Revelations in the media this week that two Portland city commissioners have shown blatant disregard for traffic laws and the consequences for breaking them, make it much easier to understand why our roads often feel like lawless wastelands and road safety issues are not a high priority at City Hall.
The Willamette Week reported Monday that starting in 1998, city commissioner and mayoral candidate Rene Gonzalez, “racked up seven speeding tickets in Oregon (one was dismissed); twice had his driving license suspended (in 1998 and 2003); and was cited four times for failure to display current registration on his vehicle.” In 2014 Gonzalez was cited for not having a valid ticket on a MAX train. On several occasions, Gonzalez wrote letters to the court making excuses for his actions and asking for relief from consequences.
Also yesterday, The Oregonian shared that another mayoral candidate and commissioner, Carmen Rubio, “racked up more than 150 parking and traffic violations over the last two decades, failing to pay most of them for months or sometimes years.”
Taken by themselves, these stories would be troubling and disappointing. When combined with the daily lawlessness we see on our streets, they are something even worse. Below is just a sample of the dangerous, reckless driving I’ve heard about in the past few days…
Yesterday a driver managed to flip their car on NE 33rd at Going Street.
Also on Monday, yet another driver took their car onto a carfree path, a worrying trend that is being reported much more often lately.
And on Sunday, a driver plowed through the front of a Plaid Pantry on NE Glisan near 102nd.
Two days prior to that, on Friday September 6th, the Portland Police Bureau responded to a crash on SE Division Street. Someone who was walking had life-threatening injuries after being hit by a driver at SE 158th. Then about twenty minutes later another call came about another collision a few blocks away: Another pedestrian was seriously injured by a driver.
None of this is normal. In fact, it’s madness.
The dysfunctional driving culture that currently rules our roadways is more powerful and dangerous than the infrastructure we might build to prevent it. Until we are willing to create carfree zones and truly safe streets where driving is prohibited and/or severely constrained, our only hope is to improve culture and find leaders who can model better behaviors.
Maybe Mingus Mapps, another sitting city commissioner who wants to be mayor, is the guy?
At a press conference following a rise in traffic deaths held in front of City Hall one year ago Mapps said he wanted to, “bring about culture change” on our roads. But not only did Mapps never do anything substantive to follow-up that statement, we learned one month later during the Broadway Bike Lane Scandal he presided over that he also has a trust deficit on transportation issues.
Maybe that’s why Mapps’ campaign has seized on the negative press for Gonzalez and Rubio with an email just sent out to his supporters. “I don’t have a single traffic citation,” Mapps writes in the email. “As a Black man, I don’t get to flout the rules… If I had over 150 violations in recent years, not only would I not be on the City Council today, I would be in jail.”
If it takes an election campaign to prioritize the importance of responsible vehicle use and clean up traffic culture, I’m all for it. Portland is desperate for civilized streets. To get them we need serious, trustworthy leaders who want to make our roads better for everyone as much as they want to gain power for themselves.
