35 comments on Intersection Repair: Building Community Over Automobile Throughput
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Anarchism these days is getting very strange facets indeed.
Luckily, tarmac painting is forbidden in Europe, if you get caught painting “Voigt”, “Moreau” or “Garzelli” on the road you get a fine.
The paint cover on tarmac is worse than ice for a bicycle. Any rider knows that zebra pedestrian crossings are a trap, especially on humid weather. Now, having a crossroads painted is the ultimate bicycle trap, curving on that paint with humid weather is a guaranteed fall.
Having the kids around, building community bonds and everything is very interesting, but please get a bit of reasoning…
Portland is also one of the most Bike friendly cities in the US with about 3% commuting by bike. This painting does not interfere with bikes. The thermoplastic that they make crosswalks out of does have slick surfaces.
This painting does not interfere with bikes. The thermoplastic [..]
What happens when this plastic surface is wet?
Re" what happens when the plastic surface gets wet".
In 1972 I experienced this on my moped in Copenhagen. The moped slipped on a painted stripe and I went down in front of a bus. Luckily the bus managed to stop.
In Modern Copenhagen, Bikes and cars are seperated. You can study the standard construction modes in Copenhagen from the "vejdirektoratet" in this link- http://www.vejregler.dk/pls/vrdad/vr_layout.vis?p_gren_id=2707
Danish- but well illustrated with many Pictures.
kind regards/And1
Thanks And1 - unfortunately my Danish isn't good enough to understand all items on that picture. As a cyclist I really shun all wet plastic surfaces. They are like wet leaves in the autumn - can give you are terrible slip, especially in turns.
Well said.
This is exactly the kind of thing that makes a joke out of a serious subject. The vast majority of people will see this, and anything that associates itself with this, as a fringe, pointless, joke, 'hippy' idea - and thus not worth thinking about.
Making communities, dealing with dependence on the car, etc. need real answers - not pointless wastes of time and paint like this.
I'm sure all the people in the video really feel like they have done something meaningful - right before they get back in their SUVs and drive 50miles to work.
This is how real community develops, not at town hall meetings, but by having shared spaces, shared rituals and regular interactions with your neighbors. Do many of these people own cars, sure? But many of them are not driving to the multiplex or to visit friends who live 50 miles away, but are instead enjoying themselves and finding real fellowship close to home.
Oh, please.
This positively reeks of the sheer hell of bossy, patronising European-style social engineering.
It's not the eighteenth century anymore. We no longer need to limit ourselves to the stifling, mindless, provincial living hell of the small-minded people of the small village (or block) where we happen to live. What possible reason is there to so apotheosize the random triviality of geographical proximity, anyway? Why should I give a rat's behind about whatever it is that patronising social engineers wish to force upon me under the guise of "real community"?
What little spare time I have, I'm probably going to spend more in interest groups rather than in talking about nothing with random people off the street, even the nearby street. After all, it's not the eighteenth century, when virtually everyone was a peasant, so that peasantry was the universal subject. It's a much broader - and in my opinion vastly better - world nowadays, but one consequence is a certain specialization that means there's often little in common to talk about beyond professional sports and yard work - and, frankly, I don't care one jot about either. So I don't bother to spend much time at, say, street parties, because after about twenty minutes, they tend to deteriorate into a besotted waste of time.
And I don't need to care about street parties because it's not the eighteenth century. I'm no longer as confined by the mere accident of proximity. I can get together with people who don't happen to live on the same block, and we can talk about, or perish the thought, actually do, something beyond the mere mindless trivialities of peasantry, pro sports, and yard work.
And, I must say, I rather resent the bullying hippies and social engineers who seek to physically obstruct me from living in the twenty-first century rather than the eighteenth - by blocking intersections, by deliberately making transport unaffordable, by cutting off roads, or by whatever means - on the supercilious grounds that, as today's heirs-apparent of Orwell's Big Brother, they alone know what's best and have the right to dictate it to others.
Oh dear. Will you just do us the favor of keeping your personal misery away from inner east Portland Oregon?
But your problem is, as they say, one that will take care of itself as your high energy transportation options diminish and as you are forced to live locally. Those of us in Portland are just enjoying the local life we have now.
Inner east Portland culture was formed through resistance to the Mount Hood freeway project back in the 60s or 70s, the first time a neighborhood successfully fought one of your social engineered freeway projects that would have destroyed a neighborhood. Every since then it has been a place that cared about preserving itself. And east and north Portland have many other kinds of cool street parties too.
When you come to Portland hang out across the river in Beaverton and Hillsboro and you'll be happy. They like 6 lane roads and SUVs over there a lot. You can rent a place on a cul de sac, plug in your TV and you'll be fine.
... and if you can leave your personal misery behind for a moment (or need some help doing that) please come participate in the Portland "Village Building Convergence" next year in the spring. You might surprise yourself and have a very nice time building and dancing and listening to music and meeting lots of nice folks.
Garyp, you obviously don't know the culture of Southeast Portland and of City Repair. I guarantee you that probably every person in that video lives locally and a lot of them bike. There are places in Portland where people own SUVs and drive 50 miles to work, but Southeast Portland is unusual.
People feel like they've done something meaningful because getting together to beautify a neighborhood and meeting your neighbors IS meaningful for most people.
What happens when you move there and your neighbors ostracise you?
ciao,
Bruce
What happens when you move anywhere and your neighbors ostracize you?
Maybe you really aren't compatible with the culture of the place you've moved to... but maybe something in you needs to open and change to a new social reality.
If Southeast Portland style community isn't your thing, there are plenty of conventional suburbs to choose from in and around Portland and elsewhere.
Did you move there because you wanted to be part of Portland alternative culture but it wouldn't accept you in spite of all your good will?
If it feels right to you, you'll find a way to be part of it.
What's your story?
Actually you yourself sound rather hostile. Make too many assumptions about people like that and you chase away a lot of would-be friends.
Try giving people the benefit of the doubt. Especially if at first they aren't quite as "hip" as you. Allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised concerning the perspectives of people you might have negatively judged.
ciao,
Bruce
Bruce, I don't intend to be hostile, and I'm not sure what assumptions you think I've made. Please enlighten me.
I thought my responses were pretty mild to some extremely hostile vibes above but maybe I've got that wrong. Tell me how.
The paint used in these intersection repair projects is *not* slippery when wet. I bike and walk through the sunnyside piazza nearly daily. And it rains a lot in Portland.
To those who have left negative comments:
Why are you making assumptions about neighbors who have come together to transform their own surroundings?
We are talking about place-based action here- people deciding for themselves to take action in their own communities.
If you don't want to paint your neighborhood, then don't. But please don't judge those who do.