People who live along Northeast 33rd Avenue in the Concordia Neighborhood received a flyer on their doorstep earlier today. The flyer states that the City of Portland plans to remove bike lane striping between Dekum and Holman on December 18th and 19th. (Note: The flyer is not on Portland Bureau of Transportation letterhead because it comes directly from S-2 Contractors, the firm PBOT has hired to do the work.)
The flyer was delivered before PBOT made any announcement about the project but I have just confirmed with the city that the removal will happen. ***Scroll down for updates and comments from PBOT staff***
The first time these bike lanes were slated for removal (November 1st) people stood in front of the contractor’s truck and prevented the driver from moving forward. The spontaneous protest came as bike advocates were caught off-guard and sought to defend a vital link in the bike network between the Holman neighborhood greenway and existing bike lanes over NE Columbia.
The protestors were successful. PBOT paused the removal and chose to do more direct outreach to nearby residents. The reason PBOT claimed they needed to remove the bike lanes in the first place was because of an administrative error. The agency manager in charge of the project, Art Pearce, said people who live on 33rd were told about the new bike lanes only on the morning they were striped. He chalked it up to PBOT simply “dropping the ball.”
In addition to what PBOT says was an oversight in their outreach process, the fact that some of the people strongly opposed to the bike lane are longtime Black residents, loomed over their decision.
For the past month or so, PBOT has left the bike lane in a state of limbo. They’ve left the striping alone, but decided to not enforce parking rules. They have also held individual talks with residents to help inform how best to move forward. According to PBOT, two staffers, Capital Project Manager Scott Cohen and Quick Build Program Delivery Manager Lisa Patterson were the staffers who did the one-on-one outreach. PBOT also hosted a community meeting in early November that they say 16-18 residents attended.
BikeLoud PDX, the nonprofit advocacy group whose members and leaders stopped the removal last month, has also reached out to residents. They passed out a flyer with an invitation to discuss the issue to every house in the project area.
With this new flyer delivered today, it now appears PBOT has made their decision. I have not yet learned why PBOT decided to remove the bike lane but am scheduled to chat with their spokesperson soon. I’ll update this post as soon as I can.
UPDATE: In a phone call with BikePortland a few minutes ago, PBOT Policy, Planning and Projects Director Art Pearce, Capital Project Manager Scott Cohen, and Communications Director Hannah Schafer explained the rationale behind their decision.
Art Pearce:
“We had worked on some additional design options and were hoping that we could navigate some sort of mid-level change [to keep the bike lane in place and satisfy concerns], but in the work of doing the direct outreach, have discovered — I think even more so — the degree to which this un-notified and un-consulted change has touched on a degree of rawness and sensitivity from community members — in particular, the multi-generational Black families that live adjacent to this location.
We believe the only respectful answer at this point is to take a step back, acknowledge the impact (despite our good intentions), remove bike lanes, give this conversation a little bit of time to cool off and then figure out what a path forward should be. But we’re really just not able to have a respectful conversation while we have those facilities still in front of all those homes.
… The plan is that we need to do the removal, but we need to let neighbors know that there’s still an unmet transportation need so we still have to come up with a resolution. But we need to give this a little bit of time.”
Hannah Schafer:
“We still see a need to identify a way to improve the connection in this area, so that’s not off the table, it’s just that we can’t move forward with a constructive conversation with community while the existing bike lanes that were put in without notification are on the ground.
It’s important to emphasize that yes, there is a component of this that is tied to historic disenfranchisement of members of the Black community, but that’s not entirely what this is about. That’s just one component of it. We didn’t just hear from members of the Black community who were opposed to this and were taken aback by the fact that we had put in a bike lane without any notification. It’s really important that this is not a ‘bike versus Black community’ issue.”
Scott Cohen:
“The pain and frustration and anger with the City over past decisions were definitely communicated as part of this and were frankly seen as a line of decision making, not something you know — how we felt — we made a one-off mistake. That was not how it was received.”
I’m not sure why anyone would expect a different outcome. PBOT is headed by a guy who is anti-road safety. He said the central eastside was too dense because he couldn’t reliably park in front of his house. The pause was just performative.
What does outreach even look like here? What could PBOT possibly say to make the homeowners want to give up their publicly funded parking spaces? It’s all total nonsense. Safety isn’t a construct. There are no road safety projects that don’t have some amount of opposition and fear mongering. PBOT essentially has acknowledged that the public property in front of these homes belongs to the property owners. Maybe they can start paying taxes on them.
But if this is PBOT’s position, it needs to be codified. PBOT needs to list what racial demographics can overrule community planning processes. We can then look at demographics of each neighborhood and use color to signify which neighborhoods wont receive road safety investment due to their demographic make-up, red seems like a good choice to denote what areas will be less safe to travel through.
Outside of this, I’d look out for any projects you hold near and dear. Dingus is gunning for votes and is probably going to sell PBOT to anyone who is buying.
I really get this frustration and vehement disagreement with PBOT”s choice here–I also think it was the wrong decision, but let’s leave out suggestions of modern-day redlining which has a very specific, harmful and racist past.
PBOT is making planning/investment decisions based solely on the race of people who live there. They should probably stop doing that.
PBOT is turning what would otherwise be a generic property owner complaint and turning it into a “bikes vs Black community” issue. Most property owners feel entitled to the space in front of their house. Every time anything gets built that reduces property owners come crawling out of the road work moaning that PBOT didn’t take them out to a nice steak dinner and beg them to let them repurpose the public property in front of their home. This isn’t any different.
PBOT is setting a really stupid and dangerous precedent (at least for people who care about safety). PBOT has officially acknowledged that property owners have direct control over how safe the street in front of their house is, which sucks for anyone who doesn’t want to get obliterated by a distracted speeding driver.
100% agree, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. The amount of jurisdictional gymnastics that PBOT is engaged in to avoid implementing anything from the Portland 2030/2035 Plan is just amazing.
I believe the point cc_rider is making is not to suggest that they should do modern day redlining, they are using irony to suggest that this is effectively what PBOT is doing with their actions and how it is such a harmful, racist thing to do.
Racism is ugly, and for our governmental organizations to keep perpetrating it is terrible.
I’ve always struggled with the notion that continuing to be racist (picking winners/losers based on skin color) is somehow better than what we have been and what some still are.
My work has the opinion that only when white people are chosen as winners it’s racist, but if a person of color is chosen as a winner it’s not. Of course we aren’t allowed to question that notion.
This, how can we start an initiative to get people to pay taxes for these parking spaces then? How do we reframe the issue as a private property dispute?
They are called ‘parking permits.’ Let’s roll them out city-wide and see how many votes THAT gets him!
