Category Archives: Transit

E118 – Adham Fisher: Tube Challenge

February 25, 2013Communication, Running, Technology, Touring, Train Travel, Transit, Travel, Walkingsprocketpodcast

Adham Fisher attempts to break the records held for visiting every station in urban rail systems in as little time as possible. He has been to many cities in this pursuit including London, New York, Barcelona, Toronto, and Chicago, and while he does not yet hold the current record, he is perhaps one of the most dedicated practitioners in his field. We spoke about the Tube Challenge, his experiences with transit, and cultural perspectives on its use.

Adham’s compilation of transit-themed music, 1000 Stations – Metro EP, can be found on the iTunes Store. Also, see Adham’s kit for these challenges.

Also, Brock & Aaron chat about Little Free Libraries and organized bike rides in the neighborhood.

Headlines
Atlantic Cities via Brandon:Austin develops bike maps based on rider comfort level
The Mail via Logan: Cycle tourists killed in Thailand collision(http://www.twoonfourwheels.com)

Mail
Zed writes from PDXK’s CrankMyChain: “Here is a story on the show from bikeportland.org & one of our favorite shows for Open Bike.”

Thanks to former guest Dan for a generous donation! It’s going to keep us rolling easy.

David Heddy mentions new bicycle travel publication Bunyan Velo!

Dan in MN texts us a burp.

JohnnyK asks how to get your significant other to bike with you if they’re not really that into it yet.

And Jeremy leaves us a voicemail!

Fine Print
email us: thesprocketpodcast@gmail.com
twitter: @SprocketPodcast
phone in or SMS: 503-847-9774
web: http://thesprocketpodcast.com
music: Ryan J. Lane (intro & outro) & Hurtbird (headlines)

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E116 – Chris Smith: Comprehensive Plan

February 11, 2013Advocacy, Alternate Fuels, Bicycling, Brewing, Building, Business, Car Sharing, Cargo, Communication, History, Housing, Mountain Biking, Technology, The Law, Transit, Walkingsprocketpodcast

Chris Smith from PortlandTransport.com is a golden god of urban planning and transit. He would never claim that title himself, but there is no person in Portland, Oregon working harder to make active and sustainable transportation a reality for the city’s near future. We discuss the public process of crafting the city’s Comprehensive Plan, a document that guides the development and structure of citizen’s daily lives. We touch on equity, gentrification and displacement, sidewalks and neighbor relations, modal hierarchy and freight movement, civic corridors and neighborhood greenways, New York’s High Line, telecommuting, and The Transit Appliance.

We warn you: it will get wonky.

If you’re a Portland resident, please consider joining one of the open house events designed to maximize public input into the process. You can find more info on times and locations at this page: http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/58191

Also, Brock & Aaron chat about bike wear & tear, brewery quality, meeting up with Tammy & Logan, and some technical business.

BONUS: after the show closes, we present a short chat with our new webhost Colin, owner of The Podcast Host, and also a fan of mountain biking! We’re happy to have our show on his servers.

Headlines
Denver Post: Black Hawk, CO, famous for its bicycle ban, is corrected by the court

Mail
Dan in MN sends a picture of his new Raleigh folding bicycle.

JohnnyK mentions Burro Bags & Bar, and recommends Adventure Cycling andcyclocamping.com as travel resources.

Anthony says: “I too have been traumatized by growing up in a Florida suburban nightmare. Tampa was a hot mess of sprawl and mini malls.”

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E114 – Dan Christensen: Roll Easy

January 28, 2013Bicycling, Camping, Communication, Doin' It, History, Mountain Biking, Technology, The Law, Touring, Transitsprocketpodcast

Dan Christensen is a transit bus driver who shares his experiences by blog, twitter, and live storytelling. He was kind enough to drop in for a chat about being a driver, dealing with traffic and bicycles, and experiencing Mount Saint Helens’ eruption in 1980. Read his writing at rolleasyblog.com!

We also implore our listeners to drunk dial us (503-847-9774), Brock describes an amorous evening gone wrong over the last weekend, and we discuss bicycle touring as a near-future occurrence.

