Portland Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps wants to make one thing clear about the revenue generated from the local gas tax: it will not be spent on bike lanes. Unless you’re a bicycle rider who loves bike lanes. Then in that case, yes, revenue from the Fixing Our Streets program will definitely fund bike lanes.
Over the course of the last week, Mapps told different audiences different things about the renewal of the Fixing Our Streets program (FOS) that Portlanders will vote on May 21st.
At a meeting this past Tuesday with Laborers’ Local 483 (a chapter of LiUNA, Laborers’ International Union of North America, the union that represents about 280 maintenance and operations employees at the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT)), Mapps showed up in hopes of earning the group’s support for the measure. “I’ve come here today to ask you for your support… Ultimately, I sure hope that we can get LiUNA’s endorsement on this,” he said.
After telling a hybrid online and in-person audience that the failure of the ballot measure would, “Be bad for PBOT, bad for the people of Portland, and an outcome we very much need to avoid,” Mapps opened up the floor to questions.
The first person to speak (I’m not sharing names out of respect for LiUNA members’ privacy) said,
“You know, a lot of people know that we are using our street repair money for bump-outs, calming islands, delineators on bike lanes, and so that’s why they’re not voting [for the measure]. I’m not sure this is going to work unless we show the public that we are actually going to fix our streets.”
To which Mapps replied:
“I hear you loud and clear… I think if you’ve been paying attention closely to what I’ve been trying to do in this space, I have been trying to return PBOT to the basics, the bread and butter of paving streets, making streets safer and repairing our infrastructure.”
A different LiUNA member then asked:
“I’m just curious on how you would sell this to the people of Portland. How are we gonna’ guarantee that money that would come out of this actually goes to the roads and everything? I think most peoples’ concern is, you know, you get this pile of money and then it gets shoved over to [be spent on] something else.”
Mapps responded (emphasis mine):
“I understand that, and that kind of gets back to basic lack of faith and trust in government. But I’ll tell you, these dollars are actually different in that they’re earmarked for specific projects. And again, I emphasize, these are not the funds that are being used to build, you know, the bike lanes that drive everybody crazy. This is our bread-and-butter work. Literally paving streets, making them safer and fixing our infrastructure.”
These exchanges imply that Mapps feels “bump-outs, calming islands, delineators on bike lanes” are not “the basics” and that FOS won’t invest in them. He also implies that “the bike lanes that drive everybody crazy” should be considered “something else” and not worthy of investment. None of this is constructive or accurate: “Back to basics” is a subjective term often used as a dog whistle, and there is certainly money set-aside in the FOS program specifically for traffic calming and bike lanes.
Ironically, right after Mapps made the “bike lanes that drive everybody crazy” comment, a LiUNA member spoke up: “Um, you said bike lanes? Yeah, I ride my bike everyday. I love bikes. I would like more bike lanes.” As soon as Mapps heard this, he began to interject and then backpedaled immediately by saying:
“I do want to be clear, at PBOT, we run a multimodal transportation network. So it has to work for pedestrians, it has to work for bicyclists, it has to work for people driving cars, and it has to work for freight companies that are trying to move your groceries from the warehouse to the grocery store. So there will be funding to support all of this… But again, I, what I really wanna emphasize in this space is that this is just bread-and-butter, basic maintenance money.”
You can listen to a three-minute clip of the meeting where these exchanges took place below. (Note: Comments in the audio clip were edited for brevity and clarity, but the context and meaning was not changed.)
What adds to my interest in Mapps’ comments Tuesday is how he responded to Portlander Joe Stenger, a member of the Metro Climate Action Team and retired family doctor who testified before Portland City Council at their meeting six days prior to the LiUNA meeting. Stenger spoke about being a daily bike commuter and the importance of safe, high-quality bike lanes for him and his family. Stenger also shared his hopes that the FOS revenue would help PBOT build better bike infrastructure. After Stenger’s testimony, Mapps replied with, “This particular program allows us to do the bread-and-butter maintenance, including maintaining and improving our bike infrastructure that helps keep people safe.”
Compare that to what he told labor union members six days later: “I emphasize, these are not the funds that are being used to build the bike lanes that drive everybody crazy. This is our bread-and-butter work.”
I guess what counts as “bread-and-butter” changes depending on who has the knife.
I’ve reached out to Mapps’ office for comment, but since FOS is an active ballot measure, they aren’t able to comment on it. His staffer said she forwarded my email to the Commissioner. I’ve also asked Amy Ruiz from Swift Public Affairs (the firm working to pass the measure) for comment and will update this post when I hear back.
UPDATE, 8:33pm: I’ve received a comment from Commissioner Mapps:
“Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my comments at the Laborers’ Local 483 meeting this week.
As BikePortland readers know all too well, sometimes PBOT’s more forward-thinking and innovative infrastructure projects, including some bike lane projects, draw criticism. I should have been clearer that these are the kinds of projects I was referring to—and that they are still worthy of investment.However, the Fixing Our Streets program’s focus is investing in basic safety and maintenance projects across the city, from filling potholes, paving, and maintaining gravel streets, to improving signals and lighting, installing high-visibility crosswalks, and calming traffic. This includes bicycle and pedestrian safety projects, like replacing reflective plastic wands with concrete traffic separators, replacing a painted curb extension with a concrete one, or adding striped buffers to bike lanes where space allows.
