This is advocacy!
Staying out of the wheelchair and getting on a badass bike!
Chris Billman is the only Oregonian with a disabled parking decal for his bicycle
Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor), Feb. 18, 2018
“Billman has the passion and persistence that are hallmarks of an effective advocate. And there are a lot of other things he’d like to change (like making bikeways fall under ADA regulations for quality and accessiblity). It’s all about accessibility and staying independent as long as possible.
“TriMet spends millions of dollars to send a little bus out to your house [referring to their Lift service], as long as you get in the wheelchair. But to me, it’s about staying out of the wheelchair. I don’t want to get into one! That’s not transportation — that’s keeping people more-or-less captive,” he shared with me in a phone cal. last week. “I’m a 61-year-old man who’s been independent all my life and now I have to call up someone 48 hours in advance to take me into town? Screw you! I don’t want it! We bought a badass bicycle, we decked it out, we’ve got a 50-amp motor and plenty of solar power… We can go anywhere.”
Read more…