Yes I took some liberties with that headline, but I promise it’s accurate.
Thursday was the first ever meeting of Portland’s new, 12-member City Council. While all the eyes and headlines were on the general meeting where councilors elected their president and vice president after nine rounds of voting, I found an interesting exchange that happened in a subsequent work session to be just as notable.
First things first.
The first day on the job for the new council and Mayor Keith Wilson was fascinating. Seeing the 12 elected officials seated in an arc inside the remodeled City Hall, right under the seal of the city, made the changes to our form of government very tangible. And when Mayor Wilson finally joined the meeting as a guest — sitting in the same seats used for public and invited testimony instead of as an equal to council members — was a striking contrast to the old way of doing business.
“When you say, ‘It doesn’t make sense that we’re putting a million dollars into this bike lane,’ and it doesn’t make sense to you and your neighbors — you now have voice to bring that idea forward.”
– Keith Wilson, mayor
Having the mayor seated below council is a symbol of this new council’s independence. During the vote for council president, there was a debate about whether or not the mayor should be able to cast a tiebreaker vote. Council ultimately sided with City Attorney Robert Taylor (and against Councilor Loretta Smith) in keeping the mayor out of it. This set a precedent going forward that the mayor’s tiebreaker is only intended for legislative issues like passing ordinances and adopting policy documents, and that council administration will remain solely in council’s hands.
And that could be an interesting precedent. Because with 12 members of council, we could be in for a lot of tie votes. Yesterday’s 6-6 deadlock was first between Councilor Candace Avalos (D1) and Councilor Olivia Clark (D4). This gave us our first view of what could be future blocs of progressive (for Avalos) and more centrist/moderate council members (for Clark). Then after several 6-6 votes, Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney (D2) was thrown into them mix and she eventually earned all the Clark votes. New candidate, same tie. The deadlock was only broken when Councilor Mitch Green (D4) switched his vote from Avalos to Pirtle-Guiney. It was a big surprise, given Green’s progressive credentials (he’s backed by the Democratic Socialists of America) and the fact that he’s the one who initially nominated Avalos for the post. (For a blow-by-blow recap of the vote and meeting, with quotes from Green and other councilors, browse my thread on Bluesky.)
From what I’ve gathered, Pirtle-Guiney is well-liked by folks on all ends of the political spectrum and is seen as a compromise between Avalos and Clark (Clark herself referred to Pirtle-Guiney as a “potential compromise” in my interview with her before the holiday break). Pirtle-Guiney is a political insider with deep roots in the labor movement and was a top aide to former Oregon Governor Kate Brown. Pirtle-Guiney will have former schoolteacher Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane (D3) by her side as council vice president (Koyama Lane won as the sole nominee with a unanimous vote). These are new roles in Portland city government, so their impact and influence are still unknown.
While there was plenty to glean about councilors’ comments and actions at that marathon first meeting, I want to share a notable exchange from a work session with Mayor Keith Wilson held just after it.
The work session was ostensibly a chance for Wilson to update council on his work to set up winter shelters for people who live on the streets. But it was also a chance for the 12 councilors to address him publicly as members of city council for the first time. District 4 (westside and Sellwood) Councilor Eric Zimmerman used the opportunity to plant a flag in the mayor’s mind about local control. Or put another way, protecting his turf (district) from city agencies. Zimmerman made it clear he wants a district perspective on all decisions and I’m sharing this here today because he specifically mentioned implementation of “pedestrian type plazas” and “certain lanes or traffic changes.”
And what made this exchange even more interesting to me is how Mayor Wilson responded.
Zimmerman said he wants district leaders to have sway over how city projects and plans are implemented “on the ground.” “I am not so interested in park development happening in exactly the same in every single neighborhood, or how public plazas happen across the city. I think each geographic area has a say in what works, what their needs are, what they’re interested in,” he said. “And that won’t happen unless we force the issue from a leadership standpoint, that the bureaus understand that there is a district perspective, and there are great things that have worked in in my district that have not worked in others, and vice versa.”
Then to flesh out his point, Zimmerman mentioned specifically, “some public plazas or pedestrian type plazas in downtown,” and “certain lanes or traffic changes.” He made it clear he sees his role as councilor to “being able to move and change those slightly.” “We want to hear from the [city] bureau, but we also want to make sure it makes sense specifically for that area.”
“My constituents and I personally feel that too much has been one-size-fits-all in the City of Portland for a generation… and my support will be much easier to get for everything we do if I know that there’s a lens for the district perspective on everything we do.”
Note that Zimmerman also talked about how he’s committed to partnering on this approach with council members from District 1 (east).
I’ll try to learn more about what projects and/or policies inspired these comments from Zimmerman. But it sounded relatively clear to me he’s thinking specifically about the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and his remarks came from a sense of concern that some types of road designs and lane configurations that are used in the central city and inner neighborhoods, might not make sense in further-out places. Was he thinking about road diets in east Portland and bus priority lanes in southwest? Will Zimmerman carry the voices we’ve heard from some Portlanders who oppose projects that make major changes to how lanes and public right-of-way are used?
What further raised my eyebrows was Mayor Wilson’s response. Even though Zimmerman said nothing about bicycles, that’s what Wilson heard.
“To your last point about having perhaps a bike boulevard in a community,” Wilson replied. “When you say, ‘It doesn’t make sense that we’re putting a million dollars into this bike lane,’ and it doesn’t make sense to you and your neighbors — you now have voice to bring that idea forward. And what I commit to every one of you is: if it makes sense, if we think slow, look at the data, talk to the neighbors, find out different best practices, we stop, we pivot, and we act fast upon a change. That’s one thing I’m really looking forward to.”
It’s fascinating to me how Wilson heard concerns about plazas and “certain lanes or traffic changes” and his mind immediately went to being opposed to a bike boulevard.
If that’s what Zimmerman was thinking about, how will he represent voices from his district to lobby for changes to PBOT projects? Will council members from different districts align together to push for big changes in transportation? If so, will they push us forward or backward?
With just one meeting under our belts, it’s hard to know. But consider me intrigued.
Thanks for reading.
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I just took 2 minutes and wrote a quick response to the mayor’s office about his using bike infrastructure as his example for how the mayor and city council interact yesterday I encourage you to submit a brief comment as well. Be nice and respectful! We want to show that people who bike are paying attention and care. Feel free to paste your response as a reply. “I am writing the mayor about my concern for using “stopping bike lanes” as an example on how the mayor and city council interact. Bike infrastructure is written into our city policy and designated in our transportation systems plan. The city needs to be much more strategic in it’s bicycling investments, in my opinion, but the solution is not to give council members veto power over street safety. The entire city benefits from safer streets that people can use by bike, not just the business owners or residents on that street. Upcoming repaving projects, like Sandy, are going to be important opportunities for the city to make bicycling more convenient and safer. I look forward to this city council working on how to improve bicycling and put in more infrastructure, not take it away.” Here is the link to write the mayor https://www.portland.gov/help/contact-elected-official?prepopulate=person&request_pur%5B…%5D0elected%20official&request_recipient=Mayor%20Keith%20Wilson
Great letter!
Only if you think screwing over all the city so a very few bicyclists get even more lanes that they almost never use. The new bicycle lanes along with the road doetssingle handedly caused far more traffic, air pollution and accidents for very little if any gain. It seems like bicyclists only want to stick it to the other side a la Trump/Eudaly and do not care one bit about others.
The bicycle lanes increase accidents and traffic by causing huge traffic jams. And all this for a decreasing percentage of bicyclists.
This city doesn’t need more bicycle lanes. They need to remove all the new ones in SE. They need to instead add more public transport.
Of the many problems a city’s traffic system can have, too many bicycle lanes is very low on the list. https://bikeportland.org/fatality-tracker
Citation needed
Citation needed
There’s something very funny about invoking Chole Eudaly with Donald Trump. Like it’s just funny to me is all. Also, Eudaly is notable for generally supporting Rose Lanes/Bus stuff over bike infrastructure, so not really sure what your point is here.
It would be easier and cheaper to not remove any bike lanes (that costs money) and then add more public transport. Also those are funded in different ways, so not really a good comparison
Trump and Eudaly championed very different policies, but I’ve heard many people remark that their styles were somewhat similar.
These claims are verifiably false. Using outer Glisan as an example, as is an example of an east-west arterial where there was an actual reduction in vehicle travel lanes. The Phase 1 evaluation report for the outer Glisan project showed minor increases in travel times along the corridor following the project. This is in line with model predictions, and does not support the notion of “massive traffic jams” caused by bike lanes. From the report:
“Median travel time did not change significantly on this portion of NE Glisan Street, aside from slight increases up to 20-35 seconds in the evening peak. The increases match PBOT’s model prediction in the westbound direction, and are nearly 30 seconds smaller in the eastbound direction. The 95th percentile travel times increased somewhat on this segment of NE Glisan Street in both directions. Most notably the westbound direction during the evening peak increased by about a minute.”
The report was inconclusive on crashes, as there was not enough data at the time. The report did find reductions in speeding, especially top-end speeding (defined by 10mph+ over the limit).
Kevin, I agree with you that we need more transit support. The Glisan report did show that bus travel times increased disproportionately to car travel times.
I’m a little late to the comment party here, but wanted to let the record show that actual data does not support these subjective claims.
Mayor Wilson says he wants to take a data-driven approach. I encourage the council to consider the city’s own data over the subjective complaints of individuals.
Unfortunately, as is too often the case, politicians will find and use the data that supports their own narrative even at the cost of accuracy.
I have seen where there are bike lanes and no one riding on them. They destroyed the traffic flow to the point that it’s even hard to turn on to the main artery taking 4 lines down to 2 risking people lives who are trying to get on those streets like SE 162nd. Also they had sent out flyers a few years ago to put taxes on property for fixing roads never happened all they did was fix sidewalks which are not roads, getting tired of the city lying all the time on where money is going. Also getting tired of them raising property taxes on fixed income people. Not all of us are going to ride a bike to work. I may have done that years ago but no more. I really hate it when bikes riding in bike lane think they have the right of way in a crosswalk when it’s the pedestrians that have right of way.
Cars are the lethal danger on our streets, not bikes. https://bikeportland.org/fatality-tracker
If you can’t handle this simple configuration, you shouldn’t be driving a vehicle that weighs more than 200 lbs or goes faster than 20 mph.
I hate it when motor vehicle operators driving in any lane think they have the right away when they don’t.
people were literally getting killed crossing Division prior to the reconfiguration. The City did not “destroy traffic flow”, they remedied a fatally (literally) flawed design. The old 4-lane Division street was a deadly design that desperately needed to be changed. Implying that the the old street worked better is 100% myopic, self-serving, and uninformed.
Or, taking a more charitable view, it simply reflects a different balance between safety and functionality.
The real problem, as I see it, is that the cycling facilities are basically unused, which will undermine efforts to build them elsewhere. Providing a center turn-lane would have greatly boosted functionality without much negative impact on safety, but bike lanes took precedence.
This is not true. The center medians were access control FOR SAFETY. These would have been a part of the redesign regardless of bike lanes. You are 100% wrong that a center turn lane would have “greatly boosted functionality without much impact on safety”- I worked on this project and was in the room for many of the conversations about access and access control.
Why are center medians need for safety on Division but not on 82nd (or any other of PBOT’s recent rebuilds)?
It looks like center access control will be a part of 82nd. I think Outer Halsey did not have the budget or the number of fatal/serious accidents to justify it. Outer Powell was ODOT-controlled.
Ok, thanks for the info.
Every time I’m out on a bike (or driving for that matter), I see roads with nobody driving in them. Maybe we should get rid of some of these roads, they are expensive and take up valuable space that could be used for something else.
Emergency vehicles and deliveries (packages and people), are 2 reasons for having roads in some fashion.
