The folks in Topeka are probably smiling aboard their Topeka Townies shared bikes, which handily won the race (by months!) for “first public smart bike scheme in North America.”

Land use issues have a profound resonance in our political system structured as it was to settle the frontier and placate the slaveholders. Obama will clearly carry the cities, as did Kerry, as did Gore. The gas price issue will break along the urban-suburban-rural watersheds. Getting lots of people to turn out at a great rally is really inspiring, but there are still a lot of electoral votes out in the hinterland. I know Mr. Obama took Iowa in the primary but I am worried about how this will all turn out.

Portland is one of our great cities, many cities are doing great things, too bad they are politically castrated.

wow. i’m not sure a statement could be further from the truth. in the next 2 years in particular, the federal government will increasingly (which is not to say they don’t massively do so currently) influence the ways in which states and local municipalities invest in transportation planning and infrastructure. just two small tips of the iceberg? how about the reauthorization of the current federal transportation funding bill (SAFETEA-LU), which dictates how much money the federal government allocates to states for investment in planning and transportation infrastructure (of all types – transit, bike/ped, highway, port, etc). this bill (and highway bills before it), more than any other piece of legislature, nudges states and local municipalities towards investing in a particular type of preferred mode; imagine if the feds told states they’d provide a 90/10 match for highway construction (which they’ve done in the past!) – that might incentivize highway-building, right? currently, SAFETEA-LU provides for just over 20% of ALL funding for transit, and i think that number is higher for bike/ped planning and infrastructure. imagine if we could get that 90/10 match for transit and bike/ped improvements!

a second federal initiative may be of even greater importance (if it happens…). i’m very pleased that oregon’s own congressman blumenauer is aggressively forcing the issue of a new national infrastructure plan in keeping with our nation’s history of developing such a plan every 100 years (the first two came in 1808 and 1908, respectively). while there’s still uncertainty surrounding the project, speaker pelosi has recently been supportive of the project, and quite frankly, you’d have to be a fool to argue that this country doesn’t need a massive overhaul of both its physical infrastructure and investment priorities.

i could go on and on about ways in which the feds DO strongly influence states and local municipalities to adopt particular transportation strategies, but i think these two initiatives pretty much speak for themselves. more to the point, we’ve essentially come down to the two key players in this presidential election. which do you see pushing the envelope and holding congress accountable for incorporating transit, bicycles, and pedestrians into new federal legislation, the guy who came to portland and glorified the city’s bike lanes and public transportation as examples from which the rest of the country could learn, or the guy whose transportation platform consists of suspending the federal gas tax?

Actually Portland has something called Fareless Square in the downtown area/Central Biz District. It’s free to ride The Max Street car within the box.

Although I know there has been endless debate about ending it…

Also, a good background article on the bicycle issues in this campaign can be seen here: http://bikeportland.org/2008/05/16/sam-sho-and-the-race-for-mayor/

Here’s the final from the County Elections Office (http://www.mcelections.org/2008-05/results.shtml):

Mayor CITY OF PORTLAND
Vote For 1
Lew Humble . . . . . . . . . . 516 .29
Kyle Burris. . . . . . . . . . 397 .22
David (The Ack) Ackerman . . . . . 1,490 .84

Sam Adams . . . . . . . . . . 104,175 58.62

Patricia Stuart . . . . . . . . 4,596 2.59

Bob Leonard Forthan . . . . . . . 179 .10

Steven Entwisle . . . . . . . . 297 .17

Sho Dozono . . . . . . . . . . 59,375 33.41

Christopher Rich . . . . . . . . 889 .50

Craig Gier . . . . . . . . . . 297 .17

Beryl Sylvia McNair . . . . . . . 542 .30

Jeff Taylor. . . . . . . . . . 2,903 1.63

James Bernard Lee. . . . . . . . 1,476 .83

WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 591 .33

Even more to the point, the federal government doesn’t have much of an implementing role when it comes to transportation.

Go Sam!! Can’t wait to talk with you at Sunday Parkways in June!