Friday, April 11, 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

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's something about the message of that license plate that just seems to scream something - I'm just not sure what it is.

I'm wondering if there wasn't a typo on the plate? Maybe it should have read: "I GO TOO"

Lynette said...

Coach, I wondered that same thing for a moment, but then I decided it was brilliant in that "I GO TO" means where she can go is infinite with a statement like this, literally and figuratively. I love it!