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Posts by Adron

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by Adron

Cycling, Transit and Sleuthing News and Updates

A few things going on with the sleuth activity as of late.  First and foremost I’ve setup a schedule I’ll be aiming for with Transit Sleuth TV. The idea will be to publish an episode every 3 weeks on Monday morning at 7:30am. This frequency is starting as of today, Monday the 7th. So the next episode I hope to publish on the 28th, parts are coming together already. For the latest episode, check out “To Orenco, Mobile Ticketing, Powell’s and Introducing Jonathan Scheff!“. Episode 1 is out too, check it out “Transit Meet n’ How to Carry Wine & Gelato“.

In upcoming episodes I’ll be covering PARK(ing) Day from a few weeks back, commentary included. I had a great ride out and met a number of excellent individuals; Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman, Hart Noecker and many others, Cheers & great job on the event!  Interviews with more Portlanders and their ways of getting around; jumping the bus, rolling with the MAX, or how to know a bike boulevard from a bike lane while pedaling along at pace. I’ll also continue the frequent coverage of trip tips & tricks. The aim is to answer the questions like, “how do I get my beer, unbroken, from store to recliner for the big game?” or “how do I carry 40 lbs of groceries home without busting the eggs” and one of my all time favorites, “where are the best” If there is something you’d like to see, leave a comment or ping me directly I’m totally open to new segments, stunts or other bits.

Transit & Biking Round Up

I’ve been reading blogs in the Portland area for a while now, specifically around transit and bicycling. Here’s a collection of the top sites and blogs with some additional sites I’ve researched and collected together. This is similar, and maybe I can light off some similar posts by others in the city that outline other sites they use for their day to day transit, cycling and related lifestyle matters.

If you know of any other blogs, websites or others out there that provide event information, helpful tips or other information please post a comment and I’ll get a page put together that is dedicated on Portland resources for this.

by Adron

Transit Sleuth TV : Episode 2 “To Orenco, Mobile Ticketing, Powell’s and Introducing Jonathan Scheff!”

In this episode I’ve added a new segment around an interview with one of our local Portlanders. This episode I’m talking to Jonathan Scheff in the middle segment of the show.

Adventure Segment

This episode starts off with an adventure that Paul Peterson and I took via the Trimet #4 with a transfer to the Blue Line MAX out to Orenco to check on how that neighborhood has been developing. It’s grown a lot and changed for the better in just the last couple years. These days one can even see the cranes working on the Intel complex. Paul and I also have a chat about what to do or not to do at Orenco. We grab some Sushi at Yuki’s and then head back.

During our trip Paul and I battle with trying to figure out where his tickets went on the Globe Sherpa Mobile Ticketing Application for Trimet. It seems he was able to get it figured out via their support, as he’d hit a bug of some sort. The other things that was interesting was that he had the iOS 7 beta and it was actually working great. However Trimet and Globe Sherpa have offered differing information on iOS 7 working with the application or not. The verdict – it’s confusing whether one is doing the right thing or not with the application.

Interview Segment *new*

After that I interview Jonathan Scheff about his move from New York to Portland, bike commuting and bike adventures. Jonathan is the first of many interviews that I’ll have on Transit Sleuth TV talking about biking missions, transit rides and other adventures! Jonathan kicks this off for us with some tales of moving woe and risky bridge traversals.

Something Useful Segment

This useful segment is a simple life suggestion. I cover a cool place to just chill out, watch a streetcar roll by on the flanged wheel or just watch the fascinating individuals of Portland passing by.

When you’re done watching, subscribe to the blog and or to the Transit Sleuth TV video channel too.

by Adron

Portland, Let’s Take the Streets Back! Do More Have to Get Killed?

