[CMI-CM] Portland Bike Movies, Tues 9/20 noon at Art Theater

Sat Sep 17 13:03:31 CDT 2005

Hey Paul,

This looks like an interesting event. I'm surprised, though, to hear you say
that "Portland is one of the country's most bike-friendly cities" -- several
cyclists have been hit by cars in Portland just this year, resulting in at
least two deaths. A total of nine (9) pedestrians and cyclists have been
killed in Portland just this year.

For more on the dangers of riding in Portland, see the article here:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=31055

(text pasted below)

Spencer

......................

 Walk, ride at your peril
 After four pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in 12 days, city takes stock
  By JACOB QUINN SANDERS     Issue date: Fri, Jul 29, 2005

The Tribune 
    There are nine names on the list so far this year, each belonging to a
pedestrian or bicyclist killed on a Portland street.
    John Willard Wolfe Jr.
    Barbara Tucker
    Timothy Allen Barrow
    Ruzica Jovinovic
    Noah Jacob Madison Cardamon
    Dianna Avery
    Kristine Okins
    Kirk McGuire
    Robert Beloof
    The list is only one name longer than it was at this time last year,
though it can seem like more: Four of them died in the 12 days between June
23 and July 5. Of the nine, seven were pedestrians and two were on bicycles.
The stories of others who survived such crashes ‹ including that of a deaf,
mute, pregnant 39-year-old bicyclist hit in May ‹ add more faces to the
gallery of victims.
    City commissioners, bureaucrats, civil servants and cops all largely
support efforts to increase the ranks of walkers and riders who work and
play in Portland and to keep them safe when they do. Some who work in the
city credit those attitudes for creating an environment that embraces, for
example, recent distribution ofwalking and biking neighborhood maps and
public events that preach safety practices.
    It also raises the stakes when something goes wrong.
    ³If you were to come in here on a day when a pedestrian or cyclist dies,
it¹s like we lost a family member,² Mary Volm, the city¹s communications
director, said recently. ³Seriously, people are crying in here when it
happens.²
    For Jacque Authier, Cardamon¹s death May 30 at age 23 hit even closer to
home. Her children went to school with him and she has ridden on and off
with Critical Mass, the group of bicycle activists. She no longer owns a
car, though she is not militant toward them and drives a family car in an
emergency.
    Last month, she helped organize a ³memorial ride² that drew about 200
people who biked together to three spots where cyclists died in recent
years.
    They rode to Southeast 37th Avenue and Taylor Street, where Matt Schekel
died in 1998. Then to Southeast 40th Avenue and Belmont Street, where Orion
Satushek and Angela Leazenby died in 2003. And finally to Southeast 49th
Avenue and Stark Street, where Cardamon died.
    ³My consciousness has changed because of my experiences with Critical
Mass and now after Noah has died,² Authier, 50, said. ³When I drive now, I
really feel like I¹m in a machine that can kill people.²
    Rarely do these crashes result in criminal charges.
    ³A lot of times we have fatalities out here without prosecutions,² said
Portland police Lt. Vince Jarmer of the Traffic Division. ³The reason for
that a lot of times is that the person determined to be at fault, for lack
of a better term, is the person who died.²
    Police Bureau numbers this year though show a different picture.
    So far, two of the seven pedestrian fatalities were the fault of the
pedestrians, according to police.
    Only one of the pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in Portland so far this
year has resulted in criminal prosecution. Samuel Chad Parish, 27, of
Tualatin, was charged July 3 with second-degree manslaughter and felony
hit-and-run in the death of McGuire, 46. Parish¹s trial is pending. McGuire
was crossing the street at Southeast 125th Avenue and Powell Boulevard that
morning when Parish¹s green Hyundai Accent plowed into him. He died the same
day.
    Police also charged Dana Abdullah, 18, with criminally negligent
homicide for driving the car that hit Cardamon. Her passenger, Shana Dawn
Foster, 19, was charged with one count each of hindering prosecution and
interfering with a police officer for allegedly lying to police about
hitting Cardamon. A Multnomah County grand jury declined to pursue the
charges, and the two women were released.
    ³We had an obvious inability to prosecute that case,² said Rod
Underhill, the deputy district attorney in charge of vehicular assault and
homicide cases. ³The question of who hit who was very up in the air.²
    Cardamon had a blood-alcohol level of .33, well over the legal limit of
.08. Toxicology reports after his death found marijuana in his system and
police found marijuana in a bag he carried the night he died.
    Abdullah, however, admitted to drinking underage but had a blood-alcohol
level of .02.
    ³The threshold for a criminal responsibility in a crash is very high,²
Traffic Division Cmdr. Bill Sinnott said. ³We¹re better off directing our
resources and energy toward raising people¹s awareness that the roads are,
and have to be, shared.²
    Those who died in Portland this year came from different places at
different times and at different ages.
    Beloof, 81, was up from Berkeley, Calif., visiting his sons when he was
hit just after 3:30 p.m. July 5 near Southeast 31st Avenue and Hawthorne
Boulevard.
    Okins, 24, was on a morning ride downtown on June 27 when a truck ran
over her and her bike. She died the next day.
    Avery, 41, had just left an east Portland bar crying the night of June
23 and wanted to walk home along Southeast Stark Street to think something
over when she was hit.
    The Department of Motor Vehicles is tracking a spike in the number of
deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists statewide this year after vehicles
crashed into them.
    There were 32 fatalities through July 26 this year, an increase of 39.1
percent over the same time last year. As in Portland, most are pedestrians.
    That the increase has not found its way into Portland gives Mark Lear
pause. As the city¹s traffic investigations manager, he has scoured his own
data and that of the state¹s Department of Transportation looking for signs
it has manifested here.
    ³I¹ve been asking my peers at ODOT, and I haven¹t heard any details from
them,² he said, ³so I don¹t know yet what it means for us here.²
    Data for Portland bicycle crashes ‹ officials eschew the word ³accident²
because most crashes are deemed avoidable ‹ is remarkably consistent since
1990, even as the number of trips taken by bicycle across city bridges has
increased dramatically. In 1990, riders reported 159 crashes while the city
recorded about 1,600 trips. In 2002, the year before the city changed how it
measured trips and crashes, 173 crashes were reported on 8,200 trips. In
between, Portland riders reported an average of 167.9 crashes a year as the
number of trips rose in exponential leaps.
    The number of fatal crashes floated between zero and five for the entire
period.
    Pedestrian injuries ‹ excluding deaths ‹ showed a similar pattern,
staying annually between 223 and 280 from 1990 through 2000.
    Such figures lead some city officials to argue that the crashes have, in
fact, decreased dramatically.
    ³The crashes measured against the population have gone down
considerably,² said Linda Ginenthal, program manager for the city¹s
Transportation Options division, who rides her bike to work.
    Pedestrian deaths, however, have fluctuated from 20 in 1993 to 15 in
1994 to 8 in 1995, before totaling 18 in 1996 and shrinking to 9 in 1997.
    ³And this year looks the same as last year, but not the year before,²
Sinnott said. ³It¹s not a predictable event. Usually, in fact, it¹s an
avoidable event and we have to look at how best to get people to avoid it.²

