When longtime southwest Portland cycling advocate Keith Liden told me he was going to present his reasons for not wanting the plastic delineator posts on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway “hardened”, the first thing that came to my mind was David Stein. The former chair of the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), where Liden presented Tuesday evening, is a bouncing figure at the BAC Zoom meetings (he attends them on a treadmill), and he has been vocal for years about not liking the plastic posts.
As BikePortland reported last month, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is planning to replace some of its plastic delineator posts along bike lanes with more concrete curbs — it is going to “harden” them. And isn’t that what cyclists, including Stein, have been clamoring for?
The reason I thought of Stein was because I remember vividly the 2019 City Council session in which the Southwest in Motion (SWIM) plan was presented. Stein was one of the first persons to testify, and he brought a prop with him to the hot seat in front of the council dais — a broken plastic post he had retrieved from Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy. Waving it before the Commissioners, he testified, “We need to do better than this!”
Five years later, enter Liden, with his usual thoughtful, well-researched and persuasive arguments. Here’s what he told the BAC on Tuesday night.
Liden’s case against Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy hardening
The main thrust of Liden’s criticism is that the hardening project is premature. Calling B-H Hwy “the strongest link in the chain” of a poor network, Liden told the BAC Tuesday night, “most of the streets that you connect to are hostile bike environments.” “It’s not even that they don’t have facilities, it’s that they are actually hostile.”
The problem is that connectivity is so poor in southwest Portland that a cyclist doesn’t have a safe route to reach B-H Hwy. I think it helps to think of B-H Hwy as a river, and to view the few streets which cross it as very infrequent bridges. Those crossings are used by all modes—cars, pedestrians, cyclists—and except for Terwilliger Blvd, they don’t have sidewalks or bike lanes.
Shattuck Rd, where the proposed development of the Alpenrose Dairy is located, is a good example of this. Shattuck Rd lies at the center of PBOT’s proposed B-H Hwy post hardening project (between 39th and 65th Avenuess). Shattuck doesn’t have sidewalks or bike lanes either to the south of B-H Hwy, or to the north. Yet adding walking and biking facilities to Shattuck has been part of the Transportation System (TSP) and Southwest in Motion (SWIM) plans for years. The most recent controversy involves the Alpenrose neighbors who, to no avail, have been asking the city to extend the multi-use path on the proposed Alpenrose development’s frontage all the way to B-H Hwy.
This lack of coordination between the Alpenrose development and the B-H Hwy hardening project is another example of the city’s bureaus not rowing together. And these close-but-no-cigar gaps that arise from repeated missed opportunities are frustrating for residents to watch.
Liden went on to make the case that any money the city had for improving bike facilities would be better spent on Terwilliger Blvd, mainly because the ridership is so much higher—between 360 and 515 trips at various locations on Terwilliger, versus 70 trips per day at B-H Hwy/Shattuck. Or, as Liden summed up, “PBOT needs to think beyond making a bike facility segment really good and ask, ‘Will it do any good?'”
The project selection gripe
In addition to the Terwilliger having the greatest southwest ridership numbers outside of downtown, projects for filling the gaps in the Terwilliger route have been on the books since the 1990s. And that gets to the heart of Liden’s frustration, one shared by many southwest transportation advocates.
Advocates have spent hours and years working on project prioritization lists with the city. The SWIM project has spreadsheets of prioritized project lists, put together by an advisory committee. Hardening the posts on B-H Hwy is not on any of those lists, nor is it on the TSP. But Terwilliger is. This top-down project selection, outside of existing project lists and without community input, is an ongoing issue.
The colors of money
In response, City Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller pointed out that PBOT has heard, “including from this committee, in written communications” that the plastic wands “don’t provide the level of comfort that we desire.” “And we are hearing very clearly messages about ‘make something permanent, use concrete rather than plastic.’ ”
Here’s more from Geller at the BAC meeting in response to Liden’s presentation:
This was also driven by the maintenance burden the posts were putting on our crews. Especially B-H Hwy, that’s probably one of our highest offenders. Those posts disappear with great rapidity, David Stein brings it up in almost every meeting…
We have a limited amount of money available to us, about half a million a year, which we are putting toward delineated bike lanes. Focusing on those that are putting the highest maintenance burden on us, or that are causing perception issues, I guess because of their aesthetics, particularly in commercial areas. Broadway and downtown is an example of that… Keith is saying , ‘Shift that money to Terwilliger,’… there are many colors of money. The work on Terwilliger, on Duniway Park is being funded as a risk-mitigation associated with a large BES sewer project… We’ve tried to get federal money for southwest Portland, and that’s money that is administered through the regional government, Metro. The southwest projects typically have not scored well with the criteria that Metro set for using those funds. Other than Capitol Hwy.
