Just a short note at such a late hour.

In the linked article:
Streetcar is one of the many tools that can help Portland achieve other desirable goals such as density,
JK: Hey,Sam the PDOT master!! Why is density a desirable goal?? Why do we need Godzilla condos all over our neighborhoods?

Why are streetcars desirable since they cost over FIVE times what driving costs? And they muck up traffic and they increase congestion and they are slooooow.

Remember: Rail costs too much and does too little.

Rails also crashes bikes.

Thanks
JK

I ride my bike around my neighborhood a fair amount, but my death wish just isn't strong enough to get me out on the big thoroughfares much.

I ride my bike because someone stole my car.

my death wish

I'd encourage you to stop by a local bike shop and pick up the latest bicycling map of Portland. It's useful for figuring out which streets to use in order to avoid the ones that are more hazardous for bicycles. For example, if you can get yourself to Terwilliger Blvd. on the west side, it's a scenic and enjoyable north-south route between downtown and Tryon Creek.

Coming up next on PortlandOnline:

- Why do people get sick and die?
- Why doesnt love last forever?
- Was there a time in your life when you needed to act like an adult and were not comfortable?
- Why haven't you called your mother?
- How do we keep electing the same out-of-touch commissioners who are recycling old ideas?

I cannot believe they have full time staff to generate this tripe.

I think I'll frame this precious statement:

"Another first for Portland! In March 2007 Portland became the first government body in the US to acknowledge imminent peak oil as a reality ... "

Wow, I didn't know it was Q.E.D.

Lets see...

a) travel time is longer
b) too much work (sorry, being honest)
c) rains all the time here
d) I dont look good in bike shorts

A very workable suggestion in a city where the #1 product is often flushed into the river.

A core function of Transportation Options’ work is to facilitate the individual and cultural shift from drive alone auto trips to more efficient and sustainable ways of getting around Portland.

"facilitate" my a**; how about "force"?

Why don't they just be honest and call it the Ministry of Social Engineering?

You gotta love it - they pointedly ignore their responsibilty to the vast majority of citizens (road maintenance, etc.) and, instead, find new, more exciting, "mandates" to bolster their egos and benefit the vocal few. A fine example of "vision" all right - tunnel vision.

I couldn't read but a few paragraphs before I became nauceous.

"Peak Oil Task Force" about made me ralph.

I'll bet if one were to round up every government agency job related to this Bullpucky it would be in the 1000s of people. The layers of nonsense is amazing.
What Portland/region has is a disproportianate share of the truly misguided people.

Unfortunately the resulting policies are devouring endless resources while providing only the next Convention Center Hotel.

So the City of Portland wants to know why people don't ride bikes in town.
How about because many of us live in suburbs that have NO viable alternative transportation and 27 miles is a bit of a distance for a 60 year old to ride into town. Fortunately, I rarely come into town these days,.
And as for the wealthy Pearl District dwellers; I have always opined that those folks would never give up their Jags and Mercedes to take the street car anyplace even 4 blocks away; and they do not!

I'm in lock step with Jack. Not because of any death wish, but because it's really stupid to ride bikes on some of the streets and roads around Portland.

Because a bike is a childs toy, not reasonable transportation for an adult.

re: "not reasonable transportation for an adult"
Maybe not for Americans, but it seems people in Europe, China, Australia, even Mexico are all on the bike bandwagon. Sometimes because it's the most economical choice, but for other reasons, too.

America's ingrained car culture and consumerism is as much to blame (though blame is not a good word for it) as stereotypical American laziness and the perceived need to be at your destination instantly.

An American living in a small Mexican village (a friend) says he rarely bikes because he misses the little things one doesn't notice at the speed of biking. Now take that example and apply it to driving/biking. Maybe there are benefits to bike riding that are beyond environmental and physical health benefits and our society just doesn't value those kinds of intangible, non-profitable benefits.

i'd like to see more focus on *walking.*

dodging Segways, bicycles, skateboards and double-wide strollers on narrow sidewalks doesn't exactly encourage the simplest of human locomotion--walking.

Jon sez:Lets see...

a) travel time is longer
b) too much work (sorry, being honest)
c) rains all the time here
d) I dont look good in bike shorts

I'll add

e) secure storage is problematic
f) don't care to inhale that much auto exhaust commuting
g) don't care to arrive at my destination sweaty
h) most important, don't have a death-wish.

I live on a designated bicycle route and appreciate it. I ride on rare occasion and should ride more, but commuting by bicyle is not in the cards for me.

The more people there are driving cars while talking on a cellphone, the greater the risk for the law-abiding bicyclist.

Not that all, or even most, bicyclists are law-abiding. There seems to be a mindset amongst bicyclists that some "rules of the road" do not apply to them. I see frequent displays of illegal, and exceedingly stupid, acts of bicyclists. I'm not impressed. Particularly when it places me, the pedestrian, at risk.

Oh...riding a bicycle on SE 39th Avenue is nutz!

what does land use have to do with biking?

Local media and government attitudes toward bicycles and bicyclists mirrors their attitudes toward illegals.

seemingly indispensible, culturally (a linchpin, tee-hee)

ignoring of disproportionate costs to accomodate

lawbreaking tolerated (if not encouraged)

treatment of ANY non-positive comment as tantamount to "racism"

Tommy Pothole loves 'em

Let's build a wall!

