portland public bike share

Yeah yeah yeah, who cares, you say.  And that would be the right response except that this one was actually proposed by Mark Twain in 1895.  Saw this on cycleicio.us, by the way.  Here's Mark Twain's quote:

Portland ought to lay itself out a little and macadamize all its streets just like this. Then it ought to own all the bicycles and rent ‘em out and so pay for the streets. Pretty good scheme, eh? 

And some links: the original post on cyclicio.us, Mark Twain's 1985 interview in Portland, and a Twain story called "Taming the Bicycle."  If you haven't read Twain's book Life on the Mississippi, you should.

On another note: Joel and Carl are in Toronto this weekend for Bike!Bike! and are planning to keep us updated on their trip here on this very blog!  Last year, Joel and Phil kept a blog from Bike!Bike!, still legible here.