Headlines
New York Times: The Flight From Conversation
League of American Bicyclists: a compendium of bicycle laws in all 50 states!
BikePortland: Oregon City votes to build bike tourism “epicenter” in Amtrak station

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E113 – Tracy Gayton: Piscataquis Village

January 22, 2013Bicycling, Brewing, Building, Business, Cargo, Communication, Downsizing, History, Housing, Kitchen, Technology, Transit, Travel, Urban Design, Walkingsprocketpodcast

Piscataquis Village will be a European-styled, carless development in the US state of Maine, and the vision of Tracy Gayton who joins us for this show. Tracy envisions a city with six key elements: small plazas, really narrow streets, attached buildings, arcaded sidewalks, interior courtyards and streets free from car traffic. After it caught our attention, he was kind enough to supply us with a full rundown on how it might look. [piscataquisvillage.org] We also discuss comparisons to the Bicycle City idea, appealing to misanthropes, and how people might get to and from the village, as well as governmental red tape, bad weather, and Tracy’s own downsized life after retirement.

Mentioned resources:
Tracy’s TEDx talk
The Carfree Design Manual & carfree.com
The Small Streets blog, smallstreets.com

Brock & Aaron discuss ice on the roads, ice in Brock’s beard, the months-long soaking of socks, Aaron’s ditching of his cell phone, and Brock & Brandon’s utilization of the supertrailer.

Smartwool socks hold up to a six month soak, though the wool falls out

Brock grows an ice beard over a morning commute

Mail
JohnnyK asks us where to put a sticker on a bicycle, and says that in Jacksonville a fellow cyclist is like “finding water in a desert.” This makes the cycling traffic problems of Portland somewhat niche.

Darren says “thanks” for the song Brock wrote about his cycling journey, and adds:
“I have been meaning to update my blog, write a closing post and list the highs and lows of the journey, but more importantly, sharing what I learnt whilst in the road. I think the song has just inspired me to do so.”
If you’d like a copy of the song, you can find it here.

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E110 – 10 Years of Breakfast On The Bridges

December 31, 2012Advocacy, Bicycling, Cargo, Communication, Touring, Train Travel, Transit, Travel, Walkingsprocketpodcast

photo by Mike Vogel

Breakfast On The Bridges is Portland’s regular grassroots good-will event featuring kind volunteers handing out free morning snacks to people propelling themselves to work. Velo Cult, quickly becoming a legendary bicycle shop and community space in the Hollywood District, offered their room for a celebration of ten years of free breakfasts on the iconic bridges that span the Willamette River. Thanks to Steph Routh of Oregon Walks and the KBOO Bike Show for capturing audio from this event and allowing us to share it with you!

Also, to open the show I taped a conversation with Jeremy Mendelson, the transit maven behind Critical Transit, during our multimodal adventure around Providence, RI.

photo by Portland Afoot

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E109 – Humanity On Wheels 2

December 24, 2012Bicycling, Communication, History, Train Travel, Transit, Travel, Walkingsprocketpodcast

The Sprocket Podcast is pleased to present a partial rebroadcast featuring the best bits from the most recent installment of the highly regaled Humanity On Wheels storytelling event! Many thanks to Kick Ass Oregon History and TriMet Diaries for hosting these amazingly entertaining forums for the unique parade of culture and experience that is found in the public transportation experience.

The roster for this event included:
Doug Kenck-Crispin, resident historian at ORhistory.com
William Reagan
Doctor Jeff
Dan Christensen, driver and author of Roll Easy Blog
Bill Lascher, Amtrak enthusiast and independent journalist
Portland’s Mark Russell
Ian Stude, “The Bike Guy”

We wish you the happiest of holiday seasons, and look forward to the new year! Yours truly,
Brock & Aaron.

P.S. if you’re interested in some Christmas music, here are Brock’s selections for your enjoyment.

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E107 – News Roundtable & Catching Up

December 10, 2012Advocacy, Alternate Fuels, Bicycling, Building, Business, Communication, Downsizing, Housing, Mountain Biking, Technology, Touring, Train Travel, Transit, Travelsprocketpodcast

Brock & Aaron hold down the proverbial fort on their own this week in an episode dedicated to clearing the desk of all the cool stuff they’ve learned about in the last month. We start out with talk about tux mayhem, train etiquette, and Indiegogo perks still to come! We drank Moxie & Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale.

My Bike Won’t Fit Here!
Aaron introduces a new segment this week. Pictures to be posted here when possible – check back. This week’s egregious bike parking: Fred Meyer! This is a photo from the Portland location at SE 82nd Avenue & Foster Road. Thanks to listener David, who works for the corporation, for a timely response to this observation! We’ll see what changes in the future.

