I’d been itching to get out and canopy a neighborhood trip (as my dang knees proceed to rehab from surgical procedures in April and June), so final night time I checked out The Good, The Unhealthy, and The Ugly Journey. It was a transportation nerd’s paradise that began on the month-to-month Urbanist Completely satisfied Hour hosted by Robust Cities PDX at a well-recognized location on the SE Ankeny Rainbow Highway Plaza (the place Bike Completely satisfied Hour meets each Wedesday).
It was an enormous turnout! Possibly 150 folks or so? And judging from all the grins in these images, a number of people had a good time driving metropolis streets and attending to know buddies outdated and new. The trip was organized by a number of teams: the aforementioned Robust Cities, Bike Loud PDX, Dawn Motion, Group Biking Heart, and Depave. Add in the truth that Urbanist Completely satisfied Hour welcomes people from rail advocacy teams like AORTA (Affiliation of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates) and Parking Reform Community — and also you get fairly a various group of metropolis lovers and transportation reform advocates.
“We’ve received public transit nerds social and local weather justice advocates. We now have individuals who care about zoning and housing and bikes and infrastructure all coming collectively. ‘Trigger it’s gonna’ take all of us and {our relationships} to actually change this metropolis. There’s extra of us than there are of them, and we are able to actually go and get issues finished!” mentioned Harper (Andrea) Haverkamp, one of many occasion leaders.
Haverkamp is a shiny star in native organizing circles. She’s not solely the self-described Mayor of Portland, but in addition an energetic volunteer with Robust Cities, the Transportation and Land Use Committee chair for Kerns Neighborhood Affiliation, a member of the PBOT 2045 Transportation System Plan Group Advisory Committee, and holds a PhD in environmental engineering from Oregon State College.
One other younger chief pushing for change is Jacob Apenes with Dawn PDX. “We’re right here, combating for the top of the period of the fossil fuels,” he mentioned to the gang previous to the trip. “We’re combating for fairly huge issues… We wanna construct a metropolis that’s really multimodal, so folks can get round within the mode they select — safely and successfully at any stage of their life.”
Apenes, Haverkamp, and plenty of others at this trip are proponents of tactical urbanism, the place volunteers set up cheap avenue interventions like crosswalks, transit benches and site visitors calming gadgets (Robust Cities and PBOT are at present in negotiations in regards to the group’s many DIY-painted crosswalks all through the town). And it simply so occurs that the concept has political assist in Metropolis Corridor. One if its largest champions in Councilor Mitch Inexperienced, who was additionally in attendance.
“We’ve received this big fiscal hole in our price range and we’re going to be fiscally constrained for a protracted time frame. That sucks,” Inexperienced mentioned in a brief speech within the plaza previous to the trip. “However it’s additionally a possibility to alter the way in which our metropolis thinks… We’ve received this military of volunteers that wishes to do tactical urbanism to make our communities safer and to flourish. So I’m gonna be a champion for that, for you guys. So simply inform me what you want and we’ll allow you to get it finished.”
It was the most recent signal that Inexperienced has embraced Portland’s trove of city planners, environmental justice activists, and transportation reformers. “This fills up my cup,” Inexperienced mentioned about why he selected to spend 4 hours hanging out within the streets after his work day in Metropolis Corridor. “I prefer to be with cyclists. I prefer to be with activists who’re making an attempt to create safer areas for us to exist. I additionally prefer to be with urbanists who’re making an attempt to think about ways in which we are able to all come collectively speed up the speed at which we are able to construct the town we deserve. I really feel all that right here.”
After all of the remarks and community-building and conversations in Rainbow Highway Plaza, it was time to get on our bikes. The trip made a number of stops and we heard quick remarks from audio system at each. The stops included: SE seventh and Sandy the place we discovered about Depave’s Inexperienced Plaza undertaking; SW Ash between third and 4th the place we heard in regards to the SW 4th Avenue undertaking; the Blumenauer Bridge; Sandy Blvd, and maybe others however I turned off when my knee received uncomfortably stiff.
Past the undertaking discuss, I really feel like an important a part of the trip had been all of the conversations alongside the way in which. The big group took the whole westbound aspect of the Burnside Bridge, rolling into downtown on an ideal Portland summer time night. As I pedaled subsequent to Councilor Inexperienced I requested what he thought in regards to the second. “I see nothing however alternative,” he mentioned. “The long run appears to be like fairly shiny.”
