Rachel Stemach

It is great to have a hostel of some type in Bend. But, please, don't allow this historic home to get trashed anymore!

Moving the bungalows from their original location is NOT how you "preserve" history! McMenamins is obviously unclear on that concept.

You know what my favorite months are in Bend? November, followed by March. People go back to home/ school and I have back a tiny slice of what life used to be like in my hometown (what's left of it)...

I agree with most comments the readers have already made. Downtown is easy to navigate if you BEHAVE as a road user should - TAKE the lane when the need is there, folks. Honestly, the bike lanes are fine. However, as a year-round commuter, I've basically resolved to ride my mountain bike most of the time because of the piss-poor road conditions. In the winter, bike lanes are hardly ever plowed, even on main arterials. Currently, with so many potholes (and gaping huge cracks in side streets as the alternative), along with the mind-boggling utility and other road work occurring throughout town, I basically cannot use a road bike without popping a tire or bending a rim. But, with that said, it is still possible to commute okay and relatively quickly, as long as you can endure the ridiculously bad street conditions.

I've never had any media source mention Jane Jacobs' book (outside of the planning and architecture realm, anyway), so kudos to that part. Personally and professionally, I'm all for good development, and will be curious to see what is proposed first. Creating a eastern 'border' to what could one day become "Heritage Square" certainly isn't a bad thing. Perhaps this new development will spur the removal of the paved lot between Wall and Bond Streets.... Troy Field could be re-envisioned, across the street, as Heritage Square (which has been identified for many years for its 'low-hanging' fruit potential).

The east-west corridor disconnect across Bend has been troublesome for decades, and it is NOT enjoyable to ride from someplace like downtown to, say, the hospital for a number of reasons besides the discontinuity of bike lanes. You also to contend with: 1) badly chip-sealed/ patched roads; 2) debris and rocks from winter sanding in the bike lanes that only gets swept once or maybe twice, seasonally; 3) storm drains/manhole covers that are at much lower elevations from the layers of asphalt overlays and, lastly 4) striped lanes that are not even a basic three feet wide (such as along Penn/Neff Road up and over the north flank of Pilot Butte).

So, its not always the best consistency in Bend, but its better than some other U.S. towns, I guess.