Bi-Cycle Curious
While Portland roads are in disrepair, and there is no money to fix them, we have Portland Commissioner Sam Adams proposing “$24 million to nearly quadruple the city’s network of bike boulevards,” according to The Sunday Oregonian. No wonder motorists are so angry.
Keep Portland Congested
In order to reduce current congestion and what is forecast to be constant gridlock, progress is being made on replacing the ailing I-5 bridge between Oregon and Washington. A smooth flowing I-5 is vital not just to the Metro area, but the entire West Coast, as evidenced by the ever present trucks. So what is in the works to alleviate the bottleneck? Proving once again that environmentalism is a religion, and a fundamentalist one at that, Portland pols and Metro councilors are proposing replacing the 6 lane bridge with . . . a 6 lane bridge! But what about the congestion? Nothing a Max line and bike and passenger lanes can’t solve! This brought to mind a quote I read in the NYT last Sunday. The French then deputy mayor for the environment, Yves Contassot, said the following about those with the audacity to still drive an automobile: “It is only by making them live in hell that we’ll get drivers to renounce their cars.” The planners in government and their politician bosses are in thrall to a philosophy that will force us to live in apartments, walk or bike to not just work but everywhere we want to go, and become effeminate, latte sipping, NPR listening, vegan members of the “creative class”. (Just kidding about that last one.) (I hope.) My question for the leftists running Portland and Metro: If we make driving cars impossible, where will we put our “Keep Portland Weird” bumper stickers?
