Speak out for bikes

Make Your Voice Heard

Would you be able to go for a week without a car? Roughly 30% of Oregonians don’t have reliable access to a car and cannot drive. Find out more about the Week Without Driving Challenge below. Additionally, we have some big opportunities coming up to make your voice be heard for reshaping our funding and our streets to be more people focused. Find out the details below for the upcoming Joint Committee on Transportation’s Bend stop on their Roadshow. We encourage you to give public testimony there and at the Franklin Avenue Improvements Open House.

Finally, we have some really great events coming up with our Second Sunday Spokes, Bikey Book Club, and more!

Franklin Avenue Improvements Open House

The City of Bend is holding an online open house to gather feedback on proposed changes to the Franklin Avenue area just east and west of the undercrossing of Highway 97 and the railroad. There are three options for improvements of the bike lanes and sidewalks ranging from less separation to more buffer between the car vehicle lane and lanes for people who are walking, biking, or rolling. We encourage you to visit the online open house and submit your comments on your preference. We like to see more protection for people walking, biking, or rolling and so options 2 and 3 are preferred over option 1. Ideally we’d also like to see the street trees moved closer to the vehicle lane to visually narrow the street and keep vehicle speeds down as this road is supposed to be designed for 25 mph. To that end, we believe 10 foot vehicle lanes would be sufficient in this setting as is recommended by the National Association of City Transportation Officials. The proposed designs in all three options show lanes wider than this, which we feel are unnecessary. 

Joint Committee on Transportation Roadshow Stop in Bend – September 12

You may have heard that the Oregon legislature is working to pass a 2025 transportation package focused on providing a stable source of revenue rather than relying on the gas tax. This transportation package could either reinforce the business-as-usual status quo or help to change our transportation system to be safer, cleaner, and more equitable for all people.

The Joint Committee on Transportation is hosting a series of roadshows to collect public input for the 2025 transportation package. This will be a big opportunity to express changes we’d like to see in the status quo. This is our chance to make sure that our dollars are spent to support transportation options for all people.

Bend Bikes strongly encourages you to attend the Bend stop of the Joint Committee on Transportation roadshow and advocate for statewide funding for active transportation networks (active transportation meaning transportation like walking, biking, rolling, or taking a bus). We are looking for several people to provide comments in person on September 12 from 4-7pm.

Need help in preparing what to say? We can help you prepare your comments! Or you can attend this virtual training session with the Move Oregon Forward Campaign. You may also submit written testimony, to find out details on this please sign up with the button below to let us know of your interest in either written or in-person testimony.

The Challenge of Participating in Life Without a Car

The need for a car in Bend to run errands, commute to work, and transport children is well-known. Many of us are drivers and complete these errands with the use of a car. But what about the roughly 30% of people who cannot drive due to age, disability or economic circumstances? How do these people, our neighbors, meet the challenge of accomplishing the necessary tasks of life without a car?

Bend Bikes and Commute Options are sponsoring two challenges to highlight the needs of non-drivers. The first, the Bike, Walk, & Roll Challenge, asks all of us to replace trips we’d normally take by car with biking, walking, or rolling. The second, the Week Without Driving Challenge, asks our City Council and City Staff to live for a week without driving and experience what life in Bend is like without a car, as almost a third of us do.

The Bike, Walk, & Roll Challenge is set to run from September 23 through October 6, 2024. We are asking community members to show their support by tracking how they live life without a personal vehicle. There are fabulous prizes from Strictly Organic, Bend Electric Bikes and Sagebrush Cycles!!!! To participate, click here for the Bike, Walk, Roll Challenge. You must log four trips by Oct 9 to be included in the prize drawing.

The Week Without Driving Challenge is a national effort to highlight the needs of people who cannot drive by asking public officials to attempt to live for one week, September 30 to October 6, 2024, without using a personal vehicle. All other transportation choices are available: car share, Uber, transit, walking, biking, scootering.

By experimenting with traveling in Bend without a car, we can all better understand what it will take to make our city more accessible and more livable for all people. We hope you, and our City Leadership, will join us in this Challenge and learn how important it is to make living in Bend without a car a real option for all people.

Second Sunday Spokes

Sunday, September 8, 11am – Ride to Orchard Park

Do you live or work in or around the Orchard Neighborhood District? Or would you like to visit the area and join a picnic? The Orchard District Neighborhood Friend’s and Family Picnic is September 8 from 12-2pm at Orchard Park. There will be three riding options to get to the park from Juniper Park Tennis Courts to meet at 11:15AM, Canal Row Park Playground to meet at 11:00 AM or Hollinshead Park Barn to meet at 11:15 AM. Join the ride and check out Orchard Park! 

Bend Together

Tuesday, September 24, 4:00pm – Open Space Event Studios

Connect with local civic/community leaders, businesses, and citizens to converse, be heard and included in how we progress the Bend Central District together.

Green Homes Tour by Bike

Saturday, September 28, 1pm-6pm – The Environmental Center

The Green Building Tour is a showcase for real-world solutions that address the climate impact of buildings in Central Oregon. From architects and contractors to DIYers, the tour’s sites illuminate how high performance structures can be healthy, cost effective, and impactful options for all.

We will be leading a tour by bike with two routes and need three more volunteers to help. Bend Electric Bikes is providing free e-bike rentals to participants and volunteers! If you are available, we’d love to have you! Volunteers will ride at the back of the group and in the middle, as “floaters,” to help keep the group together and/or serve as a new leader if the group splits at crossings.

Bikey Book Club

Next Meeting: September 23, 6:30pm

The Bikey Book Club listened to a podcast of an interview with Anna Zivarts, the author of When Driving Is Not An Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency. We’ll be reading the book this month and discussing it at our meeting in September. This book is a good introduction to challenges Bend Bikes and Commute Options are sponsoring in September and early October: the Bike, Walk, Roll Challenge and the Week Without Driving Challenge. Ms. Zivarts was the founder of the Week Without Driving– it is a good way to learn what life would be like if we could not drive.

When Driving Is Not An Option starts with a description of the approximately 31% of people who cannot drive. It continues with moving stories from people who cannot drive and how they must compromise their lives in ways that feel foreign to those of us who do drive. She then describes why our current institutions serve people who cannot drive so poorly–have you ever thought about why non-transit riders make up the boards who make decisions about public transit?

You can contact [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.

Upcoming schedule: Downtown Bend Library, Meyers Room

September 23, 6:30-7:45; When Driving is Not an Option by Anna Zivarts

Bikes and Pints

Thursday, October 24, 5:30pm – Midtown Yacht Club

Come down and chat with us about bikes and enjoy your first drink on us! No need to RSVP, we’ll see you there.