Yellow Tent Adventures

I just received an invitation to a meet-up with the makers of Pandora (the Music Genome Project)  held at Seattle’s downtown public library, and it was all well and good until I got to this:

Parking: Pandora will provide complimentary parking for attendees at the Seattle Public Library parking garage on Spring Street between 4th and 5th Ave. The entrance is mid-block on the south side of Spring St.   Please bring the ticket from the machine to the meeting and you will be given a coupon that you can present to the parking lot attendant after the event.

Really? Pandora is going to pay people for driving to downtown Seattle? That just strikes me as an old, tired way of thinking which I didn’t expect from such an exciting new company and our über modern library.

So this was my response to their invitation:

Hi Tim,
It would be wonderfully  progressive if Pandora gave an incentive for arriving by public transportation, foot or bicycle instead of rewarding people for driving a vehicle to a downtown urban center. You want to change the way we listen to music. I want to change the way we live in our communities.

Does the Seattle Public Library and Pandora really want people to drive to the event? They offered drivers a carrot…

Here is just one example of why Europe will always have a larger percentage of their populace on bikes than here in the U.S.

Here is an ad from Hungary:

Ride your bike and get exercise, fresh air, and a child-like feeling of euphoria.

Let’s contrast that with a PSA from LA:

Ride your bike if you dare. One mistake … and you’re bug splatter.

Freedom vs. Fear.

Wide load

It is amazing what you can strap on to the back rack of a bicycle.

Passengers exit light rail at the airport station

Life on Beacon Hill just got a little bit better yesterday. We can now ride light rail to the airport. Kat and I boarded the train around noon and ran into neighbor Andy Sodt and his son Lee. Twenty-two minutes from the Beacon Hill Station to the airport station. From there it is a 4-5 minute stroll to the terminals. The walkway that is separated from the parking garage leads you to the far north end of the terminals.

Andy and Lee check out the new ride

Kat strolls over highway 99 on the ped bridge

I’m sure there will be those who will complain about the walk. But it doesn’t appear to be that much longer than the walk from the bus station at the extreme south end of the terminals.

The pedestrian bridge from the station over Highway 99 to the kiss-and-ride parking lot is worth checking out for the fun piece of public art.

The ride back from the airport all the way to Westlake Station took 38 minutes.

The long wait is over … and now a new countdown begins. We look forward to riding light rail to Capitol Hill and the U-District in 2016.

Portland's Train Station

Seattle's Train Station

Two cities. Two train stations. Two completely different vibes and messages.

Portland’s AMTRAK station:
Walk outside the doors and you see the Greyhound station 500 feet away. A light rail train glides by. Bike paths with signage pointing you toward downtown are clear and highly visible. Wide sidewalks too.
The message is clear without a word being spoken. The physical surroundings announce, “Welcome to our city. Come explore. We assume you don’t have your own car. In fact, thanks for not driving.”

Seattle’s AMTRAK station:
Walk outside the doors and … you are greeted by an ENORMOUS parking lot for Qwest field. A few taxi’s are waiting at the curb. Yes. Seattle has bike lanes and local bus service, even light rail. But where are they? I guess you have to be a local to know that the Greyhound station is across town. No easy bus connection and a very long walk with baggage. The bus tunnel and light rail are a couple of blocks away … but that appears to be privaleged information as well.

The physical environment screams, “You’re on your own. Take a cab and remember to drive your own car next time.”

First impressions? As a cyclist or pedestrian, Portland embraces you … while Seattle tolerates you.

Portland cyclists come in every size, shape, style and color. OK, maybe not so many colors unless you include colorful jerseys worn by racers. It’s a cyclist’s playground with fun for everyone.

Want a family ride away from traffic? Just head to the Eastbank Esplanade trail and Waterfront Park on the west side of the Willamette River. You can even loop around to connect with the Springwater Trail as we were encouraged to do by a mom, dad and two kids snacking at the Hawthorne food cart lot one afternoon.

Want to put on some miles and get some saddle time? Jump on the Marine Trail and head toward Blue Lake along the Columbia River where we met a cross-country cyclist just back from riding the Adventure Cyclist Southern Tier route.

Just want to get to work and avoid the parking cost and hassles? Bike Boulevards lead to bridges crossing the river from residential to downtown with dedicated bike lanes making the commute so safe and easy you could do it in your skirt or dress pants.

Need a sprint workout to cross train? We met runner Ruben at the top of the in-city volcano Mt Tabor looking fresh while I’m a little winded.

Want to meet friends for breakfast? Well, there’s any number of great cafes and all come with plentiful bike parking out front and no Lycra is required.

