Mr. Polehn writes

Once upon a time I owned a 1994 Toyota Camry .  I drove it something like 6 miles everyday for a few years (a meager commute).  At that time my job also involved a good amount of sitting and staring at a screen.  Making the realization that I was spending about ⅓ of my day sleeping, and the other ⅔ I was spending sitting was a big eye opener.  Pair this with the fact that I was weighing in at 240 lbs and it was becoming pretty obvious that I needed to make some changes in my life. One of the first things I did was get a bike.   At that point I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was about 12 years old.  Luckily, as the old proverb suggests, once you learn you never forget.  I soon started riding that bike to and from work just bout every single day.  It took some time but eventually I was able to make the uphill trip home without feeling completely exhausted.  I rode that bike just about every day until winter hit.  However, even thoug...

 The last thing this planet needs is more rebar and concrete poured out to support our automobile centered world.  Yet the City of The Dalles has concluded the need for a mutli-level parking structure in downtown The Dalles i s inevitabe .  The task force outlined several options to increase parking availability downtown especially for employees of downtown businesses.  Most of these ideas repurpose existing infrastructure in order to increase availability of automobile parking downtown.  The task force concluded that ultimately none of the existing infrastructure will support the needs of downtown long term; a parking garage would eventually be necessary.  Let me assert there is a longterm solution to the downtown parking problem that does not require investing further into the fading automobile age.  As the task force stated we do need employee only parking and time limits for general parking.  The problem I have is the task force sugges...

This is my bicycle there are many like it but this one is mine. Since roughly the beginning of summer I have been exclusively riding my bike to work as opposed to driving.  I'm starting to see that I may not need that second car to get from my house to my job everyday .  Here is a nice little four part list of why I've decided bicycle commuting is for me. Its good for my body It is recommended that adults have at least  150 minutes per week  of moderate exercise per week.  Without biking I'd have a hard time justifying taking time away from my family or job to go run on a treadmill or do whatever other boring thing people do to stay in shape.  Biking to work takes me about 15 minutes down hill, coming back 20 something minutes uphill...  I'm sure I have 150 minutes of moderate intensity excessive in there somewhere ;) It's pretty incredible to see the difference I have in endurance after just one week of picking up the bicycle again.  ...