Lascher at Large » Portland (OR)

Along for the Ride: Streetcar Music Festival

Bill — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:17:01 +0000

Guitars, cellos, saxophones, toy pianos and more, the Streetcar Mobile Music Fest featured musicians performing aboard various streetcars throughout the night. Click the link to listen to and see what it was like when I went along for the ride. [...]

Along for the Ride: Max Blue Line 1 — Hillsboro

Bill — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:03:11 +0000

This week's installment of Along for the Ride, my series of weekly chronicles of Portland, OR-area transit lines. is an audio postcard from a rush hour trip aboard the MAX Blue Line to Hillsboro. In a future edition, I'll explore the rest of the line, from Downtown Portland, East to Gresham. [...]

Along for the Ride: Island Time Aboard the 85

Bill — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:03:07 +0000

Welcome to the second week of Along for the Ride, my series of weekly chronicles of Portland, OR-area transit lines. If you haven’t already, check out the first edition and if you like the series, please spread the word, or even cover my bus fare.

This week, I woke early Wednesday morning intending to [...]

Along for the Ride: Going Live on the 75

Bill — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:37:31 +0000

Today marks the public launch of “Along for the ride,”* a new series of mass transit adventure chronicles on Lascher at Large.

Watch an Audio Slideshow | Explore the Map | See the Photo Gallery

The concept: explore Portland as seen from the metropolitan region’s transit lines. Each week, through a highly [...]

New rankings beg question: what makes Portland sustainable?

Bill — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:56:11 +0000

Portland-based Sustainable Business Oregon reported yesterday that Stumptown once again won silver in Site Selection Magazine‘s Rankings of the nation’s most sustainable metroplitan communities.

Once again coming in second to the Bay Area (Site Selection‘s lede about San Francisco’s ban on unsolicited Yellow Pages was cornily fantastic), Portland ranked high alongside Oregon, which came [...]

Where should green planning efforts come from?

Bill — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:32:20 +0000

Photo of Portland bike lane courtesy Flickr user Eric Fredericks.

This week’s post for High Country News‘s “A Just West” blog explored discussions that came out of last week’s Ecodistricts Summit in Portland. Check it out here or read it — and many other great stories — on HCN.

Hundreds of urban planners, architects, [...]

Ducking the Elephant in the Room

Bill — Sun, 02 May 2010 03:47:57 +0000

The day takes shape slowly. Getting out the door just happens. Once you do the bus is ten minutes late. Then so is the MAX, but you don’t mind. You’ve been quietly extricating yourself from time. You wait in the chill beneath an interstate, listening to teenagers gossip. Staring at the spikes lining [...]

LAX to PDX: The Back Way

Bill — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:07:42 +0000

Follow the Map | See the full photo collection

Choose Your Own Adventure:

The Mother Lode

Nobody Knows Where You Are

Waking Darkness

Theroux and Friends

A Sort of Homecoming

Hello/Goodbye

Why don’t I just write the story? Why didn’t I just report each day’s journey? Why [...]

Making the most of making the media

Bill — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:08:35 +0000

Finding Community | Stopping to Breathe | False divisions | Continuing the discussion | Other Voices

I arrived in Los Angeles late Monday afternoon. As I landed, I watched the sunset turn the Santa Monica Mountains that golden hue they turn in late fall, caught glimpses of the skyscrapers along Wilshire Blvd., marveled at the [...]

Take offs

Bill — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:52:36 +0000

The thing about L.A. before you even land is the lights. Everywhere. Like a circuit board. Beneath or at least near each is a story, a life, a world. Only a glance and I’m reminded of that.

It’s late, but I know the way it would look in the sunlight, the circuit boards stretching between [...]