I don’t think we actually want to legitimize this, as it could set this as precedent. Privatizing the public ROW frontage of every property in the state would not only conflict with the legal definition of the “Public Right-Of-Way”, but I wouldn’t trust our courts to not screw this up.
The worst case result would be to cede all control of street design to every individual property owner.
Fair, but by ceding to these property owners they have essientially privatized these spaces, no? Street parking is dangerous for drivers as well, as you cannot see around vehicles, I have found in conversations with motorists when discussing these things I can find some middle ground. Given the frustration with encampments etc, I think there is a larger conversation to have about private property in public spaces… but I do share your reservations with our legal system.
Long time black residents and PBOT ensuring the street stays dangerous for anyone that needs to commute on it. Good job!
PBOT’s new equity moto: keep streets with black folks dangerous.
SO DISAPPOINTED IN PBOT LEADERSHIP, THE DIRECTOR AND THE COMMISSIONER
PBOT operations manual: Driver Vibes >>> Safety
PBOT sucks
Mingus Mapps Sucks. lots of people in PBOT want better, but there is no political leadership and a director who is very absent on this specific project.
I feel for PBOT staff, truly. The work of navigating the relationship between infrastructure improvements and gentrification is a very tricky one. You don’t just see this reaction from low-income and BIPOC households to bike lanes, but even taking a road from gravel to asphalt. It is undeniable that better infrastructure can help facilitate displacement, and perhaps more to the point: the City only seems to do infrastructure improvements in places where displacement is occurring. Community members can ask for basic services for years, and then only receive them when the neighborhood is “transitioning” into one which, candidly, houses the type of people that our electeds care about.
At the same time, it’s hard not to feel that PBOT is unintentionally playing into a very dangerous narrative that we’ve heard before: “rich white cyclists versus impoverished, grandmotherly POC homeowners.”
Cyclists are disproportionately poor. Pedestrian fatalities are disproportionately POC and low-income. I’m hearing a lot about the black homeowners who need a place to park their vehicles, but nothing about the black renters two blocks over who can only afford a bike to get to their warehouse job.
We need to ask the right questions here. Do the desires of homeowners to have on-street parking outweigh the improvement in the safety of vulnerable road users? Does PBOT’s admittedly awful lack of engagement truly justify tangibly and objectively making the roadway less safe for all users? I have not heard Art ask that question. In my mind, that’s a pretty important part of the discussion, and it’s seemingly being completely overshadowed by a very 1-dimensional conversation about the race of a small group of homeowners. We need a more holistic approach that takes into account the needs of the whole community, including black cyclists, renters, etc.
And finally: let’s take a more detailed look at this situation here: this is a critical connection for the bike network, on a street where most homes have a garage and a 1-2 car driveway. That’s to say nothing of the vastly underutilized side streets.
Consider sharing this at the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting starting at 6 tonight: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/bicycle-committee
I appreciate Xavier D. Stickler’s focus on thinking about street safety in terms of the greater vulnerability to vehicular violence experienced by Portlanders of color and/or by Portlanders with less economic means. I would add to that a reminder that pollution has long had and continues to have worse effects in communities of color, here and nationally. These worse effects exist specifically because of “transportation” decisions that put highways and other high-traffic streets through communities of color, as well as policies that redlined communities of color into geographic areas exposed to significantly more pollution. That these particular Black homeowners now feel as entitled to onstreet parking as most white homeowners do is not a sign of progress or equity. It’s yet another reminder that the car culture that endangers all of us — and some of us more than others — has also amazingly convinced many of us to buy into and defend the very culture that is killing us.
I thought of this same point, Lois, in regard to I-5, the Memorial Coliseum, and Emanuel Hospital, which obliterated a Black neighborhood.
Did those transportation-centric decisions run roughshod over Black Portlanders? Yes, they did. So is that the reason PBOT is now so deferential to the desires of a few Black households to park of the street in front of their houses? Does a bad decision long ago condition PBOT’s response today, in a completely different context?
Our past decisions “ran roughshod” over lots of people. For example, PSU and I-405 destroyed the Jewish community in SW Portland. Why isn’t PBOT giving Jews the same deference when it comes to street planning?
What do you mean that doesn’t make any sense?
Cyclists and pedestrians are still dying in the streets but PBOT can’t have a productive conversation with homeowners about a bike lane. I don’t have the vocabulary to accurately express my disgust for this.
If bike lanes can’t go in the west hills because they are too wealthy and white, and bike lanes can’t go here because it’s too racially diverse, then where can the the bike lanes go?
Washington County just added bike lanes on NW Cornell Road to the east of NE Cedar Hills Boulevard. The combined sidewalk project removed car parking.
Well, that’s one. Please don’t mention Washington County’s decisions – they just make Portland look bad.
PBOT seems fine with acknowledging other problems yet maintaining the status quo for budgetary reasons.
Are they broke or not?
Did anyone hear of a near fatal accident in SW Portland this morning?
I can’t find anything online. anyone know if rider survived?
Is it on WashCo Scanner? There was a crash this week in Orenco in Hillsboro.
Pretty cool that PBOT is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars making our streets less safe because a handful of people would have to walk like an extra block from their car to their house and were mad about it.
Only certain people get these exceptions, though. The rest of us just need to pay our taxes and shut up.
Every time I rode on that stretch after the lanes went in there were cars and trucks parked in the bike lane.
Yep – and in most cities with functional governments, those cars would be ticketed and towed.
So PBOT’s equity policy is to further lock BIPOC residents into dependency on a transportation mode that kills, maims and bankrupts them at higher rates than the rest of the population? Noted.
Imagine being so oblivious to African American culture, history and self determination that you think you can tell us how to thrive.
It’s no wonder the neighbors pushed back.
It seems to me that PBOT could simply remove any and all pavement markings, including the center yellow, and get more or less the same results of a traffic-calmed street without the bike lanes.
But this is Portland Orygun, so no doubt there will be riots involving antifascists and the orange-vested PBOT civilian safety units on the 11 pm news, with repeats on nationally-syndicated comedy shows. Way to go Portland! Woohoo!
What on God’s green Earth are you talking about?
To most Americans, Portland represents pretty much the last large city that is still predominantly “white”, where “minorities” are not in the majority. I have no doubt that various community bike groups will come out and protest the lane removals (again), most of whom will be very “white” particularly when broadcast on TV and online. People in other cities will think that Portlanders are racist when they are overwhelmingly “white” fighting any sort of progress for local blacks. We both know that blacks are a tiny minority in Portland, historically and at present, that the city has a long history of discriminating against Chinese, Japanese, Latinos, Slavic peoples, and pretty much everyone who isn’t WASP, but blacks are a legally “protected class” in federal law and have special protections (as do Native Americans and to a certain extent Latinos), while the other visible and invisible minorities do not.
