Portland Cycling, 'Copenhagen on the Willamette'

‘One of America's most bicycle-friendly major cities, Portland provides a glimpse into a future in which city dwellers may be more dependent on pedal-power ... and less on horsepower’

The impressive bikes-only bridge in Portland.

In 1994, two activists tried out a quixotic exercise in democratizing non-motorized transportation. They painted 10 junkyard bikes that they’d reconditioned mustard yellow and scattered them around downtown Portland, Oregon. Anyone could ride one. “Please return to a major street for others to reuse,” read instructions dangling behind each bike seat.

“Ownership is not the be-all and end-all,” Joe Keating, one of the founders, asserted to a radio interviewer around that time, “and hopefully the Yellow Bikes are a symbol of that.”

Across the continent, in Boston, I read about Portland’s Yellow Bikes back then. They captured my imagination. I pictured brightly colored clunkers perched on street curbs, leaning on storefronts, and scattered about ball fields, ready everywhere and anytime a Portlander wanted a healthy, pollution-free lift. I hoped that yellow bikes would someday be available to Bostonians.

Read the Portland’s Yellow Bikesstory - “Portland Cycling, 'Copenhagen on the Willamette'.”