Last Friday’s post about District 1 candidate Terrence Hayes’s ‘War on Cars’ campaign email racked up many good comments.
A lot of them fell into my “do you want this home-run over center or right field?” category. The post was an easy pitch for readers who can make a case for cycling, and those comments were rewarded with lots of thumb-ups and COTW nominations. A couple of them were quite insightful (and popular, like this one from “dw”).
The one I decided to choose this week, however, surprised and provoked me.
Readers might remember Rob Galanakis from a BP post and video earlier this year about a road-rage incident which happened as he was leading a bike-bus of school children. So Rob is an experienced cyclist who walks the talk.
His comment this week about “war on cars” broaches a few thorny issues: the incompleteness of PBOT’s bike network; the fact that most of the city’s high crash intersections and roads are in a part of town that often rejects attempts to calm driving; how much say should neighborhoods have over city-initiated roadway projects.
Here’s Rob:
I somewhat agree with him. PBOT will refuse to install bike lanes, school streets, or modal filters/diverters in areas of SE that have a massive latent demand for biking (and many advocates). The size of, say, the Abernethy Bike Bus is a good example of what the minimum bike mode share would be when it’s safe. Instead, PBOT is spending tons of time and energy adding bike infrastructure in communities that don’t want it, with no plans to complete a network that would make it viable. The Outer Division change is a good example – good bike infrastructure that connects to an unusable bike gutter west of 82nd.
PBOT’s message cannot be “wait 30 years for us to complete a bike network that makes biking viable.” It’s ineffective and unjust. And counterproductive as it directly produces and feeds into (somewhat true!) narratives like this.
That said, he’s wrong about certain things like road capacity, which induce demand and only make traffic worse. And the cost of the actual car infrastructure that he says is needed to support drivers in East Portland, is impossible for East Portland to afford without massive, unsustainable subsidy from the rest of the city: the bike lanes aren’t making any of these big road projects expensive, it’s because the extensive surface damage, and complex crossings needed to support pedestrians across a river of high-speed cars.
Thank you Rob. You can read Rob’s comment, and some powerful home-runs, under the original post.
Thanks for reading.
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The City of Portland is now effectively 4 neighborhoods, by law: East, West, North/NE, & parts of SEUL & Cully mixed together. Both Multnomah County and the City Auditor’s office has found in several published studies that East Portland has been subsidizing the rest of the city since annexation (1986-1992) through a higher property tax burden and, being more car-dependent with fewer alternatives, paying more in gas taxes per person, than any other part of town; downtown has received the bulk of this subsidy; inner NE Portland is the only part of town that is more-or-less in balance. The City Budget Mapping program started under Sam Adams amply demonstrated this.
East Portland has been severely under-invested by a long succession of city councils, including the present one – the creation of a distinct district for East Portland, the only one of its type in Portland, is a recognition by the city government of this pattern of under-investment. The district was created under a lot of constant pressure from the US Justice Dept, State of Oregon, and Multnomah County. This under-investment is also amply documented.
The overwhelmingly majority of bicycle infrastructure you do see in East Portland was put in by Multnomah County before annexation (and later renewed by the city) or by ODOT. The city did start to add new facilities as part of the EPIM process in 2012, including by P&R, BES, and PBOT (as well as ODOT).
I’m not sure how much more money East Portland will get after the new city council next meets and a new budget is drawn up, but between EP and NP/NE are 6 votes, half of the council. The only thing I am certain about is that downtown will no longer get a majority of city funding (up to 80% in some years).
Completely agree. Given PBOTs limited budget and political capital, we should be building out the close in biking network first, where there is strong demand and community support for it. Then continue to build out to the east so that the network is always complete and connected as it expands.