Not all cyclists violate the rules, of course, but even cyclists know that their comrades are out there and they are not operating their bikes in a safe manner. We have all seen you, and you know who you are. Portland — bicycle center that it is — knows this; pedestrians know it; motorists know it.

Supposedly, licensing would help stop this lawlessness. However, I could easily make the same statement this way:

Not all drivers violate the rules, of course, but even drivers know that their comrades are out there and they are not operating their motor vehicles in a safe manner. We have all seen you, and you know who you are. Portland knows this, pedestrians know it, cyclists know it.

And drivers ARE required to be licensed and insured. I don’t think the argument holds up.

The other argument is that cyclists should pay their way like everyone else. The truth is that we already do. Many of us also drive, so we pay license fees and gas taxes. We also pay property taxes (either as property owners or through our rent payments) and income taxes, and portions of those taxes also feed into transportation funding. Meanwhile, we’re creating LESS impact on both roads and air by riding our bikes (see this article on Grist by Elly Blue for a fuller explanation).

While I support education about and enforcement of traffic laws, I don’t think additional licensing and/or fees for bicyclists are good solutions. Instead, let’s get more people educated and riding!

Photo by oedipusphinx — — — — theJWDban on Flickr, used via CC BY 2.0 license.

As far as I can recall, I haven’t crossed any of Portland’s bridges by bike, though. I don’t commute to or live near downtown, so I haven’t had any reason to. But this summer, I’m planning to hit at least six of them through the Providence Bridge Pedal.

The Bridge Pedal is an annual event in which the city closes down auto traffic on the the Willamette River bridges and lets bikes take over! Even the two bridges that are interstate highways! Many people on bikes cross the smaller bridges every day, but this is the only chance for cyclists to cross the Fremont and Marquam bridges.

There are three ride options — crossing all 10 bridges requires a 36-mile ride, but you can also choose 8 bridges in 26 miles or 6 bridges in 13 miles. I’m opting for the latter. My daily commute is only a little over 2 miles each way, so I don’t do a lot of distance riding. I am training up to it, though — even though 13 miles isn’t very far (and I have done a ride that long before), I expect that climbing at least a couple of the bridges will be difficult for me.

Last weekend, I rode to the farmers’ market and back up the big hill — without stopping or walking for the first time! Today I did an 8.7-mile ride to pick up our ground coffee order, including a climb up a steep overpass. I managed this one without stopping or walking too, but it sure takes the breath out of me! When climbing, I actually feel like I need bigger lungs. I’m at capacity. And back at home, I did feel slightly nauseated from the exertion, despite stretching to cool down and drinking water.

I’m looking forward to meeting this challenge. How are you challenging yourself this summer?

I know other parts of the country have much more severe weather, though. How are you getting around? Do you drive, walk, bike, bus? Or just stay home?

Here in Portland, we’ve had a bit of an uproar because a member of our State House of Representatives proposed a bill that would make it illegal for children under the age of 6 to ride on a parent’s bike or in a bike trailer. Yes, that really does mean what it sounds like it means. No toddlers and preschoolers in a child seat, or in a trailer intended for babies and toddlers, or on the back of an Xtracycle.

Huh? I mean, even if you’re not that into biking this has to sound a little crazy. Lots of people, normal, average people, take their little ones out on bikes!

Representative Mitch Greenlick (D-NW Portland), thinks young children on bikes are a public health risk.  He told BikePortland that he bases his concern on a study done by Oregon Health Sciences University, his employer.

We’ve just done a study showing that 30 percent of riders biking to work at least three days a week have some sort of crash that leads to an injury… When that’s going on out there, what happens when you have a four year old on the back of a bike?

Oy. Yes, the study exists. The injuries counted in the study included everything from a scraped knee on up. Cycling advocate Mia Birk has an excellent analysis of the study.

