The driver of an SUV slammed into an on-street bike parking corral on SE Stark this morning. The collision flattened and/or uprooted six City of Portland-issued staple racks and a bicycle that was locked to one of them.
A reader sent us photos of the aftermath and I just had a quick call with a person named Cole, who happens to be the bike’s owner. She was across the street around 8:00 am this morning and witnessed the driver turn onto Stark from Sandy. “They drove straight into it and took all of the racks out. And my bike is totaled,” Cole said.
Cole said the driver was headed north on Sandy and turned right on Stark. The bike corral is on the southeast corner of the Sandy/Stark intersection right in front of The Slammer Tavern. The location is just two blocks east of the crossing I wrote about yesterday — the one where many drivers are ignoring the law and driving through a gap in a median that’s supposed to be bike-only.
“[The driver] says he didn’t see it,” Cole added, recalling a conversation with the driver, whose vehicle is still parked on Sandy with its bumper on the ground and a very bent wheel. “The whole thing is kinda’ sketchy. I don’t know how you couldn’t see it!” she said.
According to Cole, the SUV didn’t have any license plates. And a call to the police wasn’t fruitful, as she got the impression they didn’t really care about the incident after the officer didn’t even ask for the driver’s name. Cole has the driver’s name and information but isn’t sure what will happen next. “I feel terrible about it,” she said. “There’s really nothing I can do though.”
Drivers hitting on-street bike corrals is unfortunately very common in Portland. There’s one in front of a Mexican food place near my house on North Rosa Parks Way that has been hit and damaged so many times, it was recently removed.
The totaled bike was Cole’s sole form of transportation and she used it to commute from the Alberta area to a job at Ota Tofu (just behind the tavern).
Cole would appreciate help buying a new bike. You can send her money using CashApp to the account $colesodcash. If you don’t have CashApp and would rather Venmo, you can send funds to @bikeportland and I’ll make sure they get to Cole (just include a note to let me know).