Portland City Council will establish their first-ever set of policy committees at their meeting on Wednesday. Based on documents posted to the council agenda today, there will be eight committees with five council members each.
The new Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would be chaired by Councilor Olivia Clark (D4). Vice chair would be Angelita Morillo (D3) and the other members are Loretta Smith (D1), Mitch Green (D4) and Tiffany Koyama Lane (D3). All but Councilor Smith should be very familiar names to BikePortland readers and/or Bike Happy Hour attendees. And notably there are no members from District 2 (north/northeast).
In Portland’s new form of government, these committees will serve as the primary venues to debate and develop policy proposals. They will also provide oversight of city bureaus and programs. As far as how Portlanders will be able to connect to the committee itself, I’m not clear on that yet. I’m hoping there will be some sort of committee liaison staff person on the administrative side — separate from the councilors.
Clark was likely picked to lead the group due to her extensive experience with TriMet and the state legislature. As vice chair, Morillo will be responsible for leading the committee when Clark is absent. Morillo didn’t have a car growing up and was primarily a transit user prior to getting a bicycle last year. Councilors Green and Koyama Lane are both regular bike and transit riders who made their priorities about transportation clear during their campaigns. Morillo, Koyama Lane, and Green should be very progressive with their approach to transportation policies and projects, while we can likely expect Clark and Smith to be more conservative.
If the committees pass as posted to the agenda, Councilor Morillo could also play a leading role in another committee that will loom large on BikePortland: the Climate, Resilience, and Land Use Committee. Morillo is listed as co-chair of that committee with Councilor Steve Novick. Other proposed members include Candace Avalos, Dan Ryan and Sameer Kanal.
See the full list of committees and membership here. Council will vote on the committees at their meeting tomorrow at 6:00 pm. Because this resolution is on the “Nine-Twelfths Agenda” it must be approved by at least 9 of the 12 councilors to pass.
Below are all eight committees and their proposed membership:
Transportation and Infrastructure
- Olivia Clark, Chair
- Angelita Morillo, Vice Chair
- Loretta Smith
- Mitch Green
- Tiffany Koyama Lane
Homelessness and Housing
- Candace Avalos, Chair
- Jamie Dunphy, Vice Chair
- Angelita Morillo
- Dan Ryan
- Eric Zimmerman
Climate, Resilience, and Land Use
- Steve Novick, Co-Chair
- Angelita Morillo, Co-Chair
- Candace Avalos
- Dan Ryan
- Sameer Kanal
Community and Public Safety
- Steve Novick, Co-Chair
- Sameer Kanal, Co-Chair
- Angelita Morillo
- Eric Zimmerman
- Loretta Smith
Arts and Economy
- Mitch Green, Co-Chair
- Dan Ryan, Co-Chair
- Jamie Dunphy
- Loretta Smith
- Olivia Clark
Labor and Workforce Development
- Loretta Smith, Chair
- Mitch Green, Vice Chair
- Jamie Dunphy
- Steve Novick
- Sameer Kanal
Finance
- Eric Zimmerman, Chair
- Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Vice Chair
- Candace Avalos
- Mitch Green
- Steve Novick
Governance
- Tiffany Koyama Lane, Chair
- Dan Ryan, Vice Chair
- Elana Pirtle-Guiney
- Jamie Dunphy
- Olivia Clark
Thanks for reading.
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Really interesting that two fifths of the transpo committee come from SW. Another way of looking at it: two thirds of the SW contingent is on the committee.
So what will it mean for SW Portland? I’m thinking probably nothing, though I am really encouraged that Mitch Green rides a bike to get around. After he has navigated the Barbur bridges to get downtown, he’ll appreciate more than anyone what crappy bike infra we have in SW and maybe he’ll vote for policies that allow SW to catch up and get some of that Cadillac bike infra you have east of the river.
Funny you should envy the east. “Cycling advocates in Portland have long hoped to gain ground in the eastern part of our city.” All good now? Or is your comment meant to be ironic? I have seen a lot of Cadillac and other large cars when riding east of the river.
Your link goes to an article about the election.
By any measure, the cycling infra east of the river is 10-20X more than the west side. Heck – you have “bike boulevards” all over the place; in SW we have exactly ZERO. We have just a few arterials with bike lanes but most do not.
But will Clark and Green make a difference for SW? We’ll see, but I’m not holding my breath. Green rides a bike at least. Since Clark worked for Trimet, she is probably all about buses, but bus service out here is so sporadic and scattered that I don’t see anyone moving the needle in that area either.
I think the disconnect here is that there’s East Portland and East Portland. As someone who regularly commutes between Gateway and Lloyd and rides all over the Gateway/Montavilla/Parkrose/Maywood Park/Cully area and as someone who once lived in an apartment in the Sylvan area, I’m not sure that hilly Southwest or stroady Far East really have it worse than the other.