> From: Paul Riismandel <p-riism at uiuc.edu>
> Reply-To: <p-riism at uiuc.edu>
> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:45:17 -0500
> To: <critical-mass at lists.chambana.net>
> Subject: [CMI-CM] Portland Bike Movies, Tues 9/20 noon  at Art Theater
> 
> Hello Chambana bicyclists!
> 
> A representative of Portland, Oregon's thriving bicycling scene, Shawn
> Granton, will be in town next week to show off some videos documenting
> that city's many varied bicycling events.
> 
> Microcosm publishing describes these videos:
> "A collection of short videos made in Portland about bicycles. The films
> are really creative and varied. If you've been hearing a lot about all
> of the crazy bicycle stuff in Portland but didn't really know what was
> going  on, this is a good introduction to it. Many of the facets of the
> Portland  alternative bike community are represented here including
> ZooBomb, Bike Polo, Chunk 666, bike hauling and transportation, and some
> more creative artistic things (like the bicycle audio project). The
> collection leaves you with a feeling that you could not only go out and
> ride a bike but also make a short film about it!"
> 
> Portland is one of the country's most bike-friendly cities, and has a
> strong critical mass ride.
> 
> The videos will be shown at a special noon lunch-time showing at
> Boardman's Art Theater in Downtown Champaign on Tuesday, Sept. 20.
> 
> Please tell and bring all your bicycling friends!
> 
> More information about our host, Shawn:
> http://id.sito.org/sgr/
> 
> Shawn's Urban Adventurer Blog:
> http://urbanadventureleague.blogspot.com/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Critical-mass mailing list
> Critical-mass at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/critical-mass