This past weekend we painted Sunny Crossing in our neighborhood (Sunnyside).  In conjunction with the Village Building Convergence we had a great turnout and painted and street partied all day long.

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Music, parades, lots of food (2 Brothers Cafe donated ~20 full meals of Cevapi). The kids had a great time and I was reminded again how special it is living in Portland.

We have plans to add a bicycle repair station and a little library. I’m on the hook to design and build both, but I’m not sure of a design – specifically for the bike repair station. I have a few sketches and some requirements (small shelter to protect users from the rain, etc.). We didn’t finalize permits by last weekend, so we’ll need to continue later into the summer. I’d also like to build in a few features to make the intersection a little more sticky, e.g. allow pedestrians and cyclists to linger.

I had no idea that people came from around the globe to participate in the VBC events in Portland. There was a women who traveled from Japan and was participating in many of the activities throughout the city – and of course there were the grizzled veterans of past VBC projects who showed up with their own gear (paint brushes and knee pads) and immediately got to work.

It’s a great excuse to have a block party every year to take over the street and repaint Sunny Crossing.

It was amazing seeing cyclists stop, smile, and admire the painting.

{dude can’t you see i’m vining this amazing painting?}