These projects are important. That’s why we’re asking Portlanders to renew the Fixing Our Streets local gas tax at the same rate we pay today. This small investment helps maintain our streets and make them safer for people driving, biking, and walking.”
Ugh, I know he is a politician but why does he have to be so wishy-washy? Just take a stand and let the voters decide based on your actual position. I really wanted to vote for him but he keeps saying things that make me question my choice.
Everybody is focused on Mapps, but I was shocked by the first two questioners. I don’t know much about LiUNA, but a quick glance at their web page showed that the union has contracts with local governments. I hope those questioners weren’t City of Portland employees.
What I took away from hearing them was that the city might need to do a little less outreach, and a little more in-reach. City employees should understand what the bureaus they work for do, and why.
I’m sorry you were shocked, but PBOT in fact has always had a highly unionized workforce. When I served on the PBOT Bureau Advisory Committee 2009-15, there were three employee voting representatives on the BAC, one from labor local 483, one for the engineers association (which is sort of a union), and one for non-represented employees (people at the top, senior management, and at the bottom, interns). Each participant at the table from PBOT was an employee of PBOT and had their own budget opinions, but there was usually staff from the union as well in the audience who had driven down from Seattle who did actual lobbying – they were pretty good about separating the two. From what I observed, most PBOT employees have a highly developed sense of what they do for the city and a strong loyalty to the bureaucracy and to each other, but often also a certain reasonable contempt for most of the elected officials and the people who elect them.
I’m not surprised that PBOT and other city agencies have unionized work forces. What I was saying is that IF the questioners are CoP employees, I’m taken aback that they aren’t more informed-about/on-board-with the city’s policies. You want the people cleaning the bike lanes and plowing around the left turn noses to care about what they are doing, and to think it is important. To take pride in the job.
But maybe the first two questioners weren’t working with the city.
I have over the years met several PBOT Directors and numerous senior staff, as well as a huge number of the rank and file, who were simply weren’t “more informed-about/on-board-with the city’s policies”, even about PBOT policies. The main issue is that PBOT has a huge bureaucracy with at least 6 layers of management – those in the middle and lower ranks who implement policy (and sometimes make up policies on the fly) are frequently not able to communicate with senior management – quite a lot gets filtered out and those at the top are frequently out of touch. Mingus screwing up is only the literal tip of the iceberg, almost no one at PBOT knows what exactly the other 250+ employees are up to and no one can – it’s simply not possible.
It’s possible that the speakers were not city employees, but I think it’s far more likely they were and they simply weren’t worried of the top people listening to them – that would be a new experience for everyone.
That’s the union that represents the PBOT maintenance workers, and they are more focused on maintenance than safety or “bike stuff” in my interactions with them. They also tend to be politically more conservative.
I’m a dues paying member of LiUNA (different local). It’s a big organization that covers a lot of different kinds of work, and as such you’re going to get all kinds in a meeting.
Thank you, Michael. I don’t know what the scope of the meeting was (I suppose I could ask my boss), but that fact that an elected official from Portland was speaking to the group about an upcoming Portland ballot measure lead me to believe that it might have been a group of CoP employees. I’ll respond a little more under your excellent comment below.
Mingus Mapps will never be mayor of this city, and he ought to be ashamed of being such an obviously sleazy politician.
Also “those bike lanes that drive everyone crazy”. I just want to ride my bike without fear of death! That’s not a crazy thing to want!
Fear of death? Hyperbole or do you really take the lane driving on Foster-Powell or 82nd Ave at rush hour?
I pretty much always take the lane when driving.
I take the lane in Woodstock and Steele at rush hour. Somehow that makes people crazy even though there isn’t even a bike lane there!
I take the lane on 82nd every day when I go to and from work because it’s the nearest arterial to my home and a direct route. It may only be for a few blocks but it’s still scary as shit. Even though drivers have an entire other lane to pass me I’m still checking my mirrors to make sure some psycho isn’t going to “teach me a lesson”.
So no it’s not hyperbole.
To be fair, there are greenways that parallel 82nd on both sides from Multnomah (immediately south of 84) to Springwater. They’re 100% better than riding on a stroad, and it’s not realistic to expect every street to be bike friendly.
Bikes do need to be able to get everywhere, but having a few arterial streets that are car-priority (82nd aka State Highway 213, MLK aka SR-99E, Powell aka US-26, etc.) is a good thing because it encourages car drivers NOT to use smaller streets where bicycle traffic should be more frequent.
I’d like to know how you propose for anybody who lives in the Montavilla neighborhood (ie, around SE 80th and SE Stark) to get to the NE 82nd Max station by bike WITHOUT ever taking 82nd ave.
Granted you would technically need to ride on 82nd for the last 300ft of the trip, but it’s definitely a better option.
So you’re saying you can get to it without riding on 82nd Ave. as long as you ride on 82nd Ave.