Given that Portland is switching to electoral districts, I have no doubt that the city will go through a long and nasty process of gutting and rewriting previous plans such as the Comp Plan and BMP 2030 as “racist” and biased towards “white” downtown investment – the vast majority of volunteers and staff involved with the BMP in 2010 were in fact “white”. I can also see a vast reduction in funds invested downtown by the city with 75% of councilors coming from outside districts, in all bureaus, but particularly with PBOT, Parks, and Planning.
I live in a city that is 40% white and 43% black (the remainder made up of other races, foreign immigrants and migrant workers, and mixed-race). All five of our districts receive roughly equal funding, including bike lanes – the same number of miles of new bike lanes in each district along collector and arterial stroads and streets – not only in the two mostly-white districts but also in the two mostly-black districts, plus the other one – that way bicycle infrastructure is not seen as “racist” and everyone is more accepting of the new infrastructure. The historic problem for Portland is that until 2010, nearly all the bike infrastructure was put in the richer inner parts of the city and the outer areas were neglected, a pattern that still persists today, just not as glaringly so. PBOT to its credit recognizes this and in the name of “affirmative action” is rethinking how it designs and implements such infrastructure – and I for one applaud them for it.
David, you might want to stay out of this one, since you don’t have a dog in this fight anymore.
Oh, but I do “have a dog in this fight”. Our local city council, like many others nationwide, keep citing Portland Oregon (as opposed to much smaller Portland Maine) as a prime example of a medium-sized city that has a high bicycle mode share (it may have gone down quite a bit from its peak but it’s still vastly higher than most US cities), that by spending a modest amount of government money it has reached platinum status. People within Portland may scoff at this, but your national reputation is still largely intact. So when we are advocating locally for certain improvements (bike boxes for example), we try to cite a local example if we can (Charlotte or Raleigh), but invariably our city councilors think about and look up online good old Portland Oregon to see what they’ve done lately. But if they see that Portland has a reputation of being a regressive racist white-only community, our black city councilors will, illogically or not, think “bike boxes = racist infrastructure” and block (defund) their implementation.
A person could wish the councilors would focus on Carmel, Indiana instead. The mayor went all in on traffic roundabouts (because climate change) and incidentally reduced traffic deaths to 2 per 100,000 citizens. For Portland that would translate to 12 people, instead of 61 or whatever it is by now.
I can’t believe you actually typed this out. I’m even more horrified that quite a few people upvoted it. This is an opinion site and David is more than able to render an opinion.
I just upvoted your comment.
Black folks do not have “special protections”. They have the same legal protections that everyone else has. You can’t decline to serve someone because they’re black; you also can’t decline to serve someone because they’re Asian or white, Slav or Latino.
Yes, race is a special class, but we’ve assigned everyone a race, and all are protected.
You are half right, Watts. It depends on context – employment, for example, where there are protected classes: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protected-employment-discrimination
What that website says is exactly what I said. In employment no one cab be discriminated against on the basis of race. That applies to everyone across the board, not just certain groups.
Back to school, Watts.
Eagerly awaiting to see what BikeLoudPDX’s community outreach feedback looked like in comparison to PBOT’s community outreach feedback.
Which was it this time? Blocking traffic or slashing SUV tires?
No – letters to the affected homeowners and invitations to talk.
So they’ve already doxxed them? Oh lord
Why does Art Pearce still have a job? Would love to see a BP story focused exclusively on accountability at PBOT one of these days.
How do you write a story about something that doesn’t exist?
But seriously, no one at the city is accountable. The CoP should be dissolved and broken up into smaller units.
“PBOT will move backward” is a more accurate headline.
I’m sorry but Pearce is straight up lying when he says: “… The plan is that we need to do the removal, but we need to let neighbors know that there’s still an unmet transportation need so we still have to come up with a resolution. But we need to give this a little bit of time.” This won’t get fixed in the next decade, and we all know it. Even if there was political will to do it they will blame a lack of funding going forward, and eventually it will get on some list and go through a many years long process all over again, and then we will have to fight a handful of neighbors again and it will be 50/50 as to if they do anything. It’s ridiculous.
I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was just being naive when he talked about revising bike lanes on this street in the future, but Pearce has been at this game for way too long to deserve that level of generosity.
PBOT could simply say “Sorry that we didn’t notify you before the bike lanes were put in, our mistake. These bike lanes are part of a comprehensive plan that has been in place for many years. To make up for our error, we won’t enforce parking restrictions for 3 months. After the bike lanes are fully operational, we will study the effects of the bike lanes and gather feed back for one year. Once we have this information, we will evaluate how the new bike lane fulfills the PBOT mission of safe, equitable access to transportation. We will let you know what we find. Thanks”
Instead we get the PBOT logic “The place and time of fatalities and injuries caused by drivers are relatively unpredictable, which makes it hard to blame us and therefore a low priority. On the other hand, the tremendous pain a driver feels when they lose a parking spot that was never actually theirs is 100% on us and we have to do everything we can to prevent this from ever happening.”
I vote for you to be in charge of PBOT. You would certainly do a better job than Director Williams.
The commissioner would fire him on the spot for being politically inconvenient.
WTF?? This is total BS. PBOT would never act this way for any infrastructure except cycling infrastructure. If they can find a reason to undermine it, they will.
Hey Art, what are the additional design options? And how much time is a “little bit of time?” And why would PBOT risk future public safety for the sins of its past?
For the amount of money that is being spent to remove the bike lane and do all this outreach, the city could have installed a driveway for these people. Smdh.
Portland is a joke in every sense of the word. Count me among the overwhelming majority that wish we could get out of this dumpster fire of a city.
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2023/12/majority-of-portland-voters-say-theyd-leave-if-they-could-as-crime-homeless-concerns-persist-new-poll-finds.html
They more than likely already have a driveway. I could only spot one house in the entire stretch without a driveway excluding the brand new apartments, where I assume the “multi-generational Black families” aren’t living.
Of course, using tax payer money to improve private property for the loss of a monopoly on public space is a whole rabbit hole.
Portland is a city that has some issues, but come on. I moved 3000km to get here and this is easily the best U.S. city I’ve ever been in.
Also, that was a poll of 500 – not even enough to be a sample of Portland voters, much less a majority.
If the respondents are selected properly, and people don’t lie to pollsters, 500 is enough to establish public opinion to a high degree of certainty.
This is a bad, bad precedent. I get why PBOT staff feel put on the back foot because of the oversight. . . but this is classic “two wrongs don’t make a right.” And Portland taxpayers are literally paying for it.
