Allow me to break into the holiday week with the latest interview from The Shed.
On Friday, Portland City Councilor-Elect Olivia Clark came by and we had a wide-ranging conversation. Clark was the top vote-getter in District 4 (everything west of the Willamette River and a small piece of southeast including Sellwood) and has a good shot at becoming City Council president. Why? Her background is very impressive. It includes: founding of an affordable housing nonprofit in the 1980s that focused on farmworker housing; leading legislative affairs for former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber; being board chair of Providence Health Systems, then working as TriMet’s executive director of government and public affairs for over two decades. During her time at TriMet her job was to secure funding for the Orange Line MAX project and she’s credited for helping fund the Tilikum Bridge.
During our conversation we talked about how to revitalize downtown Portland, how to approach transportation funding, why Clark thinks Seattle is going to outperform Portland in transit unless we find another stable revenue source, and more.
Find the interview in the players above, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
NOTE: Today is my daughter’s birthday (she’s 22 years old) and then we’ve got that Christmas thing on Wednesday. So I’m taking a break this week and likely won’t be posting anything further until Monday, December 30th. Have a great week and I’ll see you on the other side.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Great interview. Thanks for sharing.
One of the plans we’ve created but not executed: the Off-Road Cycling Master Plan!
Hate to break it to you, but the reason the city has so many plans is that most of them are performative: they are designed to LOOK as though city leaders wanted to do something when in fact they never had any intention of doing so. The plans were designed to placate activists. Sorry!
The new city council should be honest about which plans the city can really enact, which ones will be shelved, and above all stop gaslighting us about their good intentions.
Don’t worry. You ain’t breaking anything to me
Good to know. I was worried.
Plenty of projects, but no project plans or project managers.
I felt like the Council that adopted that plan held things back too much. They ruled out a lot of good areas, saying they were sensitive habitat. In Oregon we try to keep our cities from sprawling, partially to preserve nature outside of cities. The flip side is that we need more usable open space within the cities.
City of YES
We have lots of plans. We need metrics & outcomes for these plans.
we need affordable and market rate housing along light rail.
We need to make it easier to build affordable housing.
THE BIG ISSUE WILL BE A BUDGET…
“We need metrics & outcomes”
Portland officials are allergic to accountability.
Corrected it for you
Running the numbers, so Portland budget is $8 billion (that’s a B folks) and lets say there’s 650,000 men, women, and children in Portland. So get this, that’s $12,000 for each and everyone of us. Let that sink in. EACH OF US in Portland.
The city doesn’t have budget issues, it has SPENDING ISSUES.
So why doesn’t PBOT have funds to clean bike lanes regularly? Are you saying they have funds but are spending them on the wrong things? Or should the city take funds from other bureaus (which ones exactly?) and give them to PBOT?
I’d appreciate some evidence to back your claim that there’s plenty of money to go around (he says as he observes the dirt street in front of his house washing away in the winter rains).
We do know PBOT has funds to run the regular street sweeper, even on streets not in dire need of sweeping (I know this because I’ve seen it). I contend it would be possible for PBOT to use those folks and equipment to sweep the bike lanes, without any budgetary changes.
There may be a good reason why they don’t prioritize streets with bike lanes, or it could simply be that bike lane sweeping is not seen as mission critical for PBOT.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I found Clark’s suggestion (starting around 00:32:45) that changes can and should “come from the community too” a bit frustrating because it sounded naive or disingenuous. If “the community” (i.e. residents) had the real governmental power to drive change through tools like participatory budgeting, that might be possible. But they don’t, so it isn’t. It is the Mayor and City Council that hold the primary power City government exercises; all the power to budget. And in the new form of government this power is actually MORE concentrated in the Mayor. The new Mayor & City Council could and should use that power differently than City Councils have in the past. But regardless, it is high time for us to redistribute some of that power to ordinary Portlanders through participatory budgeting so that they/we CAN implement and execute the plans that our government isn’t or won’t.
