This weekend, USA Today gave Portland its classic USA Today take, meaning a well-known, absolutely unsurprising narrative run roughly three years too late.* The story In Portland, Ore, Bikes Rule the Road is a “Gee whiz, guys! People bicycling to work!” perspective on the city and just to reiterate the outside world’s view of Portland, look at the first person the story quotes:

Even kids get around differently. Nationally, only 13% of children walk or bike to school, according to the National Household Travel Survey. Here, 31% do, in part because of a program that gives every public school student between fourth and 10th grade a 12-week course on how to ride a bicycle safely.

For Tree Marie WoodSmith, the evolution here has already made “life so incredibly easier.” She and her husband moved to Portland from rural California where “to go anywhere you had to get into your car.” Portland is the opposite, she says. Now WoodSmith can go “days on end and never even get in a car. It was pretty amazing.”

*Did you guys know USA Today is the second-most read newspaper in America? Ugh.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

8 replies on “Goddammit, Did You Really Have to Quote a Woman Named Tree?”

  2. It’s a fine article for USA Today. If only 6 percent of commute trips are taken by bike, even in Portland, that means bike commuting is an extremely unusual thing to do. Of course, it doesn’t seem so to anyone who is among that 6 percent. But other than the unfortunate name, the article does well to make cycling seem like a very normal, commonplace thing. You get the inevitable detour into the “bad cyclist behavior” category, but it takes pains to discredit the view that cycling is dangerous and everyone is angry (at least in Portland). Even if that’s too tidy a package to be accurate. I have a half dozen gripes about the article, but it gets too many of the big things right to complain. I just imagine (beyond Tree) what impression this leaves with anyone who picks it up with their McMuffin or their stay at Holiday Inn Express, and it’s a fair impression.

  4. 31% of Portland students walk or ride bikes? That could be because our school district is the only one in the metro area with no school bus service for high schoolers.

  6. I commute year round, Blabby, as do thousands of others. And the rain won’t come solid for another month. Get outside and you learn these things.

  7. I the think the USA Today fact might be a little skewed because doesn’t that paper get distributed out in many hotels? It’s kind of similar to when Prince included his CD when you bought a ticket to his concert a few years ago. Because of that, he had a number 1 album.

Comments are closed.