Portland's bicycle master plan is emerging

It's obvious that some liberal-arts majors are in on the writing of Portland's Platinum Bicycle Master Plan. (Yes, "Platinum" is actually in the official title.) The first couple of pages of the introduction of the "Draft Existing Conditions Report" ("we'll be adding chapters a bit at a time") are up on the city Web site and they sport a literary flair: Will the future of bicycling in Portland leap upon the gains already made and upon the native expertise and burgeoning social and health trends here and begin to ascend toward the status of world-class bicycling city, American-style? Biker-bloggers around town are psyched and you can't blame 'em – the city has been collecting ridership data since 1996, breaking numbers down by gender, bridges used, and other categories. The aim is to move the city beyond the "gold standard" as a bike-friendly place, and people are bought into this big-time. Earlier this year Portland Mayor Tom Potter stepped in an urban cow pie by failing to fund the master plan. Cue the public protests; report gets funded. Public sessions on matters bike-ish bear more resemblance to revival tents (or, at least, job fairs) than stuffy meeting rooms. As the first installment of the report rightly notes, "Portland is at the apex of American cities for bicycle transportation," so this will be followed by many people. Along with the informative goods from Bike Portland and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance one of the more active sites for blogger-musing will likely be Willamette Week, which quickly noted the Dickensonian voice of the online plan intro and awaits weigh-ins from its never-short-of-opinions readership.