Greenlick says that if we can save even one child’s life, we should do it. But meanwhile, thousands of children die as automobile passengers each year, and I don’t see Greenlick proposing that they be banned from riding in motor vehicles as well. And I’m not proposing it, either! I’m just saying that there’s definitely a double standard here.

Cooler heads have convinced Greenlick to pull back; it’s now going to be a topic for further study rather than a potential law. But he certainly got a reaction from Portland’s family biking community!

30 Days of Biking has returned for September! This Minneapolis-based event is open to everyone in the world.

The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures online.

Yeah. That works for me. I participated in the original 30 Days of Biking in April, but didn’t quite make it to 30 days, because I had to take my bike to the shop, and they kept it for several days. C’est la vie. I’m doing it again. So far I’m two for two.

September is also Bike Commute Challenge month in Portland. Every year, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance sponsors this month long event, in which workplace-based teams compete based on the total percentage of commutes made by bike. I’m entered as part of my employer’s team, and plan to make 100% of my commutes by bike.

Work and life are already bringing challenges, frustrations and setbacks this month, but at least I’ll be getting out on my bike.

But of course they’re absolutely right. If I want fresh veggies in fall and maybe winter (I’m not too sure about this winter business), I have to start the seeds early.

And I never did plant broccoli this year, so maybe that would be a good thing to try. Hmmmm….

Thank you to Cooking Up a Story — a great resource for people interested in food!

But now the tomato plants are doing well, although there’s still no fruit.

And we should be eating zucchini within a day or two.

The carrots and green onions are finally getting big enough to eat. I put in some Walla Walla onion starts, too. Our neighbor had too many, so she gave me a bunch. I planted some individually, which will hopefully turn into real Walla Walla onions. We’re just using the tops of the rest.

We also harvested all of the remaining lettuce! We’ve been taking leaves as needed, but with hot weather here I decided to just pull the rest before it bolted.  There was at least four or five gallons of lettuce, so we gave some to neighbors. I’ll be replanting the lettuce area with carrots and bush beans.

The fava beans and peas are now gone, too.  I harvested three big bowls of fava beans before pulling the plants…which came out to about two cups once they were shelled. The favas did make a good cover crop; they do keep out the weeds, and supposedly they put nitrogen in the soil too. But it wasn’t a very efficient method of growing food.  The peas didn’t do very well, probably because of the weather, but we did eat fresh peas with a couple of meals.

The strawberries are about done, so I don’t have anything to preserve at the moment, but I did buy a water bath canning kettle for later. I did the strawberry jam in my big stock pot, which worked fine, but it doesn’t hold many jars and doesn’t have a proper rack. So now we have a kettle for doing applesauce and tomatoes when the time comes.  I’m thinking about peaches and blueberries, too.

In my last garden update, I didn’t have specific gardening goals. I’ve decided on a couple over time. My current goals are to grow enough tomatoes both for eating and canning, and to have enough enough zucchini to eat at least twice a week.  I now have four tomato plants intended for canning (Heinz 2653 variety) and four intended for eating (with the option to can), and the zucchini plants, as you saw, are beginning to produce.  If I don’t end up with enough tomatoes, I’ll buy some, possibly via pick-your-own.

How is your garden coming along? Is it coming along? I know we’re not the only ones with weird weather.

I heard about it because BikePortland mentioned on Twitter that Jack Bogdanski of Jack Bog’s Blog had made note of the piece. He called the report “sad, funny, or both,” chastising the CCC because they weren’t investigating why racial and ethnic minorities “don’t have job opportunities, or health care, or good schools.” And BikePortland rightly noted that the CCC is a cycling advocacy group; that’s what they DO.

It’s not like the Oregon Food Bank is spending donor money to research cycling among minorities. It’s an organization focused specifically on cycling.  And isn’t this better than spending money only on, say, recreational cycling, which benefits an even smaller group of people?

Also, strangely enough, riding bikes can help people with economic concerns as well.

