In this episode, I sat down for a video phone call with Portland Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps.
His office set up this 30-minute interview to respond to our stories this week about Mapps’ involvement in a push from his PBOT Director Millicent Williams to make significant changes to the protected bike lane on NW/SW Broadway. Williams’ email to PBOT staff on September 14th made it clear she was ready to move forward — with what she claims was Mapps’ approval — on reversing the current Broadway bike lane design and replacing with a configuration that would be less safe for cycling.
In the interview, Mapps repeatedly denies that he had any knowledge of a clear plan to move forward. He also characterizes Williams’ email as a message that was meant to start a conversation about possible design changes and that a public process would have always been part of the plan. That contention directly contradicts not only the words Williams uses in her email, it also makes it odd that Williams would make a full apology for her actions — which she just did at the PBOT Bureau Budget Advisory Committee.
Full transcript below:
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Towards the end of the interview, Mapps makes a comment about having to take into account all Portlanders’ concerns, while claiming that Jonathan only has to concern himself with BikePortland readers/cyclists. This is a false dichotomy. Yes, we read BikePortland, but many of us are here not because we identify as “cyclists,” but because we are regular Portlanders just trying to move through our city and want to do so safely. Aside from walking, biking is the cleanest, healthiest, most affordable, and most environmentally and socially just form of transportation. I am one of the “all Portlanders” that Mapps speaks of; it just so happens that my usual mode is the one that reflects the values I’m trying to impart to my kids and my community: one that emits no carbon dioxide or particulate pollution, one that causes far fewer fatalities and severe injuries than driving, one that improves my physical health, and one that ties me to my city and community. These are all things Commissioner Mapps claims he believes in and supports, and yet because I read BikePortland, I get lumped in as just a “cyclist.”
I don’t believe it’s a huge ask that our safety be prioritized over economic interests. When my husband and I put our 4- and 6-year-old on the back of our bikes to get them to and from school in the central city every day, it is imperative that we have protection. Automobile-related injuries and deaths are at an all-time high and it’s not easy to continue putting myself and my family in the “vulnerable road user” category. Yet we do it because we truly believe that biking is climate action, and as a parent I have to make the extremely difficult decision to weigh my kids’ long-term future against our short-term interests. The only way I know how to do that and not let the anxiety take over is to fight for safer and more equitable streets, which in turn will someday mean healthier and more resilient communities.
This should have been an easy one for Mapps. Getting complaints about a bike lane from wealthy business owners? Cool. Chat with them, make it clear that he can work with them if and only if any changes either maintain or add to the safety of his constituents, whose right to move themselves and their children from A to B safely is a priority. I was hoping for a PBOT commissioner and mayoral candidate who understands that, but Mapps clearly does not. Unfortunately, even if he appears to suddenly get it as we approach election day, we can no longer trust that he’s being honest and genuine about that.
Such great observations here! It was especially galling that Adam, Mapps’s handler, felt he had to break in to yell at JM for being “adversarial” when in fact it was Mapps who lumped us all into a special-interest group who can’t see beyond our own fickle wants. But in fact our needs are just important as everyone else’s, so I bristle at the implication that I just don’t appreciate how hard Mapps’s job is.
Yeah, I also did an eye-roll at the handler’s implication that a journalist doing his job is considered “adversarial.” Way to deflect from Jonathan’s question, Adam!
Please try explaining that to Mapps. Call or email his office. Thank you.
Mingus Mapps lied about returning his donations from police gang. Mapps is lying about this. Mapps shouldn’t get any benefit of the doubt.
He could just apologize and try and do better, but those hotels and the PBA paid good money for him to remove the bike lane configuration. If business owners can’t buy off politicians, what’s even the point for Mapps in having office?
Okay, cool. I was wondering if Mapps office had lied about being briefed on the decision and signing off on it, or if Williams had lied in her email about getting Mapps buy-in on the decision. This confirms that Mapps is either lying about it or somehow can’t read and understand the email in question, which clearly says that after reviewing staff alternatives and conferring with the Commissioner, she made a decision to return Broadway to its pre-2018 design. Since I believe Mapps can in fact read basic words and understand what they mean, it follows that he’s blatantly lying.
Why not both? Williams seems to be just as suspect.
Nigel Jacquis, are you listening?
JM has covered this story so thoroughly that WW probably won’t take it up. WW wants to crow about their scoop, their contacts, their impact, etc. But clearly JM beat them to it and deserves huge praise for his work.
Jonathan has do e such an incredible job here!!! It might be the best reporting he’s ever done and he deserves to be nominated for a journalism prize of some sort!
