Living Car Free - Portland's cycling economy

The New York Times featured a 4-minute video on their web site today called the Business of Biking: Portland's Cycling Economy. Mostly it pointed out that Portlanders used their bikes for transportation... a lot! As a result, there's a growing cycling industry...

Unfortunately, I can't figure out the exact URL, but if you head to http://nytimes.com/ and scroll to the Video section, you should see it today.

Tomorrow, you should find it by clicking on the Video link.

Here's the link:
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=278032d5df02f06be646116987472a48d5d707e0

Here's the link:
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=278032d5df02f06be646116987472a48d5d707e0

I am in love!!! I am ready to pack my bikes and move to Portland.



Gas, the price of a can of beans.

I hear portland isn't very diverse and the job market sucks. any portlanders want to dispute these claims. I'm toying with the idea of moving there myself, but I think the job market in San Diego is a whole lot better than Portland.

Well if I ever think of leaving Florida. You folks who live there. Any suggestions how the rest of the country can follow the lead? Lets face some facts. The are many ways to reduce or eliminate oil consumption for basic transport. Obviously bikes would would be my choice but what about the plastics industry. This is a basic of our lively hood and it only comes from oil.

If you don't like riding in the rain, don't move up here. I was moved up this way for work and I am counting the days until I head back to AZ, the city and the state are great. Winter riding really sucks.

The are many ways to reduce or eliminate oil consumption for basic transport. Obviously bikes would would be my choice but what about the plastics industry. This is a basic of our lively hood and it only comes from oil.

Plastics are a basic of our economy but they are unsustainable and a growing ecological crisis; for the full dimensions of this problem do a search for 'North Pacific Gyre' on Google or Wikipedia. Fortunately, most to all of our existing plastics use can be replaced with biodegradable plastics based on e.g. PLA, which in turn can be derived from plants and algae. Some plastics, such as polystyrene, should be IMHO banned outright, while others like ABS are not as environmentally awful because they are less toxic and easily recycled. Plastics came from cellulose before they came from oil; one might worry about fuel and even fertilizer in a post-oil future, but assuming those challenges can be met plastic will be easy.