I was with you on the first part of your comment, Jim – that we are TIRED of political leaders telling us that change has to come from US.
But I’m NOT with you where you ended up, as I believe that participatory budgeting is a terrible idea. It’s an absolute recipe for chaos, it has failed everywhere it has been tried, and it’s a total abnegation of responsibility. Don’t forget that WE elected people like Ms Clark to use her expertise to make good decisions on our behalf – it’s the whole point of representative gov’t.
The big theme for me, which I hope that Clark and the other reps take up, is the following:
Portlanders are TIRED of being lab rats for every new fad that comes along. Please please PLEASE just give us some everyday normal governmental competence that keeps the bike lanes swept and the potholes filled and addled people sheltered and not screaming on every street corner. Please let our government and our city function COMPETENTLY for a change. We pay so much in taxes and get so little in return. Is competence too much to ask for? I hope not.
Thanks for recording your interview with Councilor Clark. A couple of points:
She is my new rep but I did not vote for her since I didn’t know anything about her (I obviously don’t move in the right circles). She didn’t need my vote since so many other people like her. My first impression of her is that she is very articulate and knowledgeable and experienced and polite – so very polite. Will she be able to move the needle at all on City Council? I am skeptical, since she talked – as JM astutely pointed out – about all of the usual wonky things (not enough funding, need more people downtown, blah blah). And she said that good ideas will need to come from the people (where have we heard that one before??).
I am looking for the new city councilors to take unpopular positions and actually LEAD. Ms Clark said “We have a car culture but it’s changing.” Um – no, it’s not, and that’s mainly b/c our city leaders for the past 10-15 years have been so wishy-washy about doing anything that could possibly alienate drivers (Better Naito is the one exception). Ms Clark talked about her own history of cycling, taking the bus etc. How about she get out there and say to people: “I WANT YOU TO DRIVE LESS!” (really SHOUT it, just like that). She has the opportunity to LEAD in this way, so I hope she takes it. But I doubt she will since Portland is always a popularity contest and we just don’t want to offend anyone, ever. Give us your tired, your poor, your fentanyl addicts, etc.
One concerning point she made was about wanting more staff and wanting to contact bureau employees directly. I say NO – DON’T DO THAT! The new city councilors are legislators, as Ms Clark correctly pointed out; they should not be putting pressure on city employees. The city manager should be talking to councilors – leave bureau heads and other employees to do their jobs and stop having to suck up to the councilors, which is why nothing has gotten done in Portland in the past 20 years.
Good luck to Councilor Clark and to us all!
It’s going to be an interesting dynamic with the new City Manager. Currently (and previously) City Bureaus were/are the favorite dumping grounds of high level staff members and people who help them get elected. You’d be amazed at the number of high paying jobs that were just given to these folks without any competitive job search. Need someone to be a department head to justify their new wage? Let’s just create a new department! Portland is such a wonderful town!
It’s already started with the outgoing city council members and the mayor.
Connections in this town can get you just about anything.
It sure would be nice if the new City Council would focus on making the citizens’ lives better, not just padding their own and their team members’ pocketbooks.
Yeah, I know, it likely won’t change.
You’re kidding, right? It was hard to turn around twice without bumping into a D4 candidate. A ton of events happened within walking distance of where you live. Did you go to any of them?
Nope – agoraphobia (fear of crowds).
Unlike Novick and Ryan Clark has zero experience actually representing constituents. As council president, to which she thinks she is entitled, she would be a disaster, for her experience is purely bureaucratic.
Dan Ryan was shrewd in running for the new council. He saw that mayor and council president form the new axis of power, for mayor is required by law to prepare the budget and council is required to pass it; the mayor cannot deal with 12 councilors; the president must rope them into agreement.
I predict the fight for council president will be an arm-wrestling match between Ryan and Novick. Mind the left hook, Dan.