I mean more bike paths.

It's a rediculous game of make beleive.

Pretending that bike and transit use can be in sufficient numbers to accomodate growth or force people top live differently.

The wide and deep crap that is spewed out each and every day around here to play this make believe nonsense is sickening. Having public officials, multiple public agencies and millions of tax dollars doing it should be criminal.

All of the snow jobs around here by ODOT, Metro, TriMet and CoP from Cascade Station to SoWa to the Beaverton Round to every Metro TOD and all of our rail transit has us on an unchangeable path to total chaos.

"It's a ridiculous game of make believe."

Yes, it's a ridiculous game of make believe to think that we can accommodate growth and forestall environmental disaster while continuing our morally unconscionable and idiotic over-reliance on the private automobile.

This country needs to invest heavily in mass transit and other alternatives to the private auto so that these forms of transportation become practical to use for the majority of citizens. Otherwise, as Ben puts it, we're "on an unchangeable path to total chaos."

the #1 product is often flushed into the river.

I think the same can be said for #2.

My main gripe as a pedestrian about bike riders is the way some of them barrel down sidewalks, causing danger to pedestrians.

Therefore, I am not sympathetic to the bike lobby until this problem is addressed.

Nice bunch of anti-bike rants by the orthographically challenged here. Here's an idea: if you don't want to bike, don't!

danger to pedestrians

This is a problem, especially for elderly and frail pedestrians (I think it's a bigger problem, though, in places like Corvallis that have more and younger bikers). It happens that sidewalk biking is against a city ordinance in a big part of the small part of the city that actually has sidewalks. So it's really something of an enforcement issue. And, in the final analysis, I think pedestrians are much more at risk from cars and trucks than from bicycles.

I believe riding on the sidewalk is illegal only in "downtown" Portland. As a scaredy cat who rides the sidewalks from time to time, I've seen lots of potential conflicts with pedestrians. I always stop and let them go by.

There ought to be a rule that on sidewalks, wheelchairs have the right of way, followed by pedestrians, with cyclists required to stop or get out of the way of both. Having been hit by a bike while jogging one time, I have a lot of sympathy for the pedestrians on this one.

Where do operators of skateboards, scooters and Segways fall, so to speak?

Oddly enough: after posting my comment at 12:13 p.m. today, I was hit by a cyclist as I walked on the sidwalk on NE MLKJR, near Brazee. Cyclists have the same advantage over pedestrians that motorists have over cyclists: you don't hurt yourself, and you can get away from your victim easily. Good sport, I guess.

Oddly enough: after posting my comment at 12:13 p.m. today, I was hit by a cyclist as I walked on the sidwalk on NE MLKJR...

I think it was the comment before your 12:13 that triggered the karmic event.

I hope you weren't hurt.

hurt

Just a flesh wound, thanks.

I hate riding on sidewalks but sometime you just have to do it for a few blocks and when that happens, I slow way down when pedestrians are around. Streets like MLK, 39th and Powell are pure suicide, since there is very fast traffic and no bike lane. Thankfully, the wheelchair lobby has successfully gotten curb cuts at most intersections on these streets, allowing bicyclists to use them--and it's legal to ride on sidewalks outside the core area of downtown.

The only good answer is create more segregated lanes for bikes. Bike Boulevards are a halfway measure (usually, these are side streets that allow a decent flow for bikers but have speed bumps to dissuade cars from using them. Really, creating eight to 10 foot-wide strips of bike lane would be a lot more cost effective than, say, building a tram or tearing up downtown to reboot the transit system. You could stick a bike freeway that runs adjacent to I-84 (though hopefully not too adjacent).

Bikes account for about 5% of all trips inside the Portland city limits, and bike infrastructure costs about one percent of the total transportation budget. So bikes are a bargain. If we splurged a little, put up a network of real bike freeways--all covered so we can ride them in winter as well--Portland truly would become a great bike city.

Hey, JK, tell you want. I'll sell out the mass transit people if you will go along with me in giving that transit money for street cars and light rail to bike infrastructure. Hey, bikes don't need quite the hated density that rail lines do.

"a) travel time is longer
b) too much work (sorry, being honest)
c) rains all the time here
d) I dont look good in bike shorts

I'll add

e) secure storage is problematic
f) don't care to inhale that much auto exhaust commuting
g) don't care to arrive at my destination sweaty
h) most important, don't have a death-wish."

Nice batch of excuses. Meanwhile, bike commuters fill their car's gas tank once every two weeks instead of twice per week, get a daily 45 minute work out, enjoying fresh air and mental health with each ride that invigorates them for work instead of going crazy, sedentary and cramped in a shiny metal coffin.

"Rains all the time"? Whatever. Biking in the beauty of Portland weather over the past week has been a religious experience.

Bike commuter also poses far less danger to the world around him on his "child's toy" than your Hummer, both in terms of accidents and pollution.

Bike commuter does not envy the "adults" inhaling the fumes of the semi ahead thru the Hummer's air vents.

Those gasoline payments Hummer driver makes twice a week are going straight to the House of Saud and the Bin Ladens' pockets.