Leave it to Jeff Mapes to seize his opportunity as moderator of last night’s mayoral debate to ask the top candidates a transportation question.
Mapes notched over 40 years as a reporter for The Oregonian and Oregon Public Broadcasting and in 2009 wrote Pedaling Revolution, a critically-acclaimed book that chronicled the rise of bicycling in America at a time when Portland was riding very high as a cycling city. I recall hanging out with Jeff at the National Bike Summit in 2007, which he attended as part of his research for the book. Mapes also once labeled Portland’s cycling advocates as a “micro-constituency” and the “bicycling base” of former mayor Sam Adams.
His question to mayoral candidates Liv Osthus, Carmen Rubio, Rene Gonzalez, Mingus Mapps and Keith Wilson came at the very end of last night’s debate hosted by City Club of Portland. And based on the way he asked it, it was clearly a bonus question Mapes had up his sleeve. “We’re not on live TV, so you know what?” Mapes said, “I’m just going to ask one more question.”
We’re lucky he did, because the responses were interesting and relatively meaty given that campaigns have been focused heavily on homelessness and public safety. Below is Mapes’ question and answers from each candidate in the same order as last night (answers edited for clarity), followed by my takeaways.
Mapes
“Traffic congestion is worse than it was before the pandemic, transit is struggling, the road maintenance backlog is humongous, and we’re far from meeting safe street goals. How do you have a positive vision for how we can better move ourselves around the city?”
Mingus Mapps
“As the former commissioner in charge of PBOT [Portland Bureau of Transportation], this is a space I know well. Here a couple things every Oregonian and every Portlander needs to know: The systems that we use to fund our transportation system are fundamentally broken. It’s a sad truth. The funds that we use to fill potholes and to build bike lanes basically come from parking meter revenues and gas taxes. Our parking meter revenues are down because lots of people are working from home one or two days a week, and gas taxes are going down because cars are much more efficient. Frankly, this is one of the questions we’ll be dealing with in the next legislative session, and that’s also why it’s very important that you have a mayor who’s tuned into transportation issues. In the next year we need to work with our state legislature to develop a new system for funding our transportation system. Ultimately, I believe that’s going to be a vehicle miles traveled tax. I don’t think there’s a lot of controversy around that. There’s a lot of work that we need to do between here and there, and we need our state partners in order to implement that, but I think that’s the way forward. The other thing that we really need to continue to focus on is to build a multimodal transportation system so that you can get where you want to go, how you want to get there. As your commissioner in charge of PBOT, those are the values I brought to this work, and when I’m your mayor, those are also the values I’ll bring to leading the city.”
Liv Osthus (who, by the way, I will interview next week)
“So here’s the confluence of all my favorite ideas. I love public transit. I know that TriMet is Metro, but I whenever I travel, I just I have a fetish for public transportation. So I envision our TriMet being the biggest public art project on the West Coast. Let’s partner with our communities to connect them with TriMet. The Frog Ferry, I love that too… but partner with artists to make TriMet so vibrant, make it free. Everyone will ride if it’s free! The public safety aspect, it will be safer if it’s free and everyone rides and it and it’s a very wholesome place. It will be inspiring for our people suffering from addiction, even they’ll be like, ‘Gosh, I want to get sober for that!’ And then PBOT needs help because not as many people are driving, there’s more cycling because not as many people are driving and it’s safer. That’s my vision. So please next mayor, whomever you may be, take it and run.”
Carmen Rubio
“I absolutely agree with Liv, I 100% support free transit. We need to really focus on multimodal transportation, because this is a new way, and climate change is here people, and we need to start acting like it. I also think that we can think about how we increase the greening of our public transit as well. And I think there are multiple new opportunities to figure out how we cross investments in funds like PCEF [Portland Clean Energy Fund], with with transportation and TriMet, and some of those things are discussions that are already happening. So it’s very exciting. And we do need to explore other ways to address revenue challenges and our declining revenue for transportation, so we do need to push and work with the state for the solutions and for those partnerships so that we can continue to do our basic services that we’re required to do as a local jurisdiction, and also make sure that we’re putting safety infrastructure in so that we can maintain our safe streets.”
