2011 Rose Festival Service  

TriMet will get you there!

This year, take TriMet to Portland Rose Festival events. We'll get you there without the hassles of traffic and parking.

• Plan your ride early. Some bus routes that intersect the parade routes are detoured during the parades. You can plan your trip online any time or call 503-238-RIDE, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. weekdays.
• Buy your pass before the parade! Day Passes will be available the day of the parade and are valid for unlimited rides on buses, MAX, WES and Streetcar in all fare zones until the end of the service day.

Check out the TriMet Rose Festival page for transit information for all of the events.

Image courtesy of clearwisdom.net

Dear Friends,

With school almost over and the rain almost gone, it’s time to join the legions of students who are thinking of nothing but summer. This issue of Safe Routes News is full of ideas for keeping you and your family moving this summer.

This issue also proudly features our smuggest headline to date: “Portland Students 800% Better than their National Counterparts.” Coined by colleague Scott, the headline references our parent survey data that shows that Portland students walk to school nearly 300% more and bicycle 800% more than the national average. Aren’t we awesome?

In this issue:

• Portland is 800% Better
• Watch Out, The King Lions are Walking
• New Sidewalks for Capitol Hill School
• Welcome Reynolds School District!
• The Power of Playworks (guest article)
• Sunday Parkways for Families
• Student Photo Contest
• and more!

Check it out at: http://pdx.be/summer2011

Best,

Gabe

PS – Thanks for filling out those parent surveys again – we really appreciate it!

Did you know June is officially Farmers' Market Month in Portland?  Well it is!  And at Commuter Central we really celebrate the whole notion of connecting with your local farmer.   But for a lot of people, getting all their locally-grown goodies home means bringing the car to the market.  Not anymore!

Meet our new friend Kevin.  He came by the new Interstate Farmer's Market at De La Salle High School in North Portland on Saturday to buy a flat of strawberries and whatever else was looking good for dinners this week.  He had his bike with him and a rack for his strawberries, but no place to put the fresh greens, hummus, and cookies he also picked up (that's my kind of dinner!).  He figured he'd just throw his grocery bag on the handlebars.  But that can be unsafe, especially when you've got ripe fruit banging against your front tire!

Lucky for Kevin the SmartTrips team was hanging out at the market building free waterproof grocery carriers for your bike rack, also known as a "bike bucket." These ingenious creations transform used plastic buckets donated by our partners New Seasons Market from recyclable to cycle-able!  And they are really easy to build! 

If you'd like to have your very own bike bucket here's what you can do:

• Sign up for our free workshop - you'll leave with your own bike bucket!
• Head on down to City Bikes and buy one of their off-the-shelf buckets - approximately $30
• Buy a hardware kit (City Bikes or from us) for about $10 and build one yourself!

Look, it makes sense.  If even just 5 to 10% of your clientele is coming to your business by X, you'll want to make their arrival as easy and welcoming as possible so that they keep coming to your establishment.  In this case, X happens to be "bicycle."

Portland businesses are catching on that parking for customers that arrive by bicycle is an important feature for retaining and increasing their customer base.  Often, PBOT can help you meet some or even most of your customer parking needs by installing free racks in the public right-of-way. 

The Alibi installed this unique bike rack in their parking lot

Sometimes businesses, such as Hopworks Urban Brewery, really want to go above and beyond to ensure that people bicycling are catered to.  Others, like the Alibi in North Portland are ensuring that all of their customers have access to a parking spot.  As I rode by today, I snapped a couple of pictures of Alibi's new bicycle parking.  They installed this rack themselves in their parking lot.  I suspect we'll see more businesses start to follow suit.

If your business, or a business you frequent, would like a free bicycle rack installed in the planting strip between the sidewalk and the street (must have concrete in place) contact us.

Check out our other articles on businesses stepping up their parking with creative and bike-friendly solutions.

According to the Gallup-Heathways Well-Being Index, you can seriously benefit from finding new ways to commute.

Gallup's survey of nearly 180,000 U.S. commuters found that longer commutes correlated negatively with people's physical and emotional health. Respondents who drove further to work reported significantly higher levels of worry than their short-commute counterparts and they also reported more back and neck pain.

For long commutes, telecommuting or vanpooling are great ways to cut down on costs and stress while opening up time to spend sleeping, working or relaxing. See the Metro Vanpool's list of vanpools in the Portland region. 

Hat tip to Annie Lowery at Slate