Facing intense pressure from a wide array of concerned Portlanders and one of their own advisory committees, the City of Portland has decided to hold off on a plan to remove diverters and make changes to traffic flow on two neighborhood greenways in northwest.
Last night’s Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting began with an announcement from the committee chair that Mayor Keith Wilson has seen and heard enough. Just minutes before the meeting, Wilson notified BAC Chair Jim Middaugh that he wanted to pause the plan (this would be a stronger and longer pause than previously announced). Wilson’s epiphany came just one day after his own city administrator, Michael Jordan, penned a five-page memo that attempted to explain the city’s rationale for removing the diverters.
That memo was unanimously panned by BAC members, by the three city council members who showed up in person, and by the dozens of Portlanders who attended — nearly all of whom held up bright green signs in the packed room that read, “We Love Diverters,” “Diverters are Public Safety,” and “Save Our Greenways.”
Middaugh spoke on the phone this morning with Deputy City Administrator of Public Works Priya Dhanapal and Mayor Wilson’s Chief of Staff Aisling Coghlan to debrief about the meeting. According to Middaugh, “They’re hearing the need for more conversation. They are anxious about the livability issues [that spurred the diverter removal plan], but recognize there’s a need for a little bit more process.” Middaugh made it clear in my conversation with him after that call that Dhanapal and Coghlan feel the livability issues outlined in the city’s memo must be addressed as quickly as possible. (It’s unclear to me where this urgency is coming from since the issues have been going on for years and they have not provided evidence of any imminent threat to public safety.)
The initial agenda of the monthly BAC meeting included PEMO Director Anne Hill. She was slated to explain her office’s rationale for increasing access for car drivers on NW 20th and NW Johnson. Prior to the meeting, I heard that DCA Dhanapal, Portland Bureau of Transportation Director Millicent Williams, and even Mayor Wilson himself would attend; but none of them showed up. It remains unclear what exactly transpired in the hours leading up to the meeting, but their absence spoke volumes and validated an ongoing concern that no one at the City wants to be held publicly accountable for this diverter removal plan.
“I really wish there were city staff leadership here to answer questions,” said District 3 City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane at the meeting (she also shared that she “was begging that they be in the room”). “It is absolutely reasonable for Portlanders to expect data driven decision making, open communication and transparency around changes to our streets which impact our lives.” This issue is not in Koyama Lane’s district, but she’s thrust herself into it because she wants to be known as the political champion of traffic safety and Vision Zero (she also used to live at NW 20th and Flanders).
Koyama Lane was supported at last night’s meeting by District 2 Councilor Sameer Kanal and District 4 Councilor Mitch Green. (District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo would have also attended but had another commitment. The fifth councilor to oppose the diverter plan is District 3 Councilor Steve Novick).
After hearing sharp criticisms about the city’s plans from BAC members and others at the meeting, the councilors shared their thoughts.
Green, who said he’s “frustrated” by what’s transpired over the last 11 days, assured everyone that “the new form of government is working right now.” “They mayor and city manager made a decision. They didn’t tell anyone. They decided to do a thing, but then a couple of your councilors raised some red flags. We reached out to press and said, ‘Hey, this is a big issue,’ and then community mobilized.” Green added that he felt CA Jordan’s memo was “really problematic” because it, “lays out a series of specious arguments that back into the result they chose to do.”
“There is nothing currently prohibiting the Portland Police Bureau from driving a car through that right-of-way,” Green added. “So if they can do it now, these planters are not a barrier to doing policing. So the benefits of taking the diverters out completely wash out — all you get is the cost of taking them out and now you have a very angry public.”
Green and Koyama Lane are not happy about the lack of transparency around the diverter removal plan, and they have a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The duo plan to amend the provision in Portland City Code (16.10.100) that deals with “Road Authority.” That provision currently reads (emphasis mine),
“As the City’s elected body, the City Council is the road authority for all public streets, except state highways, as designated by state law. The City Council may delegate specific road authority to the City Administrator or Emergency Incident Commander as the Council deems appropriate.”
