8% of streets cause the majority of fatal crashes but does anyone understand that making those streets safe requires getting people out of cars? #VisionZero needs #VMTreduction, not flashing lights.
What an absurd waste of city resources to grind off a #pdxBikes lane because some NIMBY with the commissioner's phone number didn't like it. #PBOT should be grinding off the yellow centerlines, which nobody was consulted on. #Vision60or70something#PredatoryDelay#DefundDOTs
@glightly Every state DOT at this point is essentially a machine for turning federal grants into paving contracts (with a splash of bike-hostile design to ensure that bikes and walking and transit are never viable.) Political pressure is essential but they need to be more than reined-in, IDK, like 0% of the realm of possible futures for policy/design & funding imagined by the staff + electeds is even real, #GeometryHatesCars#CarsRuinCities#HousingCrisis#ClimateCrisis#DefundDOTs#BanCars &c
With the change in seasons, the type of debris that is in the bike lanes changes as well. @carolski asks:
Q6. This time of year the bike lanes can get messy. What can be done (by you or others) when something-leaves, glass, road cinders- interferes with your ride?
(Photo is from the spring, when the best kind of debris was in the bike lane)
in writing so, if nothing else, there is a discoverable record, which the road agency's victims' lawyers will be able to dredge up, proving that they knew #defundDOTs#VisionZero
"Not all #drivers" were acting like complete assholes today but you really don't notice the good ones because there's always another empty lane for the most anti-social shitheads to get around anybody who might be driving the posted speed or stopping for someone in a crosswalk. Seriously, fuck #trafficEngineers for not seeing that, #defundDOTs and just let every kid decide where they want to put one jersey barrier.
“I ride my bike or take the train 90% of the time downtown,” Gonzalez said. “Are [car] drivers subsidizing me in our current revenue model? I pay for my bike in maintenance but I don’t pay a fee to to bike every day. My TriMet pass has been provided to me at less than I think the cost of my usage is in a year. So that’s the question: am I being subsidized by drivers?”
“Yes you are. Yes,” replied Director Williams." 🙃🚘🤡 💸 💸 💸 #DefundDOTs
Seems pretty obvious that our streets are unsafe because even "safety" projects like bike lanes or crosswalks focus their primary goals and expense squarely on maintaining car speeds and volumes, the two factors that are most hazardous to #trafficSafety. If #trafficEngineers can't reduce lane widths and counts, why even involve them? #banCars#DefundDOTs#visionZero
#PBOT's director taking meetings with Terry Parker and then making this move, seems like she might be on team #DefundDOTs 🙄 Really out of touch with #Portland values and PBOT's adopted plans, etc.
Sometimes I have a hard time following through on my convictions when the time comes.
I made plans last week to take my bike and the bus to work today. Since it’s Saturday, I don’t have to take Phoebe to daycare, so I’ve got plenty of time to get to the bus station. That’s good, because the Saturday service is only once an hour, instead of once every 45 mins.
The hourly service is just one of many small reasons I’m having a hard time going multimodal to work today. 1/?
@spaceraser a folding bike might make that easier, though a Brompton might not help your feeling about the class divide, a folding scooter (electric or just kick) might be a good last-mile option if you have some relatively smooth sidewalks to sneak around the stroads. The e-bike replacing a second car pays for itself at least twice-over every year, and door-to-door takes less time than driving, so it's sad that our transportation infrastructure basically amounts to coercion. #DefundDOTs
@garyshaff How does it make sense, under a #climateEmergency declaration, to prioritize the pavement maintenance of multiple redundant car lanes over the usability of bikes and transit? The existing funding is creating the problem, so it's simply absurd to try to fix it with more funding without changing the carway layout. Our miles-traveled is flat because we haven't added or removed car lanes, to get #VMTreduction we have to cut back on car subsidies. I'm already at #DefundDOTs and #BanCars.
I haven't looked at this yet but I'll bet "stop spending all of the money on making cars kill people" is not an option offered #DefundDOTs#PBOT#CarSupremacy
"I don’t understand the #bancars hashtag [because his profession is not allowed to tell cars no]" #DefundDOTs#PBOT#pdxTraffic planner here
"Banning cars now would be like building cities in space and then banning spacesuits. We need to build places where people can actually live without cars." 🙄 uh, we already built those places and they have too many cars on them, then car apologists came & bulldozed more of it for free parking. Can we ban cars from #SchoolStreets?