Need a respite from the city? Look no further than a pedal around Sauvie Island where we even found a place to camp for the night. It’s sill within city limits but this island of peaceful farmland and wildlife refuge will feel like you are far from home.

We sampled these rides and more in the last week. No doubt there is something for racers and mountain bikers and tandem riders and … you get the picture.

Portlanders don’t just ride bikes for sport or exercise, like cyclists everywhere, they ride bikes for life, happiness, thrift, the environment, transportation, family-time and a multitude of other reasons. Bike riders come in all different flavors and the Portland bike infrastructure attempts to address the varied needs and interests. All cyclists benefit from increased awareness and visibility created by the greater number of bikes and greater number of bike advocates. In Portland, we tasted the sweet life as part of a bike-culture and not just bikes on the fringe of car-culture, and it tasted good!

Alright. A week-long bicycle journey in the city limits of Portland with no hotel reservations. How did we do it?

Sunday:
Crashed on the floor of a delightful couple we met on the river trail.

Monday:
Camped on Sauvie Island. Camping costs $17, but it’s $12 if you arrive by bike.

Tuesday:
Camped in the backyard of our old Beacon Hill neighbor Albert. We ran into him at the Cup and Saucer Cafe.

Wednesday:
Slept on a futon at Ruben’s house. We met Ruben up on Mt. Tabor Park. Wednesdays are car-free.

Thursday:
Camped on the property of Eric and Mary. They live high up off of McNamee Rd on land they purchased and re-forested. Planting more than 2,000 trees!

Friday:
Camped in the garden of our friends Bruce and Andrea. We met them on the border of Thailand and Burma on our SE Asia bike trip.

Total lodging cost: $12
New found friends and a connection with Portland we never could have achieved on a package tour with hotels: Priceless!

While riding down on the train for our bike trip within the city limits of Portland, Kat and I read Clive Thompson’s article Are Your Friends Making You Fat? in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. The article goes into great detail about how our social networks influence us. Obesity, smoking, happiness and loneliness spread through our social networks. If you hang out with people who overeat … you will tend to overeat as well. Hang out with a bunch of happy campers, and you’ll most likely be one yourself.

Well, after a week in Portland, I can say it works for cycling as well. The popularity of cycling is riding a bigger and bigger social network wave. If you work in Portland, you are bound to have several workmates who bike to work. Many of your classmates cycle if you are in school. If you live in Portland your boss, teacher, lover, dog-walker, waiter, plumber or tax accountant is more likely to get around by bicycle than in most cities in America. So you are more likely to bike as well.

Portlanders commuting across the Hawthorne Bridge

To stand on the Hawthorne bridge during rush hour and watch thousands and thousands of cyclists crossing the river on their way into downtown, is to witness an amazing social phenomenon.

I talked with a cook at fabulous rib joint where we ate lunch.

Lycra not required ... or even encouraged

“All my friends bike. If you drive your car to a bar to meet your friends, they’ll all kid you about it. Why did you drive?”

But this social success comes only after years and years of advocacy and public policy and progressive politicians willing to make sometimes unpopular decisions. To ride a bike is  cool, trendy, hip and environmentally conscious. For some, it is all of those things–for others, it is just transportation. But most of all, to ride a bike is to be a Portlander.

Do you have friends who live in Portland? If so, they probably ride bikes. And according to Clive Thompson’s article … they make you more likely to ride one as well.

Painted circle

Citizens of  Portland  on occasion have taken it into their own hands to calm traffic in their neighborhoods. We  rode our bikes over a hand-painted traffic circle at a wide and inviting intersection otherwise unmarked. Further along Alberta is a playful house with whimsical shapes painted on the street. I have no idea if this is legal, but it certainly made us take notice … take the time to stop and look. And isn’t that what we want at  intersections? Hurray for those artist’s statements.

eye-catching, car-slowing art

A little paint goes a long way

We’ve logged mile after mile on Portland’s designated bicycle boulevards. They are marvelous routes crisscrossing the city on quiet, residential streets extending for for blocks or miles to get us to most neighborhoods. Along many boulevard intersections are 4-way stops (and I hear of movement to make a “rolling stop” legal) or small traffic circles to keep vehicle traffic from using these streets as cut-throughs.  Today we were heading east on Tillamook and I realized only stripes of paint served to slow traffic and give direction for where bikes would cross a challenging intersection. So simple. So safe and effective.

Similarly simple and effective are bike lanes in high-traffic areas that are painted bright green with “bike boxes” where bikes would gathering ahead of cars to cross when a light turns green. This gives drivers and cyclists clear direction on where each should go. The cost to society? The price of paint and a traffic engineers time to identify the elegantly simple solution.