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With the price of gasoline rising and people driving less, do we need a monster highway boondoggle? Our legislature has approved $450 million for the Columbia River Crossing. Economist Joe Cortright, chair of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, says it's a bad deal for Oregon.

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kboo_episode.2.130306.1100.2966.mp3

This month on the KBOO Bike Show we are looking back in time, broadcasting a national show that covered a topic of local interest.  

Do you remember when Critical Mass was big in Portland? When instead of frothing over "bike lanes vs potholes" the newspapers, radio and TV stations obsessed over the Friday-evening ritual?

In many cities, including Portland, Citical Mass no longer takes place, perhaps because bicycling has become more mainstream, and real improvements to cities have made bicycling more normal, comfortable and safe. Has it been replaced by the World Naked Bike Ride? By Sunday Parkways? But in other cities, such as San Francisco, Citical Mass lives on, despite prioritization of bicycling improvements by city governments.

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 Tens of thousands of protesters converged on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Sunday to demand action on climate change. Among their principal targets: the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada to U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico.

The project is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. Aquifers, delicate ecosystems, and entire communities would be devastated in the event of a major leak. Small wonder, then, that a Senate majority recently voted in favor of the project, and that the President is at best ambivalent.

Abe and Joe look at the latest battleground between profit and preservation.