If asphalt could be converted to some hardy grass type cover I’d be all for it. But with our rains it’d likely be a muddy mess.
It probably couldn’t hold up to current heavy vehicle use, but there are permeable matrices that grass can grow through and water can drain through. They are used for parking lots for some stadiums. They could probably be made stronger for more intensive usage.
Yes, SD. As evidenced by depave’s various redesigns, low use streets/parking lots can end up looking very different depending on a lot of things. That’s why I often see some East Portland unpaved streets as a potential benefit if designed well, rather than simply another potential paved area.
https://www.ndspro.com/products/permeable-pavers.html
You missed the point: if you take something from one group to give to another group, and that other group doesn’t make use of it, it strengthens the position in the first group against doing it again.
No one is (I hope) arguing that we should get rid of bike lanes that have been around for years on the basis that they’re underutilized. Which, sadly, most now are.
No, you missed the point.
Every road in existence is something (land) taken away from one group (anyone who doesn’t drive or doesn’t want to) and giving it to another group (drivers). When drivers don’t make use of it (and you can always find times that they don’t, just like the strawman with pointing out empty bike lanes), it strengthens the position against having the roads in the first place.
Of COURSE people are saying we should get rid of bike lanes and you absolutely know that. They’re actually doing it even, using this stupid argument. But it is a fallacious argument, which my comment neatly illustrates.
The road I live on, like so many in Portland, was not “taken away from non-drivers” — it was deeded to the city as part of a land division by the original developer, though I suppose you would argue it was taken from the people who lived here before, who most certainly did not drive.
Non-drivers can and do use the street for a variety of purposes, as I do daily, so it’s not even clear what you are talking about.
Lol. The only voice the city council and PBOT seem to listen are bicyclists. They create unused, unwanted and unneeded bike lanes and remove car lanes which disporportionatept affect inner to outer SE, hurting a lot of marginalized communities. We need to remove all the bike lanes that they put on Se Stark etc as it is causing air pollution, traffic jams, and more accidents. I have yet to see more than one person using it per day.
Untim they put a bunch of alternatives (that are not useless bike lanes), they should remove those bike lanes, add the lanes they took back. It is backfiring and causing far more harm.
I get this is a bicycling site but let’s face it. It’s a very narrow solution for very few people. I also get that most of you hate cars but maybe let’s stop being self centered and stop hurting low income families whose lives are madeuch worse with the consequences of this stupid road diet.
First give people alternatives. Frankly I stopped voting for progressives because of this reason because they are making my life much harder in closing a ton of speeding just to appease a few loud mouths. I hope Mayor Wilson will approach this with logic and not due to appeasing loud mouths who try to silence everyone else.
It seems like no matter what they do, bicycling fanatics who hate cars are not happy and demand more. It’s time to stop catering to a narrow niche of radicals and stop making peoples lives difficult (until we have a lot more public transport). Bicycles are not an alternative to vast majority and is an elitist group of able bodied people with time one their hands. We are not biking 2 hours to work with 2 kids.
Our city would be an amazing place to bike in if, as you state, “[t]he only voice the city council and PBOT seem to listen are bicyclists.” Instead, we’ve a poorly connected, inconvenient, and dangerous bike lane network where bicyclists play second- or third-fiddle to cars.
Exactly Dusty. The prerequisite for any mode other than SOVs given a street in Portland does not start with the question: “What would make this place improve the quality of life and economic sustainability of the people living here?” but “What is the number of cars?” If that number is too high, it invariably precludes any consideration of space for bus, bike or walking. Until we question and change that basic methodology in PBOT, Portland will remain car dependent.
“What would make this place improve the quality of life and economic sustainability of the people living here?”
What if we just asked the people living there what they thought about that question? Who would know better than those most directly impacted?
Well-trained traffic engineers, Civil Engineers, urban designers, landscpae architects. There area lot of trained professionals who can have the time, training, and resources to study large areas and complicated systems to evaluate competing needs and optimize designs to meet adopted goals. It is very hard to bring people up to speed on proposed changes and the reason and implications associated with them, so most people just oppose change even when it is needed. For most City plans there are public advisor committees who work with facilitators and consultant teams to identify local concerns, understand broader system goals, and evaluate proposed solutions. It is a lot of work and involves a lot of careful communication and deliberate steps to bring everyone along. To just ask people who might be impacted what they think of proposed changes throws all that work out and almost guarantees opposition. Getting the right community members is critical to this success (se 7th Greenway failure), but just asking people for their opinion is not productive. People need to be asked to provide early input at a planning phase about what works/doesn’t work, and what their needs are. Once it gets to the design phase, this is better left to professionals with an advisory committee.
I’m sure this is how ODOT planners feel about the IBR and RQ projects.
But regardless, people naturally get prickly when you tell them you know what’s best for them more than they do. It comes off as more than a bit condescending.
I agree that actual designs should be left to professionals*, but the goals for those designs is where the public should have it’s say. That said, I have joined the long chorus of people offering different designs for the IBR, so I don’t always walk my talk on that issue.
And yes, 7th was a bit of a mess, but I would argue the problem there was prioritizing certain voices over others that was the main issue rather than letting the “wrong people” have a say. That part of your post also sounds condescending.
*It’s worth noting that ODOT designers are getting a lot of support from their advisory committee. That’s probably a “wrong people” problem too.
Great example! ODOT an the IBR project is perfect example of what NOT to do. They had a group of community advisory member/stakeholders advising the project, but when they began to offer criticisms, they replaced them with people who stand to directly benefit through contracts if the project proceeds. Transportation projects NEED to hear form the public in the planning phase. That outreach needs to be transparent and real work needs to go into making sure all the stakeholders are connected with and given an opportunity to to to be introduced to the project’s scope and given a chance to respond. Portland in general has been getting much worse about being transparent- they used to publish presentation materials and responses, but now they mostly just provide summaries. This makes it easy to minimize or “overlook” dissenting opinions. Getting public feedback is very important, but it also very hard! It is really easy to elevate too few voices, or overlook important minority views, or have public opinion become the driving force like it did with the 7th greenway.
We completely agree that transportation projects need public input, and that ODOT hijacked that process in a very cynical way. We also agree that Portland, which was once reasonably good at process, has really lost its way. Any legitimate process runs the risk of not providing the desired outcome, and that no longer seems possible in Portland.
I think on 7th, if the voices of the most impacted were given the most weight (as I strongly believe they should), the outcome would have been much different. My understanding (mostly from what I’ve read here, you may know differently), is that the local community mostly wanted 7th to be made into a greenway (and especially to preserve the traffic circle that was removed), but the issue became racialized and drivers from elsewhere won the day.
PBOT already has traffic engineers and each one (according to a PBOT insider) does their designs “their way”. It’s one of the main reasons we have so many different configurations for just bike lanes. To the left, to the right, parking outside, etc.
Statistics please, on more accidents caused. BTW, there are statistics on more fatalities caused by speeding.
Imagine if the streets were safe enough for your kids to take themselves to school? You’d have more time and your kids would get some exercise and autonomy.
Don’t know about your kids, but when mine was little, they did not want to walk or bike to school in the rain. Fortunately, I had a bus that went from near my house to their school. But that was long ago, and if I had little ones now, I’d never ever let them ride TriMet based on what’s gone on when I ride the bus to work.
I always wondered if Lars Larson fans still exist, turns do. I just got back from San Antonio. It’s a drivers dream and the real estate is cheap. Perhaps you might consider a location change as you seem very unhappy.
And this is why we have a worsening climate crisis, which is endangering all of us … The only thing that truly “makes sense” for local government is to focus our policy, governance, implementation, and enforcement on public good and public health.
There is certainly no difference in how much damn sense this makes based on what district one lives in, what political party one prefers, or even what current method one uses to get around town.
But not everyone has sense, I guess. Especially when government acting sensibly means moving people away from worsening habits like expecting to drive everywhere fast.
It’s disappointing that our new mayor (who thinks in terms of trucks) and at least one of our new city councilors do not realize this. Disappointing, disheartening, but unfortunately not surprising.
“Public good” is a term with many, many definitions. To you that may mean bike lanes; to others it may mean less friction driving.
If you’re concerned about climate, as I am, the most impactful thing we can do in the transportation sector is electrify everything, and decarbonize electric generation. Wasting time tinkering around the margins with biking isn’t going to get us where we need to go. I would much rather council spend it’s political capital electrifying the city vehicle fleet than pushing for more bike lanes.
Agree on the fleet. But why would they need to spend political capital? I doubt they would get much pushback on electrifying the fleet; most voters would likely care less, bar the fact that some favored program (yes, including bike lanes) gets stripped of funding to pay for it – but that figure of aroused voters would likely be low.
“why would they need to spend political capital?”
Because converting an entire fleet will take a lot of money, which will necessarily force hard choices elsewhere.
Now that could be an area where PCEF money might be legitimately used, especially if vehicles were replaced ahead of schedule.
Yes, converting an entire fleet will take a lot of money. Bike lanes are both cheaper to build and create many economic benefits for cities.
If you take climate change seriously, why wouldn’t you fully support electrification of transportation, as the UCS article you linked to recommends?
I totally support building bike lanes (I love having a semi-private area of the street so to myself), but they would have a tiny impact on climate change compared to electrification of the city fleet. So, regardless of how many bike lanes we build, we need to get going on electrifying city vehicles.
I hope you agree on that, at least.
Where did I say I don’t support electrification? And what is your source for the claim that bike lanes have a “tiny impact” compared to municipal EVs?
We’ve been building bike infrastructure at a rapid clip, and have ended up with the lowest bike ridership in a decade. Let’s be kind and round that up to zero. Sure, people may claim they’ll start riding as soon as the network is better, but where are they? Not out in the wet this rainy morning, that’s for sure. Oh right… they’ll only start riding once the network is perfect.
Electrifying the city’s fleet of vehicles being driven every day will achieve more than zero, and it will start doing that, measurably, from day 1.
I’m glad you agree electrification is a priority… because it is (assuming you really care about the climate, rather than just using it as an excuse to accomplish some other vaguely related policy objective).
“Rounding up to zero” is the kind of baseless hyperbole I’ve come to expect from this forum. I should have known you were not interested in a genuine exchange of ideas. Have a nice day.
Watts, you know that electrification is NOT the answer to the climate crisis. The answer is creating enough clean generation to meet our power needs.
Right now electrification is just a fig leaf for fossil fuels – esp coal-fired electricity imported from other states.
Electrification alone will be a big step forward (electric vehicles are much much more efficient, regardless of their electric source).
But absolutely — we need to phase out coal and methane as well. That’s critical — I’ve never meant to imply otherwise.
How about we pioneer the use of a new phrase:
Clean-source electrification
Never use the word “electrification” without the words “clean-source” in front of it.
Really sticks in my craw when I see Trimet saying they run “zero-emissions electric buses.” They are upstream-emissions buses – or more like coal-powered buses, as long as PGE is buying coal-fired electricity from Idaho.
Even with a coal-heavy blend of electricity, electric cars are more efficient. Cleaning the grid is an independent project from adopting EVs, but is also essential. And if EVs are already deployed, the benefits of each grid upgrade immediately ripple out across the transportation system.
PGE buys coal energy from Idaho, and sells hydropower to California. Oregon produces plenty of green energy; what you’re complaining about is the accounting.
Driving less is also independent from and not mutually exclusive to electrification.
VMT now is 3x what it was when I was born, the US population is something like 50% greater. We are driving on average 2x as far as we did in 1967.
100% agree. I like electrification because I know how to do it, and we have the wind at our backs, but we need to pursue both.
Yes they are and we have lots of bike lanes with NO ONE using them.
Do you actually go out and ride a bike in the city?
I do every day and this December has the lowest number of people cycling I have seen in 30 years.
Crappy weather but still, it is a ghost town for cycling.