Keith Wilson
“I’ll tackle it from the congestion standpoint. So congestion has increased 250% since about the mid-90s for all the so we’re spending more and more time in a car. The unfortunate thing is, is that we led the nation just a matter of seven, eight years ago with walking, biking and transit. We’ve lost that. It’s gone down by half. So the TriMet goal for 2030, is for 120 million riders. Today, it’s 60 million riders. That’s their goal, and they have to achieve that, because if they don’t, all of us just are suffering more and more delay and frustrations. So we have to make sure that we have a public safety system and a transit system that are tied together. When we use our transit for a cooling shelter or a warming shelter without providing basic shelter for those, we’re misusing that very important transit system, and then it feels and or is unsafe. On our multi-use paths, when we’re trying to bike to the Gateway parking garage, and we’re going through a humanitarian crisis, and we don’t bike anymore. These are things that I’m hearing from people that used to bike to the transit system to use it in a multimodal situation. We’re forcing families to then drive their kids to school. We’re forcing bus drivers that are uncomfortable or feel unsafe in a job that they should have as a routine and caring for their customers, which is you and me. We need a safer system in Portland. We need to improve livability, and then we need to invest in walking, biking and transit and protected systems so we can move from our cars and move faster to work.”
Rene Gonzalez
“When I chose to start my professional career in Portland, I thought of it as the most European city in 2000. A place where you could walk, where you cycle, where you took public transit. It is, and certainly was, a central part of our identity as a city that we embrace all those various components. I will say, in recent years, at times, that’s also become dogmatic. It was never a ‘war on cars.’ It was walk, cycle and take public transit because it was healthy, because it was social. And so I just want to maybe observe in recent years that it’s become a little bit more brutal. And I would also submit when you’re talking about in east Portland of your single mom with two kids, and you get to a doctor, you’re still going to use your car; and if you’re working in the outer suburbs and you work downtown, you’re likely still going to need to use a car to get to work. So I think we have to acknowledge sometimes the classism in public transit discussion can go too far. I echo Commissioner Mapps’ points on stabilizing funding for transportation our region. This is a really tough nut to crack, and we’re just going to have to partner with various government parties going forward on that. I also want to call out that I think a lot of the congestion in our region is in the suburban areas. We do have some in the city, but we’ve got to get I-5 expansion done. We’ve got to get the Interstate Bridge project done. That is a major congestion point on the West Coast. It’s frankly an embarrassment for us, and we’re not protecting the climate when cars are idling on I-5.”
Thank you Jeff Mapes!
These were the most substantive comments on transportation we’ve heard from leading mayoral candidates to date. Here are some of my takeaways…
Mapps didn’t really answer the question. Instead of sharing his vision, he went into the same spiel about funding he mentions whenever transportation comes up. Yes that’s an important element of the conversation, but I think people want to hear a more decisive answer, some new ideas, and/or something closer to a true vision beyond a milquetoast, “we really need to continue to focus on is to build a multimodal transportation system.” And the fact that Mapps still hasn’t explained why PBOT planned to redesign a downtown bike lane and make it less safe, despite warnings from experts on the agency’s staff, doesn’t give anyone a reason to trust him on this issue.
The answer from Osthus should be turned into a t-shirt and advocacy slogan. I’d certainly buy a sticker that says, “I have a fetish for public transit!” I also noted her enthusiastic tone and it was clear she sees streets with more bike and transit riders as being an important part of Portland regaining its mojo.
Rubio was likely relieved that her problem with parking tickets and license suspensions never came up. Her answer to Mapes’ question was interesting for its full-throated support of free transit. But it made me think: If she believes in free transit, what has she done in her past four years in office to support that? This is the first time I’ve heard her mention that policy. I know she wasn’t in charge of PBOT, but I’m not aware of anything she did to advocate for PBOT transit programs like the Rose Lane Project and I haven’t heard anything about her working with advocacy groups that work of free transit or fight for lower fares such as OPAL’s Bus Riders Unite.
Wilson’s answer had solid scope and clarity. I was glad he didn’t connect the entire answer to ending unsheltered homelessness, the issue that defines his campaign, but that I think he often talks about too much at the expense of other important issues. In his answer, Wilson deftly made the very important connection between the quality of transit and bike path experiences and whether people will choose those modes. He’s been to Bike Happy Hour several times in the past year and his conversations and time spent in our community shone through in his answer. His ending plea to “invest in biking and walking and transit and protected systems” was strong and needed.
The answer shared by Gonzalez was also very clear. His idea that encouragement to walk, bike and take transit more being, “dogmatic” and “a little more brutal” in recent years was very interesting. These choices are a key part of how Portland can solve our transportation problems and they are main elements of our climate and transportation plans, so of course that’s the messaging folks hear from the City of Portland. And by his own admission, Portland has a strong legacy of being “the most European city” and a push to not drive is just baked into this city’s DNA to some degree.
