Puh-leeze. Just when you think it can't get worse. What's next? Replacing all CoP vehicle fleets with pedi-cabs? Spending millions to retro-greenfit a perfectly usable building to be ahead of the curve in welcoming the first Major League Hackey Sack franchise? W...T...F???

Ordering Office Depot products that were made in Asia and shipped several thousand miles to the downtown store:
$250

Moving a few boxes of those supplies the last thousand feet by tricycle so you can appear "green" and "hip":
Priceless.

You can't make this stuff up....that's why Portlandia doesn't have it.

"It challenges your mind to think of what a tricycle can really do," Jones says. Yes, Jonesy....it certainly does challenge the mind, but it seems the mindless ninnies and loons at Silly Hall nailed it perfectly. Once again, they're up to yet another inane stunt, in the revered name of green and sustainable.

Gawd help us from ourselves.

Uh...so what? I think that's pretty much my response to this one. Checking my outrage meter and it's...stationary. (ba dum pssssh)

I swear, Portland isn't a city any more. It's an experiment in running a government on the principles taught by too many viewings of The Producers.

Jack,
I think you should make it more clear when you link to a story from the Onion. For a second, I almost fell for this.

Thankfully, I don't think the central city has any offices on hilltops.

What about those SW Portland areas?

And just how will that new desk or chair be delivered?

Notice how in Portland, progress means devolving back towards 3rd world standards?

You know where else they deliver everything on an overburdened bicycle? Vietnam!

You know where else they raise chickens in their back yard? Mexico!

You know where else everyone takes the train? Bangladesh!

Do you know where else people eat their food on the street? Cambodia!

You know where else a government stuffed with lifetime bureaucrats makes up the largest share of employment? Khazakstan!

You know where else politicians receive kick backs for steering fat deals to developers and cronies? Every banana republic on the planet!

I've seen this on SE Hawthorne. It's kind of comical to see actually. The rider/deliverer pedals furiously at about 3mph top speed, no doubt getting a great workout on the gluteas maximi.

How long will it be until bicyclists get into shoving matches with the electric tricyclists over sharing (or hogging) the bike lane on Broadway?

We need a Tunisian Uprising...Before we become Portlandistan.

You know we could use horses and wagons instead and haul more and still maintain a green and sustainable as well as "old world" ambiance. Also "cagers" will probably be less antagonistic towards a horse and wagon than a hipster on an electric trike.

Moving a few boxes of those supplies the last thousand feet by tricycle so you can appear "green" and "hip"

And the suppliers continue to route trucks to points beyond the close-in delivery points so there is essentially no fuel savings in reality. This would be a cute gimmick if it were cute.

That's a good idea, Tom. I was thinking that to reduce our carbon footprint, the whole city should unhook completely from the electric grid.

We could dry the horse dung into cakes to cook our organic locally-sourced gruel over! Progress!

...Before we become Portlandistan

What do you mean 'before'? Oregon is already on its way to becoming the Afghanistan of the west coast.

Sigh...Well, at least this confirms my house hunting trip to Vancouver this weekend is the right decision. What a joke of a city this has become. Can't find the money for schools, but stupid pet projects in the name of all that is "green" fly through.

All I can say is the dude with the fleet of delivery tricycles is a genius. Cha Ching!

I would have to see a price comparison before condemning this.

If it drives more "get off my lawn" types out of town then that is a plus.

I love how every Portland City idea has to now include a disclaimer that it is actually real, and not an upcoming episode of Portlandia.

Looks like the Mayor in that picture (before he put on weight) Might be his next job. He seems to like the bike business.

Really, just save us the trouble and let the place go back to a 3rd world city status - Oxcarts, dirt roads (ala that PPT from Sam's office about Woodstock) and open sewer that pour into the Willamette on overflows.

"I would have to see a price comparison before condemning this."

I'll give you something then that is 1000x more sustainable and energy conserving:

- Maint goes into every CoP office and sets thermostats at 58/heat and 80/cool. Said maint locks thermostat.

Sam will never do it, because then he'd have to make the sacrifice.

Our govt servants are so two-faced I get dizzy.

Portland is too still a city. It's simply been hijacked and is being converted to a big playground for bicycle enthusiasts and fanatics, most of which haven't even moved here yet, though they are trickling in. In the meantime, the other 90% of us who've lived here our entire lives (or for generations), are supposed to pay for it, and either shut up or leave. Sort of like sharecroppers or something.

Snards -

Third world countries comparison.

You owe me a screen and a keyboard.

ROTFLMAO

Another actually true story... METRO is spending hundreds of thousands to turn Blue Lake Park into a "gold level" frisbee golf circuit.

Why does it cost $6 million to deliver office supplies by any means of transport?
Just curious....

Snards:

How can you be so insensitive towards progress? HAHAHAHA, just kidding. Your comments are brilliant!

I can't even look any more. I'm getting way too old for what's happening to Portland...

Relax Jack. Some good may come out of this yet. I heard somewhere that tension keeps one young. We should all stay younger than springtime around here if that is the case.

Free next day delivery for orders over 50 dollars.

Did the Office Depot contract simultaneously get reduced, adjusted, by the same value as this delivery contract?

We have, perhaps unwittingly, hit on the solution to Portland's crime problem.

Simply put all police personnel on bikes and trikes and eliminate those cruisers, which just contribute to pollution and traffic congestion, anyway.

The result would be far fewer people overcrowding our jails and far more people on the streets enjoying their personal freedoms. Plus a much fitter police force.

