Overview
Bike buses are group bicycle commutes to Portland schools. Organized by parents and populated by students, bike buses offer an enjoyable means for school children to get to school. The benefits of active transportation (walking, biking, and rolling) are well known and are strongly supported by city policies.
Bike bus routes typically use neighborhood greenways for all or part of the ride. These are low-traffic streets with slower speeds that are prioritized for pedestrians and people biking. As part of this two-year project, PBOT will work with bike bus participants and the broader communities around four elementary schools to identify ways to improve the greenways these bike buses use. Then, in the second year of the project, PBOT will make an initial set of improvements.
As described below, PBOT will focus on greenways around the following schools, which were selected based on defined evaluation criteria, with one school from each of the four council districts.
- District 1: Lent Elementary [map]
- District 2: James John Elementary [map]
- District 3: Abernethy Elementary [map]
- District 4: Maplewood Elementary [map]
Join our Neighborhood Greenway Bike Bus email list
Stay in touch and learn about opportunities to engage with this project by joining the mailing list. You can sign-up for school specific and/or general project updates:
Sign up for emails about the Neighborhood Greenway Bike Bus project
Happening now: Project development
This winter PBOT staff are reviewing public input on greenway and bike bus improvements. More than 800 people completed a survey about where they'd like improvements on greenways in the fall. PBOT staff are currently developing project proposals to improve bike bus routes at each of the four schools, based in part on the feedback received. Once developed, project staff will ask for community input on the projects to refine and prioritize them before final project selection in late spring.
Project background
As of August 2025, Portland had approximately 130 miles of neighborhood greenways as part of its 462-mile bikeway network. Last summer, Bike Bus PDX identified more than 20 bike buses operating within the city, with at least 13 operating regularly, though that number has since grown to nearly 30 bike buses. In the summer of 2023, leaders from most of Portland’s active bike buses, together with representatives from organizations advocating for safer walking and biking conditions, sent a letter to city council. These demands—in concert with growing public interest in improving conditions on neighborhood greenways—led PBOT to seek $500,000 to support our most vulnerable residents as they walk and bike: elementary school- and middle school-aged children going to school.
In February 2025, leaders from Bike Bus PDX testified at the city’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. They asked that council pass a resolution calling for dramatically better conditions on neighborhood greenways. They also asked to lower traffic volumes on greenways, from the city’s current target range of 1,000-2,000 cars per day to 500 cars per day.
Funding
The city’s third round of funding of Fixing Our Streets is providing $500,000 for this project. Fixing Our Streets is a voter-approved 10-cent local gas tax and council-approved heavy vehicle use tax, first passed in 2016 and renewed in 2020 and 2024.
Funding will be split over two years. PBOT has allocated $100,000 for planning the project’s first phase (July 2025-June 2026), working with bike bus users and the broader public to identify, design, and prioritize improvements on the greenways bike buses use. In the second year (July 2026-June 2027), PBOT will spend the remaining $400,000 across the four council districts to make improvements.
Safety, comfort, and policy
A key part of Portland’s approach to increasing bicycling is to build bikeways that are attractive, safe, and comfortable. City policy directs the city to “create conditions that make bicycling more attractive than driving for most trips of approximately three miles or less” (City Policy 9.20) and to do so—in part—by creating “a bicycle transportation system that is safe, comfortable, and accessible to people of all ages and abilities” (City Policy 9.21).
Safety and comfort are, of course, subjective. Portland updated its guidelines for car volume and speed on neighborhood greenways in 2015:
Bike bus leaders and participants—their children—are not feeling safe and comfortable on the neighborhood greenways they are using. As part of this project, PBOT will explore reducing car volume on bike bus greenways.
Car volumes on neighborhood greenways
Here are the performance guidelines for neighborhood greenways from the 2015 assessment report. The 2015 guidelines aim for less than 1,000 cars per day, stating that up to 1,500 cars per day is “acceptable” with a maximum of up to 2,000 cars per day.
Vehicle speeds:
- 20 mph, measured as 85th percentile speed
Daily automobile volumes:
- 1,000 average daily traffic as goal
- 1,500 acceptable
- 2,000 maximum
- Over 2,000 triggers changes
Peak hour peak direction automobile volumes:
- 50 peak hour/direction as goal
- 75 acceptable
- 100 maximum
- Over 100 triggers changes
Bicycle and pedestrian crossing opportunities:
- 100 opportunities per hour as preferred level of service
- Minimum 50 per hour
Existing conditions
The below map illustrates the average daily traffic on Portland's neighborhood greenways based on the most recent available traffic counts. Bike bus routes are shown as wide, faded yellow lines. Daily car volume below 500 is indicated in dark blue; between 500 and 1,000 is in lighter blue. Red lines show where there were more than 2,000 cars per day. Traffic diverters are shown as circles and schools are shown as grey dots.
Most of Portland’s neighborhood greenway network is now operating below 1,000 cars per day, with very few red lines indicating more than 2,000 cars per day. Much of the network is below 500 cars per day.
