July 18, 2016
Community
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 11
Photo courtesy of BIKETOWN
Elephant Lands earns
LEED Gold certification
CONVENIENT COMMUTE. Beginning July 19 at 11:30am, Portland will be the new home for 1,000
“smart bikes” (top photo) that are part of BIKETOWN, Portland’s new bike-share system. The City of Roses joins
more than 60 U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Indianapolis, Boise, and
Austin, and 500 cities worldwide, that have popular, safe, and successful bike-share systems. Bike stations
around the city, including a station at Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus (middle photo), have
between nine and 23 bike racks each, depending on the specific location, with an average of 18 bike racks
per station. During phase one of the program, 1,800 bike racks are available at the system’s 100 stations.
Photo courtesy of BIKETOWN
Beginning July 19 at 11:30am, Portland
will be the new home for 1,000 “smart
bikes” that are part of BIKETOWN,
Portland’s new next-generation bike-
share system. The City of Roses joins more
than 60 U.S. cities, including New York,
Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Antonio,
Indianapolis, Boise, and Austin, and 500
cities worldwide, that have popular, safe,
and successful bike-share systems.
Membership sales are available on the
program’s website. The first 1,000
individuals to sign up for a membership
become a BIKETOWN “founding member”
and receive a commemorative key to access
the system and a special BIKETOWN
founding member t-shirt.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation
(PDOT) and its partners unveiled a map of
the first 100 BIKETOWN station locations
in June. The stations house 1,000 “smart
bikes” with the latest technology. Custom-
ers are able to check out a bike using a
smartphone, computer, or a member card,
or by typing in their member number and
PIN into the keypad on the bike.
Bikes can be parked at thousands of
publicly accessible bike racks in the
service area. Users who park a bike
outside of a station will be charged an
additional fee, and users who return such
bikes to the stations will receive a credit.
Every bike’s exact location can be viewed
in real-time from the system’s website or
smartphone app.
BIKETOWN stations were selected with
extensive public involvement. An online
portal received more than 4,500 com-
ments, and staff led more than 40
meetings with community groups and
local businesses in addition to five public
workshops.
“This station map gives Portlanders 100
more reasons to be excited about BIKE-
TOWN,” PDOT director Leah Treat said. “I
want to thank the thousands of
Portlanders who took the time to give us
their input on station locations. July 19th
can’t come soon enough!”
Annual BIKETOWN memberships cost
$12 per month and include 90 minutes of
ride time each day. Single-ride passes
($2.50 for 30 minutes) and 24-hour passes
($12.00) are also available for those who
want to use the program more occa-
sionally, including tourists.
Nike designed the innovative visual
identity for BIKETOWN’s standard bike,
which is modelled after the Nike orange
shoe box. BIKETOWN is also launching
three unique, limited-edition bike wrap
designs — inspired by iconic Nike
sneakers — across 100 of the system’s
1,000 bikes.
Bike stations around the city have
AR Photo
BIKETOWN, Portland’s bike-share
system, launches on July 19
between nine and 23 bike racks each,
depending on the specific location, with an
average of 18 bike racks per station.
During phase one of the program, 1,800
bike racks are available in a service area
roughly bound in the west part of town by
S.W. Market Street and N.W. 25th
Avenue; on the south side by S.W. Bancroft
Street and S.E. Woodward Street; on the
east side by N.E. 21st and 30th Avenues
and S.E. César Chávez Boulevard; and in
the north by N. Concord Avenue as well as
N. Killingsworth Street.
To learn more about BIKETOWN, or to
sign up, call 1-866-512-BIKE (1-866-512-
2453) or visit <www.biketownpdx.com>.
Support the efforts of
The Asian Reporter
Foundation
while shopping
at Fred Meyer!
It’s easy!
Just link your rewards card to
The AR Foundation’s number,
which is 91860,
at <www.FredMeyer.com/
CommunityRewards>.
(Linking does not affect your
current card rewards.)
Elephant Lands, the new
home for the world-famous
Asian elephant family at
the Oregon Zoo, has earned
gold certification from the
U.S. Green Building Coun-
cil’s Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design
(LEED), an internationally
recognized benchmark for
sustainable building prac-
tices.
Elephant Lands, which
is the fourth of eight major
projects made possible by
the zoo bond measure, is
four times the size of the
zoo’s former Asian ele-
phant habitat and accounts
for nearly one-tenth of the
zoo’s total 64-acre foot-
print.
Sustainable
designs
utilized in Elephant Lands
included pool filtration,
stormwater management,
a geothermal “slinky” sys-
tem, a solar photovoltaic
array and a solar hot-water
system, natural ventila-
tion, and cross-laminated
timber.
Pool filtration
At Elephant Lands, a
state-of-the-art filtration
and water-treatment sys-
tem now cleans and
replenishes
the
new
160,000-gallon
elephant
pool every hour. In the
past, to keep the elephants
healthy, staff dumped and
refilled the pool, pouring
millions of gallons of water
down the drain every year.
Stormwater
management
Rainwater that runs off
Forest Hall’s roof is now
GREEN HABITAT. A section of cross-laminated timber (CLT) is
lifted onto the roof of the new Elephant Plaza building at the Oregon Zoo.
The building took runner-up honors for Sustainable Project of the Year
at the Portland Business Journal’s 2015 Better Bricks awards. Other sus-
tainable designs utilized in the Elephant Lands habitat included pool filtra-
tion, stormwater management, a geothermal “slinky” system, a solar
photovoltaic array and a solar hot-water system, and natural ventilation.
(Photo/Michael Durham, courtesy of the Oregon Zoo)
stored in a 5,000-gallon
underground
cistern,
which helps reduce peak
loads on the city storm-
water system while con-
serving potable water use.
The water is then used at
Forest Hall for flushing
toilets and wash down. The
new system is a large-scale
version of having a rain
barrel under a home down-
spout.
Geothermal
“slinky” system
In the North Habitat
section of Elephant Lands,
a geothermal “slinky”
system now directs heat
created as a byproduct of
cooling the swimming pools
for the polar bears through
rows of slinky-like coiled
pipes buried eight to 12 feet
underground. The ground
maintains a constant tem-
perature, which insulates
the pipes, and pumps
connected to the system
delivers heat to the indoor
portion of Elephant Lands.
Photovoltaic array
A new solar photovoltaic
array located on the roof of
Forest Hall is anticipated
to generate about 34,000
kilowatt-hours of electric-
ity per year. The electricity
will be used in the building
without releasing CO 2 or
creating hazardous waste.
Solar hot-water system
A solar hot-water system
Continued on page 15