What I’ve heard is that Ryan and Novick don’t want the job — and that contenders are Avalos, Pirtle-Guiney and Clark (can’t go wrong with gossip picked up at Bike Happy Hour).
Classic negative sell.
Apparently investing in bikes is some time in the future. Making roads smoother for driving is now. She talked about walking, transit, and driving for getting around. You had to draw out the idea of riding a bike from her.
She demurred at the invitation to bike happy hour because she doesn’t have anything productive to say from a bike perspective. She may own two bikes but she’s not invested in taking steps to make bicycle transportation a key plank of our city’s future.
Please,please, please don’t let her be council president!
She sounds simultaneously out of touch and extremely confident in herself.
That is often called narcissism and Portland politics/advocacy has it in spades.
Doing policy in nepotistic, backslapping, backwater Oregon isn’t the flex people act like it is.
In general you gotta be woke, fake nice like at the New Seasons checkout line, and hook up your friends. None of this implies a deep connection with whats happening on the ground.
Few of these people were top students in college, worked at top law firms, were Fulbright or Rhodes Scholars or made any money which might indicate intelligence enough to perceive beyond the persons own career.
Hi Marat, do you live in District four?
Both Clark and Steve Novick (D3) stand out among the other councilor-elects for the strength of their wins. Both came within a hair’s breath of their 25% with 1st ranks only. That is a strong show of support from within their districts. In fact, no other candidate, in any of the districts, came anywhere near the focused strength of their wins.
District four voters got the councilors-elect we wanted, and the neighbors I’ve talked with are pleased with the results, thank you. (Or are you accusing tens of thousands of D4 voters of being “out of touch.”)
https://rcvresults.multco.us/
This election was unprecedented in so many ways, including in the complexity of the ballot. Having that level of confidence that it reflected the will of the voters is premature. Especially given the disparities in ballot completion in District 1 vs. other districts.
After a few years we can speak of this electoral system with that level of confidence.
Its strange that District 1 elected Candace Avalos.
I actually think she might do well for Portland because she’s got an ethos and a spine.
But since you seem to value vibes (which we all do), she’s not what my 38 years in greater SE Metro would have thought would represent us.
Outer SE runs conservative generally.
Thank you for the substantive comment, Donel. I agree with many of your observations, and yeah, I think we are going to have to wait six years for things to settle.
As far as valuing vibes — actually, it’s numbers I value, particularly the RCV tables. Here’s the point I was trying to make above. Let’s look at the Final Count tables, and, in particular, how many voters picked a councilor-elect as their first choice:
Keep in mind, these are only Round 1 numbers, no votes have transferred up from eliminated candidates, so no 2nd-, 3rd-, or 4th- … ranks are counted.
But I think these numbers give an idea of the strength of the district support which launched each candidate into a win. There is a notable range in the #1 rankings, both absolute counts and percentages. (I sorted by numbers, but look at the percentages too — that moves Candace Avalos up toward the top of the list, and flips a few candidates.)
So yeah, I think that both Steve Novick and Olivia Clark have good reason to feel confident that they can govern with strong support from their districts.
This analysis does not pice in the huge number of blank D1 ballots that probably did not reflect the same preferences as those who knew who they were going to vote for.
So we don’t really know.
it’s not an analysis, just the raw numbers. The numbers show that some candidates won their 25% with much stronger district support than others, Novick and Clark won with landslides.
Single Transferable Vote is a fine method for arriving at winners, but it stops counting after a winner reaches 25%. So it incompletely reports the strength of their win.
That data isn’t lost, Mult Co Elections certainly knows how many total ranks each candidate received, and if I were to call and request that public information, they could tell me how many 2nd-, 3rd-, 4th, 5th- and 6th-ranks Clark and Novick received.
I think strength-of-win matters when choosing a Council President, because a councilor who is secure in their support is able to act more boldly and with greater assurance than someone whose win was a squeaker.
Another thought, the office should represent the council as a body, it’s not a prize for one district over the others. In that sense, the President of Council should be seen as an at-large position.
