This spring and last autumn I made two trips to London. Both times I stayed with a friend in an outer neighborhood called Walthamstow and took a train each morning to Liverpool Street station, one of the targets of this morning's terrorist attack. My Londoner friend thankfully was working from home today, but most mornings he would have been at that station or another one hit today, and likely right at that tragic moment.
The terrorists clearly wanted to strike out against ordinary Londoners, not the protected leaders who make difficult decisions about going to war in the Middle East. After swallowing the shock and horror and sadness of today's terrorist attack, I began to think about their target, and how mass transit is the lifeblood of any major city.
Here in Portland, it may sound trite but it's true: You can get a truer feel for the city by riding MAX or the bus than by going to any series of tourist attractions. I'll be the first to admit that while I'm riding my local #14 bus from Hawthorne into downtown, certain sounds and smells and delays can be an annoyance. But I also enjoy being part of an unfiltered mix. Where else are you ever going to have people in suits sitting next to the homeless?
Of course the fatalities and injuries are the tragedy in London today. But I hope that this and other possible future attacks will not erode people's faith in mass transit. I don't mean to suggest that Portland's leaders will second-guess light rail to South Waterfront because of something that happened on the other side of the globe. Rather, it's that when an attack like this comes, for all the fear it understandably inspires, hopefully it also reaffirms our resolve to building cities where people travel every day together and not in isolation.
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