In laying out his argument that City Council is the ultimate road authority, Green said, “City Council adopted the NW In Motion Plan which led to these diverters. That was city council’s will. The city administrator is allowed to execute our vote. It’s inappropriate for the city administrator to pull back on investments they’ve made without at least notifying city council and asking for permission. That needs to change and that will change.”
Koyama Lane then clarified that she and Green are moving forward with legislation they hope will clarify road authority and they are, “Evaluating this specific incident to see if public involvement principles were followed.”
Councilor Kanal echoed concerns about the lack of transparency from PEMO, who’s cited their Problem Solver meetings as the origin of concerns around the diverters, yet does not take minutes, share agendas, or track attendance of those meetings. (However, Kanal shared with me after the meeting that he does not think PEMO violates state public meeting laws.) Kanal also said he’s skeptical that the PPB actually asked for the diverter removals to begin with. “I’ve seen no evidence that PPB asked for this. I hear people talking about it, but we have not seen it directly, and I’m the co-chair of the Public Safety Committee on City Council.”
Kanal went on to say this situation “is not unique.” “We have a lot of examples where regular people have to go through process after process after process to get in a small piece of community, a small piece of literal space, a small piece of belonging, and the feeling of safety — and then an entrenched interest comes along and, boom! it’s gone.”
The video above features just one of the people who testified in support of the diverters last night. Sabrina Williams lives right near NW 20th and Everett and to her, these aren’t just concrete barricades. She credits the diverters and community garden inside them for restoring her confidence and faith in her community after being victim of a horrific bias crime.
BAC members did their part last night to prevent that from happening this time. In an unprecedented move spurred by support from Councilors Green and Koyama Lane, they penned a future City Council resolution in real-time at the meeting. The text of the resolution (I will share it when I get a final version) makes it clear the committee opposes the diverter removal plan and that any such plan to make changes to neighborhood greenways in the future must go through a public process. The text of the resolution will be handed to Green’s office who will run it through the city attorney’s office and then propose it at a future City Council meeting.
With pressure ratcheted way up by the BAC, an increasing amount of media attention on this issue (there were three local news crews in attendance last night), and with CA Jordan on vacation this week, leaders of the assemblage of city offices that pushed for this ill-fated plan (Portland Solutions, the Public Environment Management Office (PEMO), city administrators and the Mayor’s Office) will likely huddle next week to figure out their next moves. This means the diverters are safe for now, but the community has no assurance about what changes might come in the future.
— The next opportunity for public discussion on this issue will come Thursday when Councilor Green attends the Climate, Resilience and Land Use Committee meeting. He was invited to brief the committee about the diverters by Councilor Novick.
UPDATE, 12:54 pm: I was just informed that PEMO has updated their Problem Solver Network website with times, dates and more information about their meetings (which are all held virtually). Check the screenshot below:
Thanks for reading.
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City Council is wasting our money debating this, possibly the least important issue facing Portland at the moment.
The bike activist community long ago adopted a “never cede an inch!” strategy, and it only serves to make us look like myopic, petty crybabies. There is no shame in compromise; in fact there is beauty and maturity in realizing that your needs, in fact, do not outweigh the needs of the collective. (A “socialist” like Mitch should be well aware of that, but alas, he’s really more of a communist cosplayer, not a true representative of Portlanders).
Anyhow, wake me up when all this is over. You’ll get your big emotional release one way or the other, while the rest of Portland’s issues fester. Good for you, but bad for the city. Which should probably be a motto around here.
Sigh.
I hear you Jackie. But if you consider that this is about more than a few diverters, you might reconsider your opinion. This is also about city governance and who has the right to push for changes to our streets. I think the fact that a city code change and a city council resolution could very likely come out of this speaks to the act that it is not the “least important issue facing Portland at the moment.”
I will also add that for many folks who’ve been victims of traffic violence and/or who know people who’ve been hurt or killed by drivers, the idea that an opaque city office can come in and add more cars to a neighborhood greenway with zero oversight from council, PBOT or bike advocates/experts is very scary and troubling.
I think it’s pretty silly and mean to dismiss folks for standing up for what they believe in. And it’s not as if they aren’t showing up for other things and caring about other issues at the same time too!
To the contrary: it’s not about anything besides the egos of BikeLoud, Mitch, and yourself.
It’s amazing how we royally screwed up the Charter Reform project– thanks, Candace.
