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  • Bike share industry notes following Portland WordCamp

    Portland’s bike infrastructure was fabulous over the past week at WordCamp US. In the central city, I was riding on protected and clearly signaled lanes. Most important, there were often locals biking, walking, and skating nearby to model expected routing and provide a sense of community along the way.

    I rented a BIKETOWN bike share for 134 minutes across 11 rides from 7 to 25 minutes in duration. The total was just over $20 , discounted from what would have been closer to $60 at full price. If I had chosen to call cars, I estimate it would have been $130, although some of the trips were also perfectly suited to Portland’s excellent light rail and busses. Props to the WordCamp team for coordinating transit passes for all attendees.

    In my home town Los Angeles, Metro bike share is a best choice for me increasingly often. I still prefer to ride my own analog bike, but bike sharing shows up as a multi-modal transit option, for example

    • Expecting to carpool to a second destination or return trip
    • Uncertain security for locking personal bikes ( DTLA, Hollywood )
    • Between locations after arriving by bus / train / walk
    • Group rides with folks who want to try an e-bike
    • Group rides with folks who don’t own or maintain a bike
    • Personal bike gear is out of service

    The Portland bike share is currently run by Lyft, which prompted me to purchase a Lyft Pink subscription last year in anticipation of using the bike share across multiple Lyft-managed markets. The car share bonuses on traditional Lyft service would be a bonus. I think it will pencil out after another week or two in Portland, certainly after a month of consistent short bike share rides. Lyft was reported to be in negotiations to purchase the Los Angeles system over the past year, and already manages other huge north american bike share markets including Bay Area, DC, NYC, Chicago, Denver, and Portland.

    Based on current news, it looks like Bicycle Transit Systems (BTS) will continue to run the bikeshare network in Los Angeles. Notably, BTS reports also having entered into an agreement to purchase BCycle from Trek, who manufacture bikeshare equipment including docking stations and bikes.

    For data interests, BCycle’s footer links over to the General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) managed by MobilityData in Canada, and sits next to Google’s General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)

    If you live or plan to visit Los Angeles, please support Sunset 4 All to help extend our new Hollywood Blvd bike lanes into Downtown LA along the essential Sunset Blvd corridor from Fountain Ave through Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Dodger Stadium.

    Thanks all pushing these bike share systems, as well as all vision zero related efforts forward. Hope to see you out on the streets.

  • Arrived at WordCamp Contributors Day

    Howdy from WordCamp US 2024 contributors day in Portland, Oregon.

    It’s great seeing so many familiar faces this morning and diving right into improving the web with WordPress.

    My focus today continues with exploring geo-social activity in the fediverse, and extending WordPress as an authoring tool for fediverse content.

    This post is expected to include place data for Oregon Convention Center and WordCamp US like the following,

      "location": {
    "type": "Place",
    "name": "WordCamp US",
    "longitude": "-122.663228",
    "latitude": "45.528283",
    "country": "USA"
  },

    It might also federate from fediverse identity @herebox.org .

    Afternoon focus areas:

    • Use custom fields for location details
    • Consider integration paths for existing location plugins
    • Discuss options for consuming place data
    • Discuss options for opting in to place data

    Code diff at https://github.com/here/wordpress-activitypub/compare/master…feature/arrivals-locations-init

    More info and ongoing reference links on page activitypub location sharing.

  • FediForum 2024 Day 1 Live on WordPress

    Publishing a first attempt at a federated post from @[email protected] to facilitate FediForum session titled “WordPress as Content Authoring Tool for Fediverse” FediForum conference running on open space technology .

    This session is intended to support additional discussion specific to adding social location data into Fediverse content, with potential to use WordPress as an example authoring tool.

    Federation of this post made possible by WordPress activitypub plugin authored by @[email protected] . I hope to be working on extending these tools at WordCamp USA contributor day next Tuesday in Portland, Oregon.

  • Cutler Ridge firsts

    A series of storms has 40+ inches the past 7 days in central wasatch, with a bit less up here just north. Planning to go see what’s in store around Cutler Ridge tomorrow along where the locals tell me everyone goes to go up around here.

    Plan is to stick to the ridgeline and head back down the up track. Lots of undesirable avalance activity reported in the region on steeper slopes the past few days.

    From others –

  • Solitude firm lower Gs

    Early season deal at Solitude’s Inn with barely anyone else on site Monday and Tuesday nights. Late arrival Monday with a fizzled forecast redeemed by an outdoor jet tub.

    A handful of lower groomers on mostly blown snow were available. Seven runs Tuesday after work and four early Wednesday before getting started. Great fun riding on 168″ titanium carvers without much traffic to avoid on the runs. Firm but very ridable.

    Lindsey Lohan was rumored to be about and the Hollywood trucks were in full effect sprucing the place up for what the wiki calls a, “currently untitled, Christmas romantic comedy about a woman who suffers amnesia following a skiing accident and finds herself in the care of a blue-collar lodge owner. The film is expected to start filming in November 2021, and is to be directed and co-written by Janeen Damian, with an expected release date in 2022.”

  • Alta preview point supreme sunday ski

    Fun to watch Alta and Little Cottonwood Canyon (LCC) pull the precip out of the sky as a first fall attendee. A few inches a few days earlier, and they claim 86.5″ so far with 20-30+ depth on the upper mountain.

    The route was skiable up and back down from the top lot, to Catherine’s pass. The top 1000′ were tasty with another few 100′ of cautious soft traversing between rocks and remnant grasses.

    At least a hundred folks out on the mountain this last weekend day of free parking till May? Thanks to the Alta crew for the full-open invitation with a Wednesday opening just 48 working hour away.

    Strava at alta catherine’s point supreme ups ~~ opens wendesday | Backcountry Ski | Strava

  • 2022 opener Mammoth halloween

    spook y steep y sierra sesh mammoth october | Alpine Ski | Strava

    • Run of the day: Dave’s

    Third day open for Mammoth with an early atmospheric river bringing enough base to open the entire front-side. Rumor on the hill was that they had opened the top straight out of the gate on opening day.

    Excellent sunny weather without much crowd. Many of the hotels had yet to switch their rates to ski season.

    Dave’s a clear winner with the cold delicious snow for the top 500 feet. The lower half was dangerous and frozen with groomer corderoy lines still visible after noon.

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