Report: Of Buttes and Bond Measures

This report was submitted by Patrick Barber (check out his blog, Henwaller):

[Photo: Aaron Tarfman]

“It was a good long ride on a beautiful day. I think there were 12 attendees (The ride leader said 16). We took the Springwater all the way out to Boring, where we had lunch in the Grange building and did our best to absorb a wealth of information about the Urban Growth Boundary issues surrounding new developments in southern Multnomah and greater Clackamas counties.

The two speakers, Dean and Jack, are both residents of the area, so their knowledge was part urban-planning and part my-grandfather-grew-up-here-and-so-did-I. It was a rare chance to contextualize some of the complex planning and development issues that are affecting the area.

Jim Labbe, from the Audubon Society, was knowledgeable about many of the areas we rode through, both with regard to the forthcoming Metro Open Spaces bond measure, and with regard to the local flora and fauna. It was fun to ride along with him when I could, and get a running commentary about the areas we passed through. I wished there was some way we could have all benefitted from his knowledge as we rode along – but it would have involved either too many stops or some kind of podcast, and I’d rather just pedal.

On the way back we rode through some of the hilly farmland of Clackamas County, on roads that I will ride again soon. The route rounded out to about 40 miles of varied terrain.”

For more information on this ride, visit the Audobon Society website.

Aaron Tarfman has more photos from this ride and also wrote a great report.