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Dear parents, caregivers, educators, and community,
We're blown away by all the activity in our Safe Routes to School community lately—from community bike rides, everyday bike buses, transit field trips, and more! Continue scrolling this newsletter to learn more about ways our community is practicing transportation safety, embodying physical and mental health, relieving congestion, mitigating climate change, and building #WalkBikeRoll skills. As you reflect on this school year, begin your summers, and start thinking around the next school year, we hope you can take in a little inspiration from your peers!
Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram! Tag us in your posts and stories so we can easily re-share them.
With gratitude,
Safe Routes to School Team | Brittany, Dana, Gui, Janis, Jeri, Josh, and Meaghan
In this email
George Middle School students wearing helmets and standing with their bikes under a covered awning.
With the help of some Safe Routes to School training, George Middle School P.E. teacher DeAnthony Maza led bike safety education at his school for his first time! As part of the curriculum, Mr. Maza led community rides for his students and recruited other teachers to join. We grinned from ear-to-ear when we overheard a student telling a teacher, "I learned how to ride a bike in like five minutes! I’m great at it!" Great work, Mr. Maza!
A group of more than 40 elementary school students and adults, some wearing helmets, standing under a large roof.
Students and adult volunteers at Abernethy Elementary School went from rolling to school on their bike bus once a week to everyday! Portland Bureau of Transportation Director, Millicent Williams, and City Traffic Engineer, Wendy Cawley joined the bike bus in May to get a first-hand account of the joy that's barreling through Ladd's Addition each morning. We're proud to report back that their spirit is contagious! Check out Abernethy Elementary School's bike bus momentum on Instagram, @abernethybikebus.
About two dozen high school-aged youth under a Gateway/NE 99th TriMet transit center shelter on a sunny day.
In preparation for their summer internships at Portland Bureau of Transportation, Safe Routes to School helped Lents Youth Initiative, a program of ROSE Community Development, on a multimodal field trip to learn how to use TriMet transit around town. We look forward to working with a few of them this summer!
An early elementary school-aged kid riding a bike with dozens of other people riding bicycles on a neighborhood street.
Summer is a great time to practice travel skills with children and help them build habits that will set them up for success once the start of the school year arrives. And walking, biking, and rolling to free summer events is an easy way to do just that.
Tips and resources
Portland Bureau of Transportation events
Made possible with support from Metro and the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration, Portland Bureau of Transportation hosts neighborhood bike fairs and workshops—in partnership with community— in the weeks leading up to Portland Sunday Parkways.
Portland Sunday Parkways
Portland Bureau of Transportation's Portland Sunday Parkways, presented by Kaiser Permanente, promotes healthy active living through a series of free events opening the city's largest public space—its streets—to walk, bike, roll, and discover active transportation.
Pedalpalooza
This unique-to-Portland festival is made up of hundreds of different bike events that are organized by people just like you. Pedalpalooza BIKE SUMMER kicks off June 1 and runs all the way through the end of August. Below are a few family-friendly rides we found on the online calendar that we can't wait to join.
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Ice Cream Bike Bus: Wednesday, June 12 at 2:15 p.m., Fifty Licks (2021 SE Clinton St)
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Babies on Bikes, Saturday, June 15 at 2 p.m., Irving Park (707 NE Fremont St)
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Bike Bus to Northeast Cully Sunday Parkways (Kidical Mass PDX), Sunday, June 16 at 11:45 a.m., Irving Park Playground (3149 NE 9th Ave)
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Downtown Ride to Frozen Yogurt (Kidical Mass PDX): Sunday, June 22 at 2:15 p.m., The Fields Park (1099 NW Overtone St)
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Biking with Toddlers Clinic: Sunday, June 30 at 3 p.m., Rose City Park Elementary School (2334 NE 57th Ave)
Summer Free for All
Portland Parks & Recreation's Summer Free for All builds community through free, inclusive, and family-friendly activities that celebrate Portland's diverse cultures and local artists.
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Free Lunch + Play: Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Join the summer kick-off event on Thursday, June 27 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at McCoy Park (N Newman Avenue and Newark Street).
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Mobile Lunch + Play: This program travels to parks and apartment complexes in East Portland to provide free meals and recreation activities to kids two days a week from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (days vary).
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Play Swim: Outdoor pools open on Thursday, June 20. Portland residents can get a discount on program and activity free. Children up to age 2 are free. Some outdoor pools have free of charge open swim events.
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Fitness in the Park: People at every fitness level, age 14 and up, are welcome. Classes are free and start June 24.
Rendering of a plaza/neighborhood greenway extension at NE 72nd Avenue and Mason Street.
The Mason/Skidmore Neighborhood Greenway will be a new east-west neighborhood greenway connecting to existing north-south neighborhood greenways at NE 37th Avenue, Cully Boulevard, and 77th Avenue. This new low-traffic and low-speed street will improve access to Scott Elementary School, Rigler Elementary School, and Beaumont Middle School.
We're especially excited for the improve crossing (marked crosswalk) and plaza at NE 72nd Avenue and Mason Street, which checks-off another project on our Safe Routes to School Primary Investment Route map.
The project is in the design phase and is working towards construction in late summer 2024.
Map of the Mason/Skidmore Neighborhood Greenway, located on NE Skidmore Street from 37th to 47th avenues and Mason Street from 47th to 77th avenues.
