Incursio

This morning I was walking by Starbucks in Portland on MLK next to the Burgerville and the Convention Center. I decided I would like a Tazo and a pastry, so I stopped. The parking lot was completely empty, but the line in the "drive" through had at least 5 cars in it. As I walked through the empty parking lot to the door, I looked at the shiny new white Chevy Tahoe SUV - the last in line. I went inside, decided I wanted one of their breakfast sandwiches instead of a pastry. They had to prepare it in their toaster thingy so it took a couple minutes. I paid, waited for the sandwich. They called my name, I took my sandwich and tea, and walked out the front door. The lady in the white Tahoe was not even up to the ordering microphone yet. If $4.50 gas won't encourage a person in a 14mpg vehicle to turn off the engine and walk inside - then there is not much we can do to get people to change their habits. I see this all the time walking downtown. A person will gu...

What motivation would you need to spend 4 billion dollars on one single highway project, 4 billion dollars on one single 5 mile stretch of highway. 4 billion dollars on one single project that would be considered the single most expensive public works project ever in the history of the Pacific Northwest? Would one of the nation's worst traffic bottlenecks qualify? I mean if you were going to spend twice the city of Portland's annual budget one one single project - would a nationally known and recognized traffic bottleneck be a good place to do so? If you wanted to spend four times the State of Oregon's education budget on a single 5 mile stretch of highway - would you want to cure something that was pretty bad - I mean really bad? If you were going to ignore peak oil, or climate change, or air pollution, or gas price trends, or vehicle miles traveled trends, or economic advice - and build one single massive project that is likely to suck up regional transportation fu...

You could think these are from Portland, what with all our bike culture and whatnot... Cincinatti, Ohio. Atlanta, Georgia.