And then David Stein jumped in with some questions:
Stein: About projects in SW not scoring well with some of the regional and federal money, that’s because of equity scoring, correct? Or is that something else?
Geller: Equity is becoming more of a consideration in recent years, but, in the past a lot of the scoring was based on how well the facilities we would build would connect to regional and town centers. And so some of the southwest facilities didn’t score well relative to facilities elsewhere in the region.
Stein: Because there’s no stormwater management, so there’s no existing facilities, so if you want to build any facility and it doesn’t connect…
Geller: Well it was just the expense of building facilities in southwest relative to how well they connected into dense, commercial areas, which is how the criteria has often been set.
Then Liden interjected…
Liden: So it’s a little of a cost/benefit. How many people are you benefitting with the amount of money? And I guess that’s partly what I’m arguing with these two projects.
My takeaway
It was a revealing conversation, I left the meeting thinking that, in the southwest at least, projects are built, not according to a list of priorities, but rather in the order that funding sources are identified. That, or when a project can piggy-back on work happening with another bureau.
So implementation of southwest projects ends up being an excruciatingly slow bingo game, where the rows never seem to quite get filled. Keith Liden has been playing funding bingo for three decades, and his Terwilliger row still has a lot of empty spots.
Thanks for reading.
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Response to Ross and David –
On the equity issue I completely agree that all neighborhoods in the city should get equal investment to make streets safer for all. Bear in mind that there are plenty of high income (and lower density) neighborhoods in the east side. Everyone should be safe walking or riding a bike regardless of where they live.
Project costs are often higher in SW due to the reasons mentioned however, in this instance, it misses the point. My PBAC presentation also showed that the PBOT cost estimates for hardening the BH Hwy. and Capitol Hwy. bike lanes are in the same $700,000 to $1.2 million cost range as fixing all the Terwilliger gaps between downtown and Burlingame (Terwilliger/Barbur intersection). It’s not a question of cost – PBOT thinks it can come up with around a million bucks. It’s about priorities, where this money can do the most good, and most important – what PBOT and SW residents agreed to with the adoption of SWIM. PBOT’s top-down project selection process flies in the face of the SWIM “contract” with SW residents regarding “short-term” active transportation investment priorities in SW. What’s the point of the TSP or SWIM if PBOT is going to wing it without feeling the obligation to follow these the adopted plans?
Finally, an important consideration for PBOT and our bike program generally is citizen perception and attitude about making investments in bike infrastructure – especially given other city programs that aren’t sufficiently funded. If they see fancy bike facilities without cyclists, they could logically ask why are we wasting money on this stuff? That could hurt us all regardless of where we live in Portland.
Every census tract in the SW hills has a median income higher than the city as a whole, so while it’s true that there are high income areas on the east side, there is far less poverty in general in the SW hills (of course, there is still some and it’s generally concentrated on major highways which have horrible bike/ped conditions like BHH and Barbur). The highest density tract (65.02) in SW has ~6,500 people/square mile while there are something like 80 different tracts on the east side of the river at least that dense, so sure there are some lower density parts of the east side (like Mount Tabor), but the densest parts of SW are less dense than Laurelhurst (~7,500 people/square mile).
I broadly agree with everything else though – it’s better to spend money where people are already riding! Terwilliger is a huge need, and the city ought to follow the prioritization schedule for SWIM.
Why do people conflate Southwest Hills and southwest Portland?
I think because most of SW is very hilly, even if it isn’t the narrower definition of the SW Hills that you’re probably thinking of.
It’s got quite a few hills
I’m referring to everything west and southwest of PSU and Goose Hollow here, which I think is a fair definition of “southwest”. Excluding the downtown areas and the South Waterfront makes sense in my head when I think about different parts of the city.