I think you two are both saying the same thing. Southwest and the Outer Eastside both have been neglected for too long in terms of transportation. In the past several decades the inner eastside housed almost all city commissioners and hence received an outsized amount of funds and transportation projects. This hopefully-new focus on D4 will be a welcome change, and all I wish is that that there were more D1 councilmembers on the committee too at the expense of the D3 councilmembers.
In BP’s interview with Clark she was all about potholes.
Fred, educate yourself about the TriMet Transit Payroll tax which is applied to employers:
https://www.oregon.gov/dor/programs/businesses/pages/trimet-transit.aspx
https://trimet.org/history/trimetstory.htm
Clark was hired by TriMet to negotiate an increase to that tax which she got passed by the Oregon state legislature in 2009. The tax hadn’t been raised since adopted in 1969. Clark negotiated with all the area big employers (Intel, Nike), and Labor, and got the increase through the legislature. With that capital, TriMet funded the Green and Orange MAX lines.
She also got funding for the Tillikum Bridge.
Clark is exactly the person you want heading the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
District 4 includes NW Portland too, and I think that’s where Mitch Green lives (based on anecdotes I’ve picked up on in the past few months)
He lives around Multnomah Village iirc
He lives south of Barbur, as does Zimmerman. All D4 reps live in the southwest.
Should we assume that Transportation and Infrastructure also includes water and sewer (BES), which are even bigger budget items?
Yes; and Clark has a least a glimmer of understanding that stormwater issues hold up – or are the EXCUSE to – bike and ped infrastructure in several parts of the city (but of course mainly SW).
I do not expect to get a cornucopia of sidewalks and bike lanes, Cadillac or Camry. I do expect that we will see groundwork being laid to move that way citywide.
I’m bummed there’s no one from D2 in the Transportation and Infrastructure committee.
It would be so nice if we could focus on local issues instead of global ones.
Portland bicyclists should celebrate the Nov 2020 voter rejection of the SW Corridor MAX extension to Tigard “widening” of state Hwy 99W. It’s flaws are too many and too severe to list here. The ideal ped/bikeway on Barbur from Burlingame to Corbett Lair Hill is a wide 2-way route on the eastside, separate from the old bridge and around the ramp from Hillsdale that crosses Barbur.
In the recent State Transportation Committee public hearings, ODOT director Kris Strickler revealed too clearly his terrible agenda in a 10 minute testimony that began with the money, ended with the money and in between the money for this project, the money for that project and the money for the other projects.
Any list of metrics that determine merit of said projects should begin with Public Safety, then Public Health, Environmental Impact, Urban Impact, Gains in public transit patronage, development potential and lastly THE MONEY (various costs) after more important metrics meet high standards. The SW Corridor project met NONE of these metrics, not even close.
The Rose Quarter I-5 so-called “improvement” likewise fails all these metrics. To call this stretch of I-5 a “bottleneck” is a LIE. To propose “lids” above I-5 here puts new residents in harm’s way. Relocating the southbound exit ramp from Broadway to south of Weidler will produce multi-car pileups at this hairpin turn putting Public Safety and Public Health LAST on this list after lucrative development potential and various costs.
A federal investigation of ODOT, WsDOT, PBOT, Portland Bureau of Development Services, Metro and Tr-Met is warranted.
“To call this stretch of I-5 a “bottleneck” is a LIE.”
Why is that?
The I-405 Fremont Bridge just north has worse traffic all day and bumper-to-bumper during rush hours. The I-5 Marquam Bridge in the south waterfront has traffic that bad. Both bridges can be considered bottlenecks. The Rose Quarter stretch of I-5 has less traffic moving at manageable speeds all day and rarely becomes a traffic jam. ODOT director Kris Strickler is a liar conducting fraud at public expense. He and Metro director Peterson are closet conservatives.
Maybe Strickler is a liar and a fraud, but if he is, he’s done a great job of convincing a huge number of people to go along — legislators, public servants, a range of officials in other agencies, and plenty of people at the federal level.
While I oppose this project myself, I have to admire the breadth and depth of the conspiracy, and Stricker’s ability to keep everyone on the same page in support of such an obviously unnecessary project. Surely he’s considered the possibility of the investigation you demand, and has those folks buttoned up as well.
Truly masterful.
Masterful is hardly an accurate description of deceit, dishonesty and reckless endangerment that amounts to negligent homicide. Mister Strickler fully expects his atrocious engineering stunts will result in more multi-car pile ups, more car passenger, pedestrian and bicyclist injury and fatalities. The penalty for reckless endangerment is 5 to 10 years in prison.
Lock him up!
Thanks for the laugh.
Another LIE worth mentioning is promulgated by Ted Wheeler. The Marquam Bridge is slated for replacement by 2050 after it was severely damaged in the 1991 earthquake. Wheeler claims I-5 can be relocated in a subway under the Willamette River. This is a LIE. It is neither physically possible nor advisable if it were because of extremely severe traffic hazards. Wheeler tells this LIE to entice development of South Waterfront towers or a baseball stadium sans the Marquam Bridge.