Gonzalez is a regular bike rider and transit user, but he’s also the best politician in the race. By far. He’s a confident speaker, he has a distinct vision, and he knows exactly what his supporters and donors want to hear. That’s why he mentioned expanding freeways (which, by the way, when you create more room to drive and if there’s less idling in the short-term, there will eventually be more cars and more idling in the long-term) and marched out the classic “some people need to drive” strawman. It was also unfortunate that he doubled-down on the same unhelpful class framing that his friend and ally, District 1 City Council candidate Terrence Hayes, likes to make.
Except for Osthus, who likely earned some rankings with her optimism and passion for Portland, I don’t think last night’s debate moved the needle much for any candidate. Gonzalez is still a strong favorite, but I think Wilson is a legit dark horse at this point. Since many Gonzalez and Rubio fans won’t rank either as their second choice (or might not rank them at all), Wilson will likely receive a ton of second-place votes. Add those to his likely large haul of first-place votes and he could surprise everyone.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.
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“Your single mom with two kids, and you need to see the doctor, you’re still going to use your car”
What galls me about comments like that (won’t someone pleeeeeaaaase think of the children!!) and other similar rationale for maintaining the car centric status-quo is that -*checks notes* – no one is arguing that point.
Yes, some residents need to use a car sometimes.
What comments like that fail to acknowledge is:
a. That single mom with two kids is stuck in traffic with other single occupancy vehicles, filled with drivers who had other transportation options, but decided to drive anyway; and
b. That the only solution that a single mom with two kids has to transport themselves and their children in a transit desert is to drive, ignoring those whom can’t afford a car because they are a single mother with two kids.
If those kids are sick, I sure don’t want them on transit.
Again. No one is arguing that point.
It also ignores the fact that so many parent-child car trips are necessitated by the fact driving is functionally required, but kids can’t drive.
c. At the end of the day, there will always be a complete road network for when driving is the only choice. Bus and bike lanes and other safety improvements will not result in the removal of having the ability to drive.
Takes me 15-20 minutes to drive to work. Taking 2 buses takes 1 – 1 1/2 hours, and that’s not even during rush hour. I take the bus because supposedly it’s the “right thing to do”.
Based with how long a bus takes, I wonder how many people would choose to drive over taking the bus based on how long?
TriMet has always and always will be a failure as long as their sole driving force is being a development agency (if you think the MAX trains were about serving citizens I have a bridge I can sell you) and not a transportation one. Until they embrace being solely a transit agency we’ll never have that “world class” system that we all hope for.
I’m not sure TriMet has done a great job as a “development agency”; look at all the inner-city Max adjacent buildable lots TriMet turned into parking lots along 17th between Powell to McLoughlin.
Of course their employees have to park somewhere.
There’s a sort of catch 22. A lot of Trimet employees have to get to work before transit is running, for some reason. It’s probably the usual hardy few that ride bikes.
Yikes! Gonzalez with the worst anti-urban, pro-suburb, exploitative position once again. At least he partially tells us who he is.
He’s definitely working to earn the last place ranking on my ballot. Hell, at this rate I might even just write in Ted Wheeler in sixth.
If you don’t want him to win, don’t rank him at all. A 6th place vote is still a vote.
If you don’t like Rene, don’t rank him at all!! Any ranked choice vote can get counted and help someone to win. Voters don’t need to fill in six candidates, just however many candidates you actually would support.
At least he didn’t suggest that art and cost are preventing people from riding transit.
I love the “fetish for transit” line from Liv, as well as the idea that we should be trying to beautify our transportation system along with making it more accessible for all, but her answer on the whole struck me as entirely unserious. First, Trimet is its own entity, not part of Metro, and as the chief executive of the city’s bureaucracy who will be working collaboratively with the web of overlapping and neighboring government entities, she should know that. Second, while working with Trimet towards a common goal is a big part of getting things done in Portland, I would have liked to hear more about what she wants to do that would be within her own, exclusive purview as Mayor of Portland. What are some things that PBOT can do unilaterally or with other city bureaus without having to get Trimet involved?
Anyway, Wilson for mayor!
I am counting on some Bike Portland endorsements, especially for the city council seats. So much to wade through! Looking forward to your recommendations.
I’m weighing that too Lenny. It’d be a big break from tradition and I have never thought endorsements are a good idea… But I am definitely trying to find a way to share my thoughts about the choices. I won’t do clear endorsements but I will likely write some opinion pieces about each district and the mayor’s race sharing my general thoughts on the candidates.
