Category / Transit Beer & Meetups

by Adron

Transit on Tap, It’s Kind of Like Transit Beer, But Different

Ages ago I kicked off a series of meetups called Transit Beer. Those were fun, but it wasn’t anything official, with no real plan other then to get together with people who were passionate about solutions for transit. It often just ended up being a bunch of people sitting around having a good time with a slightly to much focus on bitching about things we can’t actually influence or change. There however is a new event in town, with meetups, and it has been dubbed Transit on Tap. The first meeting is described as,

“As the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project Bridge takes shape over the Willamette River, Portland-area residents are starting to consider how the multimodal investments from this light rail line will create new travel options between Southeast Portland, the South Waterfront and Downtown Portland.

Join TriMet staff Dave Unsworth and DeeAnn Sandberg for a detailed discussion on how this project and the new bridge might transform how we get around in these inner Southeast and Southwest neighborhoods.”

The meetup is schedule for December 3rd, a Tuesday from 5-7pm at Green Dragon. Considering that I intend to live very close to the PMLR I will be using it and the rerouted buses over the new bridge on a regular basis. In addition to that I imagine I will be biking over that bridge even more. Considering this fact I’m definitely interested in what the discussion will be about. It sounds like it should be a good meetup, I’m putting it on the schedule, are you?

Some of the future meetups are already scheduled, two for January. One on transit and climate change, the second out in Tigard discussing BRT. It sounds like a good series, I hope to meet many of you there.

by Adron

Streetcar Mobile Music Fest #SMMF 2013

The Streetcar Mobile Music Fest 2013 is happening this Saturday (that’s tomorrow). The last one was great, careening around the CL Line and the one before that (or was that just bands on streetcars?) was great too! Either way it’s going to be a great time, so come ride a CL Line Streetcar and enjoy the scenery and music! I’ll be there video recording and photographing the event for fun (thus, say hello) and the intent afterwards is to get a crew together afterwards for dinner and drinks. Of course, somewhere on the streetcar line!  😉

For a quick idea, here’s a video montage from last year.

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

Bicycle Brown Bag

There’s a brown bag meet this Thursday. I’m planning to head down for some sleuthing and would be happy to bike, transit or otherwise travel there with others. If you’re going let me know and we can meetup en route, at the meet or just say hello.

I’m super curious about the topic (obviously besides just the bicycle topic) and it sounds like it should be a good time.

Details:

Portland Bureau of Transportation  Bicycle Brown Bag Series
Third Thursday of Every Month (except December) , Noon to 1pm
City Hall,  1221 SW 4th Ave,  2nd Floor -Lovejoy Room
(bring your lunch!)
Click here for archive of past Bicycle Brown Bag sessions.

by Adron

Streetcar is Out, Meet Logistical Changes…!

So I was just informed by Lane @PDXTransitlane that the CL Line is being served by a bus bridge while they add the switch to the OMSI stop location. So here’s the last minute switcheroo… we’re going to meet at McMenamins Market Street Pub. It’s on the streetcar line (NS and CL line technically). It’s located at 1526 SW 10th. Everything else is the same as mentioned previously.