The opening keynote speaker at the Towards Carfree Cities conference is Mia Birk, from a bike/ped planning firm here in Portland called Alta Design. Check out the short episode of "Big Ideas for a Small Planet," above, featuring Mia talking about the pedestrian & bicycle planning movement in Portland -- she's very eloquent and the makes the argument for bike- and pedestrian-friendly cities in a very accessible way.

Live blogging from the Towards Carfree Cities conference in Portland, OR...

Next to our table, we found a real estate broker from Portland who gives bike tours of houses for sale.  What a great way to see neighborhoods and get a taste of what it might be like to live in a place!

This week, a handful of us from the Livable Streets team at TOPP are out in Portland, OR visiting the 8th International Towards Carfree Cities conference. Tomorrow morning, we'll be giving a presentation entitled "Street Fight!  Lessons from the NYC Livable Streets Movement."  So far, we've had a great time here in Portland -- we picked up our rental bikes this morning, and the conference is just getting into gear.  More to come...