I’ve never thought a serious journalist such as yourself should offer endorsements. It just seems to bring up questions of neutrality (as much as humans can have anyway). It’s unfortunate that endorsements seem to be all the rage lately as it splits journalism and news sources into camps which suggests the information coming from them is slanted to support the endorsement.
Will enjoy reading any opinion essays on the state of the state and city though:-)
yeah I will not be doing endorsements in case it wasn’t clear.
But given how unprecedented this election is, I want to find a way to help as much as I can. It might even mean turning the mic over to you and the community to amplify what others are saying about the races. Stay tuned.
Taylor Griggs (used to write for bikeportland, now at the mercury) has a good summary here: https://www.portlandmercury.com/collections/46766453/city-council-race-2024
It seems true that Rene does sometimes ride Trimet, unfortunately the reason we know that he does so was that he falsely accused a woman of assaulting him on the Max (thankfully there was video to protect her). I recently learned of this site which is tracking some of the many reasons why it is probably best to not rank him at all.
https://www.dontrankrene.org/
Rene will be likely be #1 in my rankings. I don’t think I’m gonna bother ranking Mapps. This website makes me think I shouldn’t rank Rubio either. Wilson likely my #2.
Don’t forget that for some that sort of blatant racism is part of the appeal.
Gonzalez’s response is so out of touch. Does he know nothing about the city’s decades of advocacy and grass root efforts to reduce freeway expansion and build more options for modes other than driving? So much of that happened before 2000 when he started his professional career here. Specifically the reason biking was increasing in the early aughts was because of all the advocacy done in the 90s to do things like add and expand bike paths across the river.
His strawman argument about people needing to drive is particularly galling. Those theoretical people he mentions have to drive because they aren’t given other viable options. I bet that single mom with two kids would love to save thousands of dollars a year by ditching her car and taking mass transit if it was a reasonable choice.
Mapps and Rubio’s actions or inaction speak louder than their words. They’ve done nothing to support other modes but the status quo for Portland elected leaders which is to wring their hands about climate change and traffic safety while ultimately supporting more driving.
Wilson’s ideas sound great and all but does anyone believe he can accomplish half of what he’s promising? He is going to need a lot of support from the new council members and metro and trimet and the county and the state to achieve what he’s talking about.
Othus’ idea for making transit a more inviting place is a must if we want to get our ridership numbers up again. Not only does it need to be a pleasant experience it also needs to be a better option than driving more often than not.
This is a fantastical answer. Not based in any reality.
There’s lots of people, maybe 10-20% of the riders I see, ride for free already. What’s another 90%?
Yeah, that comment about him not knowing about our decades of advocacy against freeway expansion just reminds me of the way someone like Tina Kotek is eroding the urban growth boundary that has been such a good idea and avoided some bad urban sprawl. Seems everyone wants to make Portland LA.
I think there’s a chance that, if Wilson is elected, his personality and political leanings would allow him to serve as a moderate voice, able to steer a diverse and fractious Council in a constructive direction.
Rubio and Gonzalez offer polar opposites (given the relatively limited left/right range of local politics), and might not be able to wrangle a governing majority out of the Council.
Or maybe not. I might be modeling this on federal level politics too much.
You are right that our built environment compels many people to feel like they have to drive a car to live. But for many people that is just fine and totally normal. They will hear Gonzalez’s answer and think it totally reasonable and in touch. You think that is a bad thing, other’s won’t. The difference is politics.
No candidate is going to spend political capital stopping the new CRC or the Rose Quarter expansion at this point. Rubio’s backers want them. Keith Wilson isn’t really opposed to them. Liv Østhus is not going to be mayor.
She’s probably scared of the drug addicts on mass transit.
Are you being facetious? If the “she” is Osthus, I imagine she is one tough cookie.
Wilson is running a”Bud Clark” campaign against a new Frank Ivancie.
We all know how that turned out!
haha good one Jakob. Unfortunately for Keith I don’t think he has the warm and fuzzy, down-home, pub-owner charm that I think was such a valuable ingredient for Bud.
another takeaway for me was how chummy Gonzalez and Mapps have become. They’ve definitely mended fences in recent days and it feels like to me Mapps is now running a hire-me campaign instead of a mayoral campaign. He is a big Gonzalez fan from what I can tell. He repeated several Gonzalez answers and they were both quick to pick each other as their 2nd choice. And did you hear the part where Mapes wondered why all the men were wearing suit and tie and Mapps looked at Gonzalez and said, “He started it!” I feel like Mapps sort of adores Gonzalez.