Ride up on the sidewalk. Get off your bike and walk a couple blocks. Stop and wait for no cars to be coming. All simple solutions to be safe from getting hit by a car on these two blocks. A hassle? Maybe. After traveling in many developing nations, I realize how lucky I am to afford the clothes I wear, the food I eat, the bikes I ride, and so much more. It allows me to not get upset if I have to spend a few extra seconds doing something like waiting for cars to pass before continuing riding my bike in a safe way. Try to keep some perspective. You could be living in a hovel in the mountains of Nicaragua with a hole in your roof and a foot-square solar panel connected to a car battery to power a single light bulb and tv for a couple hours per night (which is what a family I stayed with had).
A race to the bottom. Strong argument.
This argument is what’s called a “red herring.” Portland is not Nicaragua – end of story.
This comment sums it up nicely: people on bikes, be grateful for every day that we allow you to exist. Drivers, you deserve 2 free parking spaces for every vehicle you own. Anything less is a crime against humanity!
Sell one of your cars. Park a couple blocks away and walk to your house. Drive a smaller car that’s easier to fit in small parking spaces. All simple solutions to live in this neighborhood and not park your car on this specific stretch of street so that people on bikes don’t have to risk their life to get through here. A hassle? Maybe. After riding my bike as a primary mode of transportation I realize how necessary it is to have protection from the heavy machinery other people use to get around, and how privileged car drivers are. It allows me to not get upset at the idea of having to spend a few extra seconds walking from a parking spot to my house so others can be safe. Try to keep some perspective. You could be risking life and limb every day surrounded by people driving huge SUVs while looking at their phones and experiencing repeated close calls even though you do everything right, ones that could have been prevented with safe bike infrastructure (which is an experience I live almost every day).
Painted stripes on the ground are not “safe bike infrastructure” that will protect bicyclists from injury by a distracted or drunk or speedy driver. I bike all over the city and I also drive all over the city. I accept that life has risks and getting around is always going to involve risk, no matter how I get around. All of the uproar and energy spent over two blocks of painted lines on the roadway of NE 33rd Avenue, when those lines do nothing to protect bicyclists, just makes me shake my head. Really, everyone needs to realize that it makes the “bike community” look bad, like a bunch of whiny children,
to the general public at large. And physical barriers to protect bicyclists on every road in town just is never going to happen, nor is mass removal of on street parking. Jonathan Maus seems to have kept a good perspective on this, I encourage everyone else to do the same. Bicyclists rightly called out ODOT for not following proper public notice procedures when ODOT installed guardrails on the Historic Columbia River Hwy a few years ago near the Tippy Canoe restaurant, and got the guardrails removed. In this case of NE 33rd, bicyclists are now upset that PBOT recognized they didn’t follow proper public notice procedures and reversed the work done, but bicyclists don’t like that. Well, you can’t have it both ways.
So, if indeed a few residents of color have overturned a bike lane to be used by ALL, then those residents have to be listed publicly. And then the decision has to be posted that these folks are the reason. Which, is wild that these employees are taking it upon themselves to make race based decisions that impact the safety of all (lawsuit?).
Now if such residents exist, then bike Portland should interview them.
Just sayin…
We voted for this. if you want something different, remember when you vote for the new city councilors next time.
I certainly didn’t vote for this.
I see no evidence that Hardesty (or Eudaly) would have done anything differently in this situation. PBOT decided a few years ago that their particular vision of social justice was more important than their transportation mission, and this is the sort of thing that results.
Oh my god! I thhink I just sprained my eyeballs. “We” did not vote for this.
I don’t know if naming and shaming the residents is the way to go, but I did hear Bike Loud was going to try to talk with them. I wonder how that went? A follow-up story might be good, though I get the impression from PBOT’s statements that the Black residents in this area wouldn’t talk to them, either.
absolutely not! Are you listening to yourself?
– PBOT made a huge mistake by installing this bike lane the way they did.
– People – some of them longtime Black residents – got really really pissed off for various reasons.
– PBOT was unable to quell their concerns while keeping the bike lane in place.
– Politics is a thing (and while I can’t confirm it, the last thing Mapps wants is a huge embarrassing fight from N/NE residents over a bike lane while he’s trying to get funding for PBOT).
– Yes, this sucks for the bike network… but the world is bigger than the bike network and a few blocks of bike lanes!
– PBOT is actively building a lot of other cool stuff and is struggling in many ways as a bureau.
– Not doing this bike lane doesn’t mean PBOT hates bikes or that they always prioritize cars/car owners over safety of road users.
– I’ll stop now and put all this into an op-ed hopefully soon.
So you’re already giving up this fight, Jonathan? That’s disappointing. I thought you had more fight in you.
nope. I’m just choosing a different way of fighting and/or I’m choosing where to use my fighting energy. Do you have something more specific to say about what I wrote? Do you agree or disagree with the points I shared?
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, especially the part about not naming individuals here.
Where we may disagree is that I think explicitly making transportation safety decisions based on the race of people living in the neighborhood is odious, discriminatory, and quite possibly illegal.
I agree. But that’s not what is happening here as far as I can tell. Yes I think the experience of some folks and the fact that they are BIPOC loomed over the way PBOT behaved here, we don’t know if it was the main cause of their decision. Do you know the race and racial experience of everyone on that street and/or what they told PBOT? I don’t. And again, the mistake they made pre-ordained everything that happened later in many ways.
Jonathan, come on. It was 100% the cause of their decision. I don’t understand why you need to carry water for them. As much as they dance around explicitly saying it, it’s in their own words.
Art
Every time any parking is removed, we have people whine that they weren’t consulted or notified despite years of outreach. Have you ever heard of parking removal that DIDN’T generate backlash? What makes this different? What aspect of the complainants has PBOT highlighted from the beginning?
*** Editor: removed sentence *** One or more Black property owners opposed this change. PBOT is run poorly and so they decided to prioritize the parking for these homeowners due to their race. There is nothing else to this.
If this is truly a “logistical” error, then Art needs to resign. Wasting $50k in taxpayer dollars is a fireable offense.
I can’t believe you typed this out. Are you that unaware of what you just said?? I was an EO officer in the Oregon Guard and I tell you now that that phrase is unacceptable at the best of times, let alone when discussing POC.
It’s really gross that you edited out a phrase that has existed since the 16th century and has no racist connotation due to some concern trolling.
Your edit makes it seem like I actually said something offensive and shows a lack of integrity on the editors part.
Oh my goodness! The phrase itself is inoffensive, and I originally let it through. However, even at the time, I thought that using one of the constituent words, a common derogatory term for Blacks, was dicey in this context. When two people pointed that out, I made the decision to remove the phrase from your post.
