Bike to Work Challenge 2015

As we start the month of October, so ends another Bike Commute Challenge. We’ve had great ridership this year! The 10 participants logged a total of 1,185 miles, with Senior Landscape Architect, Dave Walters logging 306 of those miles all on his own! GreenWorks is very active in community events that promote and enrich our local Portland culture and the Bicycle Transportation Association’s annual Bike Commute Challenge is one of our favorites. As early leaders working with the BTA, GreenWorks actively promotes bike ridership. In 2000, GreenWorks won first place in the first annual BTA Bike Commute Challenge, and we have won four additional first place awards since then. Here’s to another great year!

What is a Log Dog?

We hear this a lot in reference to the art feature of the Clay Street Green Street project in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID). The Log Dog sculptures incorporated into the Clay Street swales reference and celebrate the district’s industrial past. In the 19th Century, the lumber industry used the Willamette River as a conduit for transporting logs to the lumber mills established along the banks of the river. Logs were tied together into rafts and piloted down the Willamette in massive convoys. These log rafts where chained together by cable that ran through attachments known as log dogs. The historic log dogs were like thick needles, driven into the floating logs before a cable was pulled through the eye and cinched to bundle them together, creating a raft. GreenWorks designed the streetscape for a 12-block section of SE Clay Street. Working with KPFF and artist, Linda M. Wysong, the green street provides a pedestrian friendly corridor from the Ladd’s Addition neighborhood to the Eastbank Esplanade, strengthening connectivity and improving the pedestrian realm. The green street honors the industrial district’s history through the art installations and interpretive elements. GreenWorks has contributed to the redevelopment of Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID) over the last decade through improvements to the Clay Street Right of Way / RiverEast pedestrian plaza and most recently with Clay Street Green Street. The completed project provides sustainable environmental benefits, including vegetated stormwater management, pedestrian and bicycle passage, and strategies that maintain freight movement and business activities throughout the CEID.

The project’s artist describes the inspiration on the Clay Street Log Dog: “The Wetlands were filled, the mill erected and a city built. The land is transformed as the water continues to flow. It may seep into the earth or be hidden by stone and concrete, but it continues to connect, sustain and give form to our lives. Honor and protect the river.” Linda M. Wysong, artist

City of Gresham Springwater Trail Spur

Construction is complete on a new trail connecting the Springwater Trail through Gresham Main City Park to downtown Gresham. The approximately 1000 foot long multi-use trail improves pedestrian and bicycle connections through the park on an attractive, ADA accessible 15 foot wide promenade. The trail promenade is a key design element of the Main City Park Master Plan which GreenWorks developed with the City in 2008. The trail also features a distinctive gateway structure and plaza at the south end at the connection to the Springwater trail as well as rain gardens that treat stormwater run-off. Funding sponsors on the project included Metro, Oregon Parks and Recreation, Urban Trails Funding and Parks System Development Fees. The design team on the project was comprised of GreenWorks as the prime, KPFF Consulting Engineers (civil engineering), Kittelson & Associates, Inc. (lighting and electrical engineering), and Pacific Geotechnical, Inc.

For more information about the project click here.

Minto Island Bicycle & Pedestrian Bridge Concept Design

The City of Salem and Salem’s Urban Renewal Agency are moving forward with plans to connect three major urban parks and more than 20 miles of trails along the Willamette River. The Minto Island Bicycle & Pedestrian Bridge is a tied-arch design spanning 600-feet over the Willamette Slough, connecting the existing path in Riverfront Park to the 900-acre Minto Brown Island Park.

GreenWorks developed a conceptual framework that integrates the bridge terminus in Riverfront Park with the existing circulation, the 30’ diameter “Eco Earth” art globe, as well as the existing park infrastructure. New terraced seatwalls provide additional park seating overlooking the Slough, and are complemented with accent plantings that help anchor the bridge terminus.

Construction could begin as early as Summer 2014. Click here for a link to the City of Salem website, which provides additional information about this exciting project.