To be fair those greenways don’t connect to my destination. Which is the what cyclists like me complain about all the time when we ask for lanes on arterials.
I ride the 80s and 70s greenways every day but when the east and west routes don’t connect and dead end like they frequently do in East Portland the arterials are the most direct route. Sure I could go out of my way to loop around but I shouldn’t have to. My house is literally two blocks away from 82nd.
Thanks for explaining my neighborhood too me though.
Imagine if you tried to tell people in cars that there’s a parallel road and they shouldn’t expect to be able to drive their car on every single road.
Your end up with fighting in the streets, the kind of endless protests that still plague us due to the ill considered diverters on SE Clinton.
This is excellent sarcasm.
9.5/10
I’m glad you appreciate it!
No one is expecting every street to be like friendly.
Mapps- “I understand that, and that kind of gets back to basic lack of faith and trust in government……”
The basic lack of faith and trust is fueled by people like this (not singling him out, it’s just this is an egregious example” who flock to government and treat it as a career rather than a temporary calling and who clearly have no standards or position and just says what he thinks the audience wants to hear.
This is a good reminder of the old political adage:
“Don’t believe what they say, believe what they do.”
Maybe we can pave our streets with bread and butter?
“Let them pave cake!”
…except for cyclists and pedestrians, I guess.
A good politician makes the pitch fit the audience, but the product remains the same. Mapps is not a good politician.
I would love to operate on a theory that “ bike lanes that drive everybody crazy” are a distinct functional classification in Mapps’ mind from all other bike infrastructure. Imagine, if you will, a distinct GIS shape file for controversy.
When I worked as a GIS tech at PBOT (2000-2006), I once did see a set of shape files for various potential projects (of all sorts, not just for bikes) with a set of attributes from 0 to 100 for “political feasibility”. No idea who compiled it.
Maybe he means that mess at NE 7th and Tillamook. It certainly makes me crazy. I’m choosing not to look up how much we spent on that cluster §.
7th needs to be closed to through car traffic. People use it as a freeway to bypass traffic on MLK and it’s a freaking residential street! There literally needs to be a traffic diverter one block south to kick all the cars back out to MLK.
I commute by bike on NE 7th ~6 days a week and there is far less cut-through car traffic there than on many de facto neighborhood greenways. I do wish the annoying speed bumps had a channel for people on bikes.
And just to be clear, I would prefer new funding for diversion to target the 4M , SE Salmon, NE Going, or SE Gladstone than NE 7th.
I ride NE 7th every week, morning and evening, and find it to be the most stressful road I ride on routinely. I experience the most conflicts, dangerous drivers and drivers that want to race past me regardless of risk. I believe that we have two different experiences, but I wonder why.
Just a very unfortunate comment from Mapps. There is no need to go off onbikes or bike lanes with the ballot measure. I hope he thinks before speaking in the future.
Not the hero we deserve, but the one we need right now.
Uggh, that’s just craven. Fixing Our Streets is fairly specific about how the money raised will be spent. Why not use that for the basis for your sales pitch, which you can certainly tailor to your audience, rather than this clumsy shite? It’s like he hasn’t bothered to look at how the funding will actually be used.
Won’t be voting for him anytime soon…
He did.
Um, no, he did not, at least from JM’s quotes. Here’s the specific info on FOS, which Commissioner Mapps seems to be wholly unacquainted with:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets
The measure explicitly includes some funding for maintenance, and some funding for safety, which includes pedestrian and bicycle improvements. His initial answers made it sound like he was saying it was only for maintenance, and then he back-pedaled when someone said they wanted bike improvements. He is the annoying kind of politician who seems to just say whatever the person he is talking to at the moment wants to hear.
its weird to me that in Portland fixing potholes and having bike lanes are seen as mutually exclusive. really weird. this city has a tremendous problem fixing potholes. When you go to Seattle you see bike lanes and fixed potholes and no sort of metaphysical existential crisis. But here fixing potholes is like this huge challenge. Raising tax revenue on vaguely defined aspirational goals seems, however very easy. Could it be that Mingus Mapps just reflects the people of Portland and their extreme difficulty with,( or boredom) with basic fundamentals of running a city? Giving grants to non-profits with no auditing, and questionable business plans, easy. Fixing potholes, very hard.
This is a great observation. Potholes affect bike lanes also. Just yesterday I was biking around a cluster of poorly repaired potholes on Barbur (I know – ODOT’s responsibility) and recalled how incredibly hard it was to get even marginal repairs.
Why don’t the people who maintain our streets in Portland (PBOT and ODOT) take more pride in their work? I swear they could do better, even with the resources currently available, but somehow they are incentivized not to. It’s almost as though their bosses are telling them, “Don’t do a good job lest you jeopardize our funding.”
lol you’re delusional. I spent 2 weeks in Seattle this summer and their streets are lousy with potholes. And a lot of their bike lanes only go for like 2 blocks.
I’m working on a new fentanyl based road patching compound that should be cheap and easy to acquire in both Portland and Seattle. I hope that both our cities will enjoy smoother streets moving forward.