They have the same donors
True, but “warm and fuzzy” played well back then, when our city had nothing like the issues we face now.
Wilson is far more competent and experienced than Clark ever was. Also, Clark had four excellent colleagues to work with.
I chatted with Keith at one of your Wednesdays. He asked what issues I was concerned with; I told him and he probed further; I asserted a position he was unfamiliar with; he listened carefully.
This is the same position I espoused before Clark and colleagues 40 years ago: build a first-class concert hall and a first-class opera house.
I got farther with Wilson in 2 minutes than I have with Wheeler in 1 year.
And do not rank Rene!
good points Jakob. Thanks for sharing. Probably folly to compare Wilson and Clark too much. I appreciate your perspective.
I was thinking the same thing!
God, Jakob that makes me feel old, but yeah pretty much spot on.
I appreciate that we have someone like Osthus to give us absolutely insane answers like these. And she’s a Frog Ferry supporter to boot!
With much of the revenue for PBOT coming from parking, Rubio is partially responsible for our funding shortfall. She didn’t pay for parking for the last 20 years!
As someone who doesn’t bike or take transit, you can tell that her answer is just nonsense here. She has no specifics because she doesn’t understand the topic.
I hear you Chris I. Yeah, unfortunately I think you’re correct. But who else has any understanding of street safety? Rene? Mapps? I remember talking to Hardesty’s assistants over the phone once and realized she also had little to no understanding of PBOT and street safety. This was confirmed by her being confused at the mention of the 2030 bike plan. It’s simply a non-issue for most candidates unfortunately. I get pretty much the same vibe from Rene and Mapps.
I think Wilson had the best answer here. He clearly understands why many in the city avoid transit and feel that their only option is driving.
Credit where due, I think Jonathan has a pretty good take except for handicapping Gonzalez as the front runner. Maybe we all underestimated the strength of his primary two years ago, but the silent plurality that put him through could be blunted by presidential year turnout, never mind RCV.
This is a race where I just can’t shake the vibe of being in Netflix Purgatory, unable to find anything worth watching. Maybe it was always like this, except with a primary to eliminate the mindless scrolling.
I watched the whole debate and it solidified my thinking that Gonzalez and Wilson have to be in my top two rankings. They and Østhus were the only ones during this event who really articulated a compeling vision, though Østhus’ vision was very different from Wilson’s and Gonzalez’s. Wilson and Gonzalez were the only two who really seemed to be treating the even like a competition of visions and ideas.
Rubio is definitely the status quo candidate whose main pitch seems to be that she can competently manage the status quo. She seems like someone you might hire to help manage a bureau or work on city council. She does not seem like someone you turn to be the leading face of the city, she seems like a solid backbencher who won’t be rocking any boats at county or with the future city council.
Mapps likewise does not seem to have a clear vision for the city and seems like a more centrist backbencher, like a more centrist Rubio, but perhaps less competent.
I have thoughts about all five of these–some being so blasé and some being entirely unserious–but Rene’s is the absolute worst. You lost me at “A vote for me is a vote for freeway expansion that will reduce congestion.” It’s simultaneously incorrect, dangerous and pandering.
If I was a Portland resident, I’d be more interested in knowing how the new City Administrator felt about transportation use, safety, funding, and integration with the other agencies and city needs. It really boils down to funding. The new mayor can “lead” but only with the help of a new coalition of at least 7 city councilors – how will the candidate achieve that? – and how will they be a good fit with the new administrator?
When it comes to improving transit, they only need to look at TriMet’s Forward Together 2.0 concept.
Interesting GIS map with bus improvement too here
That’s really interesting, thank you!
Nice to see an Airport-CTC line in an official place – I wish that Better Red would have more easily allowed for that new line in the future. It would involve a full rebuild of Gateway (maybe needed anyways), but segregating the Blue/Green platform from the Red/(light green) platforms would be where I would start. A Better Red did part of this (but naming the “new” station Gateway North… bad choice!) – just wish it would have been a bit more forward-thinking.
Also interesting to see the 44 prioritized for Frequent Service, given that it currently gets just 24 buses/direction/day. It does get the ridership to justify this, but I think TriMet should seriously consider combining service with the 35 into N Portland. From ~UP to Rose Quarter is equally long on the 35 and 44. The 35 takes the faster Greeley route, but takes a circuitous route north to Portsmouth, which sort of defeats the purpose of using Greeley in the first place (which was originally constructed as a fast streetcar bypass towards St. Johns).
