News Column

Bike riders pay a price for success: a new license

On the Town

By phil stanford

The Portland Tribune, Sep 19, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (34 Reader comments)

Like it or not — and judging from the mail I’ve been getting there are those who definitely won’t – we may not be that far from licensing bikes.

Karl Rohde, spokesman for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, informs me that his organization is already studying the matter, Not only is it an “intriguing idea,” as he puts it, but because the chairwoman of the Oregon Transportation Commission has told his organization to be prepared to discuss it at the next legislative session.

Despite all the wailing and teeth gnashing from the adolescent wing of the bicycling community, the fact is that the leaders of the movement are preparing for what may well turn out to be inevitable.

Jonathan Maus, who edits the influential Web site www.bikeportland.com, says licensing in some form could even be beneficial for biking by giving it more “legitimacy” as mode of transportation. “It would be a sign,” he says, “that the city respects biking and bikers enough to make them accountable.”

• • •

Licensing bikes, as I’ve tried to argue myself a couple of times in this space, is an idea whose time has come — and not just because a bunch of cranky automobile drivers are demanding a little fair play.

What’s driving the idea now is the success of bicycling here in Portland, as a means of transportation and as a political movement.

Maus suggests that it won’t be long before bikes will account for 10 percent to 20 percent of all trips in some parts of town. Whether he’s overly optimistic or not, it’s undeniable that bicyclists are already a significant part of our city’s transportation system.

The city’s transportation department estimates that 6 percent of all daily commutes are by bicycle.

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