Hilarious. 🙂
Seattle is a big place. Maybe you were in different neighborhoods.
The gas tax needs to be used to fix potholes, otherwise repair roadways, fund street sweeping, and I’d even support fixing/replacing signage too. In effect cyclists will benefit from this, similar to cars, busses, and scooter riders.
I agree with Maps this tax should not be earmaked for new bike lanes and new bike safety infrastructure. Diverting funds for such is wrong per the wording of the current measure.
Biking infrastructure has it’s own funding models. As a cycling commuter myself, i believe i should be putting something in the pot rather than demanding those driving to pay 100%.
I sometimes ride my bike to work, sometimes drive my car or truck, and sometimes take TriMet. Seeing as I’m putting something in the pot, can I believe that some of this money should be earmarked for bike lanes and infrastructure?
Yes i agree. Just saying, the gas tax 10 cent surcharge was advertised and campaigned about maintaining the roads. Albeit paved roads are inclusive to all modal Transit.
Yes – and that’s why Mapps’s comments are so unfortunate. You don’t need to set up an us-against-them strawman to get people to support roads that work for everyone.
No it wasn’t. Just over half of it was for road maintenance the other half was for safety and new projects. Here’s a news article from 2015 that says as much
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2015/10/portland_gas_tax_10-cent-a-gal.html
It literally says it is for maintenance and safety in the ballot measure, and has for the previous two elections as well. Please don’t spread misinformation.
Absolutely. We just need to get it into the measure, which is pretty specific about how the raised money will be spent.
Not to mention the sizable registration fees you pay on your motor vehicles (starting at $126 per year) NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DRIVE THEM.
Sorry for the shouting.
The costs to society from personal car use are vast. Everyone who drives is already being massively subsidized by those who don’t.
This.
Still the gas surcharge was advertised to be about fixing roads. Portland potholes are an epidemic, particularly secondary and residential ones. You know the ones that child and casual cyclists are most likely to be riding for either leisure or transit.
Pot holes are nature’s speed bumps.
Nonsense.
The “fixing our streets: gas tax was advertised as being almost evenly split between road maintenance and “safety” (e.g. bike/ped improvements). PBOT violated their commitment to spending these funds on safety and were repeatedly called out by the City Auditor’s Office for their malfeasance.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/733093
PS: Status-quo-oriented orgs like The Street Trust, BikeLoudPDX, and the owner of this blog have an enabling relationship with the villain (PBOT) that outright refuses to build their funded transportation safety improvement committments.
Can you be more specific, perhaps referencing the text of the ballot measure?
You can find it here:
https://ballotpedia.org/Portland,_Oregon,_Measure_26-209,_Gas_Tax_Renewal_(May_2020)
A ballot measure “strict constructionist”!
Are you really arguing that because the ballot measure does not explicitly specify “safe routes for schools” that this is not compatible with “safety” build-outs? Ditto for neighborhood greenways funding.
I’m not sure what a “strict constructionist” is, but I believe that if the ballot measure says we’re going to raise money to spend money on A, B, and C, that’s what we should spend the money on.
As it happens the ballot measure did allocate money to both Safe Route to School and greenways, so that pretty much proves you right.
“Satus quo oriented?“ Explain.
You are either lying or ignorant about the measure, because it is and always has been split between maintenance and safety, and safety does include bike lanes.
8.3% of households massively subsidize 91.7% of households, how?
Through the cost of dealing with pollution, obesity, traffic collisions, traffic congestion, noise, global warming, oil spill cleanup, loss of farmland, loss of wildlife habitat, and inefficient land use in general. That’s before you get to the cost of building and maintaining roads, which we all do pay for.
“the cost of building and maintaining roads, which we all do pay for. ”
The amount non-drivers in Oregon pay for road construction and maintenance may not be zero, but it’s pretty close. Drivers pay for the vast majority of it.
Not that it matters; we don’t expect schools to be paid for only by families with school age children, for example.
I wouldn’t describe $252 million in general obligation bonds for the I-5 bridge replacement as being close to zero.
If and when those bonds are issued, we can see how they are being repaid and assess how much non drivers are paying. Until then, my statement stands.
As does my assertion that it doesn’t matter.
General obligation bonds are paid with additional property taxes according to law. Kotek signed the authorization last year for bonds for the I-5 bridge replacement to go on sale in 2025. There’s no “if” here.
The state will start assessing a property tax?
Regardless, the state has issued general obligation bonds for ODOT in the past. I’m not sure why these would be different, unless ODOT’s funding structure collapses, which is a distinct possibility.
When non-drivers start making significant payments for street construction and repair, I’ll stop saying they don’t. I don’t believe that will start in 2025, but I’ll follow the facts where they lead.
It appears you’re (technically) correct about the repayment of general obligation bonds. According to ODOT’s 2023 annual debt report, all of the department’s debt is supposed to be paid with highway user taxes and fees. Since the bulk of those are going to be paid by trucking companies, you’ve helped to pay for roads if you’ve ever bought anything transported by truck. I’ll leave others to decide whether that’s “significant” or not.