Did not used to be this way so I suggest you put down the internet reports and get outside and ride a bike.
Help the cause and get a dose of reality.
We have many sidewalks with no one using them. I guess we don’t need to build any more of those either.
I see a lot of city streets not being used at all for most of the day except to store cars, hardly worth maintaining them, so maybe we ought to remove them too? Sell them at auction to the highest bidder?
Maybe if they fixed them they would get used it cost more to maintain a vehicle than a bike. Instead of spending the money they received by raising our taxes on things they said like fixing roads and spending the money else where.
Interesting, and yet I see the sidewalks used a lot more than bike lanes.
I live in NE and work in Old Town. Maybe your part of town is different?
Out in SW, bike lanes are in fact used more than sidewalks.
I think one of the gaping disconnects on bike portland is that many “enthusiasts” no longer ride bikes every ****ing day in peak cage-driver traffic. When your experience is largely toodling through the city on leisurely rides it’s hard to understand how far we have fallen and just how angry, impatient, and threatening drivers have become.
I used to be a full time commuter, did so for six years. Took a break from it for a while and tried to make a come back, and you’re right, I was astonished by how unsafe it was.
Portland is not like it used to be, I can’t wait to move. I’ve lived here my whole adult life. My wife and I are just waiting till both kids are in public school then we’re converting our tuition to a higher mortgage outside Multnomah county, can’t wait to be a visitor.
Sorry you feel Portland is unsafe for cycling. I think it’s less safe, but still pretty safe (have you tried cycling in, say, Indiana?).
The really sad thing is that if you bring up your concerns to city leaders, they won’t hear them – other concerns are more pressing. That’s what is causing me to prep for my exodus: you can’t even get your concerns heard anymore unless they fall into certain categories.
How often do they replace the vehicles already? I sure don’t see any City vehicle being very old. So, as part of their normal fleet refresh (typically not all at once) they could buy electric instead.
“as part of their normal fleet refresh”
I hope they are doing this. The city also has a lot of vehicles that are not cars.
“Wasting time tinkering around the margins with biking isn’t going to get us where we need to go.”
I think this is a really good point, and I think the “but climate!” argument for building bike infrastructure is increasingly falling on deaf ears. I’ll take the optimist approach and say that the new council structure is an opportunity to make new arguments for bike lanes and other infrastructure, more centered on community livability. If (the royal) we want bikeability as part of the community we want to live in, it’s up to us to come up with better arguments.
Lois, I’ll invite you to consider this question: If there was unlimited clean energy tomorrow, would you still ride a bike? Now, how do we convince people on those other reasons?
Perhaps my initial comment misled people into thinking that climate crisis is the only measure of public health or public good. It is not. I bike commute 18 miles roundtrip to my job. My workplace is not very easy to get to on public transit and bicycling requires a particular commitment because of our location, even for folks who live closer to our workplace. Yet my colleagues who commute by bike generally describe their commute as one of the best parts of the day. I haven’t heard that from any of those who drive to campus, even though they are the vast majority of my coworkers. Oh, and although it’s anecdotal, I’ve noticed my driving coworkers get sick a lot more than I do. So yes, we need people to understand the emotional, cognitive, psychological, and physical benefits of bicycling and walking. And the social benefits of all of those and of taking public transit. I often interact with friends/acquaintances I happen upon during my commute. I also get to interact pleasantly with strangers just by saying hello as I pass them. Transit riders can have the same social interactions (please spare me the comments about how dangerous public transit is; statistically, drivers of motor vehicles are injuring and killing and threatening way more than people on transit).
And also just a reminder, even with abundant clean energy (which we do not and likely never will have), electric cars, trucks, and SUVs would still pollute, as tires on the road cause devastating pollution and so does the manufacture of electric vehicles. And electric vehicles still injure and kill when driven recklessly; in fact, drivers’ ability to accelerate FASTER in electric vehicles — even when not driven aggressively — makes them deadlier in collisions. So, um, yeah sorry to disappoint everyone who went sideways in response to my initial comment but public good/public health takes many forms and government should advance rather than undermine it.
They don’t call it the comedy of the commons, nor the romance of the commons.
If you know the secret to getting people out of cars and onto bikes and into mass transit, please share. Please be sure that what you suggest comports to physical, economic, and political reality (I already know dozens of ideas that won’t actually work, and those are of little value).
I’m the meantime, the secret to getting people into electric cars is well known, tested, and successful.
getting people into cars IS easy, in large part because it benefits large corporations who have massive marketing budgets and immense political influence. But people in cars, electric or not, have a laundry list of massive urban problems: pedestrian fatalities, bike fatalities, other driver fatalities, congestion, they big roads that are bad for businesses and communities, they require tons of parking-(bad for walkable/liveable places), and their tires are killing salmon!
I have a car and I love it. I drive to the coast and the mountains and to trailheads. But I bike to work and sometimes take transit. My family does very little biking or riding transit because it is super dangerous and uncomfortable- not the rain, either! It is the cars and drivers that ruin it for people for biking, and the slowness and reliability (partially because of of cars) that ruins transit along with a bunch of sketchy addicts. Switching to electric cars is very helpful for reducing climate-causing emissions, but promoting car use over bikes or transit is not a sustainable or desirable solution.
Transit is slow all by itself. It’s an unavoidable part of its 19th century design.
Just yesterday I was riding through Ladd’s Addition (in the rain, no less), and spotted a TriMet bus ahead of me at Ladd Circle while I was still at Seven Corners. We crossed Madison at before the bus did.
There was nary a car on the road.
Biking and transit are absolutely better for climate change than using a private EV, so I am not promoting driving over those other modes. I do, however, think it’s important to understand and be honest about why people like cars (and it’s not just “marketing”) if we have any hope of dethroning them from the top of the transportation pile.
just because Trimet sucks doesn’t mean transit sucks
If TriMet sucks, it means transit in Portland sucks.
But either way, most places that have buses also have bus stops, and those suck up a lot of time, delaying everyone in the vehicle. It’s inherent in the current model.
Thanks for the detailed response! I think taking this one or two steps further you could say “I choose an 18-mile bike commute partly because it lowers emissions, but also because it makes me happier, healthier, and more engaged in my community. Those of us that choose to ride a bike deserve to have safe, efficient routes to get where we need to go. Most everyone cam agree that congestion has gotten worse. We can’t build our way out of congestion, but what we CAN do is make our streets safer and create better routes for those of us who choose to opt out.”
Too many people view cycling as a sacrifice that some die hards make in the name of the environment. When this is how people see cycling, it’s easy for them to make a judgment call that the “sacrifice” isnt worth it. In reality most of us that choose to ride bikes do so because we love it for so many other reasons. While the greater good arguments are valid, I think it’s also valid to argue “because I WANT to!”
COTW. This is a great exchange with Lois, who consistently posts high quality comments.
I think a compelling argument for safer bike routes is that the things that make streets better for biking also make them better for a lot of other things (safer for kids, adults, and pets moving on foot; fosters more social interaction with neighbors, etc.).
The UK is one of the safest nations in the world to walk but it’s a miserable place to bike for transportation. The “safety argument” does not necessarily lead to greater investment in cycling infrastructure.
My argument does not depend on such a correlation.
Bike enthusiasts tend to view safe routes as the ONE SINGLE SOLUTION to every problem but it’s possible to make streets better for kids, adults, and pets moving on foot while doing f*** all for cycling.
So what? There’s a lot of overlap between pedestrian and bike interests, so it makes sense to attempt political cooperation.
–proud bike enthusiast
If you care about results (e.g. increased cycling transportation mode share) then a focus on the safety argument could have unintended consequences (e.g. wider sidewalks, more ped safety infrastructure, and no bike lanes).
I would not consider wider sidewalks and more ped safety infrastructure to be disastrous unintended consequences. If your only metric is mode share, as Watts frequently points out, it’s not clear that forcing bike lanes everywhere is sufficient. I’m more interested in making Portland nicer and more livable. I think the most realistic way to do that is to assemble a broad base of political support for kinder, gentler streets. Absolutely with more safe bike-specific features but also better environments for walking and just being outside — of buildings and cars. I’m not hung up on (or personally motivated by) “the safety argument” as you call it. I offered it as an example of an alternative argument that might appeal to those that are not swayed by environmental arguments. You countered with a perplexing unlabelled bar chart presumably showing that it’s safe to walk in the UK. I’m at a loss as to why you think we would not want it to be as safe to walk here.
“disastrous”
A very ugly straw-person, micah.
Yeah…with crap bike facilities as in the UK. And this discussion comes full circle.
My underlying point is that urbanist bike enthusiasts often seem to be reluctant to argue for bike facilities in and of themselves (and instead rely on “safety” or poorly-framed GHG reduction arguments).
I think I understand your point, and it is well taken. I apologize for my sarcasm.
My favorite bit of pedestrian infrastructure, the curb extension, is often opposed by cyclists who say it prevents future addition of curbside bike lanes on places like Hawthorne.
I also hear lots of cyclists talk about how its ok to ride on the sidewalk.
Which sidewalks? The ones people actually use or the vast majority I never see a human on? There are times when it is is the only safe option to hop on a sidewalk for a short distance when I’m biking.
I’ve also never seen anyone with a walker or wheelchair use the expensive sidewalk ramps they installed on our corner in their 10 years of existence, but they are certainly there for a good reason regardless of their volume of use.
There may be occasions where you’ve got to do it, but in general sidewalk riding is not an area where the interests of cyclists and pedestrians align.
Curb extensions are one of many examples of how “SAFETY” can screw over the protected bike lanes on arterials demographic.
PS: I think there are better solutions but I ALWAYS prioritize ped improvements over bike improvements. peds >> transit > bikes/scooters >>>> petrol-burning monstrosities
Focusing on bike infrastructure as opposed to pretend that cycling infrastructure is only possible by invoking/exaggerating *safety* might be a better approach. After all, cycling is still about as safe as driving.
— person who uses a bike as a tool to get from point A to B and is does not care if you are an “enthusiast”
??
Feel free to advocate for bike infrastructure as you see fit. Arguments invoking safety have been persuasive in the past. The relevant safety is usually that of the cyclist, be they utilitarian cyclists like yourself or mere enthusiasts like me. Bike infrastructure expansion is currently being critiqued by folks claiming the benefits of bike-specific designs accrue to too few people to justify their footprint. I believe this argument is misguided. One possible counterargument is to point out unacknowledged benefits (including but not limited to noncyclist safety). I don’t really see the downside of trying it. If it’s not effective, let’s try something else.
P.S. I would like to take this opportunity to quibble with your statement that biking is no more dangerous than driving. I think many engineered safety features make modern cars and trucks pretty safe for driving at speeds comparable to biking. Normalized by distance, I don’t think biking or walking is safer than driving.
What about us avid cyclists?
I actively dislike many of my commutes and I rarely find them “enjoyable” because they are boring every-day trips to WORK. When it’s raining and the roads are coated in muck I do not stop to chat with my neighbors and have life-fulfilling social interactions. I just want to get to work without being injured or killed.
I think when someone is a “cycling enthusiast” they have a hard time understanding how those who are not part of their tiny subculture might view cycling to work as an unpleasant chore — and a dangerous-seeming chore at that.
It would be an e-bike! 🙂
No less than the Union of Concerned Scientists disagrees. According to the UCS, achieving a low-carbon transportation sector will require multiple strategies, including:
“Societal and behavioral shifts that result in reduced driving and more active transportation, such as walking and biking; expanded and integrated mobility; and improved public transit”
But hey, what do a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals know about climate and transportation, amirite?
It actually confirms that pointy-headed intellectuals know nothing about what the general public wants. Shifting behavior sounds so good on a thesis paper doesn’t it? So easy….
