Mayor Tom Potter was the guest of Sheila Hamilton on the KINK-FM Afternoon Show yesterday. In an interview that dealt mostly with Potter’s charter reform effort, Hamilton also brought up the Bike Master Plan funding fiasco.
It’s rare to hear Potter talk about bikes, so I thought I’d share his words with you. Below is the brief interview followed by links to the original audio.
Scott Bricker at last night’s
Community Budget Hearing.
File photo: 5/10/07
Sheila Hamilton/KINK:
“Very good news for area cyclists in that you found some money in the city budget to be able to move forward with the citywide bicycling plan…”
Mayor Potter:
“Yes…we want to move Portland into a Platinum-level bicycle plan…and we did find the money. The city came up with some additional money from business tax, and I told the bicycling community that if I found some additional money I would fund that…and I did.*”
[*Editor’s note: In Potter’s statement backing up his decision to not fund the Master Plan his words were, “I agree that the Platinum Bicycle Master Plan is important and I would like to see it funded in the near future.”]
Sheila Hamilton/KINK:
“So what will that mean in terms of the overall plan?”
Mayor Potter:
“Well they will find that the bicycle lanes will be better marked…it’ll be better in terms of just bicycling around Portland. Right now we’re a gold level, which is very high and one of the best bicycling cities in America…but we think we can be better.”
Listen to this short excerpt of the interview (:46 seconds)
[audio:potteronkink.mp3]
Download the MP3 file (730 KB)
Listen to the entire podcast on the KINK Afternoon Show website.
[Thanks to Jessica Roberts for the tip!]
His remarks in response to the question about what the funding will mean in terms of the overall plan don’t exactly instill confidence. He appears to have no idea what the Plan will do. Get the lanes marked better? They’re already marked with pretty bright, solid white lines — how much better can it be?
Too bad she didn’t ask him about the enforcement issues.
And here’s a fun legal question for the kids: If you ride the white line marking the boundary between the “roadway” and the bike lane, are you obeying the “use the bike lane” rule, or are you a scofflaw who deserves a $242 ticket? Given the anti-bike jingoism of Mayor Potter’s PPB, I think we may get that question answered.
Re legal question. OK. I give up. What happens if you do ride on the white line? I do that quite often whilst riding up ‘death trap’ Broadway in downtown Portland – to avoid possibly being doored. Of course, I don’t know if I could get doored, because half the cars have those blacked out windows, and you can’t see if there is a driver inside.
It would be really nice to once again have a mayor who “gets” cycling and understands what the purpose of the bicycle master plan is.
That might be too much to ask, I guess.
“They will find that the bicycle lanes will be better marked…it’ll be better in terms of just bicycling around Portland.”
That’s a pretty pathetic response. You’d think he’d be able to provide an intelligent response to that question by now. As I understand it, his office had no idea what the plan was a month ago, and it appears they still don’t know.
Joe – agreed, wholeheartedly. How about this for an intelligent response:
“We believe that all modes of transportation are important, and in an era of higher gas prices, we anticipate bicycle ridership to increase. In fact, it has nearly doubled in the last 5 years. The bike master plan update will ensure that we can accommodate these additional cyclists in a manner that provides for the safety and convenience of all roadway users.”
A nice, simple sound bite. If he wants bonus points, he can talk about environmental responsibility, sustainability, and carbon offsets. He could also relate it to the Peak Oil Task Force report, or the fight against the obesity epidemic.
There’s so much room for positive spin on this, there is no excuse for the mayor’s office to not be better informed on this. And that’s purely from a pragmatic approach, neglecting any other aspects.
Yo – mayor’s office: take note.
Ah, so that’s why he didn’t fund it. He has NO IDEA WHAT IT IS! *slaps forehead*