Right, so the people who don’t have cars help pay for the roads indirectly by buying things that come on trucks from somewhere else. That isn’t a subsidy of people who don’t have cars, that is paying for what they are using, because, they like, need things.
It’s both. Buying things you need doesn’t have to mean paying for roads you rarely drive on. Trains exist for one thing. Companies could produce things locally instead of moving production overseas. The existing supply chain is not natural or inevitable.
It’s likely that over the next couple of decades, more manufacturing will return to the US. That may actually increase truck traffic as stuff made in the US would likely be shipped overland by truck, rather than arriving at Pacific coast ports.
Making money.
All the more reason to build a network of publicly owned local freight rail transport.
In my experience, mainly in regard to bicycle parts, the Venn Diagram of people lamenting the decline of American manufacturing and those crying about the (generally) high(er) price of an equivalent MUSA part has a shameful amount of overlap.
“Trains exist for one thing. Companies could produce things locally instead of moving production overseas”
Companies *could* do that. They don’t do that.
If a company did do that, then went out of business because no one was willing to pay for the more expensive part when they could buy something cheaper but just as good from China, it wouldn’t really help anyone much.
In fact, I’ll bet some companies have tried this, but are gone now.
Kitsbow Clothing immediately comes to mind. Some of the highest quality clothing I’ve ever owned…RIP.
“…then went out of business because no one was willing to pay for the more expensive part when they could buy something cheaper but just as good from China,”
Yes, that happened to some. It’s very sad.
Sure, the stuff from China might be cheaper… it might be just as good and it might not be. The same people complain about cheap crap made in China.
But think about this, if you buy US made, more jobs would be kept in the US. By having more things manufactured in the US, they wouldn’t be affected by the same interruptions in the supply chains.
Both of these statements are undoubtedly true. But as long as customers remain price-motivated, most companies don’t really have the option to make stuff locally.
Sure… people pay fees for trucks to use the roads that bring them the stuff they want to buy. They thus pay for the roads indirectly, but they are also using them indirectly.
But the most important point is that it doesn’t matter. Government pays for things we collectively want, and needs to raise money to do so, which it does through a variety of means. People who’ve never had kids pay for schools. That’s how taxes work. Most people want a functioning road network.
I support a (much) higher gas tax, but not because I think drivers are getting a free ride, just as I don’t think library patrons get a free ride by their non-reading neighbors.
Bike infrastructure benefits drivers.
Painted bike lanes in particular help keep drivers in the middle of the stroad, where the stroadbed is strongest and thickest, and away from the (very expensive and hard to repair) curbs.
The gas tax needs to be used to deconstruct our failed car-based transportation system. It’s cruel to tax people trapped in car dependency and use those funds to reinforce their cage.
Isn’t there something called the bike bill that requires a bike facility be installed if a major roadway repair happens? Also ADA ramps would be triggered by most paving projects right? I’m not sure how the commissioner of PBOT doesn’t know simple details like this…
Doesn’t know or doesn’t care?
Unfortunately, pbot has been getting away with not adding bike lanes to streets when repaving.
Or adding bike lanes when repaving, then spending more money to scrape them off the freshly paved street
You are mixing up two different things.
The bike bill requires bike facilities only for new roadways, relocated roadways, and “reconstructed” roadways. PBOT and ODOT have always interpreted reconstruction to mean fully rebuilding the entire right-of-way from the ground up, often widening them through property acquisition, which is extremely rare for PBOT especially. The BikeLoud lawsuit currently underway is trying to argue that a much broader category of simple repaving projects (just repaving the top surface of the road) should trigger it, but that hasn’t been determined yet.
ADA ramp upgrades, by contrast, were ruled in federal courts to be required with any repaving project, regardless of the depth. It even applies to overlays, where a new layer is added to an existing road on top. The only time they aren’t triggered is if a small area of the road is repaved just to fix a problem area, but if the repaving is curb to curb and a whole block or so, the ramps need to be rebuilt.
Well Mr Mapps is right about one thing…the lack of trust in (local) government. That’s why I’m just going to vote NO.
Then you’ll get the facilities you deserve, Jerry.
Pedestrian fatalities are at an all-time high and yet bump-outs and traffic calming are not considered basic infrastructure needs. He knows he’s being recorded, right?
I walk and sometimes drive in my neighborhood, on NE Broadway and NE Sandy… I’m desperate for more bump outs, traffic calming, and a seperated bike lane to take some space from cars because currently there is so much space on these streets most of the time that even when you cross at a signalized intersection, cars pull up into the crosswalk, somehow still going over the speed limit. They need help. 😉 and when I’m driving, I’m under pressure from other drivers speeding and weaving and honking.
Do you think the 80% (I’m just pulling a number out of thin air) of the public that doesn’t walk, or bike really cares? They are too busy breaking speed laws getting their precious progeny to school. They’d rather be able to go as fast as possible through other people’s neighborhoods. (I see this all the time near the middle school that’s a couple blocks away from me, a-hole parents)
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Jonathan.
The bike lanes that drive everybody crazy??
