Michael and I outside the Shed.
The one and only Michael Andersen rolled over to The Shed on Friday and I’m excited to share our 50-minute conversation with you.
If things would have gone differently, Michael and I might have been working together here in my backyard. Seven years ago, Michael was BikePortland’s news editor, a position he held from 2013 to 2016. I’m typically pretty humble about what happens around here, but I have no problem saying that Michael and I were kicking ass. We had such a great complement of skills when it came to this weird type of community transportation journalism that we do. It just clicked. I loved working with him and — from the Real Estate Beat column, to his detailed coverage of “low-car life” (a phrase he popularized) and national cycling trends (he was working half-time for national nonprofit People for Bikes) — I loved what we produced together.
Why’d he leave BikePortland? He shared something during our chat Friday about that for the first time. “Because I couldn’t have two children simultaneously,” Michael said. “BikePortland was so all-encompassing that I felt like I couldn’t have done them both of them justice. So, I had to choose my son. Sorry about that.”
I still don’t forgive him, but I’ve learned to move on. Just kidding! And it feels great to know that Michael went on to much bigger things as a major part of Sightline, a well-respected think tank with nearly two dozen staff that research, develop policy, and write articles about stuff like housing, climate change, environmental economics, democracy, transportation, and so on.