“In that sense, the President of Council should be seen as an at-large position.”
If that’s how it works out in practice, I hope none of my D3 reps get the job. I want all 3 working to represent my district.
Of course, it probably won’t work that way in practice, because everyone knows they have to get reelected.
The Council President is like the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. She represents the interests of the legislative branch of Portland’s government. It is an institutional position. Nancy Pelosi did a fine job of representing California’s District 11 while at the same time fulfilling her institutional role as Speaker.
Yeah, I have to agree with you about Steve Novick and Olivia Clark seeing that table. in D1 the numbers are much much lower, which is interesting. 8,000 people for Candace Avalos v. 20,000 for Novick and Clark is quite a disparity.
Thanks for showing this to us.
Six years!? Wow, there’s gonna be an even larger exodus of high earning (and high paying) taxpayers if it takes that long to correct the current problems in Portland.
That’s it! – the exodus is the really big problem no one is talking about. Expect the exodus to accelerate in coming years, as high earners seek to escape paying the high-earner-only taxes that voters enacted.
You can’t blame them: taxation works only when EVERYONE has skin in the game.
Hi Lisa! I am accusing those who intentionally elected her of choosing a bad candidate. Yes. I’m in district 2. I wasn’t impressed with Novick either, especially about bikes.
Vive la difference!
Hi Lisa, before the election, you were big on looking at donations as a sign of support. Have you gone back and revisited that presumption, to see if donations, especially early ones, really did predict votes? -MW
Hi Watts,
In the absence of polls, or any other metric to judge support, I found the Portland matching campaign donations site useful for separating the wheat from the chaff. Remember, we had 30 candidates in D4, about half of whom hadn’t gotten it together to sign up for the matching funds program. So as a blunt tool to separate out viable candidates, it was, and still would be, useful.
But it was always a wobbly tool, at best. First off, the data entry was behind, so the numbers weren’t necessarily up-to-date. This meant you were flying blind to some extent.
And then, we learned late in the race that candidates could hire professional canvassers using matching city funds — that threw a monkey wrench into the metric, didn’t it? I think the city should not allow hiring canvassers with match money.
But overall, yes, I think city matches gave a good rough idea of which candidates were in play. That’s the only way I was using it.
Anytime someone starts talking potholes, it makes their agenda clear. All the boomers complain about the potholes, all the time. Yes, potholes are a pain for bikes and cars, but they’re really just never-ending band-aids on broken roads. We could fix every pothole, every day, forever, and blow our whole budget without making any real changes to the system. (I did like JM’s idea of just repaving the bike lanes on roads, like MW Marshall btw 12th and 14th) We need to prioritize projects that make walking and biking safe, over projects that make driving “smoother” and faster.
I’m not a big pothole guy, but there was a time when we were on it and Portland didn’t have a lot of potholes and it didn’t blow up the budget. This was before Portland government thought it was the answer to everything.
Over time, we redirected the money to sexier projects, and let basic maintenance fall behind, making small problems more complex and expensive to fix. Potholes turn out to be a reasonable way to measure government’s effectiveness at doing the boring work of running a city.
So while I rarely drive in the city, I think potholes are important; they are an indicator that the basics are being neglected, and that we need to focus more on investing in our core infrastructure.
And also, hitting a pothole at night on your bike really really sucks.
In my view potholes are reverse speed bumps. A good way to slow traffic! But I agree, fill them in bike lanes.
When you or someone you know needs an emergency vehicle as quickly as possible, just remember they had to slow down to get around those potholes you don’t want filled and took longer than needed.
Potholes should be the first thing that PBOT does BEFORE any new projects.
Are you a first responder? It’s weird to me how against traffic calming they are in this town. They claim without evidence people will die if we slow traffic down. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts more people die because of speeding then they do from slow response times because of potholes or speed cushions.
“They claim without evidence people will die if we slow traffic down.”
