Category: Pedestrians

  • 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…

  • Wanted: An Outbreak of Civility

    Back in March I almost became a pedestrian statistic when I chose to tangle with an impatient motorist and learned the hard way you can’t stop a car with your bare hands. The encounter catapulted me into the street on the back of my head, landed me in the E.R., and threw my autonomic nervous…

  • Bicycling and Walking in H.R. 3 SAFETEA-LU

    Congress has passed H.R. 3, SAFETEA-LU, and submitted it to the President for his signature. The legislation amends Titles 23 and 49 of the United States Code and authorizes the expenditure of $286.5 billion dollars over the next five years (2005-2009). Bicycling, walking, and transit seem to have done pretty well. DeFazio, Blumenauer, and others…

  • Our Streetscape Future: Turning Japanese?

    The following is a dramatization of actual events. Actual dialog and concepts presented have been compressed and highlighted for loggification purposes: So I’m sitting there at the sushi bar with Portland’s Consul General from Japan, asking him for advice on my upcoming fellowship study (which isn’t easy to do in Japanese – especially as the…

  • Be Safe Out There

    Today’s Portland Tribune features an article titled Walk, ride at your peril reporting about the nine pedestrian and cyclist fatalities this year so far. So today’s question is: are these just a statistical blip, or are there systematic issues going on involving the transportation system, or behavioral changes by drivers, pedestrians or cyclists?