(Photo: PBOT)
Today, Mayor Sam Adams and his colleagues on City Council will vote on whether or not to allow $20 million from the Bureau of Environmental Services budget to be funneled into the City’s Green Streets program and be specifically tagged for use on bike boulevard projects.
The money would bolster a program that has been a part of the City’s planning goals since 2004 and it would be a shot in the arm to the Bureau of Transportation’s efforts to create a citywide network of safe streets. The proposal is expected to pass, but the road to the vote has been anything but speed-bump free.
(Graphic: PBOT)
At the core of Adams’ idea is a plan to use $15 million, out of a total of over $40 million, which has been saved by BES due to projects that have come in under budget over the past two years. In a statement released yesterday, Adams said, “These significant savings mean the City can make these Green Streets investments without impacting rate payers or Council-approved Capital Investment Plans.”
Despite these assurances from the Mayor, using money from a bureau that ostensibly provides “environmental services,” and is the home bureau of our sewer system, to pay for projects that will make biking more pleasant has been a bit of a logical leap for some.
The local media have likened this to a “swap” from sewers to bike lanes, and not surprisingly, the sentiment of many Portlanders has not been positive.
March 14th. All seven letters were against
Adams’ idea.
Much of the early criticisms of the plan stemmed from a memo written by BES (not Mayor Adams or PBOT staff) about where the $20 million would come from. A big chunk of the money, BES wrote, would come directly from sewer projects.
When Adams released his plan of where the money would come from — making it clear that it would not impact rate payers or projects — some were still skeptical.
Even commenters here on BikePortland are wary. When I reported on details of Adams’ plan on March 9th, commenter Gil Johnson wrote:
“As a home owner, landlord and daily bike commuter, I definitely have mixed feelings about the diversion of sewer fees to bicycle projects. It may be a small victory for biking in the short run but result in a nasty backlash that scuttles the bike plan in the future.”
According to an analysis by BES, the impact of not spending $15 million on capital projects would cut next year’s expected sewer bill increase by 0.15% (from 6.99% to 6.84%). Based on that calculation, the Office of Management and Finance estimates the savings to ratepayers would be about 7 cents per month.
Portland Mercury news editor Matt Davis, who gets around town on a bike and who has always been supportive of bike-related policies, didn’t mince his words when he wrote a story with the headline, I’m Uncomfortable With Bikes Plan Kickstart.
The same day, Anna Griffin, a sensible and respected columnist for The Oregonian, likened Adams’ actions around this proposal as “on the fly budgeting” that “doesn’t serve taxpayer interests.” Griffin criticized Adams not for the merits of his idea, but rather his approach to seeing it through. She wrote that, instead of the usual process involved with these types of proposals, Adams’ actions are illustrative of what happens when city leaders, “chuck the process, declare an emergency and do whatever they want.”
I share some of Griffin and Davis’ discomfort with all this.
While I think the idea is solid (read why below), it’s a shame that the PR around it has been so mishandled. Once again, some people feel that Mayor Adams is pushing a hastily formed idea on them at the last minute just to appease the “bike community.” This isn’t good for Adams or for people that care about bikes and it’s reminiscent of his handling of the Sauvie Island/Flanders Street Bridge proposal.
That idea was nowhere near as solid as this one, but it also seemed rushed, it was heavily criticized, and it raised anti-bike sentiment in the City. Like the proposal they’re voting on today, the Flanders Bridge project was put to vote as an “emergency” ordinance, and, despite the project’s merits, it turned into a PR debacle that was ultimately shelved by Adams at the last minute.
Hopefully, this proposal won’t see the same fate. Despite what all the letters to the editor and headlines say, there is a clear connection between sewer pipes, stormwater runoff, green streets and bike boulevards. And it’s not just Adams and bike and environmental advocates who see the connection. The City of Portland has officially embraced the concept since 2004.
The City adopted its Stormwater Management Plan in 2004. That plan required green street features on many public works projects and it identified the connection between infrastructure that meets environmental and transportation benefits.
Three years later, the City adopted their Green Street policy, which solidified the role of transportation infrastructure projects in reducing the stormwater runoff. It directed City staff to “Seek opportunities to leverage the work and associated funding of projects in the same geographic areas across Bureaus to create Green Street opportunities.” And for all the detractors who see this as some sort of hare-brained idea, Green Streets are officially defined in that document as streets that meet, “Broader community goals by providing pedestrian and where appropriate bicycle access.”
Integrating stormwater treatment into bike boulevard features is also referenced several times in the City’s 2030 Bike Plan, which passed City Council by a unanimous vote just last month.
Some have also argued that the $15.4 million in BES “contract savings” that Adams wants to direct into bike boulevard treatments should go back into ratepayer’s pockets. Commissioner Fritz asked Mayor Adams to clarify this at the Council meeting last week.
According to an analysis by BES, the impact of not spending $15 million on capital projects would cut next year’s expected sewer bill increase by 0.15% (from 6.99% to 6.84%). Based on that calculation, the Office of Management and Finance estimates the savings to ratepayers would be about 7 cents per month.
If this idea of re-greening our streets and simultaneously making them safer and more accessible for everyone is fully embraced (and judging from the internal politics going on between Mayor Adams and BES, that remains to be seen), it could have a transformative effect on our city.
Stay tuned for updates on today’s vote from City Hall.