I use the phrase myself, but I wouldn’t use it in a racially-charged situation.
As a journalist, I try not to make assumptions and I try not to make definitive judgments about things that I have not yet verified with evidence.
That being said, I believe it is possible that the fact that loud voices opposing this were Black Portlanders could have been the deciding factor. Even if that is the case, my position doesn’t change. I still am not as mad about this as many others for reasons I’ve already stated on this thread. This is a very nuanced situation that does include persistent problems at PBOT but also includes some outlying issues that are unique to this situation.
And again, you and other seem to be intentionally choosing to overlook the “mistake” part here where PBOT put in a bike lane w/o any notice. IMO that is a huge thing that – when combined w/ other factors – led to their decision here.
If the screw-up with the installation hadn’t happened I would have a very different opinion about all this.
Please do me the favour of using you omniscience to divine the sole cause of every human decision.
That’s true. But we do know that Art Pearce said it was.
What is clear is that proper community outreach (which many here oppose) would have avoided this situation.
If this was a “huge” mistake for PBOT, what does that make unprotected bus stops inches away from speeding traffic that resulted in the death of Jeanie Diaz, the unregulated freight route mixing with popular bike routes that contributed to Sarah Pliner’s death, the deadly arterials where pedestrians keep dying that aren’t getting rapid attention.
Spare me. PBOT has determined that when I walk or get on a bike, my life and my access to transportation is not as much of a priority as as someone who wants the public to pay for and maintain their own personal mini-parking lot.
At worst, this was a minor inconvenience compared to the failings of our transportation system. Have some perspective.
Those situations are very different than what happened on NE 33rd.
Look. I totally understand and agree with the frustrations and anger people have right now about all this stuff. I just think our case is stronger when we see things clearly and don’t always let emotion override what is really happening. Maybe I have lost it, but I’m just not feeling the emotion and frustration with this one. From everything I know right now, it was just a mistake that turned into a big mess. Unfortunate yes. Reason to pile on with a bunch of other stuff that bothers me? No.
Yes, they are very different, because in those situations they waited for someone to get killed and still haven’t done anything (or much) to address safety, and in this case they DID proactively improve safety and now are regressing.
The only thing special about this case is that they didn’t jump through the applicable hoops to address concerns before going forward with painting the lanes. The end result should have been the same regardless – a bike lane added (or better) and loss of parking spots with the potential to do something to address the complaining property owners. They could jump through the same exact hoops now. There was no guarantee they would have placated the homeowners if they did things the “right” way but in the end should have moved forward despite their complaints.
What’s frustrating is the seeming consensus that because they didn’t jump through the hoops in the right order, now it’s extremely unlikely anything will be done to improve safety here for a long time. And now we’re just waiting for someone to die there. And that life will have not been worth losing to address some random home owner’s petty complaint about free parking.
I think folks should step back and ask themselves what might happen if the bike lanes remain.
Given what I have heard (and at this point am willing to believe, although I reserve right to not trust PBOT), the folks who were mad would have not reacted well to that at all. It would be very easy for me to imagine these folks going to City Hall and telling Mapps and everyone else that PBOT is forcing a bike lane in their n’hood w/o any notification whatsoever. Imagine the local TV news headlines… “PBOT ramming bike lane over objections of Black homeowners” and the 15-minute city conspiracists, and the folks on social media who would point to this and say “Look PBOT is still racist and so are bike lanes”. The negative impact of what could happen if the bike lane stays in place, are actually worse in my opinion, then what will happen by just taking it out (and don’t say, “yeah but someone could be hurt or killed” because I realize that, but I don’t think that’s a great way to argue in this specific case). I feel like the terrible PR and loss of political capitol from leaving the bike lanes in is far more imminent than the risk of injury or death… and overall that controversy and political shitstorm could actually have a real, material impact on PBOT’s ability to good bike stuff in other places. In fact, the time they are spending defending this mistake is one of the reasons they’re deciding to cut and run — because they feel (and I agree) their time is better spent building other, less controversial bike lanes in other places right now.
And PBOT says they still believe a bikeway here is needed. Now it’s up to all of us to hold them to that promise and help make a bikeway a reality by organizing and making it happen.
I empathize with the predicament, and your reasoning. In the end, it’s one smallish section. I’m skeptical of the political strategy of reacting to what bad faith actors are going to say before you do something, when the reality is they’re going to say the same thing either way. They’ll say that no matter what process is followed to put in a bike lane if there is one person who objects to it. And if that person happens to be black, they’re of course going to use that as extra ammunition. This is like (different, but a similar pathology) when Democrats try to “move to the right” to pre-empt Republican commentary, to avoid being called (laughably) socialists or something, and all it really does is a favor to the right. And they call Democrats socialists anyway. In this case, it’s a favor to people who object to bike lanes, and they’re going to object any time a parking spot is removed anyway.
But I concede that I don’t know what is the best strategy. My frustration is only that I don’t know why anyone thinks this would be any different had the standard practice been followed. The same person would complain and the same news stories would be written if the bike lane was put in. So in the end what we’re saying is it had not much to do with the mistake and instead it’s that if someone complains about losing parking, you can’t improve transit there. I don’t know how to put it in words, it seems like making up a mental block and then treating it like it’s a real thing or something.
Jonathan, there already *IS* a bikeway. As many people have said here, anything PBOT installs ain’t gonna be better than what is there now. All this so-called decision does is allow PBOT to kick the can down the road into next year, or the year after, or 2052.
I understand you live in NoPo and you need to get along with people there, but it really seems as though your judgment has been clouded in this situation.
why? Why is it up to us to hold PBOT accountable to rebuild a bike lane that we already advocated for getting into a plan, we supported the council adopting adopting the plan. This SHOULD NOT BE the role of citizen advocates to fight and beg for PBOT to R E I N S T A L L a bike lane that was already built once per an approved plan- something that has been vetted and planned for years. It is true, but it should not be true, that PBOT cannot be trusted to follow through on approved plans, but for fuck’s sake, they did follow the plan and build this bike lane- now they are removing it and Jonathan is telling the “community” that it is our job to hold PBOT accountable to do their job again?! There are dozens of planned items that PBOT is ignoring that we could advocate for, and dozens of plans being implemented very poorly that we could advocate install properly- adding this seems infeasible to me. I know Jonathan is sort of excusing PBOT out of one side his mouth, but this seems like a straight up condemnation out of the other side of his mouth. This line basically says “PBOT cannot and will not implement that most basic bike or pedestrian safety measure without a tremendous of community pressure- they are an untrustworthy and broken public agency”
How do you decide which projects are important and not important? I ride this area frequently in the summer and would consider it a key place to have a bike lane based on the conflicts with fast moving cars and unclear safety weaving around parked cars. It is also key based on the prior neighborhood plea for traffic calming and how it fits into the greater bike network. Moreover, the trade off here is a few parking spots for people that have other places to park. Every safety/ access improvement, when dissected out and looked at in isolation is small and unimportant. This is part of the reason it is so hard to make any real progress in building a rational transportation system.