Go by Trike!

Simply put all police personnel on bikes and trikes and eliminate those cruisers,
JK: GREAT IDEA!

Lets do the same with ALL city vehicles.
Then lets do it with buses.
Then replace MAX with bikes!

How perfectly sustainable for perfectly planned Portland

Thanks
JK

You simply can't make this stuff up! I just sent this story to a few of my friends here in Nevada; and one sent me a reply asking if this wasn't a "crank" type news article. I assured him it wasn't!
Idiocy like this should be used against anyone on the City Council running for re-election.

I'm just ticked that I didn't come up with this idea on my own. Imagine owning a delivery service with no fuel costs and probably minimal liability insurance costs. Maintenance costs on the bikes are a fraction of those on a delivery truck, and at night you can store the entire fleet in a 1000 square foot garage somewhere on the central eastside. The people who pedal those things around are probably willing to work for a fraction of what a unionized UPS driver pulls in. This is the kind of thing the enviro PC set eats up with a giant spoon like it's the best thing they ever tasted in their life. Brilliant!

This is the kind of thing the enviro PC set eats up with a giant spoon like it's the best thing they ever tasted in their life. Brilliant!

I dunno, spoon making is pretty unsustainable. I picture them huddled around a dung fire in a yurt eating this turd with their hands - make that hand.

When speaking to a friend about her bicycle activist child moving to the city, the friend suggested (in real sincerity) that I move if this bicycle thing was so disturbing to me.

Well now, since unemployment is so high, guess we no longer can have the slogan "The City That Works." I suppose the next thing our slogan will be "The City That Bikes." Personally, I preferred our "City of Roses." I suspect I am in the majority here that I don't appreciate being told I should leave if I don't like the negative changes in our city.

Sheesh...

This is not new.

I seem to remember waxing enthusiastic on the prospect of a keg-delivery trike race from the brewery in the Pearl to a tavern on Skyline Boulevard. Full sized keg with a complete load of top-rated beer/ale and it must reach the destination tavern untapped and by leg-power only.

Prove to me that it is sustainable.

spouse comments," Serves the bike delivery guy right if his peddlers strike for union wages!".

I should move if I don't like Portland's direction?

Already did. And believe me, folks, this stuff is a lot more amusing from a distance. Really. Just when you think the self-parody cannot get an more absurd, here comes a guy on a tricycle delivering sustainable office supplies.

If you want more laughs, check out that enviro column The O runs on Fridays. Last week, the columnist seemed to be dithering over whether the environmental impact of a schoolroom full of kids washing their hands is worse than just letting them have dirt on their hands. Made me think she might be onto something there. After all, typhus, cholera and various strains of hepatitis and malaria are all natural, organic, sustainable diseases. There's nothing like a fever to get you in touch with your environment. Maybe we can bring back smallpox.

My sympathy to those of you who have to live in the middle of it.

While on a trip to a small town in Central Oregon, we were asked where we were from. When we said Portland, the response was a sad "I'm so sorry."

Yes, there is sympathy. . . perhaps that slogan should be changed to "The City Run By Fools."

There are many who are totally upset with the agenda. In my opinion, we have a "knot of insiders" that is tied so tight as if to choke out other options. I do not want to be stagnant about what I perceive is going on, which is one reason I write.

They're building something for someone and that someone isn't us.

I still don't believe this is all random silliness or ineptitude. What I sense is an escalated and determined effort to destabilize Portland's legacy neighborhoods and encourage established and longterm residents to leave, ultimately making properties available for development.

Anybody else remember the big radon scare of the early '90's when we heard that most of Portland was geologically toxic to live in? A few panicked and sold their homes in a hurry, but many didn't buy into it because these homes had been lived in for generations and we weren't exactly the cancer capital of the country.

Now it's all about bicycles, which we all know could never support the needs of a city this size and is not even feasible year round due to our climate.

When the bike fad fades (and it will), what'll it be next?

Clinamen said: Well now, since unemployment is so high, guess we no longer can have the slogan "The City That Works." I suppose the next thing our slogan will be "The City That Bikes."
How about "The City That Walks"? Portlanders walk on the streets, Portlanders walk through the parks, and Portlanders walk away from business.

But is tricycle delivery guy LEED Platinum certified?

Isaac Laquedem,
Or how about "The City That Talks"?

City PR, marketing and talking up a green storm, but behind the curtain, a different story altogether.

Examples - West Hayden Island, Bull Run Water System that is indeed sustainable, putting down enormous cement and infill on pervious places, destroying huge groves of trees and fertile agricultural land for development.

City PR, marketing and talking up a storm about good citizen input.

Examples - Selecting the people to sit on committees to steer the process in "right direction", emergency ordinance procedures when no real reason to do so, ignoring citizen input, and the list is too long to go on about.

"Update: Kelly Ball, a spokeswoman for the city, says Portland's contract with Office Depot is worth $6 million over five years. Office Depot subcontracts with a delivery company called Dynamex that subcontracts with B-Line."

Geez, tough crowd. The $6 million contract is with Office Deport for supplies, not $6 million for deliveries. I am quite certain if the folks at Dynamex (a rather large transportation company), who subcontracts to B-Line, couldn't make a profit on this venture, it would not happen. Considering they don't have to worry about gas, parking, or delays making multiple stops in a already congested downtown, it sounds like a reasonable idea.

Why is it that the fewer people that go downtown for daily business activities, the more congested it gets in need of a solution?