The public in Portland went from 7% to 2% cycling share in 10 years when there was nothing but bike promotion in the city.
But hey, what do facts mean anyway, amirite?
“Nothing but bike promotion” as long as you ignore rising cost of living, ballooning size of passenger vehicles, and increases in reckless driving, all of which make life more difficult for the average bike commuter. Facts indeed.
I have witnessed a lot of bikes that don’t obey the laws so give me a break pulling out in front of people and almost hitting cars and pedestrians. Those are facts and most people now a days aren’t going to commute 30 miles a day on a bike. Especially in Portland where their is bad weather about half the year.
1) Using anecdote as fact + using objects as people.
2) Bandwagon fallacy, or it’s true because I believe everyone thinks it is
3) Weather is one of many factors that can affect an individual’s decisions on cycling. There are quite a lot of examples of places where cycling rates are higher and people continue to cycle year round in the same or much more extreme conditions than Portland. Here’s a video I like to share because it shows how effective and popular winter cycling can be given a separated network that is well-maintained.
If a person riding a bike pulls out in front of you — say at a bike box or on the right — it may be entirely legal. Sadly, it’s very common for drivers to believe that “bikes” are violating law due to their own ignorance of the law.
Half the year, now you’re be generous.
look outside right now. It is sunny and mild and will be all week. Even in the very heart of winter, I need rain gear only one or two days per week. Even “rainy” days often have breaks that align with my commute times. It is almost never as bad as it looks, I promise. I ride in a few soakers a month through the winter, but is nowhere near “half the year” More like less than 5% of the rides in a year are in the rain when commuting daily all year.
Also how many cyclists are idealists and tend toward lower paid, but more virtuous work. Now they have to live far out to make rent…
That was more the result of people being priced out of Portland and residents being forced to work way more than before. Remember the great recession? When rents were like $300 a month? My friends and I were able to afford living in Portland on part time minimum wage jobs, and had no ey left over to have fun and go to the bar 3-4 nights a week.
Can’t do that now. Lots of newcomers to Portland have no concept of getting around by anything except a car.
I used to get around by buses but it is not safe anymore. Trying to force people to ride a bike or take the bus is ridiculous. I personally like where I live even though it is 15 miles away so I drive to work.
No one is “[t]rying to force people to ride a bike or take the bus”, but these should be viable options. Our transportation system actually forces people to drive a car because everything else is inconvenient, uncomfortable, slow, and/or expensive, as you imply.
“everything else is inconvenient, uncomfortable, slow, and/or expensive”
This is true in many cases. The question is can we actually improve the alternatives to a degree that they’re comparable on those metrics, given our very real political, economic, and geographic constraints?
TriMet has been working very hard for decades to attract more riders to transit, and you can judge their success for yourself. Are they singularly stupid? What have they been overlooking?
It’s exactly this. Demographics have changed. People didn’t stop riding bikes as much — the people who rode bikes a lot were forced to leave, and they were replaced with people who ride less and differently. Newcomers mostly have car-centric lifestyles with at best a bicycle that is an accessory prop or exercise tool.
If that is the case as you state and you are probably correct, Why would taxpayers want to support and pay for infrastructure that the demographics in the city won’t support?
A number of comments here are answering that question.
Image: Tesla with a hitch mounted bike rack cradling a carbon Santa Cruz mtb heading east on I84.
Moved here in 2008 without a car. Made $11/hr. Rode bike everywhere. Rent was $450 off Alberta for years! It was very different back then.
It’s very unfortunate that this kind of thinking is popular on BP. My hope is that we can rise above this kind of knee-jerk anecdote-replaces-evidence type generalizations.
If we are ever to increase modal share (I think most of us can agree on this), policy and decisions need an evidence base (e.g., Wilson’s allusion to “looking at the data”). Arguing between various logical fallacies using “common sense” and easily disregarding decades of evidence supporting a variety of strategies to achieve low-carbon transportation, is one of many ways to muddy the water.
Logical fallacies are a very efficient means to create disillusionment and division.
1) “Appeal to ignorance” or “denial of consensus” aka “pointy-headed intellectuals know nothing etc.”
2) False causation fallacy: the very tired “but Portland’s mode share went down” when x was the cause.
3) Anecdotal fallacy: by simply pointing to anecdote as evidence. “December has the lowest number of people cycling I have seen in 30 years.”
Remember when you see logical fallacies clouding arguments, call them out, and refer people back to the evidence.
You constantly do this. Post what you think are supposed FACTS when you just need to go for a walk in the city.
You dismiss anecdotes yet never explain why cycling has gone down in Portland.
You actually seem to think it hasn’t which is hilarious.
Go for a bike ride today anywhere in the city and give us your report.
I have already ridden 5 miles for errands and shopping.
I have a feeling that you don’t ever ride based on your posts which are frankly just disingenuous wish lists for things that are never going to happen.
The explanation has been given to you by several people already. It’s the result of young people being priced out, the remaining residents having to work more, more dangerous driving, bigger passenger cars, etc. Believe it or not, there are systemic factors at work which are not immediately obvious when just walking around.
I would add 4. Overstating the strength of weak data because that’s all you have.
And 5) Dismissing potentially important ideas because data to quantify them does not exist.
I find your comments to be among the best on BP, but I disagree about the usefulness of using empirical evidence as the primary determinant of policy.
One reason is that relevant data often do not exist or are of low quality and can lead to improper policy prescriptions.
The bigger reason, though, is that policy decisions are subjective. There are certainly relevant empirical questions, but the big questions (that stir passion) are a matter of metaphysical belief. If you think roads are for cars, and people should only operate bikes thereon in ways that do not retard the transport of autos, there is no study I can do that will persuade you otherwise.
I think a better basis for a cohesive political movement is just to keep it simple and focus on shared values (e.g. there is an urgent social need to move away from auto dependence).
Exactly… Data (where it exists, and it mostly doesn’t) can tell you how to most effectively accomplish some goal, but not what your goals should be.
Great point Micah. I hear you. I think a lot of people agree with you because it is much easier to disregard science than to actually ask hard questions. And passions are much more motivating. You’ll definitely get a lot of support for your view.
Very true sometimes. What scientists choose to study and why sometimes is a reflection of their gender, etc. That’s why we should encourage a diverse group of people to make science.
Wilson, for example, decided to “end homelessness” by finding out what works in other countries and basing his policy decisions on that research. So sure policy decisions are real life “subjective” things, but what they are based on depends on the person making the decision.
There is an enormous difference between a person basing their policy decisions on their personal ideology (e.g., Communism, Mormonism etc.), and a person basing their policy decisions on best practice and research. We may identify with the same “metaphysical belief” (e.g., Marxism), but disagree vehemently on how to implement those beliefs (e.g., Lenin, Gramsci). That is why it is much easier for people to base their beliefs on a passion or ideology and ignore science (which most politicians tend to do in the US).
I am passionate about bikepacking. Getting there safely was the origin of my seeking best practices on street safety. Teachers are passionate about lowering poverty or changing a kid’s life, for example, but they teach using best practice based on research (e.g., progress monitoring, universal design, direct instruction etc.).
True. That is because science operationalizes questions so they can be measured. So you can study things to answer that fundamental “passion.” For example, generally in NYC a study follows the new construction of a protected bike lane. So the question above could be separated into different measurable outcomes (e.g., how much traffic congestion do people on bikes cause?).
Ok maybe. Let’s look at non profits (e.g., BikeLoud, MercyCorps). They have a passionate mission statement and “shared values.” How will they prioritize projects and funding? Most funding sources such as for the bike buddy program require progress monitoring and an evidence base for why this project should be funded. BikeLoud and MercyCorps then use that program as an example of their effective use of funds. Writing reports and research might not be why they got into that work (I can personally attest), but demonstrating knowledge of the research base and best practice is fundamental for implementing those decisions effectively. Anyway hope that helps.
Thanks for the comprehensive and stimulating reply! I agree with much of what you wrote. However, I think you are greatly underplaying the subjectivity inherent in governing.
Political ideology and science address nonoverlapping categories of propositions. It’s my position that most (almost all) justifications of policy decisions depend to some degree on normative beliefs that are unavoidably ideological. To claim that your policy preferences are reflective of “best practice and research” and not “personal ideology” is to shirk any honest debate with those who disagree on ideological grounds. “Believe the science” simply means deferring ideological questions to your prefered experts. This is defensible, since those experts have probably spent a lot of effort assembling their own views, but those views are still subjective.
How many ducks there are in a pond is a scientific question. Whether or not it’s a good idea to eat them is not, even though a lot of scientific facts are could come up in the debate (how much mercury is in the pond?). Both kinds of questions are relevant to public policy, but the subjective kind tend to be more important to people. Hence, accumulating data is a inefficient way to persuade people. I think a better way is to
look for common ground (e.g.,
“Even though it will take you a little longer to drive to/from your house, slowing the traffic on your street will make your neighborhood a better place for your kids to play,”
instead of
“people who know what’s best for you said your street should be reconfigured so that the virtuous can have better biking conditions — you know, like in Amsterdam.”)
Hey Micah, I love it when people take the time to critically think about something like this! Thanks for the response in advance. I really like the examples you gave.
Yeah, this is a very problematic idea. This reminds me of many occasions when politicians claim to believe in science as a clear method of gaslighting, or avoiding/misusing data. Mapps now infamous example of using a wealthy businessman as “data” comes to mind. In science “professional opinion” is looked at as the least level of evidence.
This reminds me of Conversations with a traffic engineer (which I love). And it gets at a bigger problem with science in general. It’s not infallible nor is it inextricably removable from some basic values. So, while the traffic engineer above might have a similar value system or ideology than the citizen, they are insulated from any responsibility because of the “Big book of traffic engineering.”
Yes! People do not enjoy sitting down to a nice cup of home brew and plowing through a tedious meta-analysis. Science is NOT sexy (to most people). ~40% of people in the US still question human caused climate change despite the overwhelming evidence base. Yet, it’s important that it exists. Why bother?
This may be where we diverge. To me both a common ground AND being informed on how to make decisions (via the best available data) are essential. The 82nd project is a great example of building common ground around a generic vision statement (values), while avoiding asking the hard/important questions about what the ultimate outcome will be (what the evidence suggests based on the design). Without that important scrutiny, we end up with a quarter-pound nothing burger. Anyway, thanks for reading.
What does the data suggest the “ultimate outcome” of 82nd will be, and how does this differ from what the data says what stakeholders actually want?
Hi eawriste, good stuff.
Standards are useful precisely because they reduce the amount of subjective judgement in engineering. The relevant philosophy to compare to the stakeholders’ (that of the ‘citizen’ from your utube) is not that of the traffic engineers who apply the standards, it is the philosophy inherent in the standards (at least to the degree the traffic engineers objectively adhere to the standards). The adoption of such standards is a political process, and, from my perspective, that process is the correct home for subjective debates about a collective vision for our built environment. The engineers should be “insulated from any responsibility” — that responsibility should rest above them in politically accountable positions. Naive fans of democracy might suggest the responsibility should lie with ‘the voters’.
We have built extensive systems of auto-centric transportation often with explicit planning and justification that invoked moral arguments involving economic development and personal autonomy. These systems comprise both the physical infrastructure and engineering and regulatory culture and practices. And consumer (‘citizen’) expectations. Scientific research can illustrate undesirable consequences that have not been fully acknowledged or quantified, but it can’t prove that our vision is right and the status quo is wrong.
Exactly; it’s odd to advocate for using evidence to design effective policies, but also to disparage following engineering standards. They amount to the same thing.
In both cases, the political decision is what set of goals to pursue; the evidence and standards can give you insight into how to most effectively achieve them.
Nice, yeah. Cooking with fire. Dunno if you’ve read anything like Confessions of a Recovering Traffic Engineer. It’s a decent read. Some people quibble (not without reason) about his views on “big projects,” but I’m not going to go there.
