I’m becoming downright fond of the new Green Line. By hopping on a MAX at lunchtime, I can visit entirely new food carts, carts previously unattainable given the state of my ancient and creaking knees and the temporal limits of my lunch hour.

I was on such a mission today, visiting the carts at SW 3rd and Ash, when I ran into Ben.

This is Ben. Ben Rossiter, to be precise. Ben is a likeable young man who is out there spreading the gospel of Portland Pedal Power, a gospel of entrepreneurial spirit, local and sustainable practices, and the Way of the Bike.

Put simply, Portland Pedal Power will deliver. They will deliver piping hot meals from several of Portland’s finest food carts over a respectably large chunk of downtown. They are also adding deliveries from local businesses, like Trailhead coffee, and I have to believe that this aspect of their delivery business will continue to expand.

I believe that because Ben is earnest about this gig. He pointed out the cargo box on his bike, noting that he had a hot box for food deliveries that kept the food nice and hot anywhere in PPP’s delivery area. But that’s not enough. He wants to put an oven on the bike, just to make sure no one gets disappointed. He wants to expand across the river just as soon as PPP grows a bit more. He may be a bike rider, but he takes Business Development pretty damn seriously. They’re adding new partners all the time, he notes, both for deliveries and for marketing opportunities.

And don’t worry about Ben’s bike — That’s a Yuba Mundo cargo bike. Ben assures me the frame is built to take a combined load (cargo plus rider) of 450 lbs. He didn’t tell me if he could actually move the bike with that kind of load, but at least the bike won’t fail him.

So, if you’re a food cart that wants to reach a larger customer base, or you have goods you need delivered downtown, or you just want to see your logo zipping along the Broadway bike path, head on over to Portland Pedal Power. I think these folks will be going places.

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Welcome back, my fellow `merikuns, from your Fourth of July holiday. Don’t you just love the Fourth? It’s the one day of the year when the citizens of the United States get to beat their collective chest with vigor and flip their collective bird over the vast seas. Yes, we have plenty to be ashamed of these days (thank you Bush Co.), but even the most cynical among us understands that we wouldn’t even have had the opportunity to elect the world’s most impressive dolt (twice) to the office of Decider were it not for the diligence, guts and massively flamboyant script of our founding fathers.

For those of you in secondary school and unfortunately devoid of an objective, fact-based education (did someone say evolution?), the Fourth of July commemorates this country’s adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. You may be more familiar with the holiday for its excessive embrace of fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, picnics, concerts, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States… and beer.

But this year I think we need to look back at the Fourth of July as an opportunity to see just how far we’ve strayed. In 1776 they celebrated independence. In 2008, we have very little independence to celebrate. Yes, our country’s government is ‘independent’ from Great Britain, but in today’s world, I’m far from convinced that this detail should bring us a considerable amount of comfort. After all, we’re dependent on everyone else for just about everything else. We’re so darned hooked into the global economy that it’s a joke to blast a bottle rocket in honor of our independence.

For those of us in Portland, many of us giggle at this notion… I mean, if any group of green fleece-wearing, cargo bike-riding locavores has the potential to be independent, it’s those eco-snobs in the Rose City. As I crossed over the Hollywood pedestrian bridge on my way to not-at-all local Trader Joes, the freeways were packed with my fellow stump-thumpers. Perhaps they were heading off to barbecues or family reunions, or firework shows in suburban Washington. Whatever the case, I envisioned that the selfish masses were off to pollute the sky with the patriotic bile created by millions of dollars of Chinese fireworks. Yes, my green-state brothers and sisters were far from independent as they blissfully sucked down smooth Saudi crude in their maybe US-built (but globally sourced), earth-menacing Griswald family trucksters.

Oh, it feels so good to be smug. I grinned ear-to-ear thinking about the joy of not driving an inch or planning to drive an inch over the weekend. Oh, the big tasty smug pie –how sweet it is. But wait, what was that I was preparing to toss on the grill? Oh nothing… just my central California-sourced portobello mushrooms. Oh, I can’t wait to wash them down with that bottle of smooth Mexican tequila. You know, the bottle I picked up using my German-built utility bike? You know, that bike that rolls on Kenda tires crafted with love in the People’s Republic of China?

But hey, I’m a real independent `merikun. I mean, at least I wasn’t going to burn those toxic Chinese fireworks. I would do the far more patriotic thing and toss a Taiwan-pressed DVD into my Japanese-designed plasma TV. You know, the one built in Mexico using parts from all over the world? Damn straight. I’m independent, baby.

After coming back to earth, realizing that Portland can’t insulate me from the truth of today’s independence, I sat down to appreciate the opportunity to consider how far I have to go, and how far this country has to go. But at least Portland has a head start. I only wish the race course wasn’t so damned long and treacherous. With this I sulked back into my lawn chair, chewing on a leaf of lettuce from last week’s CSA share. Thank goodness for opportunity. Thank goodness for independence.

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Portland took a big stride (so to speak) yesterday and closed six miles of city streets to car traffic, enabling bicyclists and pedestrians to stroll freely down the middle of the road with little fear of vehicular homicide or road rage. The event, named Sunday Parkways, lasted from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. –a mere six hours of freedom from automotive dominance on a small portion of the city’s vast street network. It is my hope that Sunday Parkways will help Portlanders understand that the pain created by $4.50/gallon gasoline does not have to be so severe. Yes, we all experience this pain indirectly through food and other transportation hikes, but a large portion of personal trips taken via automobile simply don’t require that we burn petroleum. In fact, 50 percent of all car trips are less than two miles in total distance. I love traffic stats.

Regardless of its scale, Sunday Parkways was six hours of immense joy and immediately brought to mind my experience strolling down the streets of Amsterdam this past March, mixing rather effortlessly with streetcars, bicycles, pedestrians and the occasional automobile. Yes, we Americans have a way to go before we can get some folks to shed all the unnecessary spandex (what is this, the Giro?) and over-engineered bicycles (carbon Rolf wheels on a bike that rarely leaves the garage?), but hey, one Sunday for six hours is far more than I ever imagined we’d ever take away from the petroleum lifestyle that touches us all.

For me, Sunday Parkways was experienced in a far different fashion than I originally planned. I was going to take advantage of the opportunity to show Yuba Mundo utility bikes, extolling the virtues of living with the biking industry’s answer to the Ford Super Duty. Instead, I made an 11th hour decision to simply spend the time with my family as a pedestrian. With family in town from Idaho, I thought it a far better use of my time to show them that Portland is much more than a bicycle town; it’s a town that often thinks well beyond the gas pump, considering all modes of transportation, including the most basic of all: feet. Armed with three out-of-town guests, my wife, two daughters, a stroller and a book of Tri-Met tickets, we hopped from the red line MAX to the yellow line, then hoofed it across I-5 to Peninsula Park. From this point we were able to see just what is possible when the city takes the gloves off and let’s people just exist in their daily environment without the fear of automobiles. It also let us experience what it’s like when you let people have open access to hula-hoops and pumping techno.

I don’t hate automobiles. Heck, I logged 12 miles in a Zipcar later the same afternoon. Sunday Parkways isn’t about the like or dislike of automobiles; it’s far more important than something so visceral. Sunday Parkways represents a community’s attempt at envisioning something more for their home than that which every other city has. Sunday Parkways represents an acknowledgment that communities exist at street-level and at human-speed. Sunday Parkways represents a step towards communities that embrace a life that doesn’t rely so heavily on an unsustainable, environmentally irresponsible way of living –a way of living that we have fostered for far too long.

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