Portland's neighborhood greenways
Neighborhood greenways are low-traffic and low-speed streets where we give priority to people walking, bicycling, and rolling. The new Mason/Skidmore Neighborhood Greenway is part of a larger initiative to connect neighborhoods, schools, parks, jobs, commercial centers, transit, and other destinations throughout Portland.
Funded by Fixing Our Streets
This project is funded by Fixing Our Streets, Portland's 10-cent citywide voter-approved gas tax funding $13 million worth of engineering projects to improve how Portland families access schools.
Ride the route at the Northeast Cully Sunday Parkways
Interested in checking out the future Mason/Skidmore Neighborhood Greenway? Make sure to participate in the Northeast Cully Sunday Parkways, presented by Kaiser Permanente, on June 19!
Dozens of people wearing bright, colorful clothes and riding bikes on a neighborhood street on a sunny day.
Celebrate summer and open streets during Northeast Cully Portland Sunday Parkways, presented by Kaiser Permanente, on June 16 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.!
Start anywhere on the 6.2-mile route and bike, walk, or roll in any direction as you explore unique entertainment, free family-friendly activities, community booths, and vendors along Northeast Cully's network of neighborhood greenways, parks, and community resources.
Transportation safety projects
As you're riding along the route, check out recently completed Portland Bureau of Transportation projects to make streets safer and more welcoming to people walking, biking, and rolling:
Ride BIKETOWN for free!
Get free, unlimited 60-minute rides on BIKETOWN on the day of the event. Rides must start or end on the Portland Sunday Parkways route and end within the service area to be eligible. Please remember to lock the bike before the 60 minutes run out. You can then start another free trip up to 60 minutes!
Mobile route map
Take the event route map with you by and save a version on your phone! You can turn on and off different layers of information by clicking on the legend.
Text for event updates
Feeling the FOMO? Keep up to date by texting "Cully" to 888-520-0526 for the latest event updates and thrilling details on entertainment and activities. Standard text message rates may apply. Opt out anytime by texting "STOP".
An adult watches as a child writes their response to the question, "what events do you want to see at public plazas?"
What is the PBOT Street Plaza Program?
Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) originally started the Street Plaza Program during the Covid-19 pandemic, in partnership with community and local businesses, to transform select streets into public spaces for cultural events, street fairs, pop-up markets, and more. The program draws from PBOT's Livable Streets Strategy (2017)—Portland's placemaking roadmap. In 2022, the bureau started work to make the program permanent.
Where are PBOT street plazas?
Today, more than 17 street plazas help the city act on climate change mitigation, mobility for all, and community building community. Check out the directory to find a plaza near you!
Host an event at a PBOT street plaza
Are you interested in hosting a performance, dance party, craft market, seed swap, game night, neighborhood meet and greet, or something else at a street plaza? Reach out to the PBOT Street Plaza Program team by email and they can help you navigate the process for throwing an event at a PBOT street plaza.
Sign up for email updates to stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities.
- Can vehicle speed and student safety ever be compatible? (American City & County)
- The first electric school bus fleet in the U.S. will also power homes (Bloomberg)
- “Short-term action, long-term change”: How quick builds are bringing innovation to safe streets implementation (Transportation for America)
- Op-ed: this ‘Bike to Work’ day, let’s pass bold policies to support cyclists (Streetsblog)
- REI study shows majority would opt for active transportation with dedicated bike lanes (Momentum Magazine)
- This Spanish city wants to be the first in Europe to introduce mandatory bike insurance for cyclists (Euronews)
- A car-free town in the Amazon serves lessons for pedaling to net zero emissions (NPR)
- How Vision Zero made New Yorkers safer and saved money (New York Times)
- A brief history of traffic deaths in the U.S. (Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine)
- Feeling angry on the road? Here are tips to avoid road rage, aggressive driving (King5)
- Feds provide grants for safer streets to nearly 3/4 of the U.S. population (Governing)
- The summer of safety Is here: With summer comes an increased risk to teenagers on the roadways. Here's how you can help keep them safe. (AAA Northeast)
- Sibling study highlights impact of green neighborhoods on public health (Planetizen)
- Study finds pedestrians more likely to be hit by EV or hybrid (Government Technology)
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Senior Public Realm Transportation Planner: The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation is seeking a highly motivated Senior City Transportation Planner to lead transportation planning and urban design projects within the Public Realm and Street Activation Section in the bureau's Planning Division. Senior City Transportation Planners are team leaders, project managers and top-level technical experts. Closes Monday, June 10. View job posting here.
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Urban Freight Coordinator: The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is seeking an Urban Freight Coordinator to join the Complete Street Team in the Planning Division. This position will serve as the bureau’s expert and advisor on freight issues for city council, PBOT staff, other city bureaus, partner agencies and community members. Closes Monday, June 17. View job posting here.
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Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager: The Oregon Department of Transportation
is seeking a Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager who will develop and implement statewide policy and program activities to support efforts to improve conditions for people walking, biking, and rolling. This position will be the central point of contact for pedestrian and bicycle issues across the state and serve as a policy and technical advisor to internal staff and external parties. Closes Monday, June 17 . View job posting here.
The City of Portland updates it's job opportunities list weekly. Make sure to check out those new positions every Monday!
Contact us
SafeRoutes@portlandoregon.gov
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