….Not to be rude, but isn’t it obviously because Southwest Hills is in southwest Portland, technically speaking? Not being from Portland (or Oregon) originally, I put “southwest Portland” into Google Maps to see where it technically is, and Southwest Hills is almost entirely contained inside it.
You aren’t being rude aquaticko. It’s just that people who live in southwest Portland refer to where they live by their neighborhood — you live in Ashcreek, or Hayhurst, or Multnomah Village. I’ve never, ever heard someone who lives here refer to their area of town as “Southwest Hills.” I live in Portland Heights, and my neighborhood association is Southwest Hills Residential League. So I think of “Southwest Hills” as a place name for the Council Crest hill/ridge. And a pricey neighborhood at that. I often get the impression that people who don’t live in the area think of Portland Heights as representative of southwest Portland, it isn’t.
In my experience as a SW Portland resident, most people aren’t familiar with individual neighborhoods in SW, other than maybe multnomah village. I often use “SW Hills” to describe where I am because people know where the hills are. On the other hand, a lot of people don’t know where the border between SW Portland, Tigard or Lake Oswego is.
I have a hunch that the “most people” you are talking to live on the east side of the Willamette. I’m going to start calling that part of town “the east Portland flats.” lol
Well, in my old part of the east side, it’s known as “Felony Flats” so you aren’t far off.
I heard it’s gentrified enough to now be Misdemeanor Meadows.
The concrete vs plastic posts sounds like more of a maintenance issue with some spin about also improving the cycling environment. The problem in general with improvements in SW appears to be that they are expensive and don’t score well when assessed on a cost benefit basis. There is a shortage of low income housing in the southwest hills for the same reason, so perhaps equity is an issue.
I remember discussing SW with several other people from various NA district coalitions (SWNI, SEUL, EPCO, NOPO, CNN, NECN, & NWNW). We agreed that the primary reason SW had so much trouble getting funding from competitive grant sources (MTIP for example) was its geography. SW has lots of poor people, but they aren’t particularly concentrated like they are in NECN or EPCO, away from rich or middle-class residents, nor does SW have super-dense areas except around Pill Hill, which unfortunately (from a funding perspective) is also where a lot of rich people live. It’s kind of the same thing with Terwilliger versus B-H – Terwilliger is much more used, but it passes through low-density generally wealthier parts of SW, while B-H passes through low-income parts of SW, but neither is particularly high-density. And because of the soils and runoff issues in SW, it’s really hard to make any part of SW high-density if it isn’t already.
Several projects around Gabriel Park and Multnomah Village would disagree with that. Portland has no problem with densifying SW, it just has an issue with proper, safe infrastructure connecting them.
Don’t get me wrong, SW would look great if it was say a bit like Arlington VA with towering 40-story high-rises in them there hills overlooking Washington DC with the silver line running through, anything is possible given enough investment and political will. But as long as a lower-density SW Portland is competing for the same funding as downtown, East Portland (district 1), and North/Northeast/Cully (district 2), it really is never going to fare very well.
If I was a community advocate in SW and the total a**hole that I was in East Portland a decade ago (and still am of course here in NC), I’d instead campaign for a set up in them thar hills to remove any and all yellow center markings on any arterial or collector of one lane in each direction, all of them, and encourage car parking so that chicanes are formed on alternate sides of every street, to give the SW that Italian or French hillside village feel, so car drivers really do have to slow down to 20 kph to avoid hitting each other. Sharrows are optional.
I’d also try to get neighborhood leaders to gerrymander a brand new neighborhood association (or three) that captures as many poor BIPOC residents with a few transportation projects that they want funded, into the same neighborhoods, to have a better chance of getting funded. Yeah, it’s cynical, but all funding is slimy back-room-deal cynical politics. Keith, we both know that some neighborhoods are more equal than others – just look at downtown getting 80% of the transportation funding for years according to the city’s own budget mapping – and now with a new city council divided by district maybe we can all get that 80% equally.
To me, all of the arguments presented here are moot. the reason PBOT is replacing the wands with concrete is that the wands are a constant headache for both material and labor budgeting; concrete will be relatively one-and-done. Well, at least until a car hits one and a city attorney insists they be removed due to fears of a lawsuit…
It doesnt matter that funds could be spent on a higher-priority, or complete something existing – it’s a headache and a constant budget drain, so they go.
