The Springwater Corridor Trail will get some much-needed TLC this summer.
(Map of project boundaries courtesy of the City of Portland)

[Read more…]

Bike boulevard infrastructure, like
this bike turn median in Southeast
Portland, will get a major funding
boost thanks to a Metro committee.
(Photo © J. Maus)

Yesterday was a big day for Metro and for non-motorized transportation advocates around the region.

Between decisions on how to spend funds from the federal stimulus package (I’ll report on that separately) and their “regional flexible funding” program, Metro Council and their Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) doled out over $123.6 million in transportation projects.

Of that money, a record amount was approved for bike and pedestrian projects. From the regional flexible funds pot, Metro awarded over $10 million to bike/ped projects — nearly half the total amount allocated.[Read more…]

Reflecting on Obama’s address to congress last week (in which he said that America “cannot walk away from” the automobile), columnist Christopher Caldwell penned a rebuttal in the Financial Times against the President’s plans for massive government spending — on the nation’s highways.

Caldwell, a senior editor for conservative news publication The Weekly Standard, spends the bulk of the column casting President Eisenhower’s Federal Highway Act in an unfavorable light (the Highway Act passed with strong support in 1956 and created our interstate highway system).[Read more…]

Blumenauer in front of his
office in D.C.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The New York Times has published a profile on Portland Congressional Rep. Earl Blumenauer. The story, A Bicycle Evangelist With the Wind Now at His Back appears above-the-fold on page two of the paper’s weekly “Science Times” section.

Unlike the recent anti-bike comments by Rep. John Boehner that got national attention, this story paints a more positive picture of biking as a political issue.

Here’s how the Times characterizes Blumenauer’s work:[Read more…]