I'm so glad I have the city government to fix me!

When I think about all the people who I want to keep me on the right track in life(family, friends, place of worship, colleagues) on the very top of the list is "city bureacrats". I hope Portland reaches the point where some know-it-all 25 year old urban planner is personally following me around all day with a clipboard telling me everything I'm doing wrong.

Snards, I thought you lived in Vancouver?

How many pot holes could have been filled for the cost of that brochure?
Probably not that many, but it would have been a start.

"And we've all heard how the lack of physical activity has lead to the rise...".

Yep, these're some smart folks, all right.

Not yet, John. Convincing my wife to move will be the trick.

Year after year, Portland City Council (except this one) has set one of their strategic goals as maintaining infrastructure. But how can one get reelected without new shiny stuff to point to and put your name on.

It's really a travesty the way some elected officials use your tax dollars.

"When you’re hit over the head, the instrument could be a “lead” pipe. But when it’s a verb, “lead” is the present and “led” is the past tense."
-Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage

Pretty fitting clarification in my opinion.

If the food pyramid is a challenge for lots of people, this one is only for true believers.

Common Errors in English Usage

Come on. As Andrew johnson is supposed to have said (sead?), "It's a poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word." Standard usage is for sticklers and chumps.

Get Ready To Travel Smart!

Next flyer: Get Ready To Live Smart!

Oh, I guess we already had that done to us.
Smart Growth, Smart Trips, Smart Meters,....

How about a survey now - how do you like living in a Smart City?

Optional: Comments on how to become Smarter.

Smart growth wrecked my neighborhood.

Cool! I'm at the top of the pyramid for once...

I think there is a typo in the flyer. It should read:

Get Ready to Travel Smart Ass!

If you really want to have fun with a transit or transportation "expert", ask them how to get between two places, in which one of the destinations is located on a bus line but in areas with no safe bike route.

I've tried it. You would not believe that I have been told to take MAX to destinations that there is no possible way to use MAX to the destination (or that MAX is so far out of the way it's laughable), and then when you tell the "expert" that MAX doesn't go there, they then question why you want/need to go there.

New Name: The City That Smarts You Over.

Next stop: The City That Smacks You Over.

How to become Smarter?

Get Smart about who pushes Smart.

List names of the Smart promoters running for office.

I believe that the very inclusion of "Fix Streets" as though it were any part of the Transportation Department's thinking (or spending) qualifies as an "April Fool."

RDinpdx:
It's not your neighborhood... it belongs to planners in City Hall. They just let you live there as long as you keep forking over your money and doing as you're told.

Forking over is quite right. They are forking over all of us one way or another!

Keep Portland Pervy!

I think an effective (or "affective" for some)campaign strategy for an ingenious Mayoral candidate would be to place little red triangular signs on wire strands like they flag underground utility lines in or adjacent to all the potholes around town. The flags would have "Sam's Hole". The clever candidate would then have a media blitz being the "Common Sense Mayor" candidate and point out the "Sam's Hole" blitz. "Back to Basics".

Oh, come on, people. Is encouraging bicycling that bad? The comments here put it on the same level as the unemployment rate or the nuclear disaster in Japan. Please: it's a mailer.

This brochure surely has a cost to taxpayers, but it also encourages an activity that will improve individual and community health, thereby averting taxpayer dollars in health care costs and increasing social capital.

Rather than seeing this as an assault of the nanny state, why not appreciate the efforts of our local government to encourage a healthier and more community-driven society? It's something to be proud about, not feel controlled by.

My daughter walks 30 minutes twice a day just to get to a MAX stop to get out to MHCC. She's the perfect Portlander! (Not by choice...the nearest bus gives her a 20-minute wait in Troutdale, which isn't much fun in the dark and windy early mornings.)

This is Actually Great,

It isn't just about the bicycling.
It is about the whole picture as in the pyramid above:
Tell other people how to live,Placate bicyclists,Streetcars for the Condo boys,etc.

Quite frankly, it is not healthy to live in a community where citizens are treated the way they have been here for years.
Calling for "citizen input" yet controlling that and if need be ignoring it.
Moving people away from single family homes with yards so that children do not have a yard to in play doesn't help with obesity.
Calling our city green and sustainable but in words only, how green is it to propose turning Hayden Island into an asphalt parking lot?
Enough for now.

Figures don't lie so liars figure.

One can devise so many other graphics linking bad heath to bad habits that are actually true that this graphic is disingenuous to the extreme. I can just as easily show that the auto imparts freedom to explore physical exercises that greatly increase the body's heath, without invoking trips to gyms using virtual mountains and hiking paths in it's stead. Not to mention the lift to the spirit engaging in such endeavors. And yes, the bikers do this also. Notice all the bike racks on cars?

Oh, I suppose the use of virtual reality while using the gym is the answer to that.
/s

Erik H. wrote:
If you really want to have fun with a transit or transportation "expert", ask them how to get between two places, in which one of the destinations is located on a bus line but in areas with no safe bike route.

I've tried it. You would not believe that I have been told to take MAX to destinations that there is no possible way to use MAX to the destination (or that MAX is so far out of the way it's laughable), and then when you tell the "expert" that MAX doesn't go there, they then question why you want/need to go there.

Here's an example of work TriMet is doing to respond to the issue you mentioned (at least to the extent that bike and ped concerns are commensurable):
http://trimet.org/pdfs/publications/pedestrian-study-fact-sheet.pdf

The "experts" care (or many of them do; not sure who you talked to), even if the decision-makers don't.

Jack, the "real" pyramid reminds me of a great quote by Eric Hoffer:

"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."

- Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer", 1951