‘One of America's most bicycle-friendly major cities, Portland
provides a glimpse into a future in which city dwellers may be more dependent
on pedal-power ... and less on horsepower’
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| The impressive bikes-only bridge in Portland. |
In 1994, two activists tried out a quixotic exercise in
democratizing non-motorized transportation. They painted 10 junkyard
bikes that they’d reconditioned mustard yellow and scattered them around
downtown Portland, Oregon. Anyone could ride one. “Please return to a major
street for others to reuse,” read instructions dangling behind each bike seat.
“Ownership is not the be-all and end-all,” Joe Keating, one
of the founders, asserted to a radio interviewer around that time, “and hopefully
the Yellow Bikes are a symbol of that.”
Across the continent, in Boston, I read about Portland’s
Yellow Bikes back then. They captured my imagination. I pictured brightly
colored clunkers perched on street curbs, leaning on storefronts, and scattered
about ball fields, ready everywhere and anytime a Portlander wanted a healthy,
pollution-free lift. I hoped that yellow bikes would someday be available to
Bostonians.
Read the Portland’s Yellow Bikesstory - “Portland Cycling, 'Copenhagen on the Willamette'.”