By what logic have you reached that conclusion?
I was wondering that as well. I am neither of those people, nor a member of BikeLoud, but I care about this, so you might as well throw my ego on the pile as well. And while we’re talking egos, Jackie, you might want to inspect your own, it appears to be experiencing some spontaneous inflation.
Someone angry about bicycle infrastructure spews a gratuitous insult directed at our black and latina councilor.
Found the PDX “moderate”.
From reading the comments on the several BikePortland pieces on this issue, it seems that the cycling community IS largely open to making sensible changes. Unfortunately they have been excluded from a year’s worth of closed-door meetings and only learned about the decision after it was made. By contrast, I’m not seeing much flexibility from those who want to return these blocks to unlimited car traffic. Has PPB considered putting the officers patrolling this area on bikes or on foot–which every study shows is a more effective way to police problem areas? Have PEMO or PBOT considered opening these blocks to emergency vehicles only? It seems like the underlying priority is to make things more convenient for car drivers at the expense of everyone else. It’s just like car proponents who point to faster movement of freight as a justification to expand a freeway–but none of them would ever favor creating a freight-only corridor.
In an era of austerity and budget cuts, removing evidence-based traffic calming measures at great expense to tax payers bases on, as far as I can tell, vibes, should be a cause for concern for everyone.
What revisionist history. Motorists and the City have long held a “never cede an inch” attitude towards building bike and ped infrastructure. That’s why we have to fight for YEARS and do outreach after outreach to get a smidge of non-paint infrastructure. This is an appropriate response when PEMO, an unaccountable organization captured by businesses and other affluent citizens, starts intervening in road design at the behest of NIMBYS.
Where is the compromise here? And I would be fine getting rid of the diverters if PEMO had actual evidence that getting rid of them would do literally anything. PEMO is making an extremely refutable claim and expecting us to just take them at their word.
These diverters already existed. No one but the City is to blame for the amount of time we are spending on this.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK !!!
PEMO and PORTLAND SOLUTIONS ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS
Someone who did not get what they wanted posting an insult-filled comment on bikeportland that complains about “crybabies” is beautiful cognitive dissonance.
I also love this pretzel-like logic:
Backroom deals that seek to underhandedly violate city council-ratified policy and public meeting law: good for the city???
Many years of transparent outreach, conformance with Portland policy and plans, ratification by elected councilors, and clear evidence of widespread public support:
bad for they city???
When all you have is an inch that took years and years to get, yes, “never cede an inch.”
It should be clear, if you have looked at the details, that this is not only about biking or bike activists. And, while you are considering the “collective good” consider the immense good that would come from reducing car use what is necessary.
The way I see this, there is a real livability problem caused by open drug use, camping on public property, and criminality in the neighborhood. Instead of finding solutions to these issues, the Mayor is proposing to remove nearby infrastructure designed to make streets safer, which is likely to have a negligible impact on the identified problem.
The Mayor and the city administrator are the ones wasting resources.
If they could actually draw a causal connection between diverters and criminal/antisocial behavior, and if they could articulate a clear strategy for measuring the efficacy of removing diverters on addressing the stated problems, as well as a plan for going back to diverters if removal proves ineffective, I’d be behind the mayor’s plan 100%. But I don’t think anyone really believes that the push to remove diverters actually came from a focus on reducing crime and drug use.
Totally agree! More cars driving by at a faster speed isn’t going to reduce criminal activity.
What are the needs of the collective here? Removing traffic diverters at the whim of a few disgruntled neighbors? I’m happy to cede things when it makes sense, but this clearly doesn’t. There was no public process, no clear and transparent justification, and no reason to even float this idea. It’s a dumb plan! We shouldn’t just follow through on dumb plans just for the sake of doing things. We ought to have transparency and democratic processes when it comes to the streets of our city.
The protest was against a City staff person spending public money unilaterally undoing City decisions that had been approved after a long, considered public process.
That’s not a trivial thing to protest.
Exactly. That’s good advice for city administrator who couldn’t compromise to the point they approved spending money to remove infrastructure that was already approved, paid for and installed, and for the police who couldn’t compromise enough to simply drive around the diverters.
