(Photo © Greg Raisman from the BikePortland Flickr group)
– It’s a snow day! Though after riding to work just now, it seems like ice is the order of the day. Be careful out there, and be sure to brush up on these riding techniques and tips for staying warm.
– Exciting presidential news of the day: Obama and Biden (a regular train commuter) will travel by rail to the inauguration.
– It’s not just the President-elect eschewing his motorcade: The Wall Street Journal reports that Americans are driving fewer miles despite dropping gas prices, and quotes Transportation Secretary Mary Peters saying that “America’s travel habits are fundamentally changing.”
– A new Vancouver, BC city councillor, Andrea Reimer, has proposed turning the city’s annual carfree street festivals into weekly occurrences. Merchants in Vancouver’s Punjabi district have embraced the proposal, predicting that it will be a boon to business in the down economy.
– Worldchanging has an interesting, long essay up about the “reconquest of the city.” It’s mainly a profile of Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl, also focusing on the rise of permanently carfree streets, from 1960s Copenhagen’s then-controversial Stroget to contemporary Montreal’s experiments with a carfree St Catherine Street.
– Has Portland become Ecotopia? The New York Times thinks we might just be fulfilling the dreams of the 70s underground classic novel. Which means it’s time to dream even bigger…
– If you are craving all news roundup all the time, check out Streetsblog.net, a new and extraordinarily useful one-stop shop for livable streets and sustainable transportation news and views, brought to you by the intrepid folks behind Streetsblog and Streetfilms.