Category: Modes

  • Bookshelf: Urban Cycling

    We have two similar but very different books on the topic of urban cycling! Urban Bikers’ Tricks and Tips Link to book at Amazon.com Link to book at Powell’s Link to book at Multnomah County Library List Price: This book is the ultimate practical guide. All kinds of situations that a cyclist may run into…

  • Unravelling Transit in Clark County?

    I got a TriMet alert last week reminding me that TriMet Passport (employer-based passes) would no longer be accepted on C-TRAN premimum express routes as of September 1. This sent me to the C-TRAN site to see what how else the TriMet/C-TRAN integration might be affected, and I found this page about C-TRAN’s “Service Preservation…

  • The President Bicycles: what does it mean?

    The novelist H.G. Wells said that he felt hope for the human race whenever he saw an adult on a bicycle. Our current president is now notorious in his love of bicycling, even if he falls off once in awhile. What does this mean for national transportation policy? If he rides enough (or some wags…

  • Ride Like a Mensch

    Yesterday, I was riding along a local street, cruising a downhill section and approaching an intersection with all-way stop signs. Already at the intersection was a car stopped at the cross street. There seemed to be a family inside-two kids, mom and dad, with grandma in the back seat. Arriving at the intersection I came…

  • Crosswalks: A Matter of Culture?

    Or, what I did on my vacation. As a neighborhood activist, I have frequently heard the question, “why don’t we stripe more crosswalks?” The stock-in-trade answer of the traffic engineers in Portland is that drivers are not sufficiently aware of crosswalks and they give pedestrians a false sense of security. This has always struck me…