City of Roses

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins

City of Roses

Some trips start in a straight forward "get the hell out of Dodge" rush to the freeway. Others with a drive to a friend's house. Rarely have I started out with a trip within a trip! This would be first a visit with my Fearless Wife to Anacortes and then later in the same day the first leg of the journey to Portland Oregon but without her. I grew up in the Portland Metro area. It's home in a way that's hard to fathom as I've lived in Friday Harbor longer than all other places combined. Yes, the islands are home too but there is a visceral connection to Oregon that I just can't explain. At one time, during one of Oregon's upswings in xenophobia (it never goes away, just varies in intensity) you could buy bumper stickers proclaiming membership in the Society of Native Oregon Born: S.N.O.B. The acronym was intentional and pridefully displayed. It's that kind of state. True Oregonians will understand.

I still have many friends and family in the Portland area and so on my trips through that city, I always stop and visit them and wander through old haunts to see what's changed. But first I left Friday Harbor with my Fearless Wife and rode 'all the way' to Anacortes to see the annual ode the internal combustion engine known as the Oyster Run. It started out as a fundraiser and ride for local motorcyclists and it grew…and grew…

My wife wasn't going on the longer road trip with me but she wanted to see the street scene at the Run and to wander around with me for this one last day before I escaped for my solo ride. We walked the vendor's row. We had our ears assaulted by the "Loud pipes save lives" crowd. [Note to that group: your decibels don't save lives, they just piss people off. There is absolutely no evidence that cars notice you any better than a bike with quiet pipes.]

Finally, it was time to return my wife to the ferry landing and for me to start heading south in search of summer. It had been cool and especially foggy and I found out that the boat was late coming in and slower going home and by the time I arrived in Portland she had just arrived Friday Harbor a short time before my call! Of course she didn't have to go through Seattle on I-5. She was able to sleep in the terminal and read on the ferry. Life on the islands!

I on the other hand, like everyone who lives in western Washington, usually try to time my forays into Seattle to not coincide with Rush Hour…rush 2-hour…rush 4-hour! Will it ever end? A Sunday afternoon and it was stop and go as usual north of the U district. Most of the rest of the drive was nose to tail in a thick stream of traffic. We were moving fast, and it required concentration. This was not comfort driving. Finally traffic thinned just above Vancouver and surprisingly didn't pick up much as I cruised into Portland around 7 that night. What a start to a 'relaxing' vacation.

While I was staying a couple of days with friends, Mt. St. Helens started to rumble so I decided to visit Portland State University and see what I could find out at the Geology Dept. I had graduated (much to my parents surprise I might add!) in the late Jurassic with a B.S. in Geology and still knew a few of the staff.

I looked forward to the traffic at 9 AM on the freeway with a Washingtonians dread but surprisingly, it was moving on I-5. Slowly, but still moving. I arrived at the downtown campus, parked, and noted the new trolley discharging loads of students in front of the bookstore. For lunch, I took a free bus down to China Town for a dim sum lunch. There I noted the new train station tied into the bus system, the trolley, and Portland's light rail system. This light rail is called MAX and it runs 33 miles east and west and connects the suburbs and the city. It also runs north and south to the airport and has recently added feeder lines, which are sparking neighborhood booms and renovation of old business districts. Meanwhile, Seattle's monorail is broke down and the proposed addition to it is mired in a political hell.

I know Seattle has geographic challenges, but so does Portland. Portland has the West Hills and the Willamette River. To overcome these obstacles the city built tunnels under the former and 12 bridges over the later. And don't think its because the citizens of Oregon are any less concerned about their environment than the citizens of Washington. This is a state with a bottle bill, a curbside recycling plan that gets you a fine if you don't recycle, and the Eugene Anarchists! But they are also practical folks and realize that more gas is wasted in traffic jams than cars moving smoothly on a road or trains gliding down their tracks so they build what's needed to keep things moving.

They sacrificed 2 lanes on Interstate Avenue to put in the MAX line because that was the only way to do it AND preserve the original storefronts and businesses. This used to be where the interurban trolley lines ran. Back the future it would seem. Pedestrian crossings are modeled after Europe's. After all, why re-invent the idea? The core area Fareless Square for busses applies to all the trolley and the light rail too. This encourages walking downtown. As I noted, there seems to be a streak of practicality that runs through Portland that Seattle could use.

1.4 million dollars were spent on public art and stations were designed to blend with the historical architecture of the neighborhoods that the tracks passed through. The results are outstanding and tasteful. The trains come and go silently in spaces that seem to have been around since the city was built. Of course, not all is perfect. Oregon has its problems too. Budget limits and lack of funding affect what can be done but somehow, Oregonians seem to be possessed of a spirit of both optimism and compromise that keeps them moving along. Meanwhile, after 100's of millions of dollars spent and still not one shovel of dirt yet turned, Seattle is preparing to vote on whether to terminate the planned monorail expansion! The Anarchists may live in Eugene but their spirit seems to thrive in Washington.

- The Old Squid

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