There are a few pretty important issues here, beyond the stakes of the specific infrastructure involved:
I think this proposed changed failed to clear some incredibly basic hurdles of good policymaking, including:
Because they failed to clear those hurdles, there is the impression that we are worsening public safety to appease rich NIMBYs who are politically connected, or that this is a quid pro quo to get people on board with overnight shelters in the neighborhood. Making transportation infrastructure less safe to appease special interest groups is not good! Letting livability complaints to become an effective pretext to undo traffic safety initiatives is not good!
COTW
Ah, but Jackie, the “activist community” didn’t make this an issue. The city made it an issue.
You see, and I’m surprised you miss this point ’cause it’s obvious…the diverters were already there.
And, by the city’s own admission, not actually causing any problems anyone can identify. In fact they were reducing traffic incidents in the area.
So all the city had to do was…not try to secretly remove the diverters. That were already there.
Get it now?
On BikePortland 2025-08-13, 12:54
https://bikeportland.org/2025/08/13/mayor-announces-diverter-plan-pause-as-bike-advisory-committee-ratchets-up-pressure-395925#comment-7549901
Okay let’s talk about the needs of the collective. For me, the most interesting passage in City Administrator Jordan’s memo was actually this:
So, in the 5 years previous to the diverters being installed at that corner in early 2021 there was an average of 1.8 automobile crashes per year. In the 4.5 years since they’ve been put in there has been an average of 0.667 automobile crashes per year.
CA Jordan notes parenthetically that the 3 crashes since the diverters were installed were “vehicle only” — no pedestrians involved. He doesn’t tell us if any of the 9 crashes that occurred at in the five years before diverter were put in were vehicle-only, but if even one of them involved a pedestrian, then there’s been a 100% reduction in vehicle-pedestrian crashes at the corner since the diversion. Small sample size statistics can be noisy, but those are statistics for that specific street corner.
Weigh that against CA Jordan’s assertion that the diverters have led to more crime, which he backs up with … well, he gives us a link to a map of reported crimes for the past year in an area that contains the intersection — an area that is a hexagon with sides 1/8 mile in length (1/8 mi is 660 feet or the length of 3 Portland city blocks).
He does not tell us whether the number of reported crimes in the past year is greater or less than the year before, let alone if the reports of crimes in the area changed at all before or after the diverters when in — which would make these reports relevant to the question at all! Without that before/after comparison they are just irrelevant.
Other than that, Jordan just gives us feelings, vibes, of unspecified people that the diverters somehow contribute to crime and nuisance. And we’re being the “emotional” “crybabies”? A rational adult would not give CA Jordan’s assertions a moment’s consideration — let alone act on them.
This isn’t just about cycling. Not just about years of work that were about to be undone by people operating in the background.
This was about a complete failure by many parties to abide by the will of the elected leaders of our city as laid out in the In Motion plans, and about the community rising up and holding them accountable.
Congratulations to all who spearheaded this fight – you have done us all a service.
I guess the whole world was just awash in crime and drug use before the advent of massive motor vehicles blasting hundreds of horsepower, that allowed cops to finally zoom to the scenes of the crimes and save us all. But now the evil commies and hippies have reversed all that progress, with their goofie greenways and such. Someone should inventory for us all the idyllic, crime free cities of the world, all made possible by unhindered high velocity motor vehicle routes, free of all the commie and hippie *livability” nonsense afflicting us here in Portland. /s
Do you have any data that the majority of the “collective” wants these diverters removed?
A few stories ago, a BP member commented on how we brought this on ourselves, voting in a city run by a powerful City Administrator; my response was that that council could change things in the new system easier than in the old, and should.
From Councilor Green:
Maybe not a full-throated roar of defiance, but a reasonable step towards defining just who is in control. Our system is designed like our Federal one: council passes the laws, mayor sees that they are enacted (Judicial branch in Portland hides under the desk begging everyone not to get us sued), City Administrator is similar to OMB I would guess. Everyone jockeys for power, and that’s what we’re doing now.
Let’s hope it works ot better for us locally than it has nationally.
I disagree with Green: I don’t think we want a situation where the council gets to approve everything the mayor does – essentially takes back day-to-day operational control from the mayor and his staff. That’s what we had before the referendum and it caused endless problems.
