Daniel Pasley for The New York Times
Jean-Pierre Veillet, the developer of the EcoFlats complex.
Daniel Pasley for The New York Times
An indoor bike rack at EcoFlats.
Some 3,000 riders a day pass by Mr. Ettinger’s new brewpub, which he calls the Hopworks BikeBar. It has racks for 75 bicycles and free locks, to-go entrees that fit in bicycle water bottle cages, and dozens of handmade bicycle frames suspended over the bar areas.
Portland is nationally recognized as a leader in the movement to create bicycle-friendly cities. About 7 percent of commuters here travel by bike (the national average is under 1 percent) and the city has an
ambitious plan, adopted last year, to increase that proportion to 25 percent by 2030.
Until recently, Portland’s bike initiatives focused on improving the transportation infrastructure, said Roger Geller, the city’s bicycle coordinator. But as businesses awaken to the purchasing power of cyclists, “bicycle-supported developments” are also beginning to appear around town, Mr. Geller said. These are residential and commercial projects built near popular bikeways and outfitted with cycling-related services and amenities.
“The change is coming from the private sector,” Mr. Geller said. “Cyclists are a great potential market for businesses that want people traveling at human-scale speed and will stop and buy something.”
The North Williams business cluster, about two miles northeast of downtown, is the most prominent example of this type of development. In addition to the BikeBar at 3907 North Williams, a two-block stretch of the street houses the
United Bicycle Institute, which teaches bike repair and frame building, at No. 3961; the
Friendly Bike Guest House, a hostel that caters to cyclists, at No. 4039; and
EcoFlats, an 18-unit rental apartment building with a 30-unit bicycle rack in the lobby but no dedicated vehicle parking. The BikeBar is on the ground floor of the EcoFlats building, which also has a shower for commercial tenant commuters. At No. 3901 is
Pix Patisserie, featuring an on-street bike parking corral, one of 67 that have been installed by the city, typically at the request of businesses owners.
”The vision is businesses oriented toward bicycles,” said John Baxter, the administrator of the United Bicycle Institute.
But not everyone is unreservedly enthusiastic about the district’s new orientation. Located in a historic African-American community, the North Williams businesses are almost exclusively white-owned, and many residents see bicycles as a symbol of the gentrification taking place in the neighborhood.
“North Williams has grown to be a bike neighborhood out of gentrification,” said Debora Leopold Hutchins, the chairwoman of the North Williams Stakeholder Advisory Committee, a group helping oversee proposed traffic changes. Ms. Hutchins, who organizes an African-American women’s cycling group, said she loves cycling. But, she said, “The process has not been inclusive of the people who live there.”
A proposal this summer to remove a lane of automobile traffic for bikes on North Williams set off an outcry from residents. That proposal has been tabled while the city conducts more outreach with the neighborhood.
And as businesses and developers around the city jump on the bicycle bandwagon, other concerns about the fledgling bike-friendly projects are emerging: namely, that there is a bit of “bikewashing” going on as cycling becomes a marketing tool in a city where the vast majority still get around by car.
“People say: ‘I own piece of land. I want to build a bike building,’ ” said Jean-Pierre Veillet, the developer of the $3.4 million EcoFlats complex, which was fully leased within a month of opening last March. “Well, you can’t just throw up a building; you have to go where the bikeways and the people on bikes are going to be.”
Located in North Portland, an area that has one of the highest rates of biking for work trips, North Williams Avenue parallels Interstate 5 and is one of the area’s flattest cross-town bike routes. As a result, “the bike traffic is just phenomenal — it’s just one cyclist after another going by,” Mr. Baxter said.
Mr. Ettinger said he was so taken with the mass of cyclists that he installed a sidewalk bar so patrons could watch what he calls “Cat 6 commuter racing.” (Amateur bicycle racing in America is divided into categories, with Cat 1 events for the elite riders and 5 for beginners.)