Yep, spot on. I do think it’s essential to keep ourselves as honest as possible. That honesty is often lacking in most PBOT reports (e.g., 82nd, Hawthorne), where the project goals do not align with the outcome. That concrete outcome transparency (e.g., # of crashes expected) is essential and IMO should be required in all reports.
This may be above my pay grade. I understand there are quite a few traffic engineer “bibles” (e.g., MUTCD, NACTO), and that different funding sources require different standards, but I’m not an engineer. I don’t know how they are “updated.” Please share if you do. It’s a difficult thing to pare apart the “responsibility” of a scientist. It’s pretty clear climatologists have come to realize their research is maybe less important as translating it to the general public.
I’m a little worried about “insulating engineers from responsibility.” We’re certainly not talking about Oppenheimer, but traffic engineers are designing places that predictably result in x crashes and x death(s). Is it their responsibility to shine a light on that even when they’re ordered to do it? I’m not sure.
Maybe you remember how the SW Broadway debacle transpired? If it weren’t for a brave person at PBOT who felt the need to inform the public of an imminent project removal (which took a decade of public input and a lot of money, and would also threaten future funding), that bike lane may have been removed overnight. Gotta say I think that move was gutsy and much appreciated. Anyway, good read.
Removing (almost) the bike lanes on Broadway was a political decision, not an engineering one that followed or departed from any standard. That decision sheds as much light on standards based engineering as it does on evidence based policymaking.
I’m not an engineer and don’t know much about their standards. I’m guessing there’s quite a bit of knowledge among the BP commentariat, though. If there are not comprehensive engineering standards for bike lanes and things like that, some should be developed and published. Such a document can/could formalize and systematize ‘best practices’.
If good engineering standards are available, getting PBOT, ODOT, and other agencies that engineer and build stuff to adopt them as policy is a useful political project that I am happy to work on. For all the process and bureaucracy exhibited by the CoP, street modifications seem to happen in a very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way when they finally do happen. Accepted standard would at least give a mechanism for objective critique of poorly implemented changes (e.g. your policy is to follow standard xyz, but when you repaved intersection of abc, measurement ijk is too small…), which could make them more impactful. I wish I had more knowledge of the current process and its failings.
Another wrinkle is that, based on the variety of opinions regularly expressed here, I think consensus on ‘best practices’ remains elusive.
Cheers!
Many bike riding millennials moved away and there wasn’t a 1:1 replacement factor. Then the ones that stayed aged out of biking because of emerging family and work obligations. I remember going to any bar on Alberta during dead winter around 2010, and you see plenty of bikes corralled out front, now you hardly see any.
Yup. It’s my opinion that we should try to attract those types of bicycle users back to the city.
Agreed, but rent is just too damned high.
I regard the UCS as generally credible on this topic, so it’s odd that they wouldn’t also recommend electrification and clean electricity, the items I suggested we prioritize.
Oh wait, there it is, at the top of their list, while the item you cited is last.
I happen to agree with every one of their recommendations, including the one you cited, and I agree with the order in which they were listed.
Since it’s clear Portland has no idea how to get people onto bikes, we should get rolling with the bigger, significantly more impactful strategies that we do know how to implement.
By the way, the page you linked to did not even mention bicycling, so I’m not sure the UCS considers it an important part of the solution.
“Walking and biking” is literally right there in item 4 under “Analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists”. Biking is mentioned several times in the full report, as well as in the executive summary.
I’m curious where you’re getting the idea that electrification and clean power are “significantly more impactful” than active transportation. Just because increasing bicycling mode share is difficult doesn’t mean it can’t work.
Ok let’s do it. But while we’re figuring out how, let’s get the electrification going. We know how to do that, and we can pick up the pace today.
Inclimated weather is why it doesn’t work and lots of people don’t live around where they work. That is why good city structure is supposed to be able to commandant rush hour for people to and from work or events.
I guess nobody bikes in the Netherlands what with all that rain. Good city design accommodates the needs of people who actually live there, not just suburban commuters.
Except for some rain , there is nothing similar about the Netherlands and Portland Oregon.
Terrain, compactness, culture are all COMPLETELY different.
Comparing Portland to Amsterdam is the most tiring ridiculous analogy there is.
Amsterdam is 85 sq miles.
Portland is 145 sq miles.
Just a fact.
85 totally flat sq. Miles.
If Amsterdam had the terrain of Portland they would not ride either. Go to any Euro city with hills and cycling numbers are about the same as Portland.
Who said anything about Amsterdam?
You were referring to Gouda, no doubt.
The Randstad encompasses about 2,400 square miles of urban land and holds almost half the country’s population, most of whom get around through a combination of bicycling and public transportation. Even suburban areas have extensive bicycle infrastructure. The size argument is irrelevant.
How: log miles ridden on bike via smart phone, miles reduce the cost of car insurance via tax credit.
That’s #4 on their list.
#1: electrification by switching to evs
#2: improved vehicle efficiency
#3: reduce emissions in aviation and shipping
And, this makes sense. Your average car speed out 2-4 tons of CO2 per year. Switching to renewable powered electrification can reduce that to a small fraction. Is it better than biking? No. But if people need to travel far, they aren’t going to bike anyway.
Most daily trips in the entire US are under 3 miles and only 2 percent are over 50 miles. In Portland it’s probably even more skewed toward shorter distances. Trains and buses can be used for going between nearby cities, and can also be part of a multimodal network that includes bicycling.
Time consuming and not safe. I commute 30 miles a day.
Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Trimet is waaaay safer.
No one has tried to stab or push me off a plant form in my car or bike for that matter.
People die (or are injured) in car accidents in the most gruesome of manners. Statistically, driving is one of the riskiest things you can do and “[t]here are typically between 10,000 and 12,000 reported crashes in Portland each year.” (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/crash-data)
It’s about the perception of safety. When you hear about a car accident on KGW, even if someone dies, no one really talks about it.
If someone gets set on fire on a subway like in New York, it makes national news.
“If someone gets set on fire on a subway like in New York, it makes national news.”
If someone gets set on fire in their car, I guarantee it would be national news. Likewise, if somebody gets hit by a bus in New York City, you think we’d hear about it here?
I know you like semantics. I don’t know if getting hit by a bus would be considered on the same plane as being worried about your personal safety while sitting on the bus.
The reason people don’t want to ride the Max is because they’re worried about being molested, stabbed, slashed, having bodily fluids flung at, hair chopped, pushed on platforms, hell—face eaten off. We’ve recently had some high profile incidents for how small of a city we are, there’s no denying it. I just don’t want to deal with the possibilities, that’s all it is, the potential. Could be 1 in million, I don’t care. So I drive, because I’m delusional with the comfort of some control and isolation.
“So I drive, because I’m delusional”. Hey, at least you admit it.
“Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things you can do.”
You lack imagination.
https://imgur.com/a/mfeuavA
Tell me more about why the city should prioritize the convenience of people who don’t live here or pay taxes here.
Well maybe if the City itself would stop trying to concentrate everything in a downtown core and have businesses spread throughout the City maybe people could commute differently.
All of this is true, and yet after decades of trying to build on those unassailable facts, we are where we are. What, other than wishful thinking, is going to change the way people get around?
Do people not see electric vehicles already increase big time and thinking that everyone is still in a total gas car.
Electric cars will continue the mass killing on our streets and pollute our planet.
I wish our economy could look like that, but we’re just too spread out and employment opportunities are too unpredictable. I’ve worked in Hillsboro, Beaverton, Gresham, Rockwood, and Intel all in the last year. My next job could literally be around the corner or it very well could be in Camby, shoot it might even be back in Beaverton. It’s just a matter of what contractor starts their next job first. Three years ago my wife worked in Vancouver at Peace Health, now she works in Hillsboro. Too unpredictable. Our housing is what’s predictable and stays the same. Accessing the services around our home is where we save on transportation.
All this focus on long commute trips. If your commute trip is too long, then don’t bike! But, there are numerous other trips people make that are short. As noted above, most trips people make are at a length that would easily allow for biking. It’s not all or nothing.
You’re right. The conversation always seems like it is dominated by the work commute, because for a lot of people that’s where the majority of their mileage comes from.
“Electric cars will continue the mass killing on our streets and pollute our planet.”
Yes, but they are an immediate way to slow climate change, which is one of the most important and urgent issues of our time.
EVs also reduce much of the local pollution (combustion products, oil leaks, brake dust, noise, etc.) associated with gasoline powered cars.
And EVs are heavier than their gas counterparts, meaning they are more likely to kill pedestrians, further reducing the population and lowering our carbon footprint. Win-win.
You’re right — EVs aren’t a solution to every problem in the world. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is nearly universal agreement among scientists and policymakers that electrification is critical for slowing climate change.
Plus they are bigger and heavier so they create even more tire pollution, so we can finally just kill off the Salmon and stop wasting resources trying to save them! /s
So the solution is to keep driving gasoline powered vehicles?
Of course we should be driving less (an option I, for one, have chosen, even when it’s raining out). The problem is no one has demonstrated how to get a critical mass to make the same decision in the decades we’ve been working toward that end.
Heck, it sounds like even your group drives a fair bit, salmon be damned.
Electric vehicles are better than gas vehicles
smaller vehicles are better than big one
more people in a vehicle are better than fewer (so car pools lanes, buses, etc)
transit is better than driving
smaller trucks are safer than bigger ones
biking is better than electric vehicles
walking is the best
No single solution is right, the solution IMO is to have the right set of priorities to meet multiple objectives: reduce emission, increase livability, increase safety, support community/business.
I am not at all opposed to getting more people to switch to electric cars, but it is not a panacea, and it is used as greenwashing to mask the myriad problems of SOV’s
Agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, and agree.
I also agree that EVs are not a panacea, but they are a necessary and immediately available step in tackling climate change. Their adoption will leave many other problems with driving unresolved. But that’s no reason not to phase out diesel and gasoline powered vehicles as quickly as possible.
Yep MaxD. It’s always weird to me for people to constantly argue car vs bike, when ALL (or at least a lot more) modes exist in a lot of places in the world.
When modes were separated around the beginning of the 20th century (e.g., Ocean Parkway Bike path), it was done for safety reasons to separate people traveling at different speeds. That speed discrepancy still exists, but our options for travel have multiplied (e.g., motorized scooter, wheelchairs, skateboards etc.). Separating modes doesn’t just mean cars vs bikes.
But we in the US are still stuck in the perpetual “But cars need flow.” and “Bikes can just ride with cars.” No mode is “correct,” but allowing people to choose makes for a higher quality of life and a flexible transportation system.
What’s the latest forecast of electrification of the US fleet (not even the world, just the US)? It ain’t happening in my lifetime (estimating another 25-30 years).
Not by a very, very long shot.
The most impactful thing we can do *RIGHT NOW* is drive less.
There is no other way to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector today when it does the most good.
Heck, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe when I’m 80 I’ll eat a bit of crow – wouldn’t be the worst thing. Then again, it may be worse than I expect it to be …..
We had an initial bout of enthusiasm among early adopters, which has somewhat waned (as happens with everything), and now we’re breaking into the larger mass market and acceleration has slowed.
At some point, we’re going to hit a tipping point after which the big car companies are going to stop developing new models of gas cars. This will likely happen well before CA’s 2035 phaseout of gas cars, letting manufacturers coast across the finish line there with slightly outdated vehicles (since CA is such a large market, that may well prove decisive). Remaining competitive in international markets will likely also drive manufacturers to push EVs to drive volumes up and costs down.
As market share for EVs grows, gas stations will transition, and mechanics will switch (or go out of business since EVs need so much less work), driving up the cost and inconvenience of owning and maintaining a gas car.
If Chinese EVs ever gain a toehold here, I think adoption will accelerate rapidly.