The mayor and his staff need to be able to respond to exigent circumstances quickly, within a framework provided by the council. Methinks they thought they could invent exigent circs to remove the diverters by looping in the police, but the whole justification was so flimsy it collapsed like a house of cards. It’s like the Mango Mussolini calling the National Guard into DC: everyone can see the justification is a fiction.
It’s going to take a few years before the council and the mayor’s office achieve a balance that works. I’d say the mayor has taken a positive step toward achieving it.
True but if you see the context of the quote, it’s limited to situations where the actions are contra something the council has expressed its will about clearly (in this case, the diverters are part of Northwest In Motion). Not about everything the CA wants to do.
“It’s like the Mango Mussolini calling the National Guard into DC:“
It’s not at all like that. Plenty of good analogies exist for what you want to express, that wasn’t one.
“It’s going to take a few years before the council and the mayor’s office achieve a balance that works. I’d say the mayor has taken a positive step toward achieving it.“
What?!? Did I misunderstand the gist of your point? How is sneaking around to get rid of established diverters a positive step?
With BP’s clarion call that something shady was happening and followed up by in-depth article after in-depth article which triggered public awareness and heavy public pressure, meaningful change was accomplished.
Congratulations to everyone involved! So much more effective than mindlessly performative noise making and window breaking. Then again, hard work to make real and codified change takes a lot of effort.
Yes! This is democracy in action: slow, frustrating, sometimes tenuous progress. I wish more people who are “into politics” would focus on this kind of democracy, rather than pipe dreams of revolution.
Economically comfortable white man in ever increasingly unequal and racist society wants the poor and marginalized to not dream of revolution.
Fork in kitchen.
Sky is blue.
Amazing. So proud of the BAC, BikeLoud, council members and everyone who attended.
As someone following along from afar this past week (soon to be a resident in the next month!) -> This was really inspiring to watch the community mobilize and push for transparency and accountability. Here’s to hoping an amicable solution is achieved and the community is able to save this important safety infrastructure.
Kudos to JM/BP and the community leaders for getting the word out. Portland is very lucky to have such a great crew.
Thanks for pointing out that this was a community-wide effort, not just a bike lobby effort. The initial protest was organized by Strong Towns PDX. Families for Safe Streets was there, as were folks from the neighborhood, and past members of the NWIM Advisory Committee. KOIN in their newscast framed it as a bikes v. the city story (everyone likes to tell the same old story over and over — it’s easy and safe) but what was inspiring about this action is that it wasn’t just cyclists out there, protesters cut across a wide swath of the community.
That said, BikePortland is the crucial piece for mobilizing and documenting what happens. Thank you Jonathan.
Good to know. What a great coalition. Thanks for providing more crucial context. These groups are now on my list to follow when I get to town.
Community wide? This issue literally does not exist outside of the neighborhood and the BikePortland comment section.
None of whom actually live anywhere near the diverters.
Pure virtue signalling and tribalism.
I disagree. Any cyclist or pedestrian traveling through this neighborhood has a vested interest in these roads being safe. And last I checked, the road doesn’t care what tribe one belongs to, what color bike one rides.
Hi there, I’m a BikePortland commenter and I do, in fact, live near the diverters. And, because I live near the diverters I know that the ones on NW 20th/Everett get a ton of pedestrian and bicyclist use any time there’s an event at Providence Park. So this is very much an issue for more than just people in the neighborhood.
I can literally see the diverters from my window. Do you have anything to contribute besides emotive language, psychoanalysis of people you’ve never met, and name-calling?
This is a governance issue – the city voted in a system that was supposed to end or at least reduce back-door crap like this. The mayor, city administrator and PEMO are getting shit from people who don’t care about bikes, but DO care that this smacks of the old way of doing business. It will be interesting to see where they lose, as well as gain, support for it.
Do you live by the diverters? Since that is one of your critiques. And if you do, I appreciate the issues you might face, but this wasn’t the way to solve them.
The issue is literally reported across multiple mainstream media outlets. The concerns about the diverter removal process extrapolate to various decision-making across the city. It turns out this diverter was the canary in the coal mine.
