Comments

1
Agreed! Building bike infrastructure is the best bang-for-buck we can get. It should be an obvious go-to with the economy the way it is.
2
Other than bike lanes what kind of infatructure would we see if we had a sizeable budget?
3
"I look at it as more than a bicycle plan. It’s a green transportation plan," sums up well-known bike consultant Mia Birk."

God, this town has become so predictable, so homogenous, and so f**king BOOOOORING! Do you guys get it? You're not punks. You're not interesting. You're all the exact same f**king person, and you're BORING!!!

"Gateway and the Lloyd District are transformed into “Bicycle Districts”"

Will some adult somewhere please stand up and save us from the naive, Euro-trash-worshiping nonsense? My god, what is wrong with everyone? Is there any one left in this town who is older than 25? Is there any one left who didn't move here in the last five years?

I can't believe how fast this unassuming, blue-collar town has been ruined. I could have caught it on timelapse.
4
I remember an old report from Sam Adams as the head of the city Transportation Department - the quote in my head was "At current levels of funding, city curbs are due to be replaced once every one thousand six hundred years, which is considered to be inadequate."

How healthy is our overall transportation budget? If bikes are a small part of that, doesn't that make the problem of bike project funding much smaller than the overrall budget problem?
5
Blabby blabby blab blab blah blah Blabby. So predictable, indeed.
6
Sorry this post disappeared from the site for a little while this morning. We're having whack internet issues, but apparently the tech guys have "isolated the problem."

Marq - Do you mean what kinds of bike infrastructure or transportation infrastructure overall?
7
You want bike infrastructure, you, as a biker, should have to pay. That simple. I don't have my finger on the pulse of the cycling community, but I can't imagine those who bike as their primary mode would be too averse to that. Who gives a shit if Amsterdam or Copenhagen doesn't? Those cities also have tax rates that make Oregon's look like a Grover Norquist fantasy. If 6% of Portlanders bike as primary mode, a $50 a year registration fee would yield 1.7 mil in tax a year, not counting expense. Not a huge chunk of change, but every bit helps right?

Not entirely sure about Copenhagen, but Amsterdam is about a third smaller, land wise, than Portland. What works there won't necessarily work here.

As for "pressure(ing) the state to increase the amount it spends on bike-ped projects statewide from its current 1% of the transportation budget," good luck with that. Allocating more of that $$$ might fly in Portland, but it sure as hell won't anywhere else in the state.
8
Go fuck yourself Blabby.
9
Prediction: We will never reach 30% of trips by bike. Ever. Carry on!
10
Blabby, what exactly is your specific issue with the plan?

Anything besides a vague association between bikes and the loss of your mythical blue collar utopia?
11
Sarah, do you have a link to or know off the top of your head what the city's definition of "multiple facility type" is? I'm asking about NE Mason, which is a Tier 1 Bicyle Boulevard priority but listed as a "Multiple Facility Type" on page 47 (Section 1065). Didn't see what that actually means in the glossary.
12
It wasn't a "mythical blue collar utopia", it was an actual blue collar reality.

It featured actual debate from across an actual political spectrum. It featured people who actually were born in Oregon, and knew something about it. It featured people who understood a bit about economics and how the world actually works.

It featured people who were actually different, not different because their skinny jeans were different colors, or they choose different "signiture hats" to wear all winter.

My issue with the plan is that it calls for making driving and parking more miserable to appease a special interest group that represents 10% of the population at most, and probably more like 5%.

My broader problem is with groupthink and the politically correct beating down of any actual interesting heterogeneity or discussion in this town.

I mean, most of you are kids who recently moved here. Don't you bore the shit out of each other? You're all exactly the same.
13
@Blabby: Your straw-man arguments are wonderful. Where did you purchase them? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
14
Hi Graham, how have you been? I know no one gives a shit about what I say here. But I get pissed and say it anyway.

If they're strawmen, I still see them filling the sidewalks every day.
15
Sarah, where did you get the figure of $600 million for 1 mile of urban freeway? That sounds like way too much money to me. Also, unless you drive a car along with riding your bikes, you are getting a free ride, so I think you should have to have a bicycle license plate to help pay your share.
16
@Blabby: I've been well. Thank you for asking. I imagine your great-grandfather writing angry letters to The Oregonian in 1908 angrily denouncing all these transplants moving to his dearly beloved Porltand. The problems we're having now don't compare at all to what happened to Portland in the wake of the Worlds Fair.
17
@ujfoyt: Bicycle licensing programs have been attempted in other areas. They are a universal failure as as a revenue generating plan; they rarely even cover the costs of running the program. Practicly, they are used to harass cyclists. The best way to pay for the cycling plan are bond measures and property taxes.

http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/0…
http://www.seattlepi.com/transportation/34…
18
I support the Bike Plan, and am confident it will be implemented like the 1996 plan was. The City traffic engineers were at the forefront then and they still are. I gotta say though, I think Blabby is right on the mark. At recent social gathering, a recent New York transplant said to me "I bet you never saw a person with dreadlocks in Portland ten years ago". I wish I had thought to reply "Well yes, we had dreadlocks and microbrew and bikes and strip clubs, but we were sorely lacking in smug transplants from the east coast who think the whole town started three years ago when they happened to move here." My issue with the local bike culture is that it seems to be composed almost exclusively of people who took the bumpersticker mantra of "Think Globally, Act Locally" and twisted it into "Think Globally, Abandon your s*%thole hometown, move somewhere where they actually did act locally 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago to try and build a better community, and then act like you are smarter and more creative than all the local rubes you are replacing."
19
"I bet you never saw a person with dreadlocks in Portland ten years ago"

Ha ha ha ha. Crabby how would we even tie our shoes without these folks from the Big City to show us how? I'm glad they brought us indoor plumbing as well.

God. I don't know where I'm eventually going to move to get away from these f**ksticks, but the day is coming. The entire city will consist of people who moved here in the last ten years, patting each other on the back for progressive.
20
To paraphrase Blabby: "Things were much better in the past, because everyone was diverse and agreed with me on everything. The diversity disappeared as soon as people moved here who aren't the same as me."
21
Perfect paraphrase, Stu... except it needs more use of the word "actually" to really capture his post.
22
I think that the bicycle plan is an excellent idea, but as the article states, where will all of this funding come from?

Additionally, I have no problem with people moving here, and do my best to tolerate the fashion choices people make in an effort to be a decent, non-judgemental person. It does seem strange for moving to a particular trendy locale to BE a fashion decision, however... my friend makes the point, and I tend to agree, that you can't base an economy on espresso sales and canvassing work. Moving to a city in a state that already ranks second in the nation for unemployment figures without a job and expecting to find one seems dicey and perhaps unwise, no matter how hip one will feel upon arrival.

Finally, another issue that seems salient to the topic as mentioned by previous commentors is that moving to a city with a prominent environmental movement for solidarity is much different than nurturing such passions in oneself while working to encourage or start this kind of movement to improve life where one begins. Neither is good or bad in itself, but if the goal is change for the better for the entire world, moving to Portland won't change anyone's mind or behavior at home. However, it might be a good incubator for developing good ecological habits to guide one's eventual journey outward with a mission for change and improvement.

Love well and live well, and don't let the bastards grind you down.

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