Eva Frazier and I are back with another episode of “In The Shed.” This episode was recorded earlier today in the BikePortland Shed in north Portland after Eva and I attended the Jason Ruhmshottel ghost bike installation event.
As usual, we had a really great chat about a wide range of stuff. Here’s a taste of the topics this week:
- Reflections on our attendance at the Jason Ruhmshottel ghost bike installation event
- BikeLoud’s Squeaky Wheel project
- PBOT budget update
- Commissioner Mingus Mapps goes full Shoupian
- East Portland bike tour with Timur Ender
- Riding alleyways and through parks
- Rolling through stop signs
- When cops lecture us
- Eva took the bus to Seattle and liked it more than Portland
- Why City of Portland doesn’t have a lot of money
- Bike shop news – Trek Portland, Gladys, Golden Pliers
- How the MAX light rail killed Interstate Ave
- New Season Arbor Lodge is the story of Portland
- The Boom Bike
- Thanks to Brock Dittus of Sprocket Podcast fame for our theme music.
- Thanks for listening and see you in the Shed next week!
Thanks to Brock Dittus of Sprocket Podcast fame for our fantastic theme music. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
Jonathan – It will be interesting to hear your take on “how LRT killed” Interstate. (I survived taking the old Trimet #5 to Vancouver during the painful construction work zone era and then as often the only evening passenger north of Lombard.) As we all cycled (and took transit) along it from 2003 to 2010 when Williams Vancouver took off with much less transportation investment (and bikeway missteps). I would love for the PBoT powers that be to revisit Interstate and fulfill the promised bike lane gaps that PDOT backpedaled on and more up to date world class facilities. Jonathan, I know its your ‘west yard’.
PS. I gotta ask why no bikelanes along the old Interstate Lanes project?!
The original sin of MAX has is that it is not a true rapid-transit system with an exclusive right of way. The Yellow Line down Interstate should be a subway connected to a subway beneath the Rose Quarter/Lloyd District and Downtown. Furthmore, the segments of MAX that are exclusive parallel interstate freeways which does not maximize accessibility to stations. The same goes for the old electric rail rights of way used to for the Blue Line out to Hillsboro and Gresham and the Orange Line to Milwaukie, which should all be elevated as in Vancouver, BC. Money management and vision are what is lacking, thus we have our mediocre system.
All of this may well be true. But what do we do about it? Rip it all out and start again?
I think Jonathan’s proposal in the video was good – open up the MAX so it isn’t cutting those neighborhoods in half. The car traffic is way more dangerous than the MAX trains, and they don’t have barriers from the sidewalk. That would probably come with downgrading the MAX to a streetcar style with potentially lower speeds. I agree with Adam, we still need a metro – something with only a few major stations and can wisk you from Kenton to Tualatin in 45 minutes. Right now, we don’t even have that kind of vision and that is sad.
Even if we had that kind of vision, we don’t have that kind of money.