I’m throwing in the towel.
After four years of writing for BikePortland, and almost as long moderating your comments, I’m pretty worn out. That’s about 150 stories, and a hundred or so “Comment of the Week” posts.
And I’ve loved it. Writing for BikePortland is not something I ever planned for or expected to do, or even knew I wanted to do, but I so appreciate that Jonathan took a risk and gave me this opportunity.
The timing is right for me to step back. I’ve covered the Southwest in Motion roll-out, Capitol Highway and other southwest projects, active transportation policy, the rose lanes, TriMet’s Forward Together plan, charter reform, the election results, and land use. To be honest, I don’t expect much more to be happening, transportation-wise, in the near to medium future in southwest Portland. (Probably some big announcement will come out next week just to put a point on me not knowing what I am talking about.)
Last year I joined the board of SWTrails and I plan to step up my involvement with that group. So I’ll still be around, and might even contribute a post or two — just like other occasional contributors.
A couple words about Jonathan. It’s been a pleasure for me to work with him. He’s an excellent editor, and I was surprised to discover how much I like being edited. I have also learned a lot from him about how to put together a news story. Thank you Jonathan, and here’s to spending time with you in the queues.
And to all you commenters, I really did read all your comments, and enjoyed it for the most part. BikePortland has a good thing going with our comments sections and I think BP is one of the few places on internet where commenters can have meaningful conversations with people they might not completely agree with. Keep it up, and go easy on JM, moderating well is a lot of work.
Adios!
Come and hang out with Lisa at Bike Happy Hour tonight! 3:00 – 6:00 pm at Migration Brewing on N Williams Ave.
Thanks for reading.
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Thank you for all the kind words friends, they mean a lot to me.
Inspiring work over the years! Best wishes with your upcoming projects.
We’ll miss you!
Lisa, Aloha and Aloha!
I have enjoyed your deeper planning issues analysis, and will miss it.
I will miss your writing, your tolerant and patient views and your contributions to the comments A LOT! I really enjoyed your perspective as you are so involved in local affairs, your extensive literary knowledge led me to some great reads and the fascinating tidbits of information of your world travels would always have me dreaming of cafes and civilized conversation. Good luck and best wishes with all you will be doing!
Many thanks to Lisa for her moderation skills, professionalism, and thorough explanations of complex issues – and mostly, thank you for throwing light on SW ped/bike issues. The details might be different, but the issue is the same as other neighborhoods: getting somewhere safely without a car.
A sad day for the readers, Lisa. Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put in on your stories and your other activities for BikePortland. As someone embedded in the agency world, I’m going to miss your in-depth coverage of issues that really matter to those of us traveling around by bike and also looking to make transportation improvements a reality. All the best to you!
Sorry to hear that you are stepping down from BikePortland. You provided great coverage on complicated topics. I appreciate that you understand the unique issues of SW Portland. Thanks!
Thanks Lisa! I have really learned a lot from your excellent writing and I have enjoyed your dedication to the BikePortland enterprise!
I’ve only been following on this site for a while, but I’ve always appreciated your views and contributions. Best of luck going forward!
Thanks for the work and the time, you’ll be missed!
You helped bikeportland broaden its reporting on a wider range of subjects and issues related to land use, bicycling, and active transportation in general. Your articles were always top notch. As a SW resident and activist, I look forward to working with you in the future as we strive to make our communities better. Thanks.
Thanks Lisa! I really enjoyed getting to know you through BikePortland and appreciated all our conversations!
Thank you Dave, I learned a lot talking with you.
Thanks Lisa! Appreciate all your hard work and best of luck to you!
Wow, didn’t see this coming, Hasta la vista Lisa, you will be sorely missed. Steady hand, even keel, et all.
Your work here is exemplary and always steered us in the right direction, Thank you so much and Happy trails.
Thank you, Lisa—you will truly be missed. I’ve always admired your respectful moderation, your patience in responding to what was likely far too many of my emails, and the depth and care you brought to your insightful, well-researched articles. I’ve often shared your work with my family in SW Portland, where my wife and I still imagine ourselves settling one day to be closer to them. If that happens, I hope we’ll get involved with SW Trails—and perhaps have the chance to meet in person again.
Thank you so much for everything you’ve contributed to this site.
Thanks for everything you’ve done!
Thank you Lisa! Local reporting and forum moderation is often thankless.
