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!]