The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly ride – BikePortland

I’d been itching to get out and cover a local ride (as my dang knees continue to rehab from surgeries in April and June), so last night I checked out The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Ride. It was a transportation nerd’s paradise that started at the monthly Urbanist Happy Hour hosted by Strong Towns PDX at a familiar location on the SE Ankeny Rainbow Road Plaza (where Bike Happy Hour meets every Wedesday).

It was a big turnout! Maybe 150 people or so? And judging from all the smiles in these photos, a lot of folks had a great time riding city streets and getting to know friends old and new. The ride was organized by several groups: the aforementioned Strong Towns, Bike Loud PDX, Sunrise Movement, Community Cycling Center, and Depave. Add in the fact that Urbanist Happy Hour welcomes folks from rail advocacy groups like AORTA (Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates) and Parking Reform Network — and you get quite a diverse group of city lovers and transportation reform advocates.

“We’ve got public transit nerds social and climate justice advocates. We have people who care about zoning and housing and bikes and infrastructure all coming together. ‘Cause it’s gonna’ take all of us and our relationships to really change this city. There’s more of us than there are of them, and we can really go and get things done!” said Harper (Andrea) Haverkamp, one of the event leaders.

Haverkamp is a bright star in local organizing circles. She’s not only the self-described Mayor of Portland, but also an active volunteer with Strong Towns, the Transportation and Land Use Committee chair for Kerns Neighborhood Association, a member of the PBOT 2045 Transportation System Plan Community Advisory Committee, and holds a PhD in environmental engineering from Oregon State University.

Another young leader pushing for change is Jacob Apenes with Sunrise PDX. “We’re here, fighting for the end of the era of the fossil fuels,” he said to the crowd prior to the ride. “We’re fighting for pretty big things… We wanna build a city that’s actually multimodal, so people can get around in the mode they choose — safely and effectively at any stage of their life.”

Apenes, Haverkamp, and many others at this ride are proponents of tactical urbanism, where volunteers install inexpensive street interventions like crosswalks, transit benches and traffic calming devices (Strong Towns and PBOT are currently in negotiations about the group’s many DIY-painted crosswalks throughout the city). And it just so happens that the idea has political support in City Hall. One if its biggest champions in Councilor Mitch Green, who was also in attendance.

“We’ve got this giant fiscal gap in our budget and we’re going to be fiscally constrained for a long period of time. That sucks,” Green said in a short speech in the plaza prior to the ride. “But it’s also an opportunity to change the way our city thinks… We’ve got this army of volunteers that wants to do tactical urbanism to make our communities safer and to flourish. So I’m gonna be a champion for that, for you guys. So just tell me what you need and we’ll help you get it done.”

It was the latest sign that Green has embraced Portland’s trove of urban planners, environmental justice activists, and transportation reformers. “This fills up my cup,” Green said about why he chose to spend four hours hanging out in the streets after his work day in City Hall. “I like to be with cyclists. I like to be with activists who are trying to create safer spaces for us to exist. I also like to be with urbanists who are trying to imagine ways that we can all come together accelerate the rate at which we can build the city we deserve. I feel all that here.”

After all the remarks and community-building and conversations in Rainbow Road Plaza, it was time to get on our bikes. The ride made several stops and we heard short remarks from speakers at each one. The stops included: SE 7th and Sandy where we learned about Depave’s Green Plaza project; SW Ash between 3rd and 4th where we heard about the SW 4th Avenue project; the Blumenauer Bridge; Sandy Blvd, and perhaps others but I turned off when my knee got uncomfortably stiff.

Beyond the project talk, I feel like the most important part of the ride were all the conversations along the way. The large group took the entire westbound side of the Burnside Bridge, rolling into downtown on a perfect Portland summer evening. As I pedaled next to Councilor Green I asked what he thought about the moment. “I see nothing but opportunity,” he said. “The future looks pretty bright.”