I want you to know that I’ve really appreciated your coverage of SW Portland (among other things).
Great job, Lisa, and best of luck!
Appreciate you, thanks for your efforts!
Thanks, Lisa, for covering SW Portland and watering the news desert that is our area – esp in matters of cycling.
Thanks also for moderating comments, which cannot have been easy.
Good luck at SW Trails – another noble Portland organization, like BP.
Definitely the readers’ loss. I really enjoyed your in-depth analysis of city bureau behavior. Thanks and good wishes!
Sorry to see you go! I very much enjoyed your thoughtful commentary and how you facilitated conversation here!
You’ll be dearly missed. In a perfect world BP would have correspondents from every quarter with local knowledge and activist chops.
Like and subscribe, I guess.
I agree, X, it would be nice to hear, in-depth, about the outer- southeast neighborhoods, St Johns, industrial northwest. All those places. I encourage folks who like to write to give it a shot. (Not my place to do that, but I think JM would agree.)
Best wishes Lisa! Your insightful reporting is why I subscribed to Bike Portland. I’m going to go back and re-read all of your articles -they’re timeless, just like SW transportation challenges.
Thanks, Lisa!!! The end of an era. Knowing that you were reading and cared about the quality of comments always motivated me to try harder to add value. And, always made me cringe harder when I reread some of my grammatical errors or poorly written sentences when I quickly dashed off a comment without carefully reading it before hitting “post.” Your editorials, comments, interactions with commenters and investigation of the bad actors added very important depth to Bike Portland. Thank you for all of your hard work, which was clearly a labor of love. Cheers and looking forward to seeing more of your work and writing.
Lisa, thanks for all your columns over the years. Covering land use the way you did is an incredible undertaking. There must have been hours of background work going into every paragraph. Your columns were especially valuable because not many writers (hardly any anywhere) are willing to tackle those subjects. There’s a reason there are lots of TV shows about lawyers and doctors but none about land use planners or land use writers–it can be a real slog!
I also really appreciated all your comments. They always added so much to the discussions, and (with your moderating) kept everything on track.
Looking forward to seeing some guest columns soon!
If you haven’t come across Ray Delahanty / City Nerd on YouTube, maybe check it out. No drama, sorry, he’s pretty dry!
For much of the city, the ONLY way to get better bike/ped infrastructure is when land use triggers frontage improvements.
Or rather, would be the only way, if Alternative Review wasn’t The Place Pedestrian Safety Goes To Die.
Most of the things JM discusses are projects that do not involve land use, Development Review, or Alternative Review – these projects are different beasts, in already-built-out downtown and inner neighborhoods, and the stroads PBOT took over from ODOT. Roads that usually already have a curb, a sidewalk, maybe even a swale. Valuable, needed projects in a densifying city. However, getting to those projects remains a problem for those on the edges of that ellipsoidal core, and as the city densifies outward, the refusal by PBOT to require ped/bike infrastructure will just make connecting harder – and less safe.
JM is focused on bikes, obviously; in SW, we are often focused more on ped safety, mostly due to bike-unfriendly terrain, but ebikes are changing that. I hope JM can keep some attention to ped issues, as a crime against one is a crime against the other. As I said in an earlier post, we all have the same goal: getting somewhere safely without a car.
“we all have the same goal: getting somewhere safely without a car.”
I think the various wheeled modes (biking and scootering and motorized biking and motorcycling and one-wheeling and skateboarding and wheelchair riding and transit using) have more in common with urban driving than they do with walking, with the most fundamental differences between them being the range of speeds and masses.
For those of us not engaged in the war on cars, “without a car” is not the defining characteristic of any mode of urban transportation.
For me, the things walking and biking have in common are “getting somewhere in an enjoyable manner and get a little exercise while I’m at it. ” They are not oppositional to driving, or lesser; they just have a different set of attributes that I happen to (usually) find more preferable.
How do you feel about horses, burros, and asses?
Was there a reason you made this comment a response to mine?
Thank you Lisa, you were a wonderful resource for a great local journalism outfit. And scientists should study your brain to learn how you kept your sanity while reviewing every single comment for approval for four years.
Am very sorry to see you no longer helping us be better writers, thinkers and feelers! I think your ability to think slightly out of the box and consider our variety (maybe encyclopedic!) viewpoints has been wonderfully refreshing. Come back and express yourself; you will always be welcomed. Ajz