Bureaus also don’t have to budget maintenance on something if it doesnt exist, thus discouraging the construction of new projects. Parks charges a sh!tload for someone to ‘donate’ a bench precisely because they then have to maintain it. No bench, no maintenance!
I’m guessing that many, maybe most, of the Terwilliger bicyclists are heading toward the city’s largest employer, OHSU, or one of the other hospitals on the campus.
What gets lost in the discussion, and maybe doesn’t make it into PBOT’s funding proposals either, is that OHSU has about a $4 billion dollar operating budget; that it is building a $650 million hospital expansion; that the university’s researchers brought in $600 million in grants and awards in 2023 ($345 million of that was federal National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding).
That money comes with a big multiplier, an economic term for how the investment expands the area economy — it’s not the same as a few more beer sales or parking lot revenue around a sports arena.
Biomedical research and health care are great big topics, which few people outside the fields have any idea about. My guess is that that most people are in the “don’t know how much you don’t know” category. But I wish our city leaders had a better grasp of “pill hill’s” importance to the area economy, and a little foresight and insight. The only elected politician I know of with an appreciation for the importance of the OHSU campus and its employees is Rep Earl Blumenauer.
Pre-covid, OHSU had a 17% bicycle mode share. But hey, why support that?
Why doesn’t OHSU offer to pay for the Tewilliger Bike Lane improvements themselves? Many universities subsidize public bus services nationwide, why not bike facilities?
Good question. For all the transportation impact over the years, the city hasn’t required – and OHSU hasn’t offered – much.
OHSU did already pay $40 million for the tram.
Isn’t OHSU a state-funded educational institution? Which means of course that you paid for most of the tram, partly through gas taxes and parking with the City of Portland, and partly through your income taxes to pay for much of OHSU.
I think everyone here realizes that. But don’t tell me, tell the guy I commented to who was proposing having OHSU pay for bike lane improvements.
David, could you maybe provide some numbers? You say things authoritatively, but you often get stuff wrong. How was the tram paid for? you look it up. As I remember, it was part OHSU, part city, and I’m going to guess that there were some private donors. What percentage of OHSU’s $4B budget comes from the state? You look it up.
Technically, as a state institution, OHSU’s entire budget comes from the state, 100% by definition, so your specific question is really “what portion of the OHSU allocation for the tram came from state tax payer funds from income taxes rather than federal grants, contracts, patient fees, etc.” Yeah, good luck answering that.
David, you don’t know what you are talking about. NIH grants do not go through the state.
Nor does the revenue from donations, contracts, patient care, etc. that dwarf what OHSU takes in from the state tax revenue.
Moreover, if it’s 100% state funded, why do they keep sending *me* bills?
They should have covered the full cost. The tram has extremely limited utility for anyone not working at or visiting OHSU. They started charging for downhill rides a few years ago, so you can’t even do the 4T hike with a simple bus pass anymore.
It does seem that it’s only used by OHSU, plus a few tourists using it as a sort of Frog Ferry of the Sky.
I recall the City’s justification for using City money for it was that it would be a catalyst for turning the South Waterfront into a PNW biotech version of Silicone Valley, which never happened. The tram also ended up costing several times more than the initial budget.
Do you like seeing your physician in a timely basis? Many OHSU staff need to be at both locations during the day; the tram enables staff to be at the other campus in as little as 15 minutes; usually better than the bus -and FAR quicker than getting the car from garage, driving, and parking at other site. Plus fewer cars on road. I’m not saying it wasn’t a boondoggle, but it at least has concrete benefits to patients and staff as well as environment etc.
No excuses for OHSU not spending money to improve bike/ped infrastructure around the hill, however, since they’re always hectoring staff NOT to drive up there.
It certainly has utility for OHSU employees and patients. I don’t think anyone is arguing that point. I just don’t think it should have used City money.
I’m still completely dumbfounded that OHSU is where it is. A hospital is a huge trip generator; why is one–a large one, a trauma center (of which metro Portland seems it can’t possibly have enough), with specialty services–located in what I think I have to call a ravine tucked away from almost everything else? There’s a damned cable car up to it, access being otherwise such a challenge.
I don’t know that much about the city and Metro’s planning history, but things like OHSU’s location, the Nike HQ campus being such a car-sprawl office park, and the general lack of TOD make me seriously question the reputation of it being a transit/cycling city.
