Eleanor Blue
unread,Jan 4, 2010, 9:12:47 PM1/4/10Sign in to reply to author
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to Portland Car Free Day, tcc2008-coreteam, Portland car-free happy hour, Shift admin, transconpdx, Joe Biel / Microcosm Publishing
Hey hey everyone,
So it's about time carfree activism got a new lease on life in this town and check it out -- it's happening. A small yet nimble cell of likeminded transportation revolutionaries have had a few meetings already and started planning a few actions and planting the seeds for new levels of organization. You may have heard about this already, and you may have been already -- I'd like to add an extra push to attend one of the next two meetings, when part of what we'll be doing is hashing out how it's all going to work.
What's being planned so far:
- A big push for people to come testify for passing and funding the new Bike Plan 2030 on February 4th at City Hall. The session starts at 2pm, we'll be planning rides to the event and asking people to gather a bit early for some inspiration and to help each other get their testimony together. There will be a bike ride the weekend before to tour different kinds of bike infrastructure and talk about how to put together compelling testimony out of concrete examples.
- There is some talk about making Ankeny Alley (where we had Carfree Days back in 2006) a permanent plaza -- there's also been some talk about tabling this project or trying to find another area to test a carfree street.
- A task on the horizon in the near future -- starting a Carfree Fridays campaign, sort of like casual Fridays but you know, without the car.
- There also needs to be some conversation about the group's identity and what sort of policy recommendations it might make; equitable spending on non-car infrastructure, for instance? There was some talk at the last meeting about writing an alternate transportation plan for Portland with all our biggest dreams in it (60% bike mode share, subsidized bikes and transit passes, freeways turned into hanging gardens, etc).
This is all of course extremely fun and exciting and a lot of work. It would be great if we could bring some more of the energy and skills that we had going with the carfree activities of the late aughts, and of course Shift's amazing and non-hierarchical way of getting things done. So I urge you to come one, come all!
I also promise not to cross post to every list in existence every five minutes, but since the next meeting will be at a different location (the one tomorrow is at Ben's house and he's moving), I may do it again next week.
"Transportation Conversation" is the name of the game
Meetings are Tuesday nights
The next one is tomorrow night
7pm - 9pm
ON Gallery
321 NW 6th Between Everett and Flanders
The venue will change after this week... once a month, starting the 19th of January at the Lucky Lab SE, the meeting will be a letter-writing, thank-you note concocting, and beer-drinking sessions.
Live free or drive!
Elly