It can be done with Gateway as-is, but it would require northbound trains on the new line to do a quick direction change. If the schedule is set correctly, I think they could still have service every 15 minutes in each direction
Southbound trains on the new line would continue past Gateway North and stop at the center platform of Gateway, before switching over south of the transit center to the existing green line tracks. Northbound trains would take the switch south of Gateway, and have the ability to hold south of the center platform without blocking inbound Blue/Green trains. Once at the center platform, the driver just has to walk from one end of the train to the other, or Trimet can schedule driver changes here. Should only be a few minutes if they plan for it. The train then continues south and around the loop to head towards the airport.
The biggest conflict scenario would be if a northbound train is switching directions at the center platform and a southbound train arrives at Gateway north. It would have to hold here until the northbound train clears the center platform. However, this could be mitigated by extending the island platform at Gateway to the south. If you extend it all the way to the south end bus crossing, the platform is now long enough to fit two, two-car max trains. The northbound train can arrive at the south end of the platform, and during the direction change, the southbound train could arrive at the north end of the platform and hold until the northbound train continues on and clears the center track.
Very interesting. I generally support the SW Corridor line, but (big but here) an inner Powell line would do a lot for the system: routing trains from Clackamas and Gresham across the Tillikum (avoiding the Steel bottleneck), having a separated cycle track for fast commuting to E Portland, potential for burying inner Powell next to Cleveland HS, access to much more dense neighborhoods and central 82nd. The list goes on and on.
A line connecting the Orange line and Green lines along Powell should be the #1 regional transit priority. It has so many benefits for the MAX system and would have great ridership. We need to mitigate the Steel Bridge nightmare.
As someone who lives close to Powell Blvd, I agree!! More crosstown and orbital lines would make MAX a lot more useful for more trips. The big caveat is it needs to be grade-separated as much as possible. Crawling through downtown at 10mph is awful.
I haven’t finished listening to the recording, but I’m so happy that Jeff asked the candidates about who they will be ranking as their number 2 pick for Mayor. I wish more of the council candidates would be asked about this.
For anyone interested here were their answers:
Wilson: No one
Gonzalez: Mapps
Mapps: Gonzalez
Osthus: Rubio
Rubio: Osthus
Yes I loved that question too. I might start asking it myself. And the answers were fun.
Another interesting comment I heard. During one of his answers, Gonzalez said (I’m paraphrasing) that he thought the county system of government is a outdated form of government and a relic of the 19th century.
It would be interesting to ask Gonzalez to expand upon that thought. What does he think the solution should be? A city/county merger? A County/Metro merger?
RE: Osthus – “Trimet is Metro”. I’m not sure what she meant by that comment — maybe that Trimet is not a City of Portland service. Trimet is not Metro. Trimet is its own service district, with a board and state charter. CoP Operates the Portland Street Car. Transit needs to be region wide – wider even than Metro service boundary. Maybe a better question would be how they see CoP and Trimet working together. (Rex could tell us about Metro/Trimet! But he’s not running for Mayor.) Anyway, FWIW.
I agree. We have a limited regional public bus system here in NC paid for by the member cities and counties, and Connecticut and New Jersey have full statewide systems. What Oregon needs is an Oregon Regional Transit system that connects each city and county public transit hub (or to downtown Portland, Oregon City, etc) paid with municipal and FTA rural transit subsidies.
Is Mapps correct that congestion is worse than before the pandemic? I would assume he is basing that on actual traffic data, given his former role as pbot director. But it is totally contrary to my experience navigating the streets and freeways. In my experience traffic is significantly reduced compared to 2019 and before.
It’s not true, not even remotely. Peak hour congestion (by definition the worst congestion of each day) is down significantly since 2019 due to so many people working from home, no longer commuting downtown for 9 to 5 office jobs, and that’s probably a permanent change. Portland, and Oregon, have also lost population. I have no idea where they are getting this idea from.
“gas taxes are going down because cars are much more efficient.”
why do people keep peddling falsehoods like this?!
The real value of the gas tax (of course) always declines because inflation, asphalt index, etc., but the fleet as such is not to my knowledge any more efficient, and I doubt Multnomah Co. residents are buying fewer gallons of gas this year than last either, so please, let’s stop spouting nonsense.
Well, sedans are getting much more efficient than their recent predecessors. But Americans are preferring trucks and SUVs in greater and greater numbers, bringing down the fuel efficiency of the overall fleet.