But, this is the only print journalism where I’ve seen the story at all. This is the type of story where Jacquis shines. It would be great to see another quality journalist take this on. Both to get another perspective and to increase the story’s reach.
I’m not taking away from the incredible work that Jonathan has done. But , encouraging a way to bring more sunshine to it.
Thank you for saying this.
I think it’s very strange that no other local outlet has picked this up.
This is the only thing I’ve seen. https://youtu.be/w1M34pIpuZ8?si=MhAnN17U2vHDh90V
Nothing about Mapps.
yeah there were two stories at the start. Both just took the initial PBOT statement (which was not true and should never have come out) as fact. The great thing about the two TV news stories is that all the people who spoke were cyclists who said how much they loved the bike lane the way it is and how they cannot fathom why PBOT would want to make it worse.
This week will certainly go down in history as BP’s finest hour.
Props to JM for breaking down Mapp’s veneer & actually getting him to say a couple things. He is deeply pretentious & has no faith in anyone else’s intelligence, and when he breaks it down at the 32 minute mark you can really hear that.
He ultimately never came around to the fact that Williams was actually ok’ing the work orders, and so much of your debate hinged on his claim that this is just an analysis rather than the early stages of an active project. Gaslighting, honestly.
Some favorite moments:
“I can’t read 10,000 emails a day”
Ok, read this one email right now (it’s short, it’s published, the public has an interest) & respond to the substance.
“I’m not an engineering expert”
Then why are you & Williams issuing directives to your engineers?
“We’re a data-driven organization”
Lmao. Mapps thinks anecdotes are data. Jonathan rightly shredded him on this one, but I believe the “data” to which he refers are the $$$ column on his donor spreadsheet.
Mapps has a PhD in gov’t from Cornell, so he knows about gov’t. What he doesn’t know how to do is exercise operational control over transportation in Portland, and neither does the person he appointed (Williams). This case shows the danger of putting policy wonks in these positions, where they can do real harm.
Ugh, I tapped out after listening until the 25 min mark. Even though I voted for him, which I now regret, it’s clear he’s a typical evasive climb-the-ladder slimeball. His long winded word salads repeated over and over didn’t do him any favors.
I don’t regret voting for him – we had to get rid of Eudaly, who was doing actual harm in other areas (like the MUPs). What I thought the podcast showed clearly was Mapps’s incompetence in carrying out operational process at his bureau. He had probably told Williams “Do something about SW Broadway” so she thought she had scope to do whatever she wanted, when clearly she didn’t.
Mapps and Williams are two deeply cynical people who think that they can just push through with platitudes, apologies and hand-waving. It’s stomach-turning to see this level of insincerity at city hall while a record number of people are dying and being injured due to a legacy of bad transportation priorities and PBOT/ ODOT failures.
Every public servant is at risk for going down this weak-minded, self-serving path. It’s sad that Mapps has watched monied interests prevail in Portland and somehow thinks a ignominious tenure at city hall is going to help him feel good about himself.
Let the flaming begin. Imagine you are a hausfrau from Minneapolis or a vacationing tourist from Japan fresh from the airport and getting out of your Uber in front of a well appointed hotel after hours of grueling travel. Unaware of local customs you step over a line painted on the pavement and suddenly you are greeted with harsh invectives from an angry cyclist. Great way to start a holiday /s and characteristic response from a Portland cyclist whose priorities supersede all others.
The hotels have a valid concern that the configuration of the bike lane is ruining their client’s experience. I have had my share of close calls with cars and have flown off the handle with rage and harsh language, so I know the feeling, but in retrospect I was wrong and something of an ass and certainly not a gracious ambassador to the Rose City.
The hotel has signs out to alert cyclists that pedestrians (vulnerable road users) share the space but some people just can’t be nice and simply share the space
The purpose of a street isn’t to ehance their clients experience.
Are there literally any documented injuries to pedestrians at this spot?
If the hotels are looking to provide a premium experience, they should spend the money to modify their lobby and add a drive way where they can accomodate their guests without any of those meany cyclists bothering them.
Let’s stipulate to everything you just said for the sake of argument. How does any of that justify secretly sending out work orders to remove a crucial safe facility with no notice, and no public outreach, and over the objections of professional staff? How does it justify a nearly bankrupt agency spending tens or maybe hubdreds of thousands of dollars of the little budget it has left on those secret work orders? This isn’t me denying there are conflicts with hotel guests, it’s just insisting that a decision this big, with such huge effects on safety and precious taxpayer dolaars, should not be made in secret by just two people with no notice and no public input.
Yes, let’s change our infrastructure over imaginary, hypothetical problems.