Just today, as I was biking up Broadway on that much-improved, separated bike lane, I thought of how close we came to losing it.
The one thing that is clear is that Mapps will never be mayor.
Which do you think drives Mapps more crazy? The existence of a bike lane off to his right when driving, or by being in a car stuck behind a cyclist huffing and puffing to maintain 10mph going up Broadway before there was a bike lane?
In the day, Broadway was three lanes wide at all points almost up to I 405. Being stuck was a choice.
Exactly. That’s why bike lanes should be seen as benefitting drivers.
Same goes for pedestrian infrastructure. You mentioned probably the biggest driver complaint about bikes. Some of the biggest complaints about pedestrians are pedestrians walking along edges of lanes, crossing where there are no marked crosswalks, being hard to see at night, etc. Better sidewalks, crossings and lighting aim directly at fixing those, so they benefit drivers also.
Mapps could have mentioned all that in his response. Instead he chose his divisive us-versus-them, leadership-less, unaware route.
There was a pretty straightforward response, “the constitution requires us to spend gas tax money on roads for cars and trucks.” But that money can be an offset to free up funds to do other things. His real problem is that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Barry Goldwater, you are incorrect about the “Fixing our Streets” program. You can read all about it here: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets/about
The money can’t be used to fund homeless shelters, prisons, schools, and numerous other non-transportation uses, which is perfectly legal in most other states and cities nationwide (but not at the federal level).
The Oregon Constitution’s restriction on the use of gas tax funds does not work in the way that you imply. They can be used for all modes on streets, including travel lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks, and can even be used for something like the I-205 Path since that’s the “sidewalk and bike lanes” accommodation for I-205. The restriction is really about not being able to use it for things unrelated to the “highway system” (which in Oregon law is all streets). So gas tax can’t be used for off-street paths (like the Columbia Slough Trail or Springwater Corridor) and can’t be used for things like light rail or bus operations.
The progressive (relative to the US) accomplishments that Portland has managed to eke out are now used by electeds as punchlines or punching bags. This is “Portlandia Syndrome.” A mid-sized city tries to break free from the idiocy of the US. The cultural differences between that city and other places are exaggerated and satirized. Those self-effacing jokes and differences are used to shame the city’s residents into conforming back to typical self-destructive US norms.
Comment of the week
Och, those puuoor puuoor sensitive Portlanders who were shamed…
… but also somehow managed to vote for Gonzalez, Mapps, Wheeler, Ryan and Rubio (fossil-fuel deal-maker). Perhaps Portland residents have some agency and some shared responsibility for the “idiocy”.
This was always just painfully-obvious green-washing which was why it was so easy to satirize.
All the more reason not to cave. “You’re laughing at me because I’m right and you just haven’t figured it out yet.”
I think the term you’re finding discontent with is “reversion to the mean”. It may come as a surprise, but there aren’t that many of the 600,000 residents of Portland who want to be weird for the sake of it, and may have found that the cultural ideologues voted in over the last 8 years are incompetent because they allowed a virus, cultural flashpoint and ill-conceived referendum annihilate 20 years of forward progress.
Mapps has a long history of telling people what he thinks they want to hear, then voting in alignment with whatever the downtown business community wants.
When we renewed this tax in 2020, here is what we voted on:
https://ballotpedia.org/Portland,_Oregon,_Measure_26-209,_Gas_Tax_Renewal_(May_2020)
I skimmed through the full text of the ballot measure, and didn’t see the word “bike” or “bicycle” once. It is clear that this money was intended to fix potholes and other maintenance issues — essentially what Mapps described in his talk with the union.
You may not like that set of priorities, but it is what the Portland voters authorized, and what both Hardesty and Eudaly supported.
While you are technically correct, the measure specifically devoted funds for bicycle projects
The text includes: “$4.5 million to expand Neighborhood Greenways and connect schools, parks, transit, and neighborhood businesses”
Neighborhood greenways were formerly called Bicycle Boulevards and include sharrows and bike infrastructure at crossings. The current project on 72nd thru the golf course is a neighborhood greenway, and 1 lane is being converted to use by bikes and walking only.
There is also “$10.5 million for basic safety improvements” under “Community-Identified Transportation Needs” which can include bike projects that improve safety.
I concede that point, and the related one others have made about the explicit inclusion of money or Safe Routes to School.
Thanks for the link.
Certainly, the Summary portion of the full text of the ballot measure outlines that under the category “Street Repair and Maintenance” there would be a proposed investment of $25 million for paving, focused on busy and neighborhood streets, and under the category “Community-Identified Transportation Needs” there would be a proposed investment of $13 million for potholes, gravel streets, and pavement base repair and $10.5 million for “basic safety improvements.”
However, under the category “Safety” there would be a proposed investment of “$6 million for Safe Routes to School to improve safety for elementary students” and “$4.5 million to expand Neighborhood Greenways, and connect schools, parks, transit, and neighborhood businesses.”
Portland.gov defines Safe Routes to School as a program that “helps kids and their families walk, bike, and roll to and from school and around their neighborhoods. Through education and infrastructure improvements, we increase safety, encourage physical activity, and much more.” Neighborhood Greenways are defined as “streets that prioritize people walking, bicycling, and rolling,” and are described as “the backbone of the Safe Route to School network.”