Portland residents do have a much higher ev uptake than the average American, though, which has a marginal impact on gas purchases here.
Gasoline consumption is falling nationally; electrification will obviously continue to drive it down further. Maybe there’s something about Multnomah County that bucks the trend, but Oregon is something like 4th highest adoption of EVs per capita, so I doubt it.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188448/total-us-domestic-demand-for-gasoline-since-1990/
So much wishful thinking, so little data.
Emissions changesMultnomah County carbon emissions peaked in 2000. This chart compares sectoral emissions from the 2000 peak level to current carbon emissions. While most sectors have declined, transportation sector emissions continue to increase to 3% over 2000 levels.
from here: https://www.portland.gov/bps/climate-action/progress-toward-carbon-reductions
(I think this only goes through 2021).
But in any case the age old ‘cars are getting more efficient, therefore revenues are going down’ just doesn’t cut it. It wasn’t true before COVID and I doubt is is true now, What Maps is lamenting I think is the declining purchasing power of the trivial taxes and fees we receive relative to inflation, never mind the asphalt index.
It is just not helpful to forever misstate or misunderstand what is going on. If someone actually has data better than the link above they should show it, but not wave your hands and spout wishful nonsense. As Sudbury I think noted, the shift toward SUVs and away from cars is not a trivial change, and the adoption of EVs I have a hard time imagining being more than a rounding error as far as the revenues Maps is talking about. If I am wrong please show me the data.
You claim the statement that the generally accepted statement that “gas taxes are going down because cars are much more efficient” is a falsehood, is nonsense (twice), a misunderstanding and a misstatement, is handwaving, and more, all in two short posts.
You also say the fleet is “not to my knowledge” any more efficient, that you “have a hard time imagining” that EVs have any impact, and post some data that shows a small increase in transportation related emissions between 2020 and 2021, which were the covid years, and anyway doesn’t have any bearing at all on vehicle efficiency.
I fully admit the data I presented did not really address the question head on, and perhaps I deserve some mild criticism for that. But when the data is not strong, I ensure my words are mild to match.
People who are very emphatic based on very little information are hard to have a rational conversation with.
There is so much context here.
In brief, your position is that PBOT’s budget is not impacted by improving fuel economy, and that anyone, including the person who ran PBOT for several years, says it’s so, they’re so wrong they are just speaking nonsense.
Is this a fair summary?
Sure.
Mostly I think people who run transportation bureaus or who comment on bikeportland for that matter should inform themselves, see past the easy cliches, not settle for sloppy thinking.
“a small increase in transportation related emissions between 2020 and 2021, which were the covid years, and anyway doesn’t have any bearing at all on vehicle efficiency.”
You have this backwards.
The primary variable we are interested in is transportation emissions. Vehicle efficiency is a secondary matter, and because of VMT and fleet composition can vary in several directions.
We’re talking about the statement:
“gas taxes are going down because cars are much more efficient.”
I would consider vehicle efficiency to be a primary factor in assessing the veracity of that assertion.
Well OK.
zooming out though the problem tends to be that we settle for efficiency improvements, consider these a win, without checking if it actually translates to a climate-relevant change.
https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light-duty-vehicles
It’s not huge, but average fleet fuel economy is increasing. This chart also leaves out the effect of electrification. Electric cars pay no fuel tax and weigh significantly more than comparable gas vehicles.
A 1985 Ford F-150 5.0L V8 pickup got 13mpg blended, a 2025 Ford F-150 5.0L V8 pickup gets, 18 blended. Simple math is the new truck needs 38% less fuel, so in Oregon the driver pays 62% of the tax the old truck did.
This has literally happened across every vehicle type, particularly among sedans that didn’t have hybrid powertrain’s 40 years ago, they went from 25mpg to over 40mpg. I know this blog likes to portray every driver as the owner of a massive SUV or brodozer pickup, but look around, most cars are still small sedans or small SUV/CUVs that are really just cars still and get way better mileage than a similar vehicle from 30 years ago.
Importantly, both things can be true, cars/trucks can be needing less gas therefore taxes can be going down and purchasing power is being eroded by inflation making those reduced dollars not go very far at all.
If it worked as you say, if this vehicle-by-vehicle upgrade scaled, then we would see a drop in fuel consumed for the US or the State or our city. But we don’t. The problem we have in these debates, whether on the stage or here, is that folks like to shoot from the hip.
People drive more.
People switch from cars to SUVs.
People have more cars.
Etc.