To have a job, or to attend school, one has to have transportation. A bike is a great way to have transportation and to be independent of both the price of gasoline and the vagaries of Tri-Met budget cuts and fare increases.  That’s the biggest reason why I ride a bike to work. I’m not doing it to be cool. I’m doing it because we really can’t afford to have another car and the accompanying expense of gas and insurance. It helps that I also know it’s the right thing to do for our future. But I don’t know if I’d be that strong if it weren’t also economically necessary.

So, having a bike opens up one’s job opportunities, and can also help one save money in order to get ahead. What are the barriers, then? According to BikePortland, the CCC found that “three main themes emerged as barriers to biking: the cost of bikes and their upkeep, concerns about safety, and the logistics of riding (where to do it, what the rules are, and so on).”

Which brings us to geography. I’ve pointed out before that not so many people cycle out where I live.  Many people of racial and ethnic minorities have been pushed into outlying areas of Portland, where rents are cheaper, and that is exactly where bicycle infrastructure is lacking as well.  Check out the map – my neighborhood is one of the outlined areas.

So yes, we do have both geographical and racial/ethnic inequities in our bicycling system in Portland. And yes, that is important.  Hopefully the city will be able to scrape together money to build up the infrastructure in East Portland and other underserved areas; we are slated for at least one bicycle boulevard/traffic calming project at this time, and we have an East Portland Action Plan Bicycle Subcommittee that’s working with the city on infrastructure and bicycling activities (I’ve been loosely involved with this).

What do you think? If you’re not in Portland, is it like this where you live?

Today was the second day of 30 Days of Biking.  I rode my bike to work as usual yesterday, but not today. Today’s weather included wind (with high wind warnings), rain, hail, sunshine, and temperatures in the low 40s.  This morning was awful, and I rode the bus to work (while also missing a connection and having to wait 10 minutes without an umbrella, but whatever).

The rain held off long enough for me to pick up the girls and walk home, and then cleared up again after dinner so that we could take a short ride. And I do mean short! We just went around the block (which is actually several blocks long), maybe half a mile or so. But it counts — 30 Days of Biking doesn’t require you to commute or go car-free, just ride a bike at least once a day.

And then the setting sun blazed out when we got home.

Then, this past week I saw a suggestion from the local Master Gardeners’ twitter account:

Cover crop that feeds nitrogen to your soil? Plant fava beans now for spring eats, plant tomatoes when they’re done. Bam! Bam!

That sounded good. I Googled “how to grow fava beans” and found Harvest to Table, which told me that fava beans are a perfect cool-weather crop.  The site also told me how to plant and grow the beans, how many to plant per person in the family, and that they can be eaten fresh or can be frozen, canned or dried. I already knew that fava beans could be used to make both hummus and falafel, which are favorites of mine.

I didn’t, however, click the link for how to prepare and cook broad beans and fava beans. It didn’t worry me. I’ve cooked beans before.  So we planted them on Saturday. But on Sunday, my sister asked me “Have you ever actually cooked fava beans before?”

“Um, no,” I answered. “What?”

“Aren’t those the ones you have to shell twice?” my mother interjected cheerfully.

“Yes,” Wendy answered, explaining that while you’re supposed to be able to just eat them unshelled when they’re young, with mature fava beans “you have to shell them and then cook them and then shell each one individually.”

Uh oh.  We didn’t say any more about fava beans.  I looked it up later on Harvest to Table, and it’s true. Mature fava beans have to be removed from the outer pod, just like shelling peas, but then you have to cook them and “skin” them before eating.

That will be time-consuming. Perhaps we can just pre-cook them all and have a skinning party!

I’m still pleased to be gardening again.  And it’s not just fava beans. We’ve got an 8 X 8 raised bed (it’s the one that had pumpkins last year), and this time I’ve divided it down the middle with a small footpath, and then into squares à la Square Foot Gardening with twine.  My youngest helped me set up the squares; she handed me nails and cut the twine with scissors.