This comment is so demonstrably false, I’m surprised you took the time to write it out.
A big thank you to everyone who stuck their neck out on this! The leakers, JM, those who stood in the street and raised the alarm, media for reporting on it, city councilors and staff, BAC, and all the rest. The fact that you care and look out for others who rely on this type of infrastructure or are otherwise impacted by car violence and car culture that sacrifices safety at every turn (that’s all of us!) is comforting and inspiring.
Is this how it went down? It seemed to me like the movement was community-led, and then the press and councilors got involved.
Hi Dusty,
The community was not aware of the plans until they read about them here on BP. And I was not aware of them until Councilor Green forwarded an email to me about it.
This is primarily an engineered conflict designed to boost the profile of Maus and BikeLoud. Mitch and the DSA have decided that there’s a mutual interest to be exploited.
Portland loses again.
OK, now you’re just trolling. “Boost the profile?” Are you really suggesting the publisher of this website is in it for fame and Glory?
The more you post, the more your comments become unhinged from reality.
this has become an exercise in troll-feeding.
You really hate those diverters, don’t you??
I don’t understand your binary win/loss assessment. You want these diverters removed I take it?
Are you suggesting there is a DSA / bike advocate deep state controlling things behind the scenes?
Dang! You caught me. I engineered this conflict as a honey trap for the city administrator, the mayor’s office and their backdoor buddies to humiliate themselves while catapulting Maus, the socialists, various crybabies who have to wear glasses and the all powerful bike lobby to the PDX throne. Don’t tell anyone.
“Jackie” isn’t really winning any arguments, here. Actually, Jackie’s not really making any arguments.
I live down the block from the diverter. I can see it from my apartment window. I never received notice of the removal of the diverters, or that it was even under consideration.
A committee with leadership appointed by the Mayor meets with persons unspecified for which there is no public record or even an agenda is your idea of “community-led” movement?
My District Councilor (Green) alerted the press (BP and the Mercury) to what was going on. The press and at least two local civil society groups (DSA and BikeLoud) alerted me and my neighbors to what was happening on our block. Then we got involved and packed a meeting of one of the City advisory bodies to ask questions and express our opinions of the move.
This is what democracy looks like.
“(However, Kanal shared with me after the meeting that he does not think PEMO violates state public meeting laws.)”
If PEMO’s behavior does not violate current public meeting laws, then the laws should be revised. Making decisions using secret, closed-door meetings with no posted minutes, agenda, or attendee information should not be legal. If the state won’t do it with a statute, the city should do it with an ordinance.
I hear you Mark. And the councilors do too. There are the state public meeting laws, which Kanal was saying he doesn’t think would be triggered in this specific case because of a technicality about how PEMO’s meetings operate. But that doesn’t mean they won’t face a mandate to change and/or the meeting laws might need to change. I am not an expert in this arena and the issue deserves more focus than I can give it right now.
Why does Councilor Kanal think that PEMO does not violate state public meeting laws?
Taylor Griggs at the Portland Mercury has a good story about this that addresses this issue. It seems like they are arguing that because PEMO isn’t making decisions, it’s just collecting information and then reporting it, the public meeting laws don’t apply. Obviously, that rationale falls apart when PEMO can order a city agency to take actions, but I think that’s the claim. The story doesn’t attribute this to Councilor Kanal, so he might have different reasons, but it seems likely this would be why the City’s position is that PEMO is subject to state public meeting law requirements.
https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2025/08/12/47970304/portlands-most-effective-channel-for-addressing-community-concerns-is-a-back-door
Thanks Josh. I was struggling to understand this as well.
That position seems to be drawing a very fine line between two very problematic methods of special interest: 1) What has been longstanding unofficial policy, that is a guy with money making private call to mayor/director (e.g., Mapps gets a request from a hotel owner on Broadway to remove a PBL), and 2) a new official policy we see here (i.e., guy with money legally “providing information” to the mayor at semi-private, city-funded meetings leaving no public record). I’m not sure either scenario is very constructive.
