Traffic on the Hawthorne.(Photos © J. Maus) Traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge can be bad. And I don’t mean car traffic. Roger Geller, the city’s bicycle coordinator received an email from someone who witnessed a horrifying, nearly tragic crash on the Hawthorne Bridge during last Wednesday’s evening rush hour. The witness, who asked to remain … Read more
More trains, more bikes, fewer cars.(Photos © J. Maus) Portland’s transportation future is set to change drastically in the coming years. The stars are aligning for a city — and especially the downtown core — where public transit, feet, and bicycles are the vehicles of choice for most people. Don’t believe me? Just look around … Read more
Roger Geller(Photo © J. Maus) [Editor’s note: This guest editorial was written by Roger Geller, Bicycle Coordinator for the City of Portland.] “What does it mean to be exemplary? To me it means the two “C’s” of cycling: Courtesy and confidence.” In the past week I’ve been noticing harbingers of spring: flowering magnolia, daffodils in … Read more
“The US has big economic problems. But they have been made worse, and harder to resolve, by a half-century in which, at federal urging, the country was misbuilt.”— Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard Reflecting on Obama’s address to congress last week (in which he said that America “cannot walk away from” the automobile), columnist Christopher … Read more
New York City has a plan to radically transform Broadway at 7th Ave. near Times Square.(Photo courtesy Streetsblog)
“Amsterdam is a wonderful city, but Americans never seem to want to live there.”— David Brooks in the New York Times In his latest piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks opines that, while Americans might appreciate the finer points of Amsterdam’s urban life (like bikes and beer), they really would rather have … Read more
I recently came across this image again — it’s the map that might have sealed our fate, developed by Portland city planners in 1966 in response to freeway guru Robert Moses’ vision for the city. Robert Moses’ freeway plan for the City of Portland Moses was known for saying “Cities are for traffic,” and he … Read more
Chris Smith [This article was written by Chris Smith. Chris is a multi-modal transportation advocate who writes regularly on PortlandTransport.com. In the late 1990s he helped win neighborhood approval of the NW Bikeways plan that established the bicycle network in NW Portland and the Pearl District. He currently serves as chair of the Streetcar Citizens … Read more
[Editor’s note: This guest editorial was written by first-time BikePortland contributor Spencer Boomhower. Spencer testified in front of City Council during a hearing on the Columbia River Crossing held last Thursday.] Spencer Boomhower I’m sitting at a table with a microphone sticking in my face, and a little digital counter telling me how much time … Read more
Adams at his press conference yesterday.(Photos © J. Maus) If Mayor Sam Adams hoped for progress overnight in his effort to save his reputation and his political life, it seems things have only gotten worse. This morning I awoke to both of our local daily newspapers — The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune — calling … Read more
Mayor Sam Adams in October 2007.(Photos © J. Maus) This is a surreal day. While I watched our new President’s moving inaugural speech this morning, it took all of my focus to not keep thinking about the big story I’d heard about the night before involving our leader here in Portland, Mayor Sam Adams. In … Read more
“Retrofitting the cityscape for bicycles as a primary mode of transportation needs to be a priority.”— Gill Kelley, outgoing director of the Planning Bureau Whether you follow city politics or not, you’ve got to recognize that Portland is at an exciting point in its history. Yes, we face major challenges, but we’ve got a fresh … Read more