One row of squares is all fava beans, planted four seeds to a square.  There’s also a square each of carrots, lettuce and scallions. We planted these with some old-ish seeds to see if the seeds are still good. If they are, we’ll plant more (and if they’re not, we’ll open a less old-ish packet).  And we planted peas along the wire trellis.

In addition, the daffodils are blooming! I don’t do flowers in a big way, but I do like to have something blooming, and the daffodils are super-easy (as in, I do nothing whatsoever with them except deadheading).

I know some of you probably live in the land of still-frozen ground (I’m in zone 8, by the way), but is anyone else planting or starting seeds now?

—–

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodista/ / CC BY 2.0

If you do live in Portland, you’ve probably heard more than enough about it; it’s been on all of the TV stations and in all the newspapers, and Jesse Jackson even came to town to talk about it.

You might not be familiar with the neighborhood where this occurred, though. It’s called Argay.Some of Argay (the uphill part) contains large, split-level suburban homes.  The part closer to Sandy Boulevard has many aging apartment complexes with lower-income residents.  That’s where the Sandy Terrace Apartments are.

Oregonian columnist Anna Griffin says “Sandy Terrace is less a neighborhood and more a collection of one- and two-bedroom islands. The nearest park, grocery and school are beyond an easy walk. The soundtrack comes from trucks on Sandy Boulevard, trains on the Union Pacific tracks and airplanes at Portland International Airport.”

That’s pretty typical of East Portland. Even nicer neighborhoods often lack services within walking distance, and people don’t necessarily know their neighbors.  Griffin’s headline says “Portland’s poor eastside planning didn’t kill Aaron Campbell, but it sure didn’t help.”

What do neighborhood amenities have to do with a man being shot? Griffin asks “How can community policing work in a place with no sidewalks or streetlights? How do you meet your neighbors when your door opens onto a parking lot?”

The police on-scene, as far as I can tell, didn’t know Campbell. If they’d had an opportunity to know him beforehand, maybe they and/or he would have acted differently. And maybe if the apartment complex were more community-oriented, other residents would have paid attention when things started going wrong. According to Angie Jones, Campbell’s girlfriend, Campbell went out into the parking lot of the apartment complex several hours before his death and fired his gun into the air. No one called the police or even looked outside.

These are places “which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to live, according to any true definition of living,” as Oliver Wendell Holmes said. And yet, this is the kind of place where my husband and I have spent most of our married life thus far, even after having children.  We live in a “nice” house now only because we got a screaming deal in which we traded companionship for an elderly lady for rent. She’s since died, but our landlord continues to charge us an affordable rent. So we live in an older but fairly middle-class neighborhood, although there is plenty of poverty in the area, too (at least 63% of students at the local school are getting free and reduced-price lunches).

Otherwise, we’d probably still be in an aging apartment complex or duplex somewhere. Is that a bad thing? Shootings really don’t happen every day out here; most of the time it’s not dangerous. But I saw a friend (whom I do know to be a caring and compassionate person) comment the other day that “My worst fear is living in a 2 bedroom, suburban, white-trash apartment complex. We can do two bedrooms, it’s all the other rug-rats that scare me – and the influence on my kids.”

I admit, I’ve had that kind of thought, too. I’ve considered (and continue to consider for the future) homeschooling my kids, both to make sure they get a good education and because I fear peer influence. I especially don’t want to see them bullied or ostracized in middle and high school (which can happen regardless of students’ socioeconomic status).

But I also (and I’m sure my friend does, too) care about what happens to those other kids. If I opt out of the local school, or if we move out of the neighborhood to someplace more desirable, I’m not loving and helping my neighbors, and what kind of lesson is that for my children?

I don’t want to ignore the Sandy Terraces in our communities. And, as Griffin says in her column, the city shouldn’t ignore them either. Poorer areas deserve urban planning services, and the people there count just as much as those in the “better” neighborhoods.