(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
Street Roots, Portland’s first-rate paper about homelessness and housing issues, sometimes asks questions about the closely related subject of transportation.
A questionnaire distributed to the mayoral candidates and published last week includes a quick window into the ways different candidates think about mobility issues.
The question:
Please place the following items in order of priority as mayor.
• Increase parking
• Bike infrastructure
• Low or no-fare public transit
Here’s what they said:
Jules Bailey
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Increase parking
Patty Burkett
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Increase parking
Sean Davis
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike lanes
3. Increase parking
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Bim Ditson
1. Bike infrastructure
2. Low- or no-fare public transit
3. Increase parking
Deborah Harris
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Increase parking
3. Bike infrastructure
Sarah Iannarone
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Make downtown a car-free zone
David Schor
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Increase parking
Jessie Sponberg
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Increase parking
Ted Wheeler
1. Low- or no-fare public transit
2. Bike infrastructure
3. Increase parking
So, to recap:
• Only one candidate, Ditson, put bike infrastructure above cheap transit.
• Only one candidate, Harris, put bike infrastructure below more auto parking.
• Only one candidate, Iannarone, decided that she was so strongly against increasing auto parking that she would refuse to put it on her list at all.
— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org
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Now let’s look at those items with $ next to them to see which ones cost how much.
Suddenly bike infrastructure is looking a lot better.
We have a pretty good idea already what the bike infrastructure and parking will cost, decreased or increased. The Mayor has no control at all over TriMet (essentially a state agency), so Portland would have to pay a direct cash subsidy to TriMet to make any part or all of Portland “low-fare/ no-fare”, either by buying passes for all its residents, or making Portland a separate zone from all the rest of the city. Presumably the cash subsidy would come from PBOT and would likely be big enough to force the city to lay off many employees.
Ha, love Sarah’s response! Increasing parking? Don’t even think about it.
Does “increase parking” mean increase parking availability through appropriate market pricing, or does it mean build more parking spaces? There’s a huge difference, and it’s not clear in the article.
Pretty smart of the candidates to support ” Low- or no-fare public transit.” That’s something that is up to Trimet, Metro and perhaps the State, so they can easily say they are in favor without actually having to do anything about it as mayor. But PBOT controls the vast majority of streets (except for State Highways) in the city limits, so Bike infrastructure and Parking are things that the new mayor will have to address.
Perhaps I am being cynical…
I wonder if this exercise tells us anything at all about whether the candidate who wins will pursue any of them?
If you ask people to rank free desserts, free sex, and a guaranteed income you’d probably get an amusing result but the relevance of the exercise is less clear.
Please rank the following priorities: give all Portland citizens…
* a puppy
* a hug
* an ice cream sundae.
Ice cream
hug
puppy
Not everyone can handle the responsibility of a puppy.
my mom always said “actions speak louder than words”
So Deborah Harris isn’t even an option anymore based on that answer. Sarah easily has my favorite response. Because seriously, parking… more parking? Are you kidding me. I shouldn’t even start responding to that as an answer. It’s a horrible answer, I’d have denounced it as an option too.