Headlines
BikePortland news roundup: Piscataquis Village Project plans to create a carless “micropolis”
BikePortland: a farmer in the Portland region swaps his truck for a cargo bike
BBC News via Brandon: the Uruguayan president is living meager, but happy!
The Oregonian: speeding car crashes into Sunset TC – from above
Rivendell Bicycle Works: MUSA Splats cover ordinary shoes for wet weather
The Atlantic Cities: media hosts an ecology dustup between cars & transit
BikePortland: Tom LaBonty heads to Texas to teach cargo bike building
Lovely Bicycle: When do we need a cargo bike?
Cycle Wild: Petition asks for decent treatment of self-propelled NPS guests
Happy, Simply: former show guest d’Arcy Lunn has a new simple living project
No Tech via Logan: now you can UN-knit your wool with a bicycle
BikePortland: Chris Sanderson not allowed to recycle metal by bike
Fast Co. Design: designer proposes an aerial tram over Austin

Mailbag
David Heddy mentions a couple touring the Great Divide on a tandem

Eric Krimmel wrote us about his new ebook “The Cross Country Adventures of the Blue Highways Cycling Elite,” a true story of three friends who embark on an 4200 mile bicycle trip across the USA, from Anacortes, Washington to Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s available on iTunes, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Dan in MN recommends Nick Mason of the League of American Bicyclists as an interview. Also, Dan just moved into his own tiny house that he built himself!

Kevin from L.A. donates generously and says he can hook us up with Tall Bike Bobby.

Thanks to Stacy from A Simple Six for recommending our show on Twitter.

Dodson gets in touch about interviewing Brek Boughton (blogger and adventurer) from Cycling Into The Dark: http://cyclingintothedark.com

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E102 – Steph Routh: Willamette Pedestrian Coalition (now Oregon Walks)

November 5, 2012Advocacy, Bicycling, Building, Communication, History, The Law, Transit, Walkingsprocketpodcast

This week Brock sat down with Steph Routh from the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition (now known as Oregon Walks) and the KBOO Bike Show (as well as many other projects & organizations) to discuss walking, bicycling, and relating to the “old guard” in our town about simpler transportation.

Aaron tells stories and gives tips on his experience with walking as a primary mode of transport.

Headline
BikePortland: pedal-powered phone charging for NYC’s public after disaster

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E101 – Bill Lascher: Amtrak Stories

October 29, 2012Bicycling, Communication, Doin' It, Technology, Train Travel, Transit, Travelsprocketpodcast

Bill Lascher is a journalist preparing a book on Melville Jacoby, the first Time magazine reporter killed on duty, and producer of the fabulous Thinkingest Podcast which examines our over-examining tendencies. Today he joins us to share some of his stories of travel by train on the United States’ passenger rail service Amtrak.

After we concluded the show, there was so much to discuss that we kept on talking while the tape kept running. More conversation with Bill Lascher here!

Portland Afoot just published some more kind words about our crossover episode a few weeks back! Thanks as always to Michael, Lily and their crew for the fantastic work they do around low-car mobility and culture.

Also, The Sprocket Podcast concludes its Indiegogo fundraising campaign to underwrite the next season of the show during a year with thin budgets! We have offered many personalized rewards to our backers, most recently Bryan (AKA Orange), Steve, Russ & Laura, and Jeremy! Thanks to all of our donors for their generous support! See the details here!

Headlines
No Tech Magazine via Logan: Bicycle Trailer with Solar Panel Charges Electric Bicycle
Peak Moment TV via Logan: Can Pedals Power the World?
BikePortland: Portland area resident rides every single road in the entire region

Mailbag
Steve laments the lack of an RSS button on the website. We fix it!
Another Steve supports our fundraising effort and buys us new headphones!
Jeremy looks forward to his transit ride with the hosts when he visits Portland.
Bryan (AKA Orange) simply says: “Best. Podcast. Ever.”
Carl visits New England and likes the bikey things he sees there.

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E100 – Brock & Brandon’s Transit Adventure

October 23, 2012Adventure, Alternate Fuels, Bicycling, Building, Business, Car Sharing, Communication, History, Technology, Transit, Walkingsprocketpodcast

Brock & Brandon celebrate 100 episodes of the Sprocket Podcast by traversing the city for hours using every mode of transport they can get into, including TriMet, the Portland Streetcar, the Portland Aerial Tram, and of course Car2Go. Here’s a “lite” version of the 5 hours of audio we taped during the adventure.

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