Hi again everyone! Slow but surely I’m recovering from my first (of two!) total knee replacement surgeries. I’m at just over two weeks post-op and have made a lot of progress. I’m still limping around and the pain and stiffness remains annoyingly persistent, but I can work a bit more more now. I just can’t bike yet so my ability to get stories is limited to what I can do online. I’m hoping by start of June I can bike around and attend more events. We’ll see.
For now, here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past week…
Carfree downtown is key: Nice to see someone from outside the transportation reform sphere make a clear argument for more carfree spaces in downtown Portland. This time it’s noted architecture critic Brian Libby. (Business Tribune)
More than free breakfast: Portland’s fun Breakfast on the Bridges tradition got the major props it so richly deserves! (NPR)
Punishment and crime: The British Parliament is considering an update to their criminal law that would add a new penalty of life in prison for cyclists who kill someone while riding. (BBC)
Duffy is wrong: Not that it matters because the Trump Administration doesn’t care about facts; but just for the record, our current USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy has no clue what he is talking about when it comes to bike lanes (and just about everything else) . (Streetsblog USA)
Road rage assault: A cycling advocate in Chicago called out a driver for parking in a bike lane and a passenger in the car hopped out and whacked the advocate over the head with a crow bar. (Streetsblog Chicago)
Another one: A person who authorities had a history of mental health issues drove their SUV through a street festival in Vancouver, Canada and left 11 people dead. (CBS News)
Transit turning point: The more I read about the state of transit in America, the more it feels like this next year could be an inflection point: Either we find a way to maintain and expand service, or it takes a devastating nosedive. Read this article to find out why we must prevent service cuts. (Bloomberg)
Video of the Week: An entertaining retelling of the Mt. Hood Freeway saga by YouTuber “Road Guy Rob”.
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
Thanks for reading.
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On transit:
It will be the latter option. The protective shadow of growth is gone (2025 is possibly the fourth year in a row of population decline), the tax fatigue is real (a family in Portland making $400k pays the same effective rate as someone in NYC making $25M) and the service hasn’t been improved with respect to cleanliness, safety or order in years (look at Japan, that is what it needs to be like).
Two decades of people who don’t know how cities run electing people who don’t know how cities are run has delivered this austere scenario. You really can’t alienate the people who pay the bills, have the greatest amount of optionality in where they live and are the greatest contributors to the growth we saw. It is difficult to believe that Oregon and Portland in particular will radically change how they approach business development, housing development, and fiscal management to effect any meaningful change here before the bottom really falls out.
TriMet finally has a morning presence on the Max trains and platforms which helps with the perception of being a secure place.
But the elephant in the room, they still refuse to enforce rules that only let people on that actually pay a fare (buses and trains). Until that happens ridership will still be low.
And how much you want to make a bet if push comes to shove, those “security” people that I’ve been seeing more of will be slashed.