“Portland’s downtown bike network is stuck in the 1990s. Short of a few buckets of green paint here and there, we are falling way behind in creating streets with adequate bicycling access.”
Here we are at the end of another week. Hope you’ll indulge some reflection…
After my holiday trip down south, I can finally (thankfully) say I am back in the bike news groove. Seems like the longer I do this job, the harder it is to get my brain re-calibrated after long breaks. It doesn’t help that there is never a shortage of projects, policies, people and politics to keep track of.
Speaking of people. New Mayor Charlie Hales is settling in. After getting rid of PBOT Director Tom Miller he’s given his first sit-down TV interview. On KGW’s Straight Talk he said he plans to pave 100 miles of roads his first year in office — well more than twice as much paving as we do now (I’m still waiting on precise figures from PBOT). To pay for that, he’ll have to make severe cuts to the bureau’s budget. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, there’s no more fat left to cut. Or, I should say, at least fat that’s politically and mathematically feasible to cut.
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