport every day. While most of these people will not choose to ride to and from the airport with their luggage in tow, some will and do. Occasionally I will get a call or hear of a group that is coming through the airport on their way to coast, the Willamette Valley or up the gorge with their bikes and want to know how best to get there.

Last year we built an off street, multi-use path next to Airport Way that leads directly into the airport. At the end of the path is a large bike parking area for both employees and the general public. It is relatively secure area and is covered from the weather. We hope to some day expand our options for bike parking and offer more secure areas for passengers as demand warrants. We are also currently developing a path that will connect the Cascades Station area and the airport multi-use path with Marine Drive just west of I-205 – look for this to be completed in the summer of ’08. This connection will eliminate about 2 miles of travel for cyclists passing through the area who would like to get over to the Marine Dr trail. We recognize that a fair number of cyclists cut through the airport area for recreation and to get to and from employment destinations, so the improvements in this area help them too.

Thanks Jason, for bringing bike-friendliness to the airport!