As I have in previous years, I’m hosting a Portland Streetcar table at the BTA’s annual Alice B. Toeclips awards dinner (5pm on Saturday March 7th).
I have several (paid for) seats available at the table and would like to offer them to folks interested in promoting comity between cycling and streetcars (there are no actual duties other than enjoying yourself at the event).
Contact me at webmaster@portlandtransport.com.
9 responses to “I’d Like to Feed a Few Good Ambassadors”
Sorry, not with you on the streetcar thing. This city should focus on better bus service. Cost benefit analysis = streetcar sucks.
I appreciate the integrity to turn down a free meal for your beliefs :-)
Bus service is not the City’s job…building lively, accessible neighborhoods is. Streetcar is one of the best tools we have for this tak…ask the people who live, work, and play in neighborhoods serve by Streetcar. The answer is plain as day. re bikes and rail? I always try to cross at 90 degrees. No big deal.
Lenny Anderson Says: Bus service is not the City’s job…building lively, accessible neighborhoods is. Streetcar is one of the best tools we have for this task…ask the people who live, work, and play in neighborhoods serve by Streetcar.
Isn’t that more in the nature of the neighborhoods being served? All those happy-go-lucky people in the Pearl probably love Streetcar but it’s hardly responsible for their giddiness.
How did this so quickly turn from a dinner invitation to a Streetcar merit debate?
(Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already bought my dinner.) I’ll keep that issue in mind if it comes up, but other than a few rabid anti-streetcar people, (who probably won’t be there anyways,) most people do understand the issue and would rather work toward a solution than a fight.
I wish the city would put in some trolley buses anyways, (partly because there are a lot of reasons to do it,) but also because we could finally get those 5 people to shut up.
I don’t ride a bike much anymore, but I fully support the streetcar and helping give safe places for people to bike.
Overall that’s one of the things that limits me from wanting to go. The places I’d want to ride are both the best served by transit, and are the most crowded areas making me not want to ride in them.
While in principal I love their goals, I’m having trouble with this part:
http://www.bta4bikes.org/docs/PressRelease080707CRCDemands.pdf
Backed (in part) by:
Scott Bricker, Bicycle Transportation Alliance
The bike/pedestrian facilities of the proposed CRC, mixed with LRT and proper road facilities give me significant reasons to be opposed to their angle. I like their intended purpose, of sustainable development, sharing the road between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians, etc.
I just am kind of bothered that improving the currently pathetic pedestrian and bike facilities with a significantly better crossing as well as adding MAX across state lines isn’t enough to offset some auxiliary lanes, safer interchanges, and overall enhanced access and transportation between the anchor cities of the region. Portland has a last-chance opportunity to connect to Downtown Vancouver right now.
The recent federal economic stimulus plan calls for doing some of the work on the railroad berm right now. The Boise-Cascade site will likely be the next Pearl District of the Portland region. Do we want to connect it to Portland, or keep cutting it off? Doesn’t anyone in Portland other than me enjoy the Vancouver Land Bridge as part of the Confluence project? How about the riverfront trail? How about that a MAX connection would make the previously-mentioned Vancouver Streetcar more possible?
Portland should figure out what is our 21st century connection to Vancouver. It should be a true multi-modal operation, serving transit, cars, trucks, bikes and pedestrians. That’s what’s being offered, and yet they’re fighting it…
As much as I want to, I’m not sure I can support the BTA.
Alice B Toeclips?
Is that a real name?
Sounds like something out of Monty Python.
Al, it’s a send-up on Alice B. Toklas, a writer from the first half of the last century.