GreenWorks Competes in Bike to Work Challenge

The results are in! GreenWorks participated in this year’s Bike Commute Challenge, totaling 1239 miles during the month of September. The Bike Commute Challenge takes place every September in Portland – putting workplace against workplace to see who can commute the most by bicycle. GreenWorks finished this year with 68% ridership.

GreenWorks also held its annual internal Bike Commute Challenge with “Most Days Biked” awarded to Azad Sadjadi (19), “Most Trips” to Andrea Cameron (100%), and “Most Miles Biked” to Alex Perove (418 miles). Congrats to GreenWorks for your miles put in and hard work in this year’s challenge!

GreenWorks Finishes 6th in Division for Bike to Work Challenge

September's end wrapped up the 2010 Bike Commute Challenge and the results are in - GreenWorks placed sixth in their category for Businesses and Non-Profit Agencies with 5-24 employees. This ranking was based on a 79.2% commute rate, out of 303 competitors in the category! GreenWorkers logged a total of 149 commutes and 1324 miles overall. We also held our annual internal competition to see which employee bikes the most based on miles and commutes. Alex Perove swept both categories with 342 logged miles, biking every day in the month for a total of 44 commutes. Hats off to GreenWorks bikers for their hard work and miles put in for this year's challenge!

Bike to Work Challenge

Every September, GreenWorks joins in the friendly competition - workplace to workplace - to see who can bike to work more. And of course, it wouldn't be "Bike to Work Month" in Portland, unless it was raining! Regardless of the weather, the fearless GreenWorks staff has been able to maintain 77% ridership. Halfway through the month of September and we are still going strong!

Visit the Bicycle Transportation Alliance website for more information on Portland's Bike Commute Challenge: http://bikecommutechallenge.com/

Franklin High School Bike Parking

Some great comments around one of GreenWorks pro-bono projects. Associate Alexandra Perove has been work with Franklin High School to create expanded bike parking facilities... and aside from the final touches of plants and some seatwalls, the project is looking good. A snippet from 'Local high school does bike parking right', recently posted by Jonathan Maus on the BikePortland.org blog.

Posted by Jonathan Maus (Editor) on May 6th, 2009 at 8:00 am (all text and photos from BikePortland.org - check out the article for more pics and an interesting comment stream)

"Local high school does bike parking right

When students and staff arrive at the campus of Benjamin Franklin High School in Southeast Portland (5405 SE Woodward), they’re greeted with an important message: Bikes are respected, encouraged, and accommodated for.

The message isn’t something you read on a poster. It’s implied — by rows of perfectly spaced staple racks installed on concrete slabs surrounded by attractive cobblestones and located smack dab near the main entrance of the school. (A roof would make this parking perfect, and sources say that’s in the works). There are 18 staple racks, room for 36 bikes. With the generous spacing between them, cargo bikes, bikes with trailers, recumbents and even freak bikes have plenty of breathing room (for themselves and their owners). According to Jeff Smith at the Bureau of Transportation, the racks were installed with the help of parent volunteer Jeremy Sarant and Franklin High students. The school has a vocational/technical focus so students from a shop class prepped the area, poured the concrete and installed the cobblestones. (Smith says they plan on covering the racks soon). The total cost of the project was about $2000, with $900 spent on racks and $1100 on installation. Funds for the project came from a small pot (less than $5,000 total, that is used for hundreds of racks at schools throughout the city) that Smith sets aside each year for bike parking at schools and special events. Smith uses the money specifically for schools that aren’t a part of the federally funded Safer Routes to Schools program. Here’s more from Smith:

“This came out of the realization that if you wait for schools to fund bike parking, you’re likely to be waiting a long time — it’s just not going to make it far enough up the list of essential school services at most schools in the current desperate funding climate.”

In the last year or so, Smith figures he’s put in about 170 bike parking spaces at schools throughout the city. This seems like a great example of how the city can work with a school, get students involved, and deliver a low-cost, high impact project that encourages biking and good transportation choices."