I think we agree on a lot of this, we are just choosing to respond in a different way.
How do I decided what projects are important and not important? Well for one I try to ride everything so I understand it at that level. I also have ridden this gap on 33rd many many many times (including with my young kids en route to Marine Drive path), so I agree it really sucks to not have a bike lane here. So we agree it’s important. But again, I don’t think we should look at this as “a few parking spots” winning over the bike lane. I believe that this was an extreme situation, an outlier if you will. And yes, even with all the other shenanigans at PBOT/City Hall lately, I’m not going to lump all of this 33rd stuff in with that. Does it speak to problems at PBOT? Yes! Am I frustrated that PBOT keeps shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to bikes and that it’s making it harder to make progress with bike stuff? Yes! I just like to be very careful when I get mad (or else it fails to have impact when it’s really warranted) and I’m choosing to not be super mad right here right now.
I think another part of this 33rd thing for me is that I can relate to Art Pearce on a personal level. Not only have I known him for a long long time doing this work, but we are similar in that we are mid-aged white men who live in N/NE and all the complexities and messiness that comes with that. Like him, I’ve been in rooms where Black people talk about racism and I have had personal experiences with people saying I am part of the problem when it comes to cycling and race in Portland. I know what he and other PBOT staffers probably felt like in the past few weeks and I know how it changes the wiring in your brain and will make you see things in a different way — even if it goes against all of your activist impulses!
The thing I see most people mad about here, is that life and death safety decisions are being largely influenced by race. We see a pattern on what bike projects move forward and what gets shelved being based on race. We are seeing a dystopian form of white saviorism and it’s results in real time.
I’m f#cking livid that we, my family, have to be put in danger because someone that happed to be a certain ethnic group didn’t like a bike lane.
This is a city that car drivers are out of control in right now. We are going to have another year of record deaths on our road! The status quo isn’t working.
What are the biggest factors do you think made this situation “extreme”?
How are you “part of the problem when it comes to cycling and race in Portland”? Seems to me that you’ve done more to combat racism in cycling than just about any other person in Portland, through your writing and advocacy.
I wonder if that kind of accusation has scared you, causing you to assume a defensive hunch and NOT challenge an otherwise indefensible decision by PBOT.
I understand that emotion, passion, optics all play a role in decision making at the city. Also, I believe that race, equity and historic injustices along socioeconomic lines have to be considered in creating transportation policy. Because of all of this, PBOT needs to be a mission driven in a coherent manner that improves access to transportation for everyone in the city. In fact, we all know that these considerations are baked into plans like the NE 33rd bike lane. When PBOT loses itself in optics, it is a betrayal of that mission and it reflects a repeated racist tendency to define a diverse heterogenous minority by the interests of a few people, and in some instances to cynically use that as cover to avoid political pressure. Every transportation activist that has been captured by the car-dominant status quo has thought that they have some special insight, a behind the scenes look at the “real” way things work. “This time our failed transportation system really is the answer to all our problems.” What gets missed is that transportation is a whole system (obviously), and if we don’t implement plans in a complete manner, it undercuts everyone. It is also important to understand that the NE 33rd bike lane is a tiny tiny fraction of what is needed, but not being able to do this simple thing is giant deficit in PBOT’s integrity. Demanding that PBOT keep it together enough to do this tiny incremental, obviously needed bike lane is important.
My point was that what feels like a huge mistake to PBOT because it is embarrassing is actually small and inconsequential compared to the negligent road designs that have contributed to people’s deaths. This is an example of PBOT making decisions on superficial criteria while ignoring things that truly matter, like safety and a complete network.
That’s the key point where you and I see this very differently. I think what you see as “superficial” I see as absolutely crucial. PBOT cannot look past opposition in some contexts and opposition in some contexts can become the #1 most important thing in a project. I believe that is what we have in this case where PBOT installed a bike lane w/o notice in a n’hood with some longtime N/NE Black residents and others who were willing to speak out about their opposition. I’d rather remove this bike lane & move on (then return later) than have the huge shitstorm erupt that further cements the “bike lanes are racist and PBOT is out of control” narrative that many people are eager to jump on. Now, all that being said, if I trusted PBOT’s ability to handle conversations and controversy like this, I’d welcome the opposition and publicity. But a wrinkle here is that PBOT has not proven to me they have the cultural competence to navigate this type of situation so we are stuck in this mess until they get over that hurdle.
Ok, so this is interesting to me at least. Have you ever wondered how the bureaucracy gets away with making bad policy? Well, it’s easy. Find the media outlet most effective, wrap the decision up in a race issue, throw it into the fray and walk away. The media covers for them all in good intentions.
Sunshine is the most effective disinfectant to bad process. I’m not sure why , all of the sudden, we have to be ok with government using anonymous people to rip out infrastructure.
Where does it stop? What’s it worth to allow this type of process? One life? Three? Five?
You are spot on! You are able to keep perspective about this. Thank you!
Is this going to get added to the BikeLoud lawsuit?
It is not surprising to me that this is the direction that PBOT has gone. Expect more in the future as the political will for anything that can be twisted as racist is not there. When you vote in “leaders” who automatically think in a certain way, this is what you get.
“we’re really just not able to have a respectful conversation” I’d love to know who PBOT is insinuating is being disrespectful in this instance.
If it’s the homeowners, I dislike the strategy of giving them what they want with the hope that we can take it away later.
If it’s the bicyclists, I’m curious how they expect us to express our needs and frustrations.
It just feels like whether the lanes are there or not, folks will find a way to get mad at bicyclists.
I’m not aware that bicyclists have ever been a part of this conversation.
If someone has to commute from N. Portland to say, the Amazon warehouse in Gresham, or any of the numerous employment opportunities which do not exist on ones laptop, that are increasingly found in the suburbs (where despite the narrative held here that suburbs are poor) wealth is increasingly moving to, parking in front of their house after a long day at work, is a big deal. Perspective, it’s why race is taken into account. Here the perspective is clearly White.
You may be shocked to learn of a revolutionary invention called driveways. They have really changed the way that some people park.
Expect conflicts like this to become more common as more developers take the city up on their offer to build housing without parking.
I remember that being mentioned in comments here a while ago, and people immediately responded with statistics showing how wealthy many suburbs are. That’s hardly a “narrative”. And their main point wasn’t that “suburbs are poor” anyway, but that many suburban residents are not wealthy, which is certainly true, even as other people with jobs at Intel or Nike are moving to them.