I’ve read the last two years of Tripadvisor reviews for the Heathman Hotel, and not a single one mentions the loading zone or the bike lane
In my career as an airline pilot, I have done thousands of hotel stays and thousands of hotel van drops in every major city in the United States. I’ve even stayed at The Benson several times before getting based out of Portland. The conditions during drop-off at Portland’s hotels on Broadway are unremarkable compared to most hotels that are located in busy urban areas. It’s understood that many users share these public spaces, there’s always a certain amount of big-city bustle encountered before entering the lobby. Newer hotels are designed and built with a drop zone that’s carved out of the hotel’s property, but older hotels, the ones that were built before cars became ubiquitous ( and usually the cooler places to stay) often have a chaotic drop zone on the street, it’s expected.
The questions for Portland voters are: who is responsible for the comfort of the guests at the Benson? How can we make this area safe for all users? And, who is responsible for funding these improvements, the average tax payer or the hotel who is looking to improve their guest’s experience? When this dialog between local business and government occurs, we must be able to trust that our elected officials are representative of the people and not just using their office for personal and political gain. Mapps has completely lost my trust and I don’t know how he can effectively lead PBOT. I think he should step down.
Here is another imagined experience:
A visitor to Portland staying at a downtown hotel does not rent a car because they heard that people can easily get around Portland using BikeTown, E-scooters, walking and taking public transportation.
They ride a BikeTown on the only continuous north-bound bike lane through SW downtown in this supposedly bike friendly city. They are surprised to find that they are forced into a three lane car sewer midway through their ride with careless and clueless drivers. Or worse, they are injured by this dangerous set up. They never return to Portland and tell everyone they can that the stories that everyone hears about Portland being a city with humane transportation policies are actually lies.
They become curious about why Portland does not live up to its reputation and google articles about the deterioration of Portland’s bike network. They find out that the “local” downtown hotels in Portland are owned by a Texas corporation with disgraced Trump donors on its board. They also learn that these corporate hotels that have enriched themselves off of the creativity and culture of Portlanders used their influence with a corrupt council member and PBOT director to destroy the very things that actually made Portland a tourist destination.
This is such a great comment – there have been so many thoughtful comments this week. They make me think that our leaders are not worthy of leading such thoughtful people.
Ha. More like “south-bound” bike lane …rough morning.
I’ve had some encounters when biking up Broadway in front of the hotel. There were two people talking with one of them having their backs facing the bike lane. As the conversation finished, the person with the back facing away stepped backwards into the bike lane right in front of me. I was able to swerve but the person made some colorful remarks about cyclists and the bike lane to the Hotel employee that was standing nearby.
There are a few takeaways:
These are great observations, Daniel. In my experience of many years of cycling, I’ve noticed that many people feel entitled to direct denigrating behavior toward cyclists in ways they would never direct toward operators of motor vehicles. Clearly there’s a power dynamic at work here that puts people riding bikes into a “less than” category, where clearly you deserve whatever bad things are coming to you if you ride a bike. You are a menace to pedestrians b/c you are too fast for them but you are also a menace to cars b/c you are too slow.
All bikes should have a bell just like all cars/trucks have horns.
and if your bike doesn’t have a bell or horn, just sing the star wars bike lane song… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGwy9lj3i4Y
Two things.
There might be some complaints about a bike lane. People complain about a lot of things. But complaints are empirical data. Yes, you should investigate complaints and test their rational basis. But just being like, “Well, I got a complaint, so it must be true”, is just setting up an organization to be on hamster wheel of the public whims.
“Some people on bike are mean so they deserve to have their infrastructure ripped out.”
Cool. Someone in an SUV yelled a homophobic slur at me while I was biking the other day. Which highway are we gonna rip out to atone for the act??
Most posts that reply to my post are thoughtful and persuasive. Your reply places quotes around words (and sentiments) I did not post. My thought basically wished that people were more considerate. A distinctly different sentiment from the vengeful destruction of shared resources that was ascribed to me.
Pants on fire.
I had hopes that Mapps would be a better city representative than he has been these last two years. He largely sounds like someone repeatedly ‘shooting from the hip’ (which was also my impression from his recent KGW interview) without cogent and thoughtful plans for anything. It’s like his subtext to us is something like, “You should just trust me.” In short, he doesn’t inspire trust. Well done, Jonathan.
One of the key takeaways that Mapps sent was that he hadn’t read the emails sent by the director. Literally he is either lying or incompetent.
He’s incompetent because he’s saying he hadn’t even read them to prepare for this interview. Incompetent because he says he takes people’s comments seriously yet hasn’t even looked at a couple of emails that take about 1-minute to read. He’s had to have heard more than 100 comments on those emails. Yet he didn’t read them?