Predictions are always hard, especially about the future, but we’re advancing more quickly than anyone thought possible. I am highly confident you’ll live see a complete domination of EVs in the market.
And yes, absolutely, drive less. I do.
So because the USA/Oregon/Portland is not taking ongoing ecocide seriously we should just give up? It’s pathetic that so many cycling enthusiasts sound like MAGA republicans when it comes to electrification.
Some of the most impactful things you can do are eat less meat/dairy, drive less, and use an EV small car when you do drive.
How dare someone not let you impose a minority vote upon everyone!!!
Public health is a matter of science, not a matter of popularity. So yes, if you polled most people at a bar in 1978 about whether smoking should be banned in bars, they might have said no … because the bar was full of smokers. But banning smoking in bars was about protecting the greater good, not about a popularity contest among people who might not understand or care about the greater good.
Well said Lois. Because we elect people to represent us, we expect them to make difficult decisions that sometimes are unpopular. Smoking is a great public health example where in the 1950s almost half of adults smoked.
The public health problems we are facing with street safety/transportation are very similar to how smoking was looked at throughout the 70s and 80s when more evidence on its harmful effects increased. Except instead of less than half, nearly everyone (in the US ~94% of adults) drives. It is very unpopular to consider or provide space for other modes. Congestion pricing, for example, is invariably unpopular until it is enacted.
But everyone benefits when other modes are included because, among other things, the system gives them a choice and is more flexible. I voted for Wilson because he has attempted to obtain evidence on solving problems. Making decisions based on evidence regardless of political opinions is what I hope we can expect him to do just as he should expect to be called out on it should he cave in to the whims of popular opinion.
“nearly everyone (in the US ~94% of adults) drives”
It’s worth remembering that driving provides a huge amount of utility that none of the existing alternatives can match (outside of a narrow range of conditions). That makes it fundamentally different than smoking, which persists despite it being almost all downside.
“Climate change is real” but not to burst your bubble, Portland’s population and CO2 “carbon footprint” is insignificant in the Grand picture. Our local leaders need to be focusing on the basics like quality of life, public safety, keeping our economy afloat, and balancing the city budget.
Not raising taxes, they should also be giving seniors and disabled tax breaks on their property taxes
Why should wealthy seniors and disabled get tax breaks?
Every community contributes to climate change. The “Grand Picture”that you speak of is composed of the actions of individuals in communities great and small. It’s absolutely absurd and fallacious to argue that Portland shouldn’t take steps to reduce carbon emissions because it’s not single handedly capable of solving the climate change problem on it’s own. We have to do our part. It’s not an option.
What people get upset about is at what length? Climate change is real, it’s no joke. But many working class folk think it’s some woke ideology or something Gen Z picked up on that tic tac social. Many associate climate change policy and regulation as a reason why we have high egg prices or why gas is so expensive.
Maybe those people should be less stupid, then, and not let preexisting biases form their opinion. Low-information voters are set to send us down the path of doom again, starting the 20th, anyway.
“Maybe those people should be less stupid”
Personally, I think that’s a delightful idea.
There’s no larger “Grand picture” than global eco-cide and systems collapse.
MAGA folk love it and apparently this country is made up with a slight majority of them.
This makes me think of the company Ridwell, whose mission is to recycle hard to recycle materials. You have to pay for this service in addition to a service that you already pay for which is designed to carry away your household garbage, albeit in the not most sustainable manner. What I find ironic is the amount of garbage on our city streets, and how the amount of litter totally negates all the hard work of Ridwell and the participating households.
You can ride all year long, but as soon as you hop on that jet for vacation, you reset the clock. And what sucks, you’re probably the only one on the plane that rides a bike…
This is horribly naive. When a city demonstrates an effective reduction in its carbon footprint, like many have, it creates an example and pressure on all other cities to decrease their footprints. Infinitely dividing all positive change into absolute units that are insignificant is pointless pseudointellectual nihilism.
Last year, I couldn’t tell what most of the 100-odd candidates in the running were really talking about. So far, I still don’t know what any of the twelve elected candidates are really talking about.
We get the leadership we deserve for running this thing like a student council election.
All I heard on this website before the election was how wonderful it is that the public got to rank 6 bad candidates instead of just picking 3 bad ones.
It was so exciting watching all these losers give each money so they all could be grifters….
Just adding this here to combat misinformation.
Out of 12 elected on the council, only Eric Zimmerman has been implicated in the Small Donor Elections graft.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/12/19/more-than-a-dozen-candidates-swapped-donations-to-unlock-taxpayer-funds/
Further, people choosing to violate election laws has nothing to do with the form of government. These grifters could have engaged in this same grift under the old system just as easily.
Let’s not try and spread misinformation BB. There is enough to be critical about in regards to the City of Portland to make up stuff.
It sounds to me as if folks in district 4 should be in frequent, polite, and ongoing communication with Zimmerman and the other D4 councilers about the need for safe roadways.
Don’t let him invent a mandate for himself.
I’ll be interested in what kind of transportation/planning subcommittee comes out of the new council. I’d also keep an eye on how the council views the PCEF funds. Does the power to shape those decisions fall only on a budget subcommittee? Or, will there be an environmental/sustainability subcommittee that has some sway over those funds.
It’s also going to be interesting to see how Wilson and his leadership team handle transportation (among other things) projects if there is push back from a few councilers in an impacted district. What happens when that project sans multiple districts? For example, the 82nd Ave project is split between D3, D1 and a little be of D2 in the north.
Taking a Hypothetical safety improvement on a major arterial. If we have outsized local control by councilers, will we have a road diet and safety improvements on a road up to the district boundary, and then no changes in the neighboring district?
As another example, consider downtown. Many people ride through downtown, work there, do business there, or own businesses there – and many of them do not live or vote in District 4. Should transportation (and other city) policies for downtown be determined principally by councilors from (and, indirectly, voters who live in) District 4?
Zimmerman ran in large part in ‘revitalizing’ downtown; no doubt many business owners are not D4 residents but he will be prioritizing their views over others in my opinion. He and Gonzalez were the only two on my ‘do NOT rank’ list.
I bike commute (and drive) into Portland from Milwaukie; I don’t have a say either, come to think of it! On the other hand, since any individual voter has relatively little say, anyway, the actual cost to me is relatively low.
Meet the new government, same as the old government… ?
I hope not, but it is what I’ve come to believe is exactly what will happen.
Yup. I live in a city that has both district reps and at-large, and the district reps are very tribal and territorial – you can already see that in Portland – but then it was common in the old system too when the rich neighborhoods and downtown got all the goods and the outer parts all the bads. Now you’ll see a different, if equally unequal, imbalance.
Not much will get done and not much will change under the new 12 council member format. If anything, it will make it virtually impossible to attain consensus for the reasons that you list above. Our new set-up assures gridlock and glacial pacing of any semi-bold policy idea.
I wish PBOT would give up its embrace of paint & poles to protect bi-model transport & put a million dollars into bi-modal paths like Milwaukie did on Linwood ave. It’s truly the only safe alternative that works. PBOT comes through, paints a lane green or red, throws up plastic poles everywhere & then never comes back to maintain it. It’s infuriating.
Sure, but…funding? What gets sacrificed to “put up a million dollars” when our roads and bridges are already deteriorating due to lack of maintenance funds? As PBOT assets deteriorate, the politics of putting in high-quality bike lanes only gets harder.
What a “me me me” perspective. Thought we were supposed to be a city that worked towards the common good of all citizens, not just the ones on my street.
Yeah, we already have a mess of different street designs, now with these yahoos we’ll get even more. “Oh no, my District doesn’t like flowers in the median.” “Oh my District likes roses and tulips in the median.” “We don’t like that shade of Red for bus lanes, make it this shade of Blue in our District.” “Green for bikes? No, we like yellow.”
Oh what we have wrought with this new council? I had hopes, but I think they’ve already been dashed after just a day.
Oh well.
When your constituents are small part of a city, it’s easier to have an insular perspective.
“Thought we were supposed to be a city that worked towards the common good of all citizens”
We were. But now we have districts.
The me me me for my neighborhood thing is the whole design of this new form of government. It’s baked in.
This is what everyone wanted for some reason.
Local representatives for their local districts, three each per district in fact.
And we have an even number of representatives (ha!) that have decided against a mayor with tie breaking votes (unless specifically for legislative issues). What could go wrong?
The mayor breaks ties in council votes in all things EXCEPT internal council business, like who is council president. This is similar to US House of Reps… at least, for a few more days.
The charter did not state that the mayor breaks tie only in council votes. This was an interpretation of the charter by the council.
I also strongly suspect that the council president will end up essentially dominating the council a la JVP.
Which apparently the city attorneys agreed with, since the mayor did not tiebreak here. I have not watched the entire thing, but that’s the impression I got about it. Some folks involved in making the charter mentioned modeling it on the US Govt, and the mayor (Prez) is supposed to enact the things council (Congress) passes, and tiebreak when necessary. I assume city legal followed that logic.
As far as council prez being dominant, many cities have a strong mayor/weak council so similar dynamic. Six of one…
(insert Watts stating that it is actually 5 of one… here). 🙂
They’re local representation, not their own new four municipalities. District 4 gets to have a say, that doesn’t mean they decide what happens in district 4.
To be fair, we don’t yet know what it means.
It may be that all the council members want a say about what happens in their district, and that their policies reflect that moving forward. It could also be that they are willing to give up that voice in exchange for having input on projects in other people’s districts.
It’s really too soon to know.
Well the mayor did a good job giving everyone a common enemy. Even if that wasn’t his plan. Hey, the enemy of my enemy is a good distraction and allows me to take out another flank.
Are you ready now to join up with bikeloud or when they really stab you in the back?
Keith Wheeler and the Kate Brown led council are going to do bang up job, guaranteed.
Such a new fresh point of view.
As I have said repeatedly, Zimmerman is hostile to ped/bike work in roadways, and it seems he’s expanding his dislike to closing streets to vehicles like is done on many east-side streets. He thinks it’s too damn hard to drive with all those changes, and he’s also stated he will focus on nothing but downtown business interests for his entire term. A number of those business owners clearly dislike non-car projects, removal of parking, etc. as shown by the Broadway Bike Lane Debacle. Zimmerman will carry their water.
So all of those D4 folks thinking we’re gonna get better attention from PBOT, think again. And it seems the ‘progressive’ mayor will be sympathetic if car-centric D4 residents complain about what little we have/ask for, and remove the improvements from consideration.
I live in D4 and I didn’t vote for Zimmerman – or Wilson.
Why people thought Wilson – a trucking-company owner – would be good for cycling in Portland is beyond me. We’ll get the gov’t we deserve.
Who was the cycling mayor alternative? Both of the other leading candidates had horrendous traffic infraction records, and only one of them (Gonzalez) actually rode bikes regularly.
I thought Mr. Zimmerman comments were nuanced and a bit veiled.
He referenced support for District 1, and questions about Parks & Rec too.
Mayor Wilson said “We are going to make some great changes that your neighbors are going to love”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJru1ZWtKrM&t=2990s
It is going to be our job to remind the Mayor and Council that people do want to ride bikes all over Portland, including over 30% in east Portland (D1) . https://www.portland.gov/budget/insights/reports-and-materials
Transit was the 1st choice in D4 and Bicycling in NW & SW was 2nd, so bike lanes and bikeways will continue to be built in D4.
I also look forward to more bus lanes being built in all of D4.
By the way, I believe it is already city policy to move away from fossil fuels and toward walking, bicycling, and transit, so there will need to be seven votes on council to change this, not just one.
vision zero policy: https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/12/07/portland-adopts-vision-zero-action-plan/
climate action policy: https://www.portland.gov/bps/climate-action
modal shift: https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/council-documents/2021/exhibit-a-the-way-to-go-plan-reportv.1.pdf
Was that survey was administered to a random sampling of Portlanders? If not, do those percentages just represent self-selected focus group participants? If so, what do those numbers tell us about what Portlanders in general want? If nothing, why would reminding politicians about them be helpful?
