David Bragdon is a lifelong transportation maven who has spent a lot of his life in New York City and Portland, Oregon. He has been an agent for Panamax grain ships on the lower Columbia River; President of an elected regional government and Metropolitan Planning Organization; the Executive Director of TransitCenter, an applied research and advocacy foundation; and a taxi driver. His transportation pursuits have included jump-seating 747 freighters into the Soviet Far East; taking passage on a Dutch containership through the Strait of Malacca; and riding in the locomotive of a freight train from Council Bluffs to Des Moines. He currently lives 200 meters from the banks of the Hudson River.