It seems, even though I understand a lot about the situation, that ODOT is in favor of maintaining roads as dangerous, anti-pedestrian, anti-cycling and anti-livability paths more reminiscent of 1950’s America than modern day realities. I’ve not been keeping track, because it’s damn depressing, but Bike Portland has been keeping track of one of ODOT’s points of disturbing embarrassment. Disturbing as in, ODOT has been extremely slow to act and thus more people have been killed or injured. Portland’s tax bills keep going up and up trying to manage these killings, wrecks and costs associated with roads ODOT is supposed to be responsible for. ODOT however has no motive or real interest based on their mission statement to work on actually improving these roads, were as the city has a distinctive reason to focus on them – the city’s citizens are being killed, maimed or injured in some serious way. For more information on this insanity…

So what’s the real solution here? Portland (that’s us yo) takes back its streets. That includes 26, 99, SW Barbur and more. We put these streets on a killing diet (street diet or whatever you want to call them). Let’s take Barbur and turn it into a BRT, cycle-track and pedestrian example of how awesome and livable Portland can truly be! Who wants to prospectively work up a proposal for this with me? Because seriously, the SW Corridor is up for a serious redesign and the effort has started, GET INVOLVED!

by Adron

#BBBBBX with Michael Anderson

So what’s #BBBBBX? It was the hash tag for the “Bicycle Brown Bag on Bicycle Blog eXplosion!”

I had mentioned this a multitude of days ago in the Bicycle Brown Bag blog entry notice. Right off I have to start with a kudoes to Michael for being a great presenter. The audience enjoyed the talk very much. So what did Micheal talk about? Here’s some photos and the lowdown on the Bicycle Brown Bag.

Bicycle Brown Bag

The brown bag is a lunch time presentation put on at Portland City Hall, that meets the third Thursday of every month except December. The topics range from media participation, to involvement and social equity issues with cycling in the city. The range is wide, but all focused around bicycling. So far I’ve only seen one presentation, Michael’s that is, but I intend to return to see some of the future presenters. Adonia Lugo is speaking at the next brown bag, an individual that has been heavily and passionately involved in cycling and organizing in Los Angeles among places! She also blogs at http://www.urbanadonia.com. If you’ve not attended before, this would make a great first brown bag, so maybe I’ll see you there!

Bicycling Blog Explosion!

Micheal came in to present on what he’s seen from the journalist perspective of the blog explosion around bicycling. Not just a growth in people actually blogging about bicycling, but an explosive growth in the number of people reading and subscribing to these blogs. Here’s a quick description of what he spoke about, included on the PBOT site, “Portland didn’t just show the country that bike-friendliness was possible in a big U.S. city — it showed the country that bike-friendly media are essential to biking’s growth. Following up on the Green Lane Project’s Sept. 16-18 summit in Portland, Michael Andersen of GreenLaneProject.org and BikePortland.org shared the latest practices from Seattle, San Diego, Saint Louis and other cities where independent journalists are following BikePortland’s lead (and discovering new tricks of their own).  Several local bloggers attended the session, enlivening the conversation in the second half of the hour.”

For a live recording of the presentation check out “Bicycle Blogging Explosion” and for the slide deck in PDF download here or view it below via the Slideshare embed.

by Adron

A West Side Re-Exploration of Orenco Station & Neighborhood

Paul Peterson @emptefilms & I @transitsleuth went out to Hillsboro to check out how Orenco Neighborhood (town?) has developed. You can read more about Orenco Station via the Wikipedia Page. As described on the wiki page, “is a neighborhood of the city of Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The planned urban town center was designed as a pedestrian-friendly, high-density community built in conjunction with TriMet’s Westside light rail. It was built on land formerly owned by the Oregon Nursery Company, land home around the turn of the 20th century to Orenco, a company town. During the Great Depression, the company went out of business, and much of the nursery land became vacant until re-development began in 1997. Orenco Station is near the intersection of NW 231st/NW 229th Avenues and Cornell Road, centered on the Orenco Station MAX stop.”

There’s also a basic web presence at http://www.orencostation.net/ that provides some current commercial information about the neighborhood.

The stop that anchors the entire neighborhood is simply named the Orenco / Northwest 231st Avenue Stop. The station has a park-and-ride lot with 180 free parking spaces (for 24 hours at a time) and bus connection to line 47-Baseline/Evergreen. The station also includes bike lockers and bike racks. A block north is the site of the Hillsboro Farmer’s Market’s seasonal Sunday marketplace and the core of the Orenco Neighborhood.

Keep reading and subscribe to the blog (RSS) or the video channel, an upcoming episode of Transit Sleuth TV will have more about Orenco and the development there.