A random household, two-part mail survey was distributed to a sample of 20,000 single and multifamily homes. In order to supplement the random household survey with oversampling for specific communities that are commonly underrepresented in surveys, the City Budget Office partnered with community-based organizations, neighborhood/district associations, and City of Portland affinity groups, to help support survey distribution online, in-person, and through social media outreach. Individuals who were 16 years of age or older and either currently live in Portland or moved out of Portland within the last five years were invited to complete the survey.
At the conclusion of data collection, 5,290 completed surveys (3,768 web and 1,522 paper surveys) resulted in a random household survey response rate of 17.7%. The calculated sampling error (i.e., margin of error) of +1.33% indicates that the survey results are generalizable to the City of Portland. Both quantitative (i.e., numeric responses) and qualitative (i.e., text responses) were analyzed to establish a rich set of feedback from residents of Portland.
While more detailed information about the methodology and findings (both citywide and broken down by selected demographic characteristics) can be found in the body of the report, the following citywide key takeaways were generated across six areas of focus.
The analysis plan for this survey project included some comparisons across items. Significance testing was done using the chi-square test for categorical data, which considers whether the array of responses (e.g., a six by-three table of responses from six geographic areas of Portland being compared on a survey item with three possible responses) is different than would be expected by chance. For some of these tests, individual response options were collapsed in order to prevent individual groups or cell sizes from being too small and to increase the robustness of the analysis.
The significance testing results in a chi square (X2) statistic and a probability value. Probability is denoted with a p and is considered statistically significant if it is less than 5% (a commonly accepted level of significance). In this report, significance is listed as p < .05 or p < .01 or p < .001, each of which indicates how probable the difference is due to chance. For example, a significance test with a p < .05 means that the array of responses has a less than 5% probability of being due to chance. Alternatively, it means that there is a 95% probability that the differences seen across the responses is due to something other than chance variation (i.e., people believe differently across the subgroups). Due to the large sample size secured for this survey, nearly all of the chi square statistics were statistically significant; therefore, they were not included with each crosstab throughout the report. Rather, they are listed in Appendix E of this report.
https://www.portland.gov/budget/documents/2022-portland-insights-survey-report-pdf/download
If 30% of folks in E Portland really do want to ride bikes as a major part of their “transportation diet”, ignoring them would be political suicide. I expect to hear more from those folks in the coming years, and am looking forward to Portland’s bright cycling future.
According to an East Portland (EPAP) survey we did in 2012, sent to every postal address with a 3% return rate, translated into non-idiomatic English, Russian, Vietnamese, and Spanish, the other 70% want a freeway within a mile of where they live but more than a half-mile away, close enough they can easily access it, but not so close they can hear it. They want to be able to easily walk their dog everywhere and cross busy streets safely, but they don’t want any strangers walking by their house. They want to be able to drive anywhere in the city within 20 minutes, but not allow for people to speed in front of their house. And they want it all for free.
Hampsten nailed it here.
If it weren’t for late-stage-capitalism I would have a 5 minute walk to work downtown, yet also live in a quiet single-family-home neighborhood, have a large, treed yard, low property taxes, and a low mortgage.
-SARCASM-
The cowardice of our electeds in not saying “what you want is impossible” is understandable, but ultimately unforgivable. If your electorate is composed of people who respond to hearing “no” by throwing temper tantrums, what good can you possibly hope to do? Stop pretending.
“The cowardice of our electeds in not saying ‘what you want is impossible’. ”
This is how we got the bike plan, with its impossible 25% by 2030 mode share goal.
I suspect the plan was abandoned the day after it was adopted. If not, it was certainly a dead letter by the time Hardesty took office (so much so that PBOT staff didn’t even bother mentioning it to her before her first meeting with the Bicycle Advisory Committee).
Yes! Thanks for the perspective david.
Entrusting democracy to so called “community-based” organizations in Portland is folly. They are usually comprised of career activists–not representative of the actual community.
See eg. AAPANO which is progressive to the core but Asians are the least progressive ethnicity. Also Basic Rights Oregon is all about Trans identity leaving out concerns of gay men such as myself.
Neighborhood Associations are unrepresentative in D1 (excluding busy minority parents) and subject to capture.
See eg. Lents, where the association became controlled by white, female, recent transplants who excluded livability concerns in favor of social justice topics that didn’t resonate with the neighborhood.
People stopped attending; literally no one came to elect the new board members other than the candidates themselves, and it was forced to dissolve.
The social justice warriors had a role, but it was the misogynist garden gnome impersonator who made the organization grind to a halt and eventually become useless.
Portland parks sent out forms for the residents to act on before they built the park in my neighborhood and they sent out the layouts of the park people decided they liked the one that had parking in the park instead of blocking the street parking in the neighborhood. They even agreed to it by what the community pick which has park parking and showed what it would be. In the end they did what they wanted now our streets are congested from all the people parking for the park. They wasted my time and tax money because they didn’t do what the people picked.
Here is where I insert the ‘worst person you know made a good point’ meme:
“My constituents and I personally feel that too much has been one-size-fits-all in the City of Portland for a generation… and my support will be much easier to get for everything we do if I know that there’s a lens for the district perspective on everything we do.” – EZ
This is true but we do not know which constituents he is referring to – people who want projects that will work somewhere that isn’t a flat grid, or people who oppose closure of downtown streets for ped plazas and road diets like those on Division?
If he means BOTH – well, politics means the first group might have to support (or not oppose) some second-group priorities in order to get traction on their own.
Politics sadly usually means the second group rarely has to reciprocate…
My guess is there were lots of direct and indirect (my people talking with your people) emails and conversations before and after the public meeting, which is common if unethical – ex-partite communications or something like that in legalese – and I expect that city lawyers and the City Auditor will eventually crack down on this.
I’m so glad you caught this, Jonathan. I was listening, too, and hoping you were as well.
I’d love to see a clarifying comment from Eric Zimmerman here. His own campaign website talks about “standardizing” bike and auto lanes across the city, which seems to run at odds with the idea that neighborhoods or districts would shape those projects in dramatically different ways. https://ez4pdx.com/issue/transportation/
I suspect the mayor and those six councilors are hearing a whole lot from the PBA/Portland Metro about the scourge of bike lanes and how they are ruining our city, etc. I am guessing that’s what Wilson’s comment showed us: the bug in his ear.
“and those six councilors”
More like 7 if you include the “socialist” judas who voted for the establishment democrat and Kate Brown protege. I’m no fan of Avalos the market urbanist but I’d support her over Pirtle-Guiney any day
There aren’t many actual socialists around; most “socialists” wear the label as a political fashion accessory, with no idea what it really entails.
https://cosmarxpolitan.tumblr.com/page/2
I believe it was a significant mistake to not include a mayor veto. Particularly given all the special interests elected into the council and the diffusion of accountability given that 3 people share a single district.
Likely this wasn’t even an oversight, judging how members of the “charter reform” committee are now on the council. With one of these members in particular nearly crowed president of the council.
A single voice accountable to all voters of Portland being able to act decisively is what this city needs. Not a bunch of squabbling mostly rookie politicians that could barely even cobble together a meeting agenda and elect their council president.
What “members” are you talking about? Out of the 12 members of City Council, can you name 2 who were on the Charter Commission?
We all know to whom i mostly referring. As a white male, i am not permitted to use this individuals name with any negative context, as i would be excommunicated (i.e. cancelled).
I can only make glowing praise and appreciation when referring by name to this councilor.
Out of the 12 members of City Council, can you name any others besides her?
Just say Candace Avalos. You can dislike her for very legitimate reasons outside of race. She’s not Voldermort, and there are elements in Portland that rely on this fear to shoehorn their agenda and consolidate power.
You are giving people like this power to constantly weaponize race and gender in the absence accountability because you are afraid of being deemed a ‘racist’. You have a right as a free citizen to criticize any elected official.
Portland is in its current condition because of this mentality, and this culture of fear leads to the conditions that lead to fascism (you know the thing we are trying to avoid in a few weeks).
Hold elected leaders accountable of all races/political persuasions/genders. Point out flaws where necessary. There are plenty of people of color that don’t like Avalos and she doesn’t speaks for them. And most POCs want the same things white people do. Class is the bigger differentiator, not race.
We should not dislike anyone for their race/gender, but it doesn’t mean you don’t dare utter their name out of fear.
COTW
You are definitely right. I should not fear having a political ideological difference with someone or be silenced for disliking someones ethics/character due to school color. To be fair, I’ve received facebook attacks from former “friends” for having what i thought was a friendly political disagreement with a non-white (i honestly didn’t even look at their skin color when replying to a political thread)
My main issue with Candace, is that from my observations she doesn’t represent the values of working/middle class members of our Black and “PoC” community. Her base is mostly progressive whites, who get to feel good voting for a “2nd generation” immigrant “Blacktina” (her self labelled conglomeration of Woman, Black, and Latina), that mirrors the same values/ideals as them. Along with low information poor voters, that eat up such populist progressive rhetoric, on the promise of having more from government (rather or not Candace follows through is irrelevant)
Second I’ve heard multiple accounts of her blocking on twitter or aggressively silencing IRL even benign detractors. If a white male acted like this in Portland, they’d be accused of toxic masculinity or projecting white supremacist values.
Lastly as already posted, independent of my agreement or lack of with her politics, it was a complete conflict of interest that she led the charter “reform”, obviously with the intent of annointing herself to the council. Explaining why she fought to prevent breaking up the charter reform into separate measures, pertaining to the need of a city manager (eliminate the bureau based form of governance), the 3×4 district configuration of the city, and the experimental 25%+1 version of RCV as has never been used in the US.
Doesn’t Portland already have a referee, an elected City Auditor, whose job it is to create the agenda and make sure all the other elected officials behave properly?
Auditor may be the least understood position in Portland city government.
This to me reads like the same people who didn’t like the Broadway bike lanes were major campaign contributors to this guy. I do think we might see some positive changes with the current city council since several of them daggone ride bikes for transportation, which could not be said about councils in recent years.
I guess they really need to start taxing bikes to pay for these lanes. Maybe registration of bikes and bike tax every year would work.
What mechanism, exactly, would you use to “tax bikes”? Registration and flat tax would simply deter occasional riders (the kind you see out with their kids once or twice a year at events), enforcement would be difficult, and spinning up a new bureaucracy would probably cost as much as the tax would collect (which is pretty much what happened with the $15 bike sales tax).
That idea is going nowhere.
Shoot, I haven’t purchased tags for my car in 5 years. There’s no consequences.
A weight tax of a penny a pound to cross any bridge in Portland? Walkers, bikers, cars, trucks, etc. Everyone covered.
So $4 for me to walk to the post office? Would you have a guard collecting payments, or rely on the honor system?
And would you divide the $300 fee for a TriMet bus to cross each bridge amongst its 8 passengers?
…spinning up a new bureaucracy…
The Portland Bicycle Bureau (PBB):
_ Paid for with the new Portland Bike Tax: 1% of all bike retail sales including parts, accessories, and clothing, from companies selling $500 million annually to Portland consumers, plus $15 fee per new bike. Tax on retailers rather than consumers. (Easy for city to raise the tax rate later on.)
_ Money generated goes towards…
How many bikes are sold in Portland every year? Maybe 5,000? Set an average price at $500 with an 8% tax, you get $200k. Seems like a lot, but that’s probably what it would cost to sweep the bike lanes at the end of each winter. Boom, your money is gone…
And any bike rider who doesn’t pay that tax has to ride in the car lanes!
