Whew! That was close!

I was beginning to get embarrassed thinking for a minute they were actually talking about Portland Metro government's wishlist when talking about light rail and stadium construction. Why give the rest of the country more material when detailing the idiocy of Portland?

Thankfully, I realized they really weren't thinking Portland. There's no mention of anything green or bicycles.

I wish the C. A. V. E. dwellers would vote.

This weekend the city just spent a few thousand dollars closing a lane on my street to cars and marking it out as bicycles only.

Two weeks ago I did indeed see enough bikes on Willamette Blvd. to justify this. However, the several hundred I saw at 9:30 or so on that Saturday eve were't obeying lane laws or any other rules. They also refused to let me turn on to my street so that I had to put them at risk as I cut between them.

City is run and resupplied by adolescent immigrants from every hipster suburb in the nation. Insofar as I can see it has become the f--wit capial on the nation.

TriMet and their cohorts are defrauding the Oregon Congrssional delegation and the feds by claiming the local match for Milwaukie Light Rail has been secured. It has not.

Although the $250 milion in lottery backed bonds are begining to flow to TriMet
(with debt service $400 million will be take from the lottery revenue stream)

The rest of the local match, although similar in it's planned borrowing aginst existing goverment funding, has not been established or secured.
In fact it is likely not to happen has planned.

Yet TriMet is proceeding with the project ahead of funding being approved at at the local and federal level.

All the while the agency
cannot afford adequate security,
cannot afford to preserve bus serviuce, contributes nothing towards their $50 million/year-$700 million unfunded fringe benefits package
and has committed future operating revenue to Milwaukie Light Rail debt service.

AND they want to force their business model onto C-Tran and Vancouver.

Sadly, it isn't going to stop until people get fed up and simply pull their assets out of their reach. So far, that hasn't happened because we're the center of the universe, best-place-to-live, smartest and wisest, know the only way to Nirvana, etc.

There's still a lot of wealth in them thar hills...

It was good to hear Gov. Dudley yesterday on the radio declaring that he opposes Milwaukie Light Rail's taking of $250 Million in state Lottery Funds. Now, with that declaration, how will he implement that opposition to change the course of Milwaukie Light Rail?

It isn't funded, there has been illegal takings of tax dollars, and Light Rail continues the misuse of proposed urban renewal dollars. I hope other candidates around this region also speak up and oppose MLR.

A ski gondola in the West Hills is pretty awesome!

Don't worry about TriMet, they have more immediate problems than figuring out how to utterly waste $1B per mile:

http://trimet.org/news/releases/july21-union.htm

"TriMet & Union declare impasse in contract negotiations"

Now that we're all dependent upon them for our every movement... I guess the most platinum-plated benefits package in history just isn't enough reason to get out of bed in the morning.

"marking it out as bicycles only."

I saw pedestrians, motorized wheelchairs, razor scooters and even some roller skates.

"They also refused to let me turn on to my street so that I had to put them at risk as I cut between them."

You should have received two mailers and a door-hanger explaining that green-shirted Parkways volunteers would cut off the bikes/peds/etc. for residents accessing their homes. Looks like you missed the memo.

"Insofar as I can see it has become the f--wit capial on the nation."

What?

"You should have received two mailers and a door-hanger...."

So in your mind, this means that people can be cut off from access to their homes? Inconvenienced for no reason?

The flood of hundreds of bicyclists on Willamette Blvd. to which I refered was a regular and unstructured "fun" take over of the streets that happens regularly on weekend nights on the Peninsula.

Frankly, most of the bike stuff that intrudes into real life is unstructured and happens regularly.

That should have read,"Insofar as I can see it has become the f--kwit capital of the nation." Go ahead and sturggle with the absent vowel and consonant.

Frankly, in my experience too many bikers don't feel the need to send memos, but operate in a world of self-important whimsey.

The expense and inconvienance of the new lane blockage - well, it is an expensive insult to people who live in the neighborhood.

One evening a few months back I witnessed an alarmingly large number of unruly bicylists heading east on SE Division past 50th. Within the hour there were sirens and lights screaming by and a very upset renter in a state of shock came stumbling down the street saying hundreds of crazy people had just trashed his home. Last I heard the PPB couldn't arrest anyone because there were too many to identify who was responsible. I guess that means there's safety in a mob when you're committing a crime.

Welcome to Portland...

http://southeastportland.katu.com/content/crowd-targets-52nd-ave-home

http://southeastportland.katu.com/content/crowd-targets-52nd-ave-home

"said neighbor Jerry Swinger"

This has to be something KATU stole from the Onion?

Of course, the idea that Portland would ever do anything to curb an unruly biker is also a big joke.

Well, looks as if the police have finally learned how to behave in Portland. No brutality here! No, sir! We'll just watch and make sure no one gets hurt. The house? Well, that's just a material thing - it's just property. Human rights are more important than property rights... right?

Oh, that's a real news item all right. Looks like Punk's Not Dead to me.