What matters for these discussions is not the fuel economy of one car but the total amount of CO2 etc our transportation system generates. And that is not to my mind going down. It (the on road fuel consumed per year) has flattened out to be sure, but that is not helping our climate predicament any more than tying the roof down so Hurricane Milton won’t blow it away will help; Hurricane Milton will flood the house instead.
Unfortunately the Multnomah “answer” would most likely be adding yet another tax for County residents. And we wonder why taxpayers are leaving? 🙂
Personally, I don’t care what the city does; most of my driving happens outside Portland, and I fill up before coming back in.
I support high (even very high) gas taxes, but they only work if they are broadly applied.
Leaving off 2023 and picking a scale bar that starts at 110 billion gallons tends to distort relatively minor year to year fluctuations in demand for transportation fuel.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/189410/us-gasoline-and-diesel-consumption-for-highway-vehicles-since-1992/
Thanks for the improved chart!
“Gasoline consumption is falling nationally”
where do you get this?
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGFUPUS2&f=M
Obviously COVID put a damper on things, but we are not on any downward trend since COVID.
Sorry to comment twice, but when you interview “transit fetishist” Liv Osthus next week, it might be fun to do a ‘lightning round’ where you ask her questions about the transit system here in Portland. For example:
thanks but no. That would be extremely rude. I know what you’re getting at here and I don’t think it’s very cool at all.
She has some big ideas for transit in Portland that sound expensive. I would appreciate at least asking her how we would pay for fare-free transit and all of the artistic changes she noted above.
Oh yeah for sure will consider those kind of questions, but I typically like to ask questions I feel someone is able to answer well. Otherwise it’s like trying to wring out a dry towel and it feels like a waste of time.
You’re right. My comment was coming from a sarcastic and cynical place; I apologize for that. I feel some frustration over politicians and decision makers with grand plans to ‘revolutionize’ systems they themselves don’t use. In a similar vein, lawmakers who opine about how schools should work despite never setting foot in a classroom as an adult. Writing mean comments isn’t the right way to express that frustration. I’m sure the interview will be great. I’ll think before I write next time.
I’d say our parking meter revenues are down because Rubio isn’t paying her tickets.
Rubio is going to rank Osthus #2!!!?? And if her litany of parking tickets and license suspensions weren’t enough for any serious voter to disqualify her…here’s yet another reason.
Better osthus than Gonzalez
Even if you don’t want Gonzalez, that still puts her above Wilson and Mapps. I think it speaks volumes.
Wilson talks a good talk about homelessness. It’s seductive but unrealistic. He has ZERO plans for those that refuse shelter. He says “No arrests”. He never mentions any consequences for refusing shelter. How will this ever work? Sounds like more of the “status quo” to me.
His experience is with a shelter where people willingly sought out help. He has no idea about the “service resistant”. It’s relatively easy to help those who want help. It’s a different story for those that don’t.
Hi Angus. To be clear, that is not Wilson’s position on enforcement. He does support using police in certain situations. I’ve never heard him say “no arrests.”
Gonzalez is going to be the next mayor and his answer, while very unsatisfying to the crowd here, will appeal to the majority of voters.
Pro-transit
Pro- bicycle
Pro-highway expansion/road repair
Pro- law and order
Does not hate cars nor does he insult car owners
Yes, it is a well-crafted and safe position that tests well with focus groups. That’s what the majority of Portlanders are craving right now.
That’s realpolitik.
Yep it’s true!
Politico just did an extensive article on the Portland election—author has Portland ties and graduated from PSU. The leading mayoral candidates were interviewed and are quoted in the article.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/09/portland-oregon-2024-elections-00182935
Those second place votes won’t matter if those two are ahead of Wilson. Wilson needs to have enough people rank him ahead of one of those. Otherwise he could be the second choice of everyone in the city and it wouldn’t matter.
I had the same thought. A first-place vote for Rubio/Gonzalez will switch to a second-place vote for Wilson only if Rubio/Gonzalez have the least votes in any round. And I highly doubt that will happen.
More likely is that second-place votes will only be counted for a few very minor candidates (names who have not even been mentioned yet on BikePortland), and that may be enough to push one person above 50% + 1 to win the election.
TriMet is Metro?! Huh. First I’ve heard of it. I could have sworn they were completely different agencies.
Despite Gonzales’ disappointing and backwards answer to this question, I’m still ranking him #1. Why? He’s the candidate most likely to protect everything Portland progressives have worked so hard to build: our public spaces, our transit system, and even our bike paths. Until we restore public safety and accountability in our city, nothing else matters.