Or, he’s lying for the second time. He’s the leading candidate for mayor and he’s been caught lying 2 times in the past 2 days.
Lying or incompetent.
Yes, but I would qualify the incompetence as not defining Williams’s role adequately, to the point where she thought she had authority to make the change.
I know it’s hard to believe Mapps would miss a critical detail like that one, but he comes across as pretty scattered normally.
Just add that one to the ever growing list.
So Mapps just lied his way through the whole interview. That’s how he thinks he’s going to get out of what we think is a scandal: “I didn’t read the emails, I didn’t even read the articles. I don’t know nothing, I didn’t do nothing, and neither did Millicent.” I wish he would have just said that and saved all of us from listening to his 45 minutes of blabbering lies.
But still maybe this blocks the project. They can’t really go ahead and do it now after this, can they?
Also if he has any smart opponents in the mayoral race, they can bring this up and hammer on it next year.
I think the most likely outcome for Broadway at this point is that it will receive improvements, like concrete traffic separators, planters, loading platforms, etc.
I think the outcome for Millicent will be determined in the next 5 days, I think it’s 50/50 whether or not she’ll be asked to resign.
Not even 13 minutes into this before I feel a need to comment. “I have 3,000 employees”…??? Yes, Mapps, but you have ONE director. So worst case scenario, you’re lying through your teeth. Best case scenario, you’re 100% oblivious to major infrastructure changes that your own director is making without consulting you, and lied about having consulted you, and you’re still oblivious to it a full week later despite the media attention and public backlash? The simpler explanation seems more likely: lying liars gonna lie.
But the buck stops with him!!! He is all seeing and all knowing.
Except for this. This he didn’t know about one bit at all.
Great work on the story! Keep it up. Some ideas:
Get the hotel owner to say publicly he wants the safety feature removed. Too often, the people making the money at the public’s expense are allowed to make the decisions in private.
Do a request for all records (including texts) between the hotel(s) and their representatives (including PBA) and the city on the issue. They’re the ones calling the shots here and should be publicly accountable.
Ask Mapps if he will publicly declare that he will return any past or future campaign contributions from the hotel(s) and or their representatives.
thanks!
In my experience with the Hillsdale Rose Lanes, people that didn’t like them and wanted them ripped out (such as Hillsdale Business Association) would go directly to Mapps. Don Baack, member of the HBA would show up to the SWNI transportation meetings and share how he would email him and to have meetings with Mingus Mapps. I’d imagine the situation is very similar with the hotels and the larger downtown business alliance. Anything of political nature, you go to him. So to expect that Williams conveived of this idea all by herself is unlikely. This was more likely a top down request from Mapps.
And if you are not a business stakeholder you will be ignored. Ask those activists ghosted by his office!
Sorry for the spoiler, but Mapps’s answer is “No”.
Every time Jonathan asked him if he was briefed he hesitated and equivocated about what being briefed was. With long pauses where he was clearly trying to frame his response in such a way that it wouldn’t comeback to bite him in the ass when his own director or some aid comes forward and says he was briefed.He’s no Bill Clinton with all the hemming and hawing but he was definitely trying to toe that line.
Even if somebody didn’t come forward that this was about to happen what did he expect would happen when it was changed overnight? Bonehead move from however you look at it.
Williams was clearly moving forward with construction on Broadway. Either she was moving ahead without mapps’ approval or she wasn’t. Mapps refused over and over again to answer plain and direct questions.
The buck stops with him, he says, but he is unconcerned that a subordinates was, according to him, moving forward with a major plan without his knowledge?
Oh, she didn’t really mean what she wrote in the email in plain English, mapps asserted, and yet he also says that he couldn’t have possibly read the email or anything that’s been written about the email because he is oh so busy…
I appreciate that Jonathan continued to press the point over and over as mapps tried to avoid answering questions. But I’m extremely disappointed in the responses. That interview was a contortion act and it was painful to listen.
Very nice work, Jonathan.
Agh!
I understand that businesses on a street are an important voice regarding the functionality of the road for their businesses. I can appreciate that they would be given a hearing. However I wanted Jonathan to press harder on this point he brought up, “why this project, why now?” And “what data” suggests Broadway is a problem?
What I wanted to say is: look, you have limited resources and there is a too-high death toll on our streets. Yes, you have hotel and business folks calling your office with concerns about a bike lane, but how do those concerns rank beside a death toll? Because you know who can’t call you? Those who have died. But their silenced voices should be the loudest, and preventing more deaths and injuries should be the indisputable top priority.
I just made the mistake and going back to listen to part of the interrview. Still salty about this, even if they are not actually going to rip out the Bike Lane anymore.