Why Urban Washington County Will Never Build a Portland-Style Street Grid, and Why That’s a Good Thing When I sat down recently with three City of Hillsboro planners—Don Odermott, Transportation Planning Engineer & Manager; Brad Choi, Transportation Planner; & Ally Holmqvist, Senior Long Range Planner—I was expecting just to discuss adding painted-on bike lanes […]Read Post ›
Not by searching online. I could only find photos of ripe berries, delicious-looking, fat berries. Berries in their prime. Profile-photo quality berries. Blackberry porn. Berries showing their obviously good side, their night-before-the-morning-after side. Berries that make a person think, “Why didn’t I…” I didn’t all summer, at least, not till now, in the last days […]Read Post ›
— this post is dedicated to my cousin’s daughter, with appreciation & hope “The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are not always equally predominant; the four seasons make way for each other in turn. There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning and waxing.” —The Art of War […]Read Post ›
Perspectives on equity, produce prices, and the freight industry, shaped by writing a letter of public testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission about value pricing our freeways. As I did research and put this article of testimony together, surprising—shocking, really—realities came to light. Isn’t it ironic? The refrigerated trucks carrying our produce also drive the destruction of […]Read Post ›
This post is a curation of bike lane related topics, news and commentary, quoted from articles around the web. After this intro, I suggest first reading the content all the way through, without clicking any links, then going back to take a look at articles that grab you. The inspiration for this post was a new […]Read Post ›
I My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Jarl, used to hypothesize the involvement of “god, or whoever you believe in,” as he taught the mysterious phenomena of attraction and architecture of chemical bonds. I loved his phrase and all it evoked. And I love, with abandon, those unexplained events—maybe chemical, maybe magnetic, maybe metaphysical—that have […]Read Post ›
Anna’s hummingbird, that I’ve ceased to feed sugar. Red-breasted sapsucker, leading me sidewalk-tree to sidewalk-tree in a May distraction display, like killdeer do. The nest isn’t in these stunted curb trees; more likely the old trunk of a wetland tree behind us. Crows swallow at something in the road, buoyant and ready to abort mission. […]Read Post ›
In my last post I pondered ideological implications of a Beaverton ban on overnight car camping. Since the council vote on that ordinance is TBD after the public hearing, there’s time to explore further, look deeper. My “field report,” a series of street scene photos, starts about halfway down, but as I was arranging the photos, a […]Read Post ›
Beaverton, OR: This May Day, my city resolved to affirm that Black & Brown Lives Matter in our community. Poets often sit with a word or phrase for hours, considering its aptness; with this resolution, city staff, leaders, police, the Human Rights Advisory Commission (HRAC) & community members acted in part as poets looking at […]Read Post ›
Like love & cherry blossoms in spring, talk of getting rich is in the air these days! Yet it’s not spring in America. It’s still the dead of winter. [Note: this post was mostly written December 30, 2017 & is being published in the first gleam of March. Not much has changed. Trees are starting […]Read Post ›
Naomi Fast 