The politics of the Nike campus are far outside the control of Metro, especially considering that Nike functionally changed state law to prevent Beaverton from incorporating the land the HQ is on into the city. But it’s also reasonably well served by transit, and I know lots of workers at Nike live in Goose Hollow and take the MAX to work.
OHSU was planned and built in a time when hospitals were not the center of the regional economy, and has just expanded on the site of an existing facility. Maybe it was never a great location for a major trauma center, but it makes sense if you consider its origins as a medical school first, hospital second.
On the whole, Nike and OHSU both are more transit/bike oriented than typical major US employers (the bar is on the floor, but still). For OHSU, this shouldn’t be removed from its context in a constrained location – relatively aggressive parking policy has historically been a big driver for OHSU having high bike and transit mode share. For Nike, it’s more complex, but if I compare it to the major employer in my hometown (Epic, Madison) who also moved to a large suburban campus after many years in a more downtown area, I have to admit that Nike does pretty well. Epic’s campus has poor bus service, and is almost twice as far away from downtown Madison as Nike is from Portland.
OHSU is actually a cluster of hospitals, schools, and clinics on one big hill – for example there’s a dental school and nursing school that is unaffiliated with it, plus a VA hospital. Altogether the OHSU-mess is a huge employer, but individually it isn’t – Portland Public Schools is actually the biggest single employer in the city, by far, but it’s scattered over two-thirds of Portland.
It’s on a hill likely because of the polio epidemic and other communicable diseases in the early part of the 20th century – a lot of other cities did this too – the air is cleaner up there (or was thought of such back then), it’s away from other people (to prevent the spread of disease), land was cheaper, no doubt there was a sanitarium up there too, and so on.
Not sure what you mean by “it” in “unaffiliated with it” but the nursing and dental schools are definitely part of OHSU. They’re just not part of the School of Medicine.
Also not sure why you’d say “individually it isn’t” a huge employer. No huge employer is a huge employer if you break it down into small components, but it’s meaningless to do that.
Also, OHSU and every other source I’ve ever seen say OHSU is where it is because the land was donated. And like blumdrew said, once it was located there, it expanded. I’m guessing nobody in 1919 foresaw OHSU becoming as large as it has become, so the terrain wasn’t viewed as the constraint it’s become.
Coming from an old New England town–Manchester, NH–whose urban fabric both predates Portland and was founded around a major industry–the Amoskeag Mills were at one point in history the 2nd most productive in the world, after those of Manchester, England–it’s almost impossible see the car-centric urban development model in the interim ~150 years as just an unnecessary diversion.
Almost no one working at Nike HQ needs a car in order to be employed there (perhaps just maintenance workers aside); obviously, the Amoskeag Mills didn’t account for anyone driving to work. Yet the former is very obviously built with an expectation that everyone will drive there, so everything is spread out and there is tons of parking. I find that particularly ironic, given that Nike’s most prolific good–shoes–would derive better sales from people walking and biking regularly.
I know, it’s “different times” and all, but these things are at best a circumstance of chance (of course, in reality, it was very much a designed outcome). We now know reasons not to continue along with what happenstance has given us in this occasion, and yet, e.g., the Walker Rd. widening along the HQ’s north side will have the same painted bicycle gutter as every other stroad around here. It’s just a missed opportunity.
It’s an interesting history:
https://www.ohsu.edu/about/ohsu-history
Basically, they just donated the land because it obviously wasn’t going to work for a railroad depot.
Isn’t one of the intersections that crosses BHH six-corners? As someone who bikes and drives through there often I can’t believe it isn’t getting all the attention. I know there’s been plans to put in a roundabout for years, but at the very least they could add some better walk/bike infrastructure. I’ve seen so many close calls here, across all modes of transportations
Another place where I’ve almost been killed in SW because a bike lane ends is SW Bertha Blvd where it meets SW Barbur Blvd, near Burlingame Fred Meyer. The bike lane there doesn’t easily allow left turns, and there isn’t a crosswalk to get to the other side, so you often have to take the lane if you want to go left towards Fulton Park and John’s Landing.
CJR, I think that intersection and Oleson are in Washington County. Bertha and Barbur, I agree, is another unstructured sea of asphalt, I’m always glad when there is someone in front of me who I can just follow. Between the hill/OHSU to Barbur and Bertha, there are only three routes to Johns Landing. SWTrails wants to create a fourth by routing through George Himes Park and connecting under the viaduct to old Slavin Rd.