Work to date
Community survey on greenway improvements
In fall of 2025, PBOT released a public survey that asked for input on areas where greenways could be improved. A map feature was integrated into the survey allowing participants to drop a pin on a map and select or describe an issue they experience at that location. While people could use the survey to provide feedback on any greenway or street, input around the Abernethy, James John, Lent, and Maplewood bike bus routes is the focus of this project.
Neighbors of those four focus schools were notified about the project and survey in multiple ways. More than 20,000 project postcards were mailed to business and residential addresses around the bike bus routes. Parents at each of the elementary schools received email announcements and a physical mailer sent home with students. Neighborhood and business associations, PTAs, and some nearby day cares shared the survey with their networks. And the project was highlighted in the Safe Routes to School newsletters for November and December.
The survey was open from Monday, October 20 through Sunday, December 7. More than 800 people participated and identified almost 1,000 potential locations for potential improvements, with many concentrated in several locations. PBOT staff are using this public input to develop greenway infrastructure projects that address the concerns heard through public engagement.
Meeting with bike bus participants and leadership
In early 2025, staff began meeting with bike bus leaders, participating in bike bus rides, as well as meeting with both leaders and participants to better understand their experience and the issues they want the city to address.
From all these sources, PBOT learned about different issues these groups experience and what sort of improvements they would like on their route. This included everything from traffic diversion (the most popular) to better school drop-off zones, and vision clearance at intersections to safer crossings, among other suggestions.
Identifying bike bus routes
With this project, PBOT aims to make improvements to four routes, one in each council district.
The map included here shows known bike bus routes as of summer 2025 (orange lines) and their 18 associated schools (blue symbols). The entire network of neighborhood greenways is in thick green lines with the rest of the bikeway network in blue (bike lanes or off-street paths). The border of council districts are dashed lines.
PBOT’s project team developed criteria for evaluating routes to include, scoring them on a three-point scale:
- Bike bus activity - participants, frequency, whether the route uses neighborhood greenways
- Traffic conditions - car volume and speed, difficulty of crossings
- Community support - overall bicycle use, advocate support
- Income - median household income by census tract
The scoring table embedded below shows the scoring, along with the four schools chosen:
- Lent K-5 School (Council District 1)
- James John Elementary (Council District 2)
- Abernethy Elementary (Council District 3)
- Maplewood Elementary (Council District 4)
Public engagement
Ahead of talking with the broader public, PBOT was primarily in conversation with bike bus participants, leadership, and bike-walk safety organizations to understand the needs of each active route:
- Bike bus meeting (Jan. 22, 2025 at Steeplejack Brewing Company). Meeting with bike bus leadership from multiple bike buses to broadly discuss their needs with city staff. Focus was on wayfinding and awareness (See Complementary efforts below).
- Ride-along with James John Bike Bus (Jan. 24, 2025).
- Ride-along with Vestal Bike Bus (Feb. 21, 2025).
- Ride-along with Vernon Bike Bus (Feb.28, 2025).
- Bike Bus Forum at the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (March 11, 2025). Bike bus leaders discussed their ask of city council for a resolution supporting a citywide bike bus pilot program.
- Meeting with Rigler bike bus leadership and participants (no ride) (March 14, 2025). Staff met with participants and ride leaders.
- Ride-along with Abernethy Bike Bus (March 19, 2025).
- Walk-along with Creston Walking School Bus (March 21, 2025).
- Bike Bus Forum (Part II) at the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (April 8, 2025). Presentations by PBOT staff in response to requests by Bike Bus PDX leadership.
- Ride-along with Creston Bike Bus (April 11, 2025).
- Ride-along with Woodmere Bike Bus (May 21, 2025).
- Ride-along with Maplewood Bike Bus (May 23, 2025).
- Ride-along with Lent Bike Bus (May 30, 2025).
- Ride-along with Chapman Bike Bus (June 12, 2025).
* Note that all “Ride-alongs” included participation by PBOT staff and meetings directly after the ride with participants and ride leaders.
Between now and summer of 2026, PBOT will talk with a broader Portland audience about greenways improvements. This will include bike rides, surveys,open houses, and other opportunities to provide feedback. Stay in touch and learn about opportunities to engage with this project by joining the email list.
Complementary efforts
Two other PBOT projects complement this one:
- Vision Zero intersection improvements: As part of the Vision Zero program supported through the General Fund, PBOT is improving the intersections where SE 34th Avenue meets both Hawthorne Boulevard and Division Street. This is part of PBOT’s work to improve visibility by removing parking at select intersections near schools. For more information about Vision Zero, contact visionzero@portlandoregon.gov.
- Wayfinding for bike and walk buses: Led by PBOT's Safe Routes to School program, this project focuses on messaging and wayfinding signs for nine schools. Visit the project webpage for details.
Explore biking in your neighborhood
Portland has an extensive bicycle transportation network. It's easy, safe, and comfortable to ride to most places in the city. In addition to low-speed and low-volume neighborhood greenways, there are bike lanes and off-street paths connecting destinations. Explore the bikeways in your neighborhood with this Portland By Bicycle map: