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Comment by ipnon | Hacker News Reader

Portland is probably the best biking city. It’s not perfect but in many neighborhoods it’s very cumbersome to drive and easy to bike. Drivers are also much less hostile in general.

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I disagree actually, I took my bike there and rode around/commuted for about a week from within the city (not downtown). It was mostly just OK, I think its high bike score shows the issues with Bike Score in general. Bike commuters are very organized in Portland which is nice, but I had so many instances of having to ride in traffic. I'm ok with that and used to that biking in Oakland, CA, but it's not really emblematic of what a bike friendly city is to me.

Of the Tier 2 American cities, I think Minneapolis is the best at accommodating bikers, winter climate excepted.

I have heard that bicycle commuting has dropped significantly in Portland since 2020. And I've experienced enough of an increase in broken glass, aggressive driving, tents, and trash in bike lanes in other US cities to be a bit worried about the current state of bicycling in Portland. But I'm also aware that reporting has significant biases, and I haven't been back to Portland since 2019 or so. What's the current situation like?

Hmm, I have been commuting by bike in Portland since the late 80s. The city did achieve some good things during that time, but has lost steam more recently. The pandemic may have shifted people slightly off of public transit and onto bikes, but not as much as it moved desk jockeys like me into remote work. Still, there have been some recent new interesting bike infrastructure projects, there's a bike/ped only bridge over I-84 that opened recently, and a couple years back a new train/bus only bridge over the Willamette river opened with nice bike and ped amenities. Drivers have become a little more reckless and hostile, but I don't find broken glass / tents to be much of an issue on any of the routes I regularly ride (8mi / 13km round trip 4X per week).

Less folks are working downtown, Portland has a very high CRE vacancy rate. I believe they had a net outflow of people last year ( https://www.kptv.com/2023/05/23/portland-is-one-fastest-shri... ). That coupled with the ongoing homelessness crisis, I would not be surprised that their civic budgets are strained.

I agree, Portland is making a real effort as are other areas in the Willamette Valley. I actually think the Europe=paradise US=hell storyline is far from any reality I observe. When I go back to Stuttgart Germany, where I grew up I see a lot of bike lanes but I feel just as unsafe on those as on regular bike lanes here in the US. Everything in Germany is so damn narrow that close calls are not a daily but hourly occurrence.

The big difference: outside of urban centers Europe has a lot of paved paths between towns, that's something that spotty in even bike-friendly Oregon.

It was but the Portland went feral and became a lawless city.

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