I’ve been at the helm of the BTA for two months this week and I’ve learned a lot about Portland, the State of Oregon, and the bicycling movement. I’d like to share some of my early reflections.
There is much to do. Portland and much of Oregon has a reputation for being a leader in bicycle facilities and safety programs. That is essentially true when compared with most of the country. Yet, we have more to accomplish. Our networks are not close to being complete. The vision is there, but we need help to raise the funds to complete the vision.
This morning, my wife, son, and I rode from our new house to his school. We live in the Sunnyside neighborhood in Southeast Portland and his school is in Nob Hill in the Northwest. We had a great bike boulevard trip down Ankeny until we reached the Burnside/Couch “couplet”. The best I can say about this couplet is that it is a work in progress. As an experienced bike rider, I am extremely comfortable with the configuration as it stands. Both my wife and son were simply scared riding from Ankeny to Couch via the suggested route of Grand having to cross over a new streetcar rail.
From the Burnside Bridge to NW 14th and Glisan, we were pretty smooth sailing – comfortable riding, even for a central city ride. However, we chose the shorter, rather than safer, ride off Glisan to the school (it’s on Glisan). To do that, we had to cross traffic entering 405. Not the most fun. Our alternative was to go two blocks out of our way to Johnson and loop around. He’ll do that next time, but it would be better if his trip is the most convenient and safe.
The good news: it was only a 30-minute trip. That was 15 minutes quicker than by bus and will enable him to get a full 60 minutes of moderate physical activity into his daily regimen.
We are eager. BTA has a wonderful staff and dedicated board who are fully prepared to lead our organization and tackle the work ahead to implement our vision. We are not complacent, resting on our laurels. We ride our bikes throughout the neighborhoods and experience what you experience on your own ride. We know that to make real big strides in the next decade, we need to work hard to build community will, political will, and engineering will. We are also not afraid of that challenge, we look forward to it. The challenge motivates us to come in every workday and do the best job possible.
We need help. Our staff and board cannot meet the challenge alone. We need your help. We are working on developing clear, fun, and engaging opportunities for our members to volunteer. These opportunities will have many “entry points” for different skill sets, experiences, and time commitments. For example, we have opportunities for writers to assist in building our marketing and communication tools. We have volunteer openings for people with GIS mapping skills to analyze crashes around schools and parks to help us better communicate the need for traffic calming to neighbors. If you have some time to invest in the challenge, go to our Volunteer Page on the web at http://bta4bikes.org/get_involved/volunteer.php. With your help, we can do more.
We need your voice. Part of building political will is raising our voices. We are sending out a candidate survey in the next few days to a wide range of people seeking elected offices in the State. We will publish the candidates’ responses on our webpage. Your job is take a good look at information and make informative decisions on who can best represent you. We hope you will also use the information as an opportunity to question candidates at debates and forums in your region to raise the importance of bicycling issues. We also need you to respond to our advocacy alerts by calling on elected officials to take specific action on campaigns. For example, over the next few months there will be a push to pass new federal transportation funding. We will need your calls to our Senators and Representatives to share our priorities in the legislation. If you have not yet signed up for our email newsletter, go to http://www.bta4bikes.org/get_involved/enews.php and do that now.
A few personal commitments from me. These are big asks, but I think you’re up to the challenge. Join us as a member and add your voice to the growing bicycle movement. In turn, I make the following commitments:
- We are and will continue to be a consistent and powerful voice for bicyclists – for you.
- We will be thoughtful, smart, and proactive in our work so that we can be effective advocates.
- We will not bite off more than we can chew, and we will look for campaigns that we can win. On the other hand, we won’t shy away from the challenge, from the big and bold ideas that inspire our membership and our communities.
- We will seek solutions that serve our primary goals: get more folks on bikes every day and make it safer for people to ride.
Rob Sadowsky
Executive Director
Welcome Rob! As a staffer, it’s hard to know how the organization looks to outsiders but from the inside, the office hasn’t felt as confident and connected in quite a while. I, for one, am excited about helping to hold you to those commitments you listed. You’ve got a crew of talented folks here at the BTA who’re eager to work and relieved to have you aboard.
(As for that Burnside/Couch couplet, you could avoid it altogether by taking Ankeny a couple blocks further, crossing UNDER the Burnside on 3rd, and then looping around to the Burnside viaduct. We did teach you how to say, “Couch,” right?)