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Do Trucks Pay Their Fair Share?
Editor’s note: The City of Portland has just released the discussion draft (PDF, 5.5MB) of their Freight Master Plan. Last month in a commentary titled “Road funding scheme ignores constitution, physics,” Orval Etter charged that the Oregon Department of Transportation hasn’t been charging trucks their fair share for the costs of roads. The Oregon Constitution…
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A Report from our Japan Correspondent
Background: As part of my ongoing, seemingly single handed crusade to look at multitasking of sidewalk spaces for multimodal use I was awarded a grant from the Architectural Foundation of Oregon (AFO) to study the ped/bike zone of urban streetscapes in Japan. So… I am writing from my hotel room in Kobe looking out at…
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Time for More Diverse Vehicles
Biking to work this morning I passed a golf-cart like vehicle that was chugging down the street. I was reminded about how uncreative we are with our choices of vehicles. Most households have a couple of cars — and those cars are overbuilt for what they’re actually used for 95% of the time. They’re set…
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The Portland Bicycle: Gearing
A few weeks ago we introduced the idea of “The Portland Bicycle”, an entry-level commuter bicycle that would appeal to folks first entering the bicycle commuting realm, designed and manufactured here in our region. The discussion identified the need for commuting bikes at a variety of price/feature points, but we’d like to focus on the…
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Bike Safety Leadership Workshop on Friday
This Friday, August 26, from 9-noon, there will be a Bike Safety Leadership Workshop at Southeast Uplift. There will be a Workshop in each neighborhood district coalition in the city. These meetings will be an opportunity to create a common understanding about bicycle safety issues and to initiate a bicycle safety group in each neighborhood…