I agree having a parking space when you arrive home after a long work day is a big deal to many people, I also remember from earlier articles about this that nearly every house in this area has off-street parking, and almost every house has two or more off-street spaces.
Also, this is NE Portland, not N Portland. And your “opportunities which do not exist on ones laptop” comment is gratuitous, given that 100% of people who use NE 33rd to commute by bike are obviously NOT commuting to their laptops.
For what it’s worth, to add on, people who work on their laptops and have a family have a commute to take their kids to daycare. You can’t do that job with young kids at home. There is at least one daycare on that exact street a few blocks south of the new bike lane.
This entire paradigm needs to change. Ask the young people who are living in apartment buildings being built all over Portland WITHOUT the provision of parking, and you’ll see that they do crazy things to find parking.
The idea that the owner of a house, on a lot, with a driveway, also has a right to park on the street adjacent to the property is just WRONG on every level.
In the installation of the bikelane, the crossing island at Rosa Parks was removed. Bet it won’t be replaced. As I go back to taking the lane on 33rd, this will be one less impediment to speeding cars zipping by me
Eh, I’ve always found the islands to be a chokepoint that makes drivers more likely to squeeze you, unless you’re diligent about taking the lane through there. So in my opinion, no island is better for cycling, but worse for pedestrians as there’s no more protection now if you’re trying to cross.
What I find really interesting is that the outline of the island is still there, so it’s kind of the worst of both worlds – there’s no protection for pedestrians, AND the paint markings make car drivers want to drive closer to you at the same time.
Regarding the overall situation – what I wonder is, this bike lane has been planned and approved several years ago, right? So if proper notifications about its installation were sent out in a timely manner, would the complaints have stopped the works from going ahead? If yes, then fair enough; but if no, then wires really are getting crossed with this whole mess.
If all that’s going on here is PBOT made a mistake and now they are correcting it, who at PBOT is being held accountable for that mistake?
For those of you who are upset about PBOT’s decision about 33rd, and about Commissioner Mingus Mapps’s antagonistic actions towards cycling safety, I’m organizing an effort to have an advocate for bike safety give a 3 minute testimony in front of every single weekly Portland City Council meeting, attended by the mayor as well as all the city council members, including Mapps.
We’ll continue to testify week after week, month after month, throughout 2024 if we need to, so they understand that the need for better biking infrastructure is urgent, and we’re not going to go away.
The meetings are every Wednesday at 9:30 am. You can testify in person at City Hall (more impactful if you can do it), or virtually if that’s your only option.
I actually gave my testimony today!
We have other speakers scheduled out through the end of February, the furthest that city council has opened the speaking slots so far.
So if you’d be willing to help us push for safer and better biking in Portland, by speaking for only 3 minutes at some point in 2024, you can go to the link below, and fill out your contact information.
https://forms.gle/V6jwkdk2JMR1qFFf7
I’m keeping an eye out for when city council opens each successive month’s speaking slots. When they do, I’ll send an email and text message to let everyone know. If one of the available speaking dates works for you, you can reply to that message, and I’ll sign you up for that date.
If you need it, we can also help you plan your testimony, like offering possible suggestions for messaging, or tips for impactful public speaking.
You don’t need to be an expert speaker. Just being a real-life citizen, telling your story, makes a difference.
Can I ask a favor? Can everyone commenting please sign your posts with your race, gender identity, and income level? It would be extremely enlightening to see the demographic composition of this echo chamber. I think a lot of folks in this discussion would benefit from some research into the racial history of this city and the neighborhood we’re talking about. Then try putting yourselves in the homeowners’ shoes with that context in mind. Do they take PBOT at their word that they screwed up? Or do they see it as yet another example of white government ignoring their own policies (which they absolutely do for the white neighborhoods) and not caring about black folks?
What do they see in this photo
)? A bunch of people looking out for them, or a bunch of privileged white people with expensive bikes trying to screw them over once again?
It is massively demeaning and insulting to say that a specific group isn’t intelligent enough to know the difference between a bike lane and the destruction of black neighborhoods to make way for car and truck drivers.
If that’s what I was doing, I would agree with you. But we both know that’s not the case. Don’t minimize someone else’s personal experience just because you can’t wrap your head around a different perspective. Folks on here are willing to turn a blind eye to historical reality and generational trauma and minimize the not-so-micro-aggression because it’s “just a bike lane” and not a highway project.
“PBOT didn’t give you the same notice or outreach that they afford to the white neighborhoods? Oops, their bad. They weren’t trying to disrespect you (again), honest! But really it’s for the greater good and your anger is not justified (how do you not get that?) Hey, at least they’re not demolishing your house for a new freeway! You should just suck it up and see how amazing biking is! Just look at all of these (white) people biking in front of your house!”
Jonathan is right. While this is a disappointing screw up by PBOT, it’s a complicated and fraught situation and this is probably the best resolution for now. That is, unless BikeLoud’s own outreach to the neighbors manages to get them on board with keeping the bike lane. <fingers crossed!!>
I agree the history of how black residents have been treated in N/NE in the past with transportation and land use issues is relevant. I’m glad PBOT is waking up to acknowledge those mistakes from the past.
What I dislike about PBOT’s response is its decision to remove the bike lanes before coming to a final decision about what ultimately gets done. And it’s not just because of the money being spent.
I think that quick decision (made with little or no public notice) may be revealing that PBOT is doing something that was a big problem in the past in N/NE with the City and race–hearing from a small group of black people (or even a single one if they’d been identified as a “black community spokesman” as was done embarrassingly regularly even in the 90s with the Albina Plan) and viewing their views as representative of the whole “black community” (whatever that is).
In the Albina Plan in the 90s, there were many parts of the plan that were altered–sometimes drastically–after the City moved forward with ideas supported by “black community leaders/spokesmen/etc.” only to hear from the larger black community that those people’s opinions weren’t shared by the broader community.
I think there’s a possibility that many residents along the street–black or otherwise–may not be as strongly anti-bike-lane as PBOT seems to believe. It could be that after more community and resident discussion that the bike lanes still make sense. But PBOT has already created the situation where that means spending yet more money to put in what they already paid to install, then paid to remove, with the possibility that PBOT did that because it tried to be sensitive to race but reacted incorrectly due to repeating a mistake it’s made before with race.
Maybe they see these as two sides of the same coin — not having a voice in the government decisions that impact them.
Just like the rest of us.
Hey, I’m in this picture! I’m in the gray rain coat, and my bike cost $1200 when I bought it 3 years ago, which is about 1/10th of the yearly cost of a car.
