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Portland Gets a Handle on Biking Potential

January 12, 2010 - PORTLAND -- If there were a map that showed the best bike routes to various parts of the city, would more people be encouraged to bicycle?

What if the city regularly shut down certain streets to motor vehicles, creating "ciclovias," arteries reserved temporarily for biking and pedestrians? Or if there were a mentoring program, where experienced bike commuters could share practical how-to advice with people who wanted to bicycle?

Those were some of the ideas brought up Saturday at a morning bicycle forum held by the city to explore how to make the city more "bikeable," and to encourage biking in Portland.

"Our goal is to make biking accessible for everyone in Portland, all age groups, families, and make sure it's safe," said Markos Miller, former president of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association and co-chairman of the Franklin Arterial Study Group.

About 80 people showed up for the forum. There were bicyclists and nonbicylists, representatives of advocacy groups and City Hall employees, all talking about different areas of transportation policy, according to Judy Harris, director of Portland's Office of Transportation Policy.

This fall, the city won an honorable mention for its application to the League of American Bicyclists to be considered a bike-friendly community.

The league suggested ways that Portland could improve "bikeability," including an expansion of Bike to Work Day, more bike lanes along major arterials, better public education efforts for safety, and incorporating bicycling issues and needs in planning and large-scale development.

Harris said the suggestions were a baseline for developing policy that addresses needs for various transportation in the city. On Saturday, she divided the participants into working groups to discuss the broad topics laid out in the report from the league: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation/planning.

Hilary Frenkel, organizer for the League of Young Voters and coordinator for the Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation, was in the "education" break-out group. The alliance believes that everybody in Maine has a right to affordable, reliable and accessible transportation options, said Frenkel. If a person normally rides a bike around and can't because of the snow, they should have access to a bus line, for instance.

Being part of the group, hearing directly about people's needs, was valuable, said Frenkel. And getting everyday residents involved in transportation policy gets them vested in results, she suggested.

"Government is the people," she said. "It's the only way government is going to make solid and informed decisions."

The group discussed ways to educate bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists about the various groups' rights and responsibilities. They brainstormed on how to disseminate information to parents and children in the same setting, possibly at Little League games or through Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

City Councilor Kevin Donoghue, chair of the council's Transportation Committee, said that ideally, the forum would identify some discrete tasks that can advance the city's transportation policies. The city is generally heeding the needs of bicycles, he said, noting the addition of bicycle lanes along some major roadways. His committee also is asking the Planning Board to allow commercial developers to pay a fee in lieu of required parking spaces. The money would be used to fund a variety of alternative transportation options, he said.

The turnout for the forum signals a high level of interest in local transportation, he said. "I believe that momentum is constant and ascendant," he said.

By MATT WICKENHEISER, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, January 10, 2010


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