Ray LaHood is my hero

There was a good amount of reservation in Portland following Ray LaHood's appointment as USDOT czar. There was talk of Earl Blumenauer serving in this position, so everyone was very excited about this and for us Oregonian's, a guy from IL was not our cup of tea considering how different the City has been then mainstream U.S. Fortunately, Ray has stepped in and become a tour de force for responsible transportation. His speech at the Bike Summit was impressive and his argument for freight related to bikes was epic. Here's some of the dialogue summarized on BikePortland.

TIGER means bus priority will start soon

When I worked as a consultant, I worked on efforts such as this with WMATA and the COG. I find it refreshing to find them getting funded. Like the author of the post, the public acceptance of some of these improvements will be key to their effectiveness. What may be as important is the traffic engineers' reception. TIGER means bus priority will start soon