Ah, I bet you’re correct! That whole area may not be Multnomah County, I should go check the map.
Interesting that they want to go through George Himes Park. The walking path is beautiful. I’m not familiar with Slavin Road, will have to check that on the map as well. That would certainly cut off a few miles for folks who commute through River View or SW Corbett, and hopefully be a little less steep.
Thank you for the information!
I’m on the board of SWTrails, and if you look at our Red Electric tab, you can get some information about the trail.
Also, I wrote an article for BP about it a few years back: https://bikeportland.org/2021/02/05/more-than-a-dream-what-i-learned-on-a-tour-of-the-red-electric-trail-325679
That straight clearing below Slavin was also a railroad line, but is now where I-5 sits.
Interesting – BH Highway is a state (ODOT) stroad, likely an “orphan” stroad, State Highway 10, whereas Tewilliger is just a City of Portland street. I know in NC that would make a huge difference on where the funding is coming from and who is paying for the improvements, but I’m not certain how Oregon operates in that regard, but on outer Powell Boulevard (also ODOT, US Highway 26) the state paid for nearly everything (though there is some city SDC funding for the sidewalks). If I had to guess, I’d say the BH is due for an ODOT repaving project and the city sees a “golden” opportunity to get some protected bike lanes in, partly paid for by the city and partly ODOT, whereas if they did Terwilliger it would be the city paying for everything.
BHH has been controlled by the city of Portland for quite a while now – it was transferred to the city in 1992 (see this map, this website) so there is no ODOT funded paving project on the horizon
The map you sent was just a functional classification that every jurisdiction nationwide has to maintain. The PBOT pavement and maintenance responsibility was a lot more useful. https://pdx.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=322fb44af46e48de9345dd491f5dc437
It looks like the stroad was transferred during the time Multnomah County transferred a lot of assets to the city.
That map includes information on if a road is controlled by ODOT or another jurisdiction though. Lines marked in light yellow are principal arterials for “other jurisdictions”. But that PBOT map is very useful as well (especially for identifying private ROWs).
It’s around the same time ODOT transferred 99E to the city – I wasn’t around back then (not yet born), but I assume there was some safety reason/hope to make the roads more human-oriented. Would be interested in reading further on that
“in the southwest at least, projects are built, not according to a list of priorities, but rather in the order that funding sources are identified. That, or when a project can piggy-back on work happening with another bureau.”
From my discussions with the SWIM project manager, this is correct throughout the City.
Let’s hope that under the new system, PBOT makes those project queues and funding queues public. Then we will see how effective the 12 person council will be.
The Terwilliger bikeway fill in is in SWIM as BP16. Shattuck between Alpenrose and Bridlemile Park & School is BP13 and TSP90034.1. Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway improvements are in the TSP. The SWIM document identifies target funding sources for each project.
Personally, I think B-H is a great opportunity for Jersey barriers. They drain water, they slow down drivers in contrast to the vistas of a wide road, and the bike lane could be narrower with Jersey barriers. A Jersey barrier bikeway can supplement the few segments of missing sidewalk between Hillsdale Center and Scholls Ferry.
The bike community could improve the Terwilliger segment by trimming vegetation the City and property owners are neglecting. It would be great publicity to drivers to slow down traffic to do it.
We need to scale up bikeway and ped shoulder sweeping.
“Let’s hope that under the new system…”
From PBOT’s perspective, the new system will be the same as the old system but with less political oversight and interference.
In other words, it’s is unlikely PBOT will do anything that they don’t want to do unless council specifically requires them to. And maybe not even then.
In engineer-dominated organizations like PBOT, ODOT, BES, Water, and so on, it’s usually up to the engineers to make all decisions, and oftentimes it’s not even the most senior engineers making those decisions either. It’s a bit like the police patrol making a decision to pull you over, arrest you, and put a choke hold on you – really it ought to be an elected official in charge of police, shouldn’t it? – but on the ground in real life it usually isn’t…
Luckily, we don’t have long to wait anymore. I’m not sure what you are thinking other people are expecting, Watts. I don’t expect my reps to be out designing bike lanes. But I do expect them to want to see budget reports, broken down by district, so that they know what the expenditures have been in the area they represent.
