Mingus Mapps, the Portland commissioner-in-charge of the transportation bureau, says the SW 4th Avenue Improvements project will continue as planned.
Mapps was forced to defend the project after President and CEO of Portland Metro Chamber Andrew Hoan said the $16.9 million investment in a major downtown corridor would be “unnecessary, wasteful, and disruptive.” In a letter he said represented the Chamber’s 2,200 members, Hoan urged Mapps to cancel the project and transfer the funds to other infrastructure projects.
“The SW 4th Avenue Improvement project is a transformative investment about so much more than a bike lane.”
– Mingus Mapps
In a letter shared with BikePortland this afternoon, Commissioner Mapps refuted Hoan’s claims that the Portland Bureau of Transportation was “stonewalling” progress on the Broadway Corridor and OMSI District development projects. Mapps laid out how PBOT is supporting both of those projects with financial and staff capacity resources.
Mapps also made it clear that he disagreed with Hoan’s characterization that the SW 4th Avenue project was, “$20 million dollars to add a bike lane” (which is how Hoan referred to the project in an email to Chamber members on May 6th).
“The SW 4th Avenue Improvement project is a transformative investment about so much more than a bike lane,” Mapps wrote. “First and foremost, it is a paving maintenance project… This project will repair and restore SW 4th Avenue with fresh new pavement all the way from SW Lincoln up to W Burnside. This smooth new durable road surface will last for decades to come.”
At the end of his letter, Mapps stated, “I feel strongly we share the same goals. A vibrant Central City with more activity, more people and growth in visitors. We want people to return to the Central City whether they come on foot, on bike, on transit or by car. I appreciate your letter and welcome the opportunity to correct the record on our commitments.”
Meanwhile, PBOT says the project has already begun and will proceed as scheduled.
UPDATE, 5/16: The Willamette Week has reported on an email from the Metro Chamber’s Andrew Hoan to Portland City Council members that claims Commissioner Mapps had given them a verbal commitment to make substantive changes to the project and that, “only the broadly supported parts of the 4th avenue project will move forward under his watch.” Hoan is saying Mapps letter in our story above does not match what he told them privately. Reached today for comment, Mapps office told BikePortland: “Commissioner Mapps stands by the letter that he wrote.” I’m looking into this and will post a separate update if necessary.
I’ve no idea what his personal feelings on the issue are, but I’m absolutely certain that Hoan knew this letter would accomplish nothing. Most likely the imminent construction of the project angered some members of the Metro Chamber, and Hoan knew he had to be seen to be doing something.
Sending a letter like this so late in the process almost guarantees it won’t achieve its stated goal. It’s such an obvious miscalculation that it makes me wonder if it was sent late on purpose to appease a few vocal members while still making sure the project moves forward.
I’m sure you are right: a couple of business owners on 4th Ave complained about the project and Hoan thought, Well I’d better do something. So he wrote the letter and effectively crapped all over the project at the last minute.
Seems to me that this kind of move really hurts the PBA / Chamber’s reputation. They don’t engage in project planning from the beginning by making a good-faith effort to ensure everyone’s needs are met (or do they? I’m not involved in these efforts). When they don’t get what they want, they poop on the project at the last minute. It looks really bad.
I thought their assessment of the Better Naito project was pretty hilarious, saying it had been executed poorly, which I think every cyclist can agree with, but for reasons that are completely opposite to the Chamber’s!
I have to disagree here: I ride Better Naito all the time and it is great. Easily the best cycle way in the city. Actually, the city should look at Better Naito as a model for future cycling projects.
PBA/Metro Chamber: Same as it ever was. This project has been out there for at least 5 years, they were fully informed as part of the years-long Central City bike planning process, and yet just now it dawns on them now to oppose it? C’mon….
Strategically, it might have been an attempt to hurt Mapps’s mayoral candidacy. Which is not a candidacy I hope to see succeed, but Hoan and I are probably in disagreement about who would be the better choice for mayor. (I’ve lived in Portland for over twenty years, still waiting to have a mayoral candidate I’m actually excited to vote for).