Perhaps this doesn’t fund “bike lanes that drive everybody crazy,” as avowed bike enthusiast Mapps pathetically put it, but it’s clear $10.5 million of the money was intended for projects with a direct link to “bicycling.” You may not like that set of priorities, but it is what Portland voters authorized.
And if you look at the completed projects funded by fixing our streets, https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets/fixing-our-streets-projects, the bike projects fall under “Safe Routes to School” and “Neighborhood Greenways” which we voted on as stated in the ballot you linked.
I like these set of priorities. What I don’t like is Mapps trying to claim otherwise.
When it was first advocated to East Portland and SW residents, PBOT officials explicitly linked “safety” to bike and ped projects.
I personally voted for it with the understanding that the term “streets” encompasses several different modes of travel and other public uses, including biking. I also don’t consider a couple of examples in parentheses to be an exhaustive list.
So why has the potholes not been fixed?
Because they aren’t glamourous nor offer photo opportunities for politicians looking to move up.
Also, political entities always punish the public by not doing the very things the public wants most. If they’d offer to reduce their fleet of vehicles (the ones managers/engineers drive around in) or the number of assistants to the assistants, the public wouldn’t care as much, nor would the public be interested in saving those things by ponying up taxes as the public would for potholes.
It’s all a political game and they are the masters of manipulating public opinion to garner more tax money to save their jobs.
Well Mingus, throw us a bone. You don’t have to ride your bike to work, just send a recent picture of your warm hand on that cold frame. Inside the garage would be ok, but maybe out by the street?
Or a photo of him hugging his bike in bed. (I think I remember Sam had a photo like that.) 😉
So, basically, Mapps is talking out of both sides of this mouth, and is simply not a reliable source of information. Is there a more appropriate place we can find info on the FOS program?
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets
Imma gotta throw out a controversial opinion, as someone who rides and drives: i think we should leave potholes in car lanes unrepaired as long as they are shallow enough that they don’t actually damage cars severely.
Why? They slow traffic down, and they are cheaper than other traffic calming infrastructure.
Ideally, of course, I’d prefer to have good pavement with traffic calming infrastructure and use-filters in every neighborhood to eliminate through-traffic on residential streets, and I’d like to see licenses only issued to people actually responsible enough to drive, but that’s a lot more work for all of us.
Children get their toys taken away when they’re irresponsible with them, and adults don’t somehow when their toys happen to be cars?
Yeah, it’s a strong opinion you’re welcome to disagree with if you put thought into it.
The problem with that is cars don’t necessarily slow down, they swerve to avoid the potholes.
I’m not sure that the collective punishment of people who drive in Portland (which is most of us) would be a particularly effective way to get re-elected. And it would probably not save money in the long run, because roads tend to be much more expensive to repair when they’ve been completely neglected.
I moved from PDX a few years ago. The little town I am in now has a speed limit of 25 and lots of deer. Everyone drives 25 because no one wants to hit a deer and damage their car. We have lots of potholes too, but the deer really work to keep speed in check.
I take the lane for large stretches of my commute in from Milwaukie and the potholes and poor condition of the pavement are a huge issue on streets like SE 17th and SW Main.
There is a GIANT hole right in the middle of SE Linn, where you have to ride to stay on the Springwater. I almost fell off my bike last time I rode over it one night after work.
These are all dangerous and a literal pain in the butt and we should fix them!
This, all this, is why I will be voting no on the gas tax. I will be voting for Rene as mayor. I voted for MM before but not after the disappointing performance of FOS. this is not what we voted for. I see no streets fixed, just more ruts and potholes.
LoL. Do you think Rene “I was physically assaulted on the MAX” Gonzalez will be any better than mapps?
Let’s hope so, because it seems very likely he’s going to be our next mayor.
He’s not getting my vote
Neither Mapps nor Rubio really has much of a chance. There is still time for a popular candidate to challenge Gonzalez from the left, but I don’t know who has the standing to be able to do this successfully, especially given the political environment of the moment.
Watts,
What do you think of Keith Wilson?
https://bikeportland.org/2024/02/15/podcast-get-to-know-portland-mayoral-candidate-keith-wilson-383958/
I think he is a candidate I can truly get excited about.
I’ve met Wilson, and I like him. It is unclear to me how he will perform as a candidate, but he is clearly starting from a position of much lower name recognition than any of his opponents, and has just a hint of “perennial candidate” about him (which I don’t personally mind too much, but it might put some people off). It will be interesting to see if he can raise enough money to overcome these deficits.
I have no idea who I am going to vote for, and I am totally open to supporting Wilson. We’ll see.
Best comment in here, from SD:
“The gas tax needs to be used to deconstruct our failed car-based transportation system. It’s cruel to tax people trapped in car dependency and use those funds to reinforce their cage.”