And if Southwest in Motion is funded at a tenth of what the other area “in Motion” plans are getting, I expect them to raise an eyebrow or two. Just the existence of districts has overturned the apple-cart of this town’s political dynamic. When’s the last time you heard someone in inner NE trying to speak for E. Portland?
I think some people have very high expectations for the new system and are going to be disappointed.
For one thing, our COVID money is going away at a rather inopportune moment. The new council is going to face a very challenging budget environment, and I can’t see any way services aren’t going to be cut. If SW gets its “full share” of bike funding, some other part of town is going to get less, so there’s going to be a lot of unhappy campers no matter what happens.
Let’s revisit this topic in a year and see if transparency has noticably increased. I sincerely hope you’ll be able to say “told you so”.
Watts may have the last laugh – my impression has been that Wheeler and some vested interests in the bureacracy have made it structurally difficult for the incoming rabble to do things much differently than has been. It is unclear who gets to rid a bureau of a manager who refuses to fix some sewage issue, for example, if that is the way the boss wants it. Sure, District 4 reps can wheeze if 90% of the huge district’s budget goes to downtown issues, but if that’s how the city manager wants it, how do they change that?
Wheeler didn’t create that structure, voters did.
Yes, and Wheeler with the Interim Administrator worked BEFORE the new council is elected to make sure things were not too changeable afterwards without some effort.
Wheeler spent years locking citizens out of government except at the ballot box; suffice to say I have no faith he is leaving a structure that enables greater representation as envisioned by reform.
The new structure creates a much larger gap between political representation and bureau administration than existed before. This was a fundamental intent of the reforms, and is the main reason I opposed them.
Can you cite some specific examples of what Wheeler has done that you think is nefarious, perhaps with a note about how those examples can be distinguished from just getting some structure in place before the new folks arrive? And perhaps a clarification about why the new council/mayor won’t be able to change anything they want?
Aside from changing code over the years to limit citizen opportunities to even know about development, let alone have a say in it, there are a few people who I viewed as The Problem at various bureaus who were promoted or given higher authority over bureau process. At least one of them should have been fired rather than promoted.
So now, does a new council have a chance to get rid of these folks if they’ve heard complaints about them during campaigning, or will they have their hands full and just figure ‘guess we’ll just go with them for now.’ The longer that goes the harder it will be to get rid of intractable staff is my fear. It would have been nice if the NEW council got to announce some permanent staff rather than Wheeler and Jordan.
I also disagree about that ‘larger gap;’ I have had commissioners in other cities take a direct, personal interest in issues I brought to them and get results because they had no stake in the bureaus, thus no need to simply defend them, etc. In Portland, I have watched bureau heads ignore the substance of complaints and knee-jerk a defensive response that didn’t address the issue, refuse to rspond to citizen inquiries, spend all their time on pet projects, or just plain be in over their heads.
I’ll take the new system, warts and all, thank you.
Ok, this I understand (and agree with), but that wasn’t the mayor’s doing. It was bureaucrats taking steps to insulate themselves from the public, with the help (witting or not) of pliant commissioners, some of whom were outright hostile to public involvement.
Council no longer has any role over hiring within the bureaus; that now falls squarely under the mayor and his hirelings.
As for whether the political folks will have more or less influence moving forward — you seem to be saying both. You claim Wheeler has made choices that block council out, yet say that they’ll be freer to poke their heads into bureau business than they were before. Are both really true?
At the end of the day a bureaucrat will have to answer to one of the mayor’s people, so that’s who they’ll be beholden to. Council can ask for favors and information, but their formal leverage will be via city code and the budget.
There is no way it won’t be a rocky start, so I’ll withhold judgement on whether the new system turned out to be a good choice until I see things in action for at least a year. My predictions are on record, though I am very open to (and am sincerely hoping for) a happy ending.
What I’ve found Portland to really lack is cohesion in both the execution and plan for bike infrastructure. We should really focus on the network as a whole and getting it connected as quickly as possible.
A visitor should be able to get out of the airport and get all the way to Nike’s HQ on solid bike infrastructure. And if we had such a route all the rest of us could use it too and it would fill the many, many missing gaps all across the city. As is it seems the city has put protected bike lanes where it’s easy and given up everywhere else.