When I was still driving hack in your dying sewer city, we used to routinely get warning messages over the MDT terminal from Dispatch on weekend nights about roving mobs of bicyclists totally out of control. Smashing windows, attacking cars, etc. We would be appraised of the location of the mob and it's direction, and warned to stay as far away as possible.

Of course, if I was anywhere in the area, I never detoured from my route, hoping, praying for some mob of spindly vegans to take my 235 pounds of gristle and hatred on. Oh, how I wanted to crack some of their skulls right in with a metal bar, Measure 11 be damned. All I had to do was politely attempt to do my job, let them attack my car and then offer them the first shot, I reasoned...it would be country simple.

Much to my lasting regret, I never succeeded in this endeavor. Should I return to that hive of passive-aggressive weasels you call a city one day to see my friends or work again, I solemnly promise to take that mantle right back up. I'm still ashamed to ride my bicycle even today, in another city thousands of miles away, and I really enjoy riding a bike, that's how much a solid decade of dodging Portland's horrible bicyclists for a living affected me.

I still have a collection of cell phone photos I took of the MDT messages, because I figured no-one but other people who deal with PDX bicyclists late at night for a living would ever believe me.

Just got back from SF. While I was there I learned that part of the public transportation system (the part that works best) is actually privately run.... if the kiddies on the council would not give it all away.... and if grown-ups who had to operate by classical capitalist standards ran the franchise, it would be worth looking at.

...hoping, praying for some mob of spindly vegans to take my 235 pounds of gristle and hatred on. Oh, how I wanted to crack some of their skulls right in with a metal bar...

Funny how those "routine" reports of roving bands of bikoterrorists never made the news or that even though ex-cabbie was looking for them he (or she) never managed to run across them to to fulfill his/her fantasies of emulating Dolph Lundgren/Brigette Nielsen. All that time here in Portland and no opportunity to live out those armchair fantasies.

I'm sure it would have been a wonderful experience for Mr. & Ms. Taxi Patron when their hate-filled, begristled driver took the time out of their trip home from the airport to get out of the cab and whale on the head of someone half his size (presuming that person existed outside of his/her own skull). Hopefully the meter wold have been turned off.

And then the cops could have showed up and Tased everyone involved.

Yeah, I'd pay a dollar to see that.

Nice insult, there, Darrel. Why of course, it had to all be in my head. I report something you don't want to believe, so you call me crazy. Nice. Gosh, am I really crazy ? Was it all in my head ? You really have me worried about my sanity now !!!

Of course these roving bands of thugs on bikes never made the news, you thick-headed Oregonian hick. In Portland ? Where out-of-control cyclists own the place ? Sheesh. Look around you.

I was talking about in-house Mobile Data Terminal warnings to the fleet to stay the hell away from them. Tons of ugly things go on all the time that never "make the news." I know, it's a little much for you to process all at once, but there it is. Next time you are riding around at night in a cab, if your driver has been at it for several years, ask about those late night MDT reports of mobs of dozens of cyclists smashing out car windows circa 2007-2010, particularly around Belmont & 12th, Hawthorne & 20th, that area.

I couldn't make something that ridiculous up if I tried. Only in the irrelevant backwater of Portland does this go on unchecked...in any real city those creeps would be dealt with in short order before the cops were even on scene. Too bad it was never me, I would have really, truly enjoyed teaching them some manners, and, knowing Oregon's insane assault laws, I'd more than likely be long gone before any tasering took place.

ex-cabbie,
How often did you have these in-house Mobile Data Terminal warnings to the fleet to stay away from these scenes?

Would appreciate an answer.

Hope you are doing OK in your new location.

I don't doubt that you guys were probably passing all sorts of wacky stuff over your radios. I don't even doubt that there are probably groups of car prowlers using bikes to get from place to place and evade the police. But "roving mobs"?

I've lived within a short walk of the two locations you mention for more than two decades, since back when we had skinheads living around the corner and a heroin shooting gallery three blocks away. So the aggro "I've seen more than you, man!" stance just really doesn't impress me much.

"Too bad it was never me...." You never even actually saw this stuff yourself? So we've got claims of "roving mobs" reported by a cab company dispatcher that never saw the mobs, that never made the news. I mean, a "mob" of even vegan bikers would presumably leave a pretty big swath of damage, more -- you'd think -- than the couple of guys who busted out a bunch of car windows with an air gun in a suburban cul-de-sac a while ago. And if the Oregonian will report a drunk guy using his bike as a club (http://bit.ly/cvU0KU), wow, you'd think the "roving mobs" and their damage would get a mention sometime between 2007 and 2010.

But Big Bike owns the city and all the media. I'm sure that's the explanation. Then again, maybe some cabbies have overactive imaginations and see a couple guys on bikes breaking into or vandalizing cars as a mob. I know I can look up car prowl stats online.

And you know, it's not a matter of whether I want to believe it or not. I believe you saw the reports. As to whether the reports were accurate or not, well, that's a different story. One or two incidents of something like that? Yeah, I can see how I might have missed it in the news, but not a pattern of extensive damage over several years.