PBOT director co-stars in Safe Routes Streetfilm

Excellent.

I can be seen riding my bike around town with my cute family, too. But that doesn’t make me an effective director of a large city’s transportation bureau. I’m glad to hear she spoke at a BTA event, but I haven’t seen any public statements from Ms. Treat (who I’m sure is a fine human being) about our city’s transportation actions or priorities. That’s fishy (not snakey), is all I’m saying.

Wow, we live in a great biking city! That is if you happen to live on the inner east side… We don’t even have sidewalks around our school in SW Portland. But at least we have a bike shelter. And the five racks are usually full…

Also interesting that they show mostly kids that are taken to school by their parents compared to walking or biking alone. Many of the kids shown are not even riding their own bikes but sit on their parent’s bike. Now, that’s a vast improvement over sitting in the back of a car, but it doesn’t give the kids more exercise. Or the benefit of becoming independent by walking or biking alone. You would think a kid living 7 blocks from school could walk alone. People do what they think is the social norm, so pictures like this convey the message that walking or biking alone is inherently unsafe (even on these beautiful car-free and seemingly safe roads shown in the film).