Quick calendar item: Tomorrow, Monday June 21, the City Council is expected to make a decision on the Peninsula Transit Study's proposed "Fee In Lieu of Parking" concept. This would give developers of new buildings on the Portland peninsula an alternative to opt out of the city's parking requirements by paying into a new "Sustainable Transportation Fund" instead. So instead of building so many car parking spaces, the money ($10K per parking space!) could be used instead for transit, trails, streets, maybe bike parking.

If this is something you could get behind, please consider attending the City Council meeting to show your support. The meeting is at 7 pm, in the Council chambers on the 2nd floor of City Hall, 389 Congress Street.

More details here.

Book Club

We gotta get reading! We picked up a few more votes at the poll, but the results are still tied at 4 apiece for The Lost Cyclist, by David Herlihy, and The Cyclist's Manifesto, by Robert Hurst!

So I'm going to invoke organizer privilege and go with the Hurst book. The Herlihy book will be available and can be discussed at the July 9th Longfellow Books author's talk anyway, so if you are interested in that one, you can go there. (Or, if you can't make that, maybe because of the Maine Bike Rally that same night, you can purchase it there anyway at your convenience.)

So I'll contact Longfellow and find out if they can get copies of the Hurst book for us. I don't know if he'll want commitments to purchase, or is willing to just buy a half dozen copies and hope they all sell. I'll continue to contact those interested to set a discussion time later in the summer.

If you are interested and haven't said so, please tell me!

Ride safe, have fun!