There is a crap ton of research on emergency response times and outcomes.
Slowing traffic down does not always have to mean slower response times.
Agreed.
There’s a crap ton of research that speed kills people. You have made that point yourself here. Show me the evidence that better response times save more people than reduced road speeds. I’ll bet you can’t because it’s absurd to suggest. Speed kills. Are you just trying to be disagreeable?
Speed kills, agreed. I’m sure a lot depends on the particular of how and where and by how much you “reduce speeds”. Maybe this conversation only makes sense in the context of a particular, concrete proposal rather than general notions that we are each imagining differently.
Most streets are designed so that motorist can pull off to the right enough to allow emergency vehicles to pass on the left, even on stroads and collectors with road diets, buffered bike lanes, and even barrier-protected bike lanes. Instead of speed humps, many cities put in speed pillows routinely now (even if in Portland they are deemed “experimental”), which emergency vehicles have no issues with as they are spaced for ambulances and fire trucks. Emergency vehicles are legally allowed to go well over the posted speed limit, the wrong way if necessary, and make a huge amount of noise. In spite of all of this, most delays for emergency vehicles is not caused by traffic per se, but by individual idiot drivers who either don’t try to pull over or who continue through intersections even when sirens are blaring (likely the drivers are distracted by their own noise inside the car, distracted looking at their phones, and/or inebriated.)
I have watched fire trucks run over curbs so I do not think potholes slow down trucks w/ 36″+ diameter tires as much as cars. And PF&R has admitted speed bumps are fine in most cases. Response time is dictated more by personnel/equipment availability and traffic than potholes and bumps as far as I can tell.
I also despise potholes as a driver, but as I drive responsibly and dont plow into them at high speed I see their value in slowing those who don’t. YMMV.
You make a good point here, Monty, but if you’ve ever worked for the gov’t in any capacity, you’ll know that once the gov’t establishes something (like a road) and takes responsibility for it, you as a gov’t official are responsible for it – forever and ever.
It takes just one person to sprain or break an ankle, or some kid to wipe out in your pothole, and you as the gov’t are on the hook to make the person “whole” by paying out $$ – which saps your resources even more.
You are right: we have a major problem b/c we’ve built more infrastructure than we can maintain. So which of our leaders will have the cojones to say, “We can’t maintain all of it anymore, so let’s make hard decisions about what to get rid of” – which roads to return to dirt, for example.
That’s real leadership, which I don’t see happening from Ms Clark or really any elected officials, who have perverse incentives to maintain the status quo.
We could maintain our streets much better if we choose to. We did so in the past with essentially the same street network and fewer resources.
Maybe listen to the interview again, Watts, and focus on the part about how Oregon’s lack of sales tax limits the Federal funds we can compete for.
Why should the city of Portland need or deserve federal funding to build or maintain roads in the city?
Are you in favor of the most regressive taxes we could impose?
Yes, I am 100% in favor of a sales tax, which is not regressive, since 48 other states have one, including Washington just to our north.
Oh, I get it: sales taxes are only regressive in progressive nirvanas like Oregon, where we soak the rich while the poor live in splendor. You see how it’s working out.
Olivia hit the nail on the head: property and income taxes in Oregon are stretched to the limit, so there is simply no revenue to allow us to compete for matching Federal funds.
Sales taxes are inherently regressive (it’s a definitional thing not a value judgement); just because they are widely adopted across the US (and in Europe too) doesn’t change that.
I agree the state would be better off with a sales tax, but I cannot imagine what would have to happen for one to become politically tenable.
But do we actually need more money? With better management, we could probably accomplish more with what we’ve got, or get the level of mediocrity we’ve grown used to for less (education being one disgraceful example).
https://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/whys/thm03/les05/media/ws_ans_thm03_les05.pdf
Cut the income tax to 6%, reduce property taxes by 10%, and then institute a roughly 7-8% statewide sales tax (exclude groceries and prescription meds). Let’s tax consumption and convenience.
