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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
“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.
“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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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). 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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?
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!
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.