Saturday, April 12, 2008

All together now, we go, too.

The vanity license plate on the convertible caught my eye--I GO TO. I picked up the camera from beside me on the bus seat and snapped away Friday afternoon on my way home from work.
bus_car_max_bicycle
Later that night when I downloaded the photo I realized straight away that I had captured something that I've grown to dearly love about Portland. Look out the windshield of the bus with me. You see a MAX light rail train turning from left to right, heading towards the eastbound PGE Park MAX Station on SW Yamhill, Stop ID 9758. You see the Mercedes convertible. You see a bicyclist. I'm on the #18 bus. It's 5:25 p.m., and the car, bike and bus waited calmly as the MAX glided through the corner. With the MAX out of sight, the traffic signal changed to green. We three continued our progress.

Within a quarter of a block, four types of transportation side by side. I love this coexistence, the sort of application of the multi-use concept that I believe to be one of the aspects that makes Portland a healthy city.

Below I included a Google map of the area for your enjoyment. If you zoom in and move the map around, you can get close enough to see the MAX tracks as they make the curve. The red A is pointed at PGE Park. The intersection is immediately to the right of it, SW 18th at SW Yamhill.




View Larger Map

9 comments:

WendyB said...

Very cool!

brian stout said...

nice post lynette... i wish we had more mass transportation in our area like this as an option...

Anonymous said...

I kept waiting on the collision. Nice description kept me reading.

Steve Buser said...

I'm just wondering what the license plate is all about. Seem she stopped mid

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the visit.

To answer your question about my template for the blog.

I used a blogger template but messed with it a lot and then used it.

I like to use larger photos from time to time (get tired of smaller ones) so I use this blog I made for that purpose. All the other stuff is at the bottom but then I don't have much there at the moment.

It is pretty simple to use if you are interested I can tell you how to use mine or a copy of it and you just have to add your title and things like that.

George Townboy said...

Great post, Lynette. Thanks for taking me through the windshield!! Awesome photo!

Unknown said...

That's a great post, Lynette. I like how you tied it all together for us. I think if I ever visit up there, I'd better restudy all that you post so I can get around better. :)

Joy said...

It is great when it does work. But being a tourist in Amsterdam, God knows how many times I almost got run over by the tram, the cyclists, the cars :D

Thanks for visiting Norwich Daily Photo and leaving your comments. Have a great week ahead!


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Neva said...

I like how you did this. I will have to try a google map on my blog!