It’s interesting that you bring up learning more context about the city of Portland. I am perfectly aware of the history of racist planning in the city, and particularly in Albina. But removing parking in front of a few dozen houses, almost all of which have alternative off-street parking options is very different than demolishing commercial centers and free health clinics for a botched hospital expansion. Or condemning hundreds of homes to make commuting from Vancouver faster.
This project involves taking nothing from anyone. All of NE 33rd is already public right of way, and the city should have more concerns than just street parking. People who ride bikes tend to be less wealthy than those who drive, and this particular bike lane connects to a lot of jobs on the other side of Lombard. It’s important for people to have the means to get to work without driving.
Actually I see a bunch of people that don’t want to be killed by cars.
I am well aware of what the i5 build, veterans memorial coliseum, and the Emanuel Lewis hospital did to N Portland’s black community.
But his ain’t that, and demolishing homes to build a freeway for cars is not the same as placing a bike lane on public property.
To put into policy that streets with black communities now have to forever stay dangerous as a result of some white saviorism is a new dystopian level kind of racism that forever locks black folks (and everyone else who happens to live nearby) into car dependency and deadly streets.
“To put into policy…” That’s not what’s happening. If anything, this sets the precedent that if PBOT doesn’t follow their own existing policy, then there will be a corrective measure.
Please also include your SSN and mother’s maiden name. I’m really curious.
Can I ask a favor? Can we stop making massive assumptions regarding the people in the photo and the homeowners who presently live on this section of street, including the house in the photo with the driveway?
Everyone seems to be missing the point. Process matters and perception matters. No one here is arguing that bike lanes on that stretch of 33rd are a bad thing. (The neighboring homeowners are–shockingly–absent from this discussion.) PBOT screwed up, didn’t follow their own policy and now are having to fix things in the only way that they can at the moment.
And perhaps the fact that the homeowners are Black weighs more heavily on decision making that in the past, but honestly, good!
Don’t think for a second that if striping trucks appeared in a rich, white neighborhood without proper notice that the same thing wouldn’t be happening. But realistically, it would have been stopped even before the first drop of paint hit the street. PBOT would have regrouped, done proper notice, and the project would have been delayed.
I generally agree with you (this comment, not your previous one) but all the mistake admitting and involvement of homeowners could have happened without spending/wasting the money to remove the lanes. Removing the lanes wasn’t necessary for process or perception.
Exactly. The “white savior” attitudes here are disappointing. The bike activists have a serious gap of understanding that largely ignores the Black experience in America.
I’m glad someone’s talking about it, though of course it’s not Bike Loud.
actually a similar thing did happen on outer SE Holgate years ago. People (white mostly) were really really mad and hated the bike lane. PBOT admitted they put it in without proper notice. But response was much different. They called a bit public meeting to hear all the anger and was hashed out in public. Ultimately PBOT kept the bike lane over many folks’ objections but I think we all learned on Holgate that it wasn’t really the bike lane folks were mad at, rather just general anger at gov’t and feeling like they weren’t respected.
Here’s a thought: for all that race is a key factor in these discussions, both on and off the page, I wonder if the dynamics would have been any different if it had happened on a stretch of roadway with a different race/economic background. PBOT says the real problem is that the abutting homeowners didn’t get proper notice, so would the same logic hold true on a block of white, wealthy homeowners where their objections to a bike (or other transportation facility) that they weren’t *properly* notified? I’m feeling a little cynical, but it feels like PBOT would also have backed off under pressure.
Or maybe not? Thinking about the recent NE Fremont/37th crossing, PBOT did eventually move forward with planned traffic calming over neighborhood objections but they had a lot of meetings and presumably that was sufficient notice.
I think it would be different. PBOT treats project feedback different depending on who it comes from. That’s just a fact. And in some cases, I think that’s a very reasonable way to handle feedback… but the devil is in the details.
You really don’t find that problematic?
Well yes and no. A lot of nuance in this conversation that is hard to do online. In general, I think we (as humans or as PBOT) need to acknowledge the lived experience and perspectives (the best we can) of the people who are sharing their feedback. That’s why I think it’s totally reasonable to treat feedback from a wealthy white person who lives in a huge house in a very quiet n’hood different than someone who has very little money and is Black/BIPOC and lives in an apartment on a busy street. We can’t and shouldn’t act like people are all the same and we must try to use discretion in how we value, measure, hear, and are influenced by, their feedback. Another example is how I think it’s reasonable to take feedback from a business owner or corporate CEO different than a shift worker who rides the bus.
I think that’s what a mature person or organization should do.
Is there any way to do this without making assumptions about people based on their perceived race or presumed wealth?
(As you do: many bike lane supporters are renters while many of the local residents are homeowners, so your stereotypes don’t really apply).
I really don’t think it’s a good idea to normalize government officials making stereotype-based assumptions about people, and crediting or discounting their opinions on that basis.*
*I realize this often happens implicitly, but that doesn’t mean explicit discrimination is a moral way to run a government.
Except that explicit and implicit discrimination has been the way government has been run for centuries. There are also compelling arguments that “color blindness” in government and elsewhere silently maintain discrimination and gives a pass to existing racial bias.
Let’s swing the the pendulum back the other way for a while and see where that gets us.
Kind of like how two wrongs make a right?
I had a similar thought, but from a different angle. Would the dynamics be different if this bike lane extended further south on 33rd? Would the black residents on this stretch feel as singled put out if the bike lane continued all the way down 33rd into Grant Park? By striping the lane only to Holman it seems like PBOT was initially willing to remove parking for the more historically black areas, but was not willing to impact wealthier whiter neighborhoods further south in the same way. I realize the strategic reason for the connection to Holman Greenway, but I think that the narrow scope of the project only makes the racial dynamic more salient.
I thought the same thing as I was pedaling S on 33rd past the Kennedy School and really wishing there was a bike lane on that stretch….
Really mad at PBOT leadership here. Not only did they make themselves look incompetent by effing this up, but they also made the cycling community look like a**holes for (I think rightfully) calling out their BS, while simultaneously shaking their trust with black community members, and accomplishing exactly zero. Money spent for only negative outcomes. Why did you have to start the fire, PBOT? Why? I say boo-urns.
We, as transportation activists, desperately need to build bridges to residential communities — BIPOC or not. If we had the support (or at least indifference) of the people squawking to PBOT, the bike lane would stay. I would love to hear how they view ‘the bike community’. There is no denying that bike infrastructure goes along with evolution of N/NE PDX neighborhoods, and there is plenty to critique in that evolution/displacement. If we can display some self-awareness, maybe we can build more durable and broad support. Look, we clearly both despise PBOT.