Downtown parking – taxed
$15 cocktails – taxed
$100 entrees – taxed
Designer handbag – taxed
New car tires – taxed
$75K luxury vehicle – taxed
High end appliances to replace your only three-year-old high end appliances – taxed
90″ flat screen and new sound bar – taxed
Fancy new furniture – taxed
Mid-life crisis sports car – taxed
RV that gets used three weekends a year – taxed
Yoga session at bougie studio – taxed
None of these things are concerns of the working poor and the environmentally frugal. Would there be some declines in these businesses? Of course! Most of these things and other similar products/services are of little positive value to the greater community. If you can afford them, then you shouldn’t mind paying the tax to enjoy them. Let the masses keep more of their paychecks and the choice to shop wisely, or not at all.
“None of these things are concerns of the working poor and the environmentally frugal.”
Why should they be spared on being taxed?
It is incredibly regressive and just because 48 states want to have a shitty flat tax system doesn’t mean we need to.
Again why should Portland need federal tax money for the city transportation budget?
I don’t want my tax money to help some city in Kansas or wherever fix their potholes, why should someone in Kansas pay for ours?
Because the whole system for funding our transportation infrastructure is broken. We don’t collect enough taxes to maintain what we have but we keep getting funding from the state and feds to build more of it. Instead of spending billions to expand the Rose Quarter we should be investing in general maintenance. PBOT is actually pretty good at getting state and federal funding for road maintenance by redesigning their roads which then count as capital projects. It’s still ass backward but it’s what we have to work with.
And look at how great our progressive taxation is working out for us: we’re a magnet for the poor and drug users; our public spaces everywhere are filled with trash; people with means are moving out of Portland and MultCo – esp b/c of the very high pre-school tax which, like the homeless-services tax, only high earners pay.
Having a sales tax ensures that everybody pays something. In Portland we have so many who pay NOTHING. I agree that taxation should be progressive, but we’ve swung the pendulum so far to one side that we’ve made Portland the place to be poor – which affects cycling b/c many of the MUPs are unrideable (see how I brought us back to cycling there).
Raising tax money and spending tax money are entirely different topics.
Blaming poor Portland services on its Tax system is par for the course for most of your comments.
That is to say, they are generally off topic and uninformed.
“everybody pays something”
There’s something to be said for everyone having skin in the game. You might care as but less about governance if your not paying for it
A $40,000 a year income in Oregon is taxed at both federal and state to the tune of about $7,000 a year.
Is that “skin” in the game?
$40,000 a year is low income by any standard and you think they need to pay 5% or so more on stuff they purchase with their leftover income?
I assume President Musk got your vote….
You seem to be suggesting there is a line at which it becomes ok. What is that line?
I have no idea what you are talking about.
You are another who thinks Oregonians want or need another tax apparently.
Oregon taxes are middle compared to all states which is where I personally want to be.
We are not overtaxed or under taxed.
There is Zero reason to add a regressive Sales tax except to punish low income people.
Income tax is skin in the game at the federal and state level, yes. Of course.
“It is incredibly regressive and just because 48 states want to have a shitty flat tax system doesn’t mean we need to.”
I’ve seen enough proof of Oregon thinking it can do better than the rest of the country to know we probably don’t want to continue thinking that way.
Portland already has a 1% sales tax. True, it’s only charged through national big-box retailers who have over $500 million in sales to city residents, but apparently it captures most sales.
Yep and it feeds a slush fund.
Good point, David. Also if you go to Cannon Beach and order a meal in or from a restaurant, you’ll pay a sales tax on your meal. It’s a local sales tax that the city enacted – which is really smart! This way Cannon Beach gets a few dollars from tourists, who order most restaurant meals, to help mitigate the huge impact tourists have on the city.
When I think of all the tax revenue Oregon is forgoing from all of the Washingtonians who drive here to shop, I shudder.