That’s how it seem to me, too. It’s patently ridiculous to say at the last minute, after years of process and design, with construction contracts signed, that you could move the money into totally different projects. So this must be Hoan and the Chamber making some powerful person happy, or making it look like they’re doing something, to retain the large donations that power their organization.
Yeah, it’s not very pro-business to rug pull on contractors and vendors who have ostensibly not pursued other work to dedicate resources to this.
As of right now, the PMC’s business directory has a photo of cyclist riding downtown as its banner
https://community.portlandmetrochamber.com/membership-directory/FindStartsWith?term=C
Good news, hopefully for the right reasons.
i wish we had at least one politician somewhere in Portland who would say something unabashedly positive about bikes, rather than something like this (from Mapps’ letter):
“While I understand there are stakeholders who still share concerns about the provision of a northbound bicycle facility in the downtown, the identification of which street would be the least impactful home for such a facility was thoroughly evaluated and discussed…”
Would be nice if somebody made a statement that didn’t make bicycle transportation seem like your embarrassing relative.
Exactly. It’s another rephrasing of “We don’t like bike lanes any more than you do. But you know how those bike people are!”
It’s really damaging. It sets one group against another, by confirming to the anti-bike people that they’re right, and the bike people are pests.
I have had government people (politicians and staff) back me up though, and it’s incredible. It changes the whole game. Like you said, it needs to happen more often.
Pitting groups against each other is what politicians do best
Needs of cyclists and the “general public” are far from top priority for Portland Metro Chamber, nor of most business associations. Saying “no” was easy for Mapps this time but I will NOT be voting for him or any of the other current city councillors, for mayor or for any other position. I see them all as having done more to create the mess we’re currently in, than to solve it.
So Mapps’s message: Good thing we aren’t investing only in bike lanes! That would really be terrible! Instead it’s the “fats and carbohydrate” (aka meat and potatoes) road diet he is happy to embrace and invest in!
Thank you, Commissioner Mapps.
My mom lives downtown and the Broadway connection has made visiting her by bike so much more comfortable. I’m really looking forward to this northbound connection so I have a similarly comfortable ride home.
On a related note, my mom was hit yesterday by a cyclist riding on the sidewalk on SW Washington near Broadway. Not the first time. We need to commit to building comfortable bike paths all through downtown so we don’t have these pedestrian/cyclist conflicts. Downtown space is dominated by cars with everyone else fighting for scraps.
It’s sad to see the PBA co-opted by real estate investors and their petty grievances. It would be interesting to audit the number of businesses that the PBA actually represents. I remember that previously they were claiming businesses as members that did not know they were “members” or stopped paying dues or whatever a long time ago.
I’m really interested to know who their members are. They consistently make moves against bike and transit infrastructure. I’d like to vote with my dollars and avoid patronizing the member businesses.
I casually went down that rabbit hole when they opposed better naito and maybe also when they opposed a SW 12th bike lane and it turned out that businesses that were on the PBA website as members had no idea that they were members and were not sure that they ever agreed to be members. Most were unaware of what the PBA was up to. The 75 voting board members appear to mostly be corporate tools. https://portlandmetrochamber.com/board/
It would be an afternoon well-spent to go through their member list and ask if they are actually members and if they support all the dirty things the PBA is up to and has done over the past decade.
Maybe I’m just feeling conspiracy theory minded today, but suddenly this feels like a softball being lofted by the business association to give mapps the opportunity to stand tall in support of a transportation project that was going to move forward no matter what. He gets to burnish his credentials and gets press extensive media coverage that would be pretty espensive to purchase.
Is this just a campaign stunt designed to make mapps look better to the active transportation activist community? A guerillas marketing campaign of sorts?
From looking at the rendering at the top of the page, this is one of the best looking projects I’ve seen in a long time. Plenty of lanes for the business people to drive their Tesla’s downtown, and a great looking protected bike lane next to a comfortable looking tree lined sidewalk. It looks to serve ALL modes well.