Maybe someone should remind Mr Mapps that expenses like fixing potholes, maintaining gravel streets, signals, high-vis crosswalks and traffic calming are only needed because of the damage done from heavy vehicles. The heavier/faster the vehicle, the greater the potential for road/infrastructure damage AND need for safety infrastructure to keep humans on the outside of a vehicle safe — and therefore the greater the cost to maintain and repair. In other words, the stuff that’s the costliest to fix primarily results from the transport mode that puts those on foot/bike most at risk. Notice that sidewalks and bike lanes don’t get potholes (unless frequently traversed by cars/trucks) and only require signals/crosswalks at points where they mix with cars/trucks. Hell, even the streetcar that runs straight through the pedestrian area of PSU’s Urban Center plaza doesn’t have a traffic signal, because despite the size of the train, it moves through that area at jogging speed.
That’s why it’s so damn patronizing that Mapps backtracks with statements like “This small investment helps maintain our streets and make them safer for people driving, biking, and walking.” As if those of us who occasionally experience life outside a car are supposed to thank him for the backstops against the mode that creates all these costs and safety issues in the first place–even after he gets caught telling people hostile to any non-driving mode, don’t worry, we won’t actually pay for all that biking crap!
And this guy wants to be mayor? No thank you. This isn’t leadership. Leaders don’t change their positions based on whichever room they’re sitting in. They can listen to their concerns and even recognize when those concerns are legitimate (for example, can we really expect a room full of maintenance employees to be thrilled about funding modes that don’t require nearly as much maintenance?), but ultimately a leader convinces their constituents of the merits of policies that are better for our city and society as a whole.
Henceforth, Mapps should just answer all questions with the classic political bromide that he is “for everything good against everything bad”.
I didn’t vote for Mapps. If I give him the benefit of the doubt, the best case scenario is that he didn’t want to come across as bike & ped hugger to a bunch of manual laborers whom he expected to all drive cars and don’t like sharing the road with other users.
Meh, it’s just another day in your local run of the mill politician’s politicking.
I didn’t vote for Mapps, either. Giving him the benefit of the doubt doesn’t seem… prudent.
BP, could you bold the LiUNA quote so it stands out while scrolling the article?
“Um, you said bike lanes? Yeah, I ride my bike everyday. I love bikes. I would like more bike lanes.”
Jonathan took care of it, thank you for the suggestion.
My professional background is in construction and asset management. Reading between the lines, I think what Mr. Mapps is trying to say is that the gas tax has and will continue to be spent solely on maintenance type expense activities, rather than on capital investments. The unfortunate and disappointing thing here is that he’s speaking duplicitously by emphasizing and downplaying or even denigrating which maintenance projects he thinks are important based on his read of his audience at any given time and place. I get it, stumping as a politician is about reading your audience and talking about the parts of your platform that appeal to them, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of insulting other people you who will vote for you or, even worse, actively contradicting yourself from day to day.
I agree with you Michael, Mapps was implying a difference between funding sources, and unfortunately cultures, between the different silos and desks within PBOT. Three of the biggest silos are Capital projects (designed and managed by the Planning group), Maintenance, and Development Review. I suspect that part of the reason that we have such disconnected bike and ped networks in this city is because of the lack of coordination between DR and Capital projects. It’s a huge topic, and a problem that I’m hoping the new form of government improves.
But yeah, Mapps still has not mastered the meat and potatoes skill set of an experienced politician. Those were the kind of lob-ball questions an experienced public speaker would have hit out of the park. He missed a teaching moment and opportunity to present his own views.
The Development Review piece of the puzzle is something that I’m just starting to learn about, thanks to BP! There’s no public advisory committee for that. Without careful attention we’ll have more spaces built out with no active transportation access.
Is there any news about the Alpenrose area?
X, I don’t know about Alpenrose, I have to look into it, ditto with all the changes with building code. I stepped back from BP a little over the past couple of months, and haven’t kept up with a bunch of news, I’m trying to catch up now.
I think we are already at the “have more spaces built out with no active transportation access” point, at least in SW. There is a lot to know, but I think part of the reason we have so many gaps in the bike/ped networks has to do with the screwy, piecemeal way we fund transportation projects. Including lack of coordination between DR and Capitol Improvements. There doesn’t seem to be a mechanism for city funds to contribute to development-driven transportation needs.
Let’s take Mapps at his (oft repeated) words, and start referring to his and PBOT Director Millicent Williams’s agenda of “a road diet of fat and carbohydrate projects“ that are unhealthy because they focus on paving, on making it easier for motorized vehicles to dominate, and not on healthy choices like transit, bicycling, and walking.
The PBOT Roadway Bread & Butter Plan.
The PBOT Metformin Roadway Diet Program.
It looks like he will pander to any audience. Only this time he misread them and underestimated our PBOT friends. Kudos to PBOT and he’s going to have a harder time getting my vote.
The plot thickens:
“Business Chamber Says Mapps Told Them He Would Scale Back 4th Avenue Bike Lane Project”
I don’t know who to believe. Mapps has become such a slippery character ….I’m prone to believe the PBA over him.
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2024/05/15/business-chamber-says-mapps-told-them-he-would-scale-back-4th-avenue-bike-project/