I spent my lunch hour today with my sister and Mary Stewart, an architect at Alta Planning + Design. Alta is the firm responsible for the bike-share systems in Washington, New York, Minneapolis, a bunch of other US cities, and soon, Portland (yay!).
Through
a comment conversation on
BikePortland, I was invited to view Alta's array of amazing bike-parking racks, one of which can accommodate my big Dutch bike.
We were so busy gabbing that I didn't even think to take more than one picture in case some were blurry... but anyway, that's my big Dutch bike up on a wall rack where you hook the front wheel, give a slight lift, and the magic of pneumatic pulleys or steam punk or something does the rest and just floats your bike up to the wall. Really sweet.
I mean, I'm just this guy, you know? Nobody with influence or anything. Not specifying bike racks for a project--not even looking for a residential one. But Mary invited me and a guest to come on down, so I met my sis there and we got the grand personalized tour of their stellar bike garage. Then we all went to lunch at the food cart pod on Southeast MLK. We talked transportation policy, pedestrian subway design, biking with kids, how bicycles can benefit Oregon's rural communities, and what color the Portland bike share bikes will be (depends on the corporate sponsor--so probably blue and orange). It was so energizing!
The massive low pressure front that has been giving me headaches and causing Special Weather Alerts for Heavy Rain all week held off for the whole lunch hour, so I got across the river and back without getting drenched. Now, however? Just when it's time to go home?
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, where there are
comments.