Commissioner Mapps shoots hole in Frog Ferry hopes

“The headwinds for this project are strong.”

– Mingus Mapps, Portland city commissioner

At a city council meeting Wednesday, Portland Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps shared very bad news for backers of Frog Ferry, a project that would bring ferry transit to the Willamette River.

In response to Frog Ferry advocates who spoke at the beginning of the meeting, Mapps told them he has seriously cooled on the project. Several ferry backers, including Frog Ferry President Susan Bladholm, came to council to urge them to add the project into the the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), a federally-required list managed by Metro that puts projects in line for federal funding consideration.

Below is Mapps response in full (edited slightly for clarity):

“I support this project, I share your vision. I respect you. And because I respect you, I’m also going to speak some truth right now. And this is going to be difficult.

I think everyone on this council when people all throughout this region can understand and embrace the vision of bringing a ferry to the city. I will also tell you that the headwinds for this project are strong. If you’ve paid attention to some of the conversations we’ve had in this chamber over the last several weeks, you’ve seen me come to my colleagues and talk about the grim economic facts. That PBOT’s budget is fundamentally unstable and flawed. I’m busy trying to figure out how to cut $32 million for PBOT’s budget. That’s about a third of our discretionary dollars, which is a challenge. Which also means that expanding and creating a new mode of transportation, even one which I think would be a great benefit to our community, is awfully difficult.

Now I’m sure some folks will say, ‘But Commissioner Mapps, listen, we’re not asking for dollars from PBOT.’ But in terms of how this fits together, If I put the ferry on the Regional Transportation Plan [RTP], it means I don’t put some other infrastructure projects into that slot, that I kind of have to get done, which the feds might reasonably provide us some help [with].

I also want to talk about some of the other challenges that we face here. I think this project would be great if our partners across the river in Vancouver were enthusiastic, but our elected leaders in Vancouver have told me in no uncertain terms that they do not plan to build a Frog Ferry terminal in Vancouver. And I will also tell you, our partners over at TriMet have also expressed concerns to me about how this project would interact with their transportation system. Now I see some heads shaking; but you know, I’ve talked to them [TriMet] and they tell me that, you know, one of the your requests to them if we move forward with this project, I think they’ve been asked to withdraw some bus lines in certain neighborhoods that we’re talking about… and I’m not a TriMet expert, but I will tell you what I will tell you the kind of reception that I received when I talked to our regional partners about trying to move this forward.

Now, we are not making a vote today. And I know this conversation will continue over the next couple of weeks; but because I respect you and I want to honor your activism, I also just feel obliged to actually be straight with you about what our current field position is. And of course you can reach out to my office you can reach out to my colleagues on council, you can reach out to our partners in Vancouver and our friends over at TriMet. I recognize that it is upsetting to many and this is disappointing. But in my professional evaluation, that is where we’re at today.”

This is a big blow to Frog Ferry, especially as the group tried to regain momentum after missing a key grant deadline and failing to get the previous PBOT Commissioner on board last year.