Awesome – does that mean if I only bike for transportation then I don’t have to pay any other transportation-related taxes (ODOT especially) since I don’t use the car lanes? Also, I never had kids or used the local school system, so can I get out of those outrageously high property taxes from those education-based bonds that Portlanders love so much?
“does that mean if I only bike for transportation then I don’t have to pay any other transportation-related taxes”
Probably. What non-vehicle transportation taxes do pay? I guess there’s the indirect ones you pay via your employer for TriMet, and the transportation fees built in to the cost of goods you buy.
It’s pretty funny how the ends of the political spectrum resemble each other. You are sensationalizing and misrepresenting things just like Fox News.
Also very selfish. Why add bike lanes that people don’t want and extremely underutilized. The radical bicyclists love sticking it to drivers. There is no need nor anyone using the lanes added to esp. outer SE. You made our lives far worse, cause traffic jams, and more air pollution and accidents.
And you create the us vs them mentality (which hurt everyone).
Stop being selfish.
It’s hard for me to see it as anything else. Cycling modeshare has cratered, since a majority of its most fervent enthusiasts refuse to transition back to in-person work. Yet they refuse to let go of projects for which there’s no need. And these projects need to come before all else, including repairing the roads we already have, paving dirt roads and building sidewalks across the city where people are dying. It’s absurd, but it’s the tribalist “us vs. them” narrative that BikePortland, BikeLoud, Street Trust, etc. have been pushing for years. It’s about punishing the deplorable drivers, not building what is sorely needed.
In the US, cities grow because people want or need to move to them.
That kind of growth means more dependency on motorized transportation.
Portland is a LOT bigger than when I moved here in 1975.
We live in a sizeable city with lots of people, and given the option most of those people would rather drive than ride a bike or take public transit.
Only a radical change in how and why we depend on motorized vehicles is going to force people to change their transportation choices.
That change won’t come without a lot of real pain and strife.
I lived a bicycle-centric life for as long as I could, nearly fifty years.
Disability has recently forced me to reconsider my transportation options, and I ride my bike a lot less often than I used to.
I can no longer handle the risks of riding in an increasingly car-dense and antagonistic transportation landscape, and so I now depend on public transit for about 90% of my needs.
I’m grateful that option exists as fully as it does in Portland; it’s not so great in many other cities.
And I’m also highly aware that buses are part of the motorized transportation picture, depending on the same streets and roads as other motorized vehicles.
Nothing is clean and pure in this life, and every choice we make has consequences and involves little bargains we make with ourselves every day.
This is not the Portland of 1975 or even 1995, and it never will be again.
I have learned to live with that reality.
I think that sooner or later, we all do.
Hello BikePortland; welcome to the world of brigading! Or maybe you’ve always had a lurker crowd of bike-lane haters…
Anyways, to those folk: YES to more transit! NO to removing bike lanes! So we can at least come together on the one item.
Now those folks can go back to pestering the Willamette Week web page.
I hope they rip out every bike lane, raise the price or tax bikes on par with gas or cars, and I hope that every single one of those bass Akwards mental midgets gets what’s coming to them.
Pretty great juxtaposition of this comment with cct’s above it!
“raise the price or tax bikes on par with gas or cars”
Cars require regular inputs of gasoline to run, creating a convenient source of tax revenue. Bikes, on the other hand, provide little opportunities for a similar revenue stream. Most people keep a bike in their garage that they ride once a year, while a few (overrepresented here, obviously) ride daily.
How precisely are you proposing raising similar amounts of revenue from bikes as we do from cars? I’ve been called ill-informed, but I just don’t see it.
I just listened to Thursday’s work session with the Mayor, and he repeated something that is one of those old zombie Portland narratives that just won’t die. Speaking of City Council decision-making, he said: “It’s not just five people who live in District four anymore…” (54:07)
It never was. In fact, most City Commissioners have lived on the east side.
The reason this is important is that it is the foundational fallacy which the city repeatedly has used to justify its inadequate expenditure in the southwest, the West Hills and Linnton.
The link below from The Oregonian has a clickable historic map of City Council residences in five year increments between 1913 – 2014.
https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/eastpdx/power/
Until Amanda Fritz, no commissioner had lived south of Barbur. And most recently (after 2014), Hardesty, Eudaly, Mapps, Ryan, Fish, Rubio and Gonalez all lived east of the Willamette.
I hope people already regret voting for Wilson. Hang on, passengers! – we’re in for a bumpy ride!
Great catch Lisa. What a fantastic reference! The zombie SW fallacy lives on.
Incidentally, it was really surprising which parts of East Portland were incorporated. It wasn’t until 1995! that East Portland was at least nominally incorporated into the city. Also, it wasn’t until 2005 that Portland had a council member from E. Po, which is also crazy.
One common theme in council member residences:
I’d like to see “funds allocated by area” as well as a “zoning change” longitudinal maps.
No, no NO! We’ve suffered from 50 years of councilors with their hands in city projects.
Eric, you are a LEGISLATOR. You get to have a say in passing ordinances that represent the will of the people in your district, and that is ALL. Steering individual projects? – no way! Leave projects to the city manager and the bureaus.
Yes, you’ll hear from constituents who don’t like this or that. But you’ll funnel those concerns to the city manager, or use them to influence future ordinances.
I specifically voted for this form of city gov’t NOT to have direct control over bureaus, which is how the old dysfunctional council worked, and which is how Mapps could take out a bike lane on a whim.
COTW
“Steering individual projects?”
Absolutely. I want my representative doing whatever they can to serve the interests of my district — legislating, arm-twisting, threatening budgets, calling in favors, etc. If PBOT wants to do something that harms us, I want reps who will fight tooth and nail to stop it.
That will be a bit easier if the reps in your district are playing softball, so maybe we agree on that point.
Sorry folks, transportation is not something that each area of Portland should decide on unless each person / group is fully committed to understanding and taking responsibility for the entire system. Telling people they each get to decide what their road that they may live on 1 year, 10 years or 80 years should look like or function is a scam. PBOT has frequently been used as a political tool, but bikes have traditionally lost big in these stunts.
If we were serious about representative design of our transportation system, it would look nothing like the “I’ve been hear’n from people” bullshit that electeds like to dish.
Very disappointing from Wilson.
Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, and Matthew Yglesias have written extensively about the liberal/Democratic Party fetishization of “process”, as opposed to outcomes. Many comments on this article reflect that orientation toward process.
The process in question (local control over development plans planned and paid for by a larger political entity) is *somewhat* outcome neutral.
– Local control allowed Portland to stop the Mt Hood freeway (yay), but is also kneecapping the California high speed rail project (boo).
– Local control may prevent apartment building on vacant urban lots (boo), but it also may prevent paving over a wetland for a Wal-Mart (yay).
– Local control may prevent an LNG pipeline, but it’s also preventing us from replacing fossil fuel energy with clean electricity because it’s difficult to build transmission lines from solar and wind generation sites (BOOOO).
I hope it’s clear that we shouldn’t look to local control as a solution to our problems. Much like a tool, the process itself doesn’t care about the purpose of its use.
There’s one detail to add: that any process that provides checks or roadblocks on action will be inherently conservative. It’s already easier to *not* build a bike lane, perform a road diet, or install other safety features, but the difficulty increases when local control opposes the action. This bias toward the status quo empowers existing interests (automobile oriented development, fossil fuels, entrenched political powers) at the expense of new interests (rider safety, clean energy, etc).
For that reason, we should look to the actual results of our policy, and be less hung up on principles like local control.
Really great points Charley.
Spot on. The status quo is the most likely outcome. This means the way any DOT frames a project at its outset can have a huge difference on the outcome. A DOT must provide varying options while being transparent about the outcomes. 82nd is a really good example of identifying a vision statement with the community in an advisory role, and ending with a project that is essentially the opposite of that vision statement.
The current 82nd plan is the status quo with some medians and intermittent bus-only paint. In this case it is difficult to know if neighborhood, or city control would result in different outcomes. This is an actual quote from the project:
But the options (pg 21) during a project should be transparent. The actual results of that policy, the outcomes of choosing that project, should be transparent: important measurements such as crashes, bike mode share, bus delay etc. will largely remain the same.
“the liberal/Democratic Party fetishization of “process”, as opposed to outcomes.”
So much THIS.
Reading the these comments inspired me to stop mid read and get the gravel-commuter out, air the tires and venture into the downpour on Saturday.
During my 5 mile loop to the post office, gym and Freddys, I encountered 3 pedestrians and 1 car in the first mile…time to restrict motor traffic in favor of those using the roadway the most!
The second and third mile a dozen cars, 3 of which ran red lights, 1 a slow and go through a stop sign.
Lawbreakers in abundance.
The last 2 miles, 4 cars and 3 pedestrians in which..
Not one pedestrian/dog walker was seen breaking any law.
The auto drivers: 1 speeding at twice the posted limit, 1 illegal U turn, 1 turning without signaling, 1 with no functioning tail lights.
I have cycle commuted for over 45 yrs.
Auto drivers…ARE ..the clear and present danger to life and limb on our streets.
Every day..every hour..every road.
This society seems powerless to stop the daily, casual slaughter brought on by firearms ( I own 2 guns) and equally inept at stopping motor vehicles from running down innocent people.
More dedicated bike-pedestrian lanes seems like such a low bar to achieve.
So damned sad.
COTW
The Nextdoor NIMBYs are already trying to figure out how to use city councilors to stop the local Parks/Metro projects at Rose City Golf Course. Parks, like bike lanes, benefit the whole city, not just those who live near them.
And if the State wanted to run a freeway through your neighborhood you wouldn’t become a NIMBY as well?
Guess it’s all one’s perspective on what’s important to them.
But in this case we are talking about people wanting to stop bike lanes and trails. Those are both things that are good for our climate, health, and community, as opposed to a freeway, and as such shouldn’t be allowed to be threatened by a vocal minority.
In short, your priorities shouldn’t be threatened by a vocal minority, but those of others are fair game.
You got em, Watts. It’s about personal priorities, not the fact that we’re comparing a biking path through a park and a massive freeway that would destroy hundreds of homes.
It’s about citizens having a voice in what their government does — that’s a principle I apply to all projects, not just those that I don’t like.
Do you really think it’s better to insult people we disagree with rather than make the better case?
False analogy fallacy. Comparing the funds and methods used in an installation of a bike path (~8′ wide) into a park vs a freeway 6 lanes (+70′ with above or below ground grade). This is a slippery slope to nihilism.
NextDoor is a cesspool. The moderators actively curate the perspectives they endorse, including anti-cycling perspectives.
Someone called and complained about car parked in bike lane PBOT parking enforcement radio dispatch dispatched out a meter maid as “priority 2/low priority).
That’s lower priority than cars illegally parked in hotel valet zone.
Then, it was only ticketed. That car sat in the bike spot essentially ignored until someone called about it again and was towed.. a WEEK later. Meanwhile, in downtown, meter maids go around looking for cars to cite on their own
Sending a meter maid as “low priority”, only ticketing it, then letting it be until someone calls and complains again before finally towing it shows the City of Portland PBOT’s true attitude about bicycles regardless of flowery things they say in their publicity talk.
SE Market St & SE 104th Ave:
Someone called and complained:
They responded as “low priority” https://sndup.net/z7fxj/
No Parking in Block (16.20.205-B) 12/26/2024 (cited)
Someone called and complained, then:
No Parking in Block (16.20.205-B) 01/03/2025 (cited and towed)
When I lived in East Portland, we tried for decades to get bike lanes put in on Market.
Now they have them! Woohoo!
And now people can complain about them, use them wrong, and so on.
Progress…
How do we get PBOT to educate our elected officials that bike lanes are an after thought on these million dollar projects? More often than not the bike lane is a cheap way to constrain the road for safety, actual usage by cyclists isn’t the goal.