If Portland Police, PBOT and any other city staff go to a meeting and then “map out some options and the plan went from there,” Then it is process without public input which is a violation of city policy
How does PBOT go from “Initially, PBOT recommended [maintaining existing planters and traffic controls],” to recommending“[relocating planters and adding an all-way stop].” Perhaps they were directed to do so by CA Jordan
Mitch Green: “If PEMO and the Problem Solvers and the police can all get together and say, PBOT, give me a plan that validates this set of desires, that means City Council has some work to do.”
Looks like Fire, Parks and other City Internal Offices & Bureaus are involved too…
Here comes the Sun…
Big thanks to everyone who showed up!
Notable by their absence: Councilors Clark and Zimmerman, who rep this area along with Green.
Come election time, everyone should remember who showed up for safety (Green) and who didn’t (Clark and Zimmerman).
One more note on the politics: Very smart for Sameer and TKL to show up, even though it’s not their district. Green will remember and will help them on their issues in the future.
It also demonstrates that Councilors Kanal and Koyama-Lane consider the issue of traffic safety and government transparency to be a priority for them and their constituents. I’m thoroughly impressed with all of the councilors who have shown up on this.
Fred, we don’t know what was going on behind the scenes. IIRC, Clark and Zimmerman said they supported the mayor. They probably still support the mayor. I know for a fact that Clark was in conversation with protestors as early as last week.
Zimmerman knew about the diverter removals weeks ago and is on board with them.
Can you provide evidence of this? TIA
He’s been one of the cheerleaders of this for awhile.
https://www.portland.gov/council/districts/4/eric-zimmerman/news/2025/5/29/may-newsletter-approved-budget-parks-neighborhood
“Remove barriers on NW 20th & Everett.“
Thanks EP. I wonder if it even registered with his office prior to this why those divertors were there in the first place. Just a benign-seeming list of to-dos.
So he’s claiming they have a ppb couch park bike patrol. If so, why are we getting rid of diverters?
Lisa, one of my comments seems to have been stuck in the spam folder (too many edits, I guess). Can you please free it?
I emailed my District 3 councilors (Koyama-Layne, Novick, and Morillo) for taking a stand on this.
I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed over the past week the influx of Jackie’s, Karen’s and Joe’s coming to a news blog titled BikePortland to chastise BikePortland readers and commenters for their focus on bike topics.
The enjoyment is enhanced by how badly conceived their criticism is — such as hectoring bike users for a lack of compromise in the face of an arbitrary, behind-closed-doors act by the mayor’s acolytes to remove infrastructure implemented through a concerted public process — because they want to so terribly badly rail against people who bike.
[Yeah, I don’t know either why they have such enmity. Car users, who maim, injure and destroy in such astronomically larger numbers never have to feel the rhetorical blade of their withering rapier.]
I bet these are the same folks who think Captain Renault is actually shocked at gambling at Rick’s.
Given the *ahem* quality of the argumentation on display in Jackie’s comments, maybe these are all alias accounts for City Administrator Jordan.
I’m sorry, that’s probably too rude. Jordan’s memo didn’t persuade me, but it’s better than Jackie’s comments.
Nothing in the comments of these individuals suggests that they aren’t cyclists; they may very well be. However, I am tired of the fatalism of “this isn’t a big enough issue to fight”, particularly on something this clear-cut and how it undermines city council’s authority to set policy and expect that it gets implemented.
If individuals don’t take a stand on the “small stuff”, then politicians will feel free to exercise increased license to execute undemocratic actions on larger and larger stuff. Then one day you’ll wake up and wonder why entire agencies have been defunded or dismantled. Not that America in 2025 would know anything about that…
Say what you will about PORTLAND SOLUTIONS–they have a fabulous org chart:
https://www.portland.gov/sscc/about
And PEMO has a wonderful graphic. It seems their work is all about hexagons
A big Thanks to all the people who voiced keeping diverters in place. Would love to see more…BUT the big deal here is that people spoke up and made a difference. Many thanks. AJZ
Thank you for this report. The meeting was a gathering that represented a very broad demographic presenting valid experience and community need that was overlooked by the city administrator due to the lack of transparency regarding this issue. This is democracy at work. To fill in the question marks I always like to look at the money trail. There we have one of the most opaque state agencies, mentioned in the memo as providing funding for lighting improvements: ODOT.
Bravo for the facilitation of community engagement.