Hallo Interwebs!!!
morganpdx, new OurPDX blogger here. Welcome to my VERY FIRST POST.
So I figured my first post oughta be super informative and relevant and, well, Portlandy.
So obviously, that means bicycles. How about the mayor, our own embattled Sam, actually forgetting about them?
Seriously? Yeah.
Remember Snowpocalypse? Well, the mayor’s office released a survey back in January to gauge the effectiveness of their winter storm response. Amazingly, there wasn’t a single mention of bicycle transportation in the entire thing. Hellooooo, oversight! Now I admit, I am a fair-weather biker, and only ride my bike when I’m absolutely sure I’m not going to freeze. I most certainly did not break out my bike at all during the storm, but I did see a few people braving the ice on bikes. Actually, I think I saw more people on skis than bicycles.
Snowpocalypse. Heh. That still makes me laugh.
Thankfully, the mayor’s office is trying to remedy the situation by asking the bike community to respond to a second storm response survey that is specifically targeted at bicycle transportation. Nice recovery, Sam.
I’m waiting to see if there’s another one for skiers.
(Thanks to BikePortland.org)
{ 2 comments }
The state of biking in Portland is such a strange thing to me. People seem to almost go to war over this. To be honest, I really didn’t know about Sam’s survey and, furthermore, am not entirely certain how bikers really factored in. As it was inclement weather, I don’t see how a bike could have been at all useful, so the survey doesn’t seem like it’d have a need to include them. But for full disclosure, I really don’t bike, so I could be talking right out of my butt here.
I think it comes down to traction. Cars and the like can be given traction tires. Walking, of course, is pretty much nothing but traction-control. Skis… well, they’re skis. There’s probably traction tires for bikes too (again, bear in mind I’m absolutely bike-ignorant), so who knows. That said, the fact that Portland’s bike community wields such power in this town is pretty cool and shows that the city really does work to keep everyone in mind.
Yeah, wondering why bikes are included would be my first thought, if it weren’t for the fact that so many people in portland rely heavily on biking as a means of commuting, and really as their *only* mode of transportation. My roommate for instance, hasn’t owned a car in years, and does everything by bike.
I love that portland is so bicycle-centric. And the mayor has positioned himself as very bike-friendly, so the irony of the fact is that much more…well, ironic.
Wait. Did I use ironic correctly? (little Ignite joke there)
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