Portland, Oregon is on the verge of becoming the first major American city liberated from the automobile.

Six percent of the people commuting in Portland on an average day arrive by bicycle. Many more come in by public transit, provided by on street rail and an extensive bus system, both of which carry bikes. There is even an aerial cable tram connecting parts of the city across the water.

It is a great city to walk in.

Thirty years ago urban planners in Portland, in alliance with a robust and radical environmental movement, concluded the costs of sprawl and automobile infrastructure was becoming unsustainable. The attempt to bring huge numbers of automobiles into the city and park them was producing streets which were congested, a cityscape hostile to human presence and ever increasing private and public costs.

Continued reliance on the automobile would drive Portland to economic and social failure, packing its urban center with parking decks and committing the region to vast spending on massive bridge, road and parking infrastructure. Portland would sprawl to escape the ugliness of its automobiles.

It would become thin, wide, ugly and cheap while going bankrupt at the same time.

Portland built a better city instead. Asphalt was torn up and rails went down. Traffic lanes disappeared. HOV and bus lanes replaced them. Bike lanes were carved from the car's territory. Better bike racks went up by the hundreds. Sidewalks were widened to 12 or more feet. Chunks were carved out of the automobile's territory to accommodate transit stations, shelters and boarding platforms.

On many streets, only one narrow, one way lane survives to allow automobile traffic.

The Clemson graduate from South Carolina who was sipping coffee and coding E-commerce Web sites next to me on his exotic two screen laptop at the Backspace Internet workroom and coffee bar in the Pearl district told me this: He had worked in Charleston for little. A college classmate told him to come to Portland. He and a friend drove around the clock, crossing the continent in 54 hours. He found work, better pay and a new lifestyle among the young, creative Internet workers of Portland three years ago.

The long trip wore out his old car. When it broke down three weeks after he arrived, he sold it to the towing company. He bought a bike and hasn't owned a car since. He doesn't want to. He doesn't have to. He has no interest in returning to places which force him to devote a third of his income and life to transportation. He is not waiting to come back to Greenville or Charleston. However much it rains, he prefers Portland.

My son Jackson rented a bike and beat me in every trip I made across the city. Jackson ranged far out into the countryside on the trails along the river and out along the nationally famous Sweetwater bike trail, which may someday extend to Mt. Hood. I rode the Max train and Streetcar, which glide through the city center on rubber cushioned rails right set into the street. I used my phone to find the nearest bus stop and made trips across the city in minutes, without ever folding a map, just following the instructions on the phone about where to board and where to dismount the bus.

I walked for miles, dodging the rain to drink coffee, talk and meet people.

Portland's victory is the product of sometimes bitter struggle. People laid down in the streets to block plans for a 12 lane bridge across the river. Earth first was alleged to have slashed the tires of large SUVs. On occasion, people were arrested, tried and convicted. Some are jailed or fugitives today. There has been backlash. Elections have hinged each way on the issue of how much of the city's life should accommodate the car. That struggle continues.

However, Portland's transformation is breathtaking. It is the quietest city of its size I have ever seen. The sound of engines, horns and sirens is small in awareness.

The remaining car traffic moves quietly and smoothly through the city. It is an incredibly pleasant and safe place to walk. Transit is free in the city center. I saw people training the blind and disabled on how to move about.

Revelers packed the trains Friday night. Young families filled the seats on Saturday. We rolled out to the airport for $2.

Portland worked in the rain and succeeded in the sun. It will survive the end of the automobile.

Those of you thinking that if I like it so much, I should leave, will be happy to know that is what my son plans to do.

Tens of Thousands of people from the suburban South are already there. They have become the radicals laying down in the streets and voting down the bond issues for highways. They have taken their talent and their energy with them.

We need more cities like Portland. We will need them soon.

It is worth a visit to see what the future could be like while we still have the time and resources to shape it.

(William Hamilton (www.wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I'On Village.