Well said! When people prioritize “maintenance” in the sense of just focusing on repaving streets and filling potholes, they are prioritizing “maintaining” the status quo. And we will never have enough funding to build all the automobile infrastructure of the 20th century. So what we need is a plan for which roadways are the most important, not just for driving but also transit and freight and biking, and prioritize those for repaving and pothole repair. On some streets like neighborhood greenways, we could just repave the middle section or just strips like the Marshall example. But lots of streets can just be left to fall apart, if they’re really not that important to anyone except the people who live on that street. Let them pool their resources if they really want the potholes fixed.
Cycling enthusiast imagines transformational transportation politics after voting for the establishment.
C’mon, prior – that’s not fair. My beef with Geralt’s prescription is that you simply CAN’T just let things fall apart: your only choice is to abandon them intentionally, which means hard decisions that elected representatives are NOT good at making.
You already in fact have such a plan. It’s called the TSP or Transportation System Plan. Available at PBOT and online, renewed every few years, currently being updated. https://www.portland.gov/transportation/planning/tsp
So you’re saying we shouldn’t fix potholes? Maybe even start installing them?
Filling potholes is not the answer.
It will only encourage more driving.
We need properties to be taxed appropriately.
roads are liabilities, not assets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4JD3fuY84&t=760s
I’m not sure potholes deter driving (would people bike instead?), but they do send the message that government is unable to attend to even the basic needs of its citizens.
As someone who believes that we are facing big problems that require collective action, that’s not a message I want to reinforce.
Absolutely. Who would think “wow, driving on these roads sucks, I think I’ll bike on them instead.” Nobody!
This is ludicrous tribalism, just one of many examples of “us vs. them” thinking that rots discourse. Potholes are bad for all road users, be they in a car or a bus or on a bike or on foot.
I think about this every bike commute.
Comments of the Week!!! (for both Terry and Watts)
You can’t be serious with this question. Are you claiming induced demand doesn’t exist? Yes, things that make driving more difficult make driving less appealing. How is this even a question on this forum of all places. No people probably won’t bike instead. What they will do is drive less.
Of course induced demand exists, but it doesn’t apply to every situation you could dream up. Potholes make people angry, but they do not plausibly cause people to stay at home.
Says you. I invite you to move to New Orleans and get back to me.
this topic of revenue was addressed almost 10 years ago by Michael Anderson.
Joe Minicozzi seems to be on to something…
https://bikeportland.org/2015/01/14/five-things-to-learn-from-a-map-of-portland-land-value-per-foot-130918
Hmm – I’m with Watts here. Plus if Michael Anderson is for something, I’m probably against it. He helped to kill the SW Portland MAX line, saying it would benefit only “rich people.” Take a ride up crumbling Barbur sometime and look at the graffiti and trash and boarded-up windows and then wave to all of the rich people.
Why just properties? How about we just have a residency tax for everyone?
Arts Tax!
Oh, mate, that’s a real beaut of a suggestion! Let’s just leave the potholes as craters and pretend we live in some kind of off-road adventure park. Who needs smooth roads when we can turn our daily commute into a game of dodge-the-pothole? And taxing properties? Brilliant idea—because nothing screams “progress” like watching our roads turn into post-apocalyptic wastelands while we’re waiting for the council to figure out how to fund a decent infrastructure plan. Cheers to bumpy rides and dodgy driving; that’s the Portland progressive way.
Great interview! I’m excited to hear the push for higher gas tax and congestion pricing!
It’s unfair that all these cars are speeding around, destroying the roads while we bankrupt government to “fix the potholes” – they need to pay for the infrastructure they destroy and the pollution they curse us with!
But only in a socially equitable and non-regressive way! So that rules out about what – half the people?
Thanks for the great interview! It’s obvious Councilor Clark is up to the task to be council president. Kudos to those who voted for her for displaying common sense. While she’s new to elected office, she brings a ton of sorely needed experience in getting things done.