You knew I had to make at least one podcast out of the northwest diverter plan saga. As we enjoy this pause period on the City’s plans to increase access for cars on two key neighborhood greenways, I asked Joan Petit to join me in the Shed for a chat about it. Joan has been posting about the story on Bluesky and I know she’s fired up about what’s been going on. She’s also one of the former co-hosts of the Sprocket Podcast, a fellow politics and biking nerd, and someone who knows her way around city government.
We touch on everything from how the issue could lead to local government reforms, why this story touched such a nerve for so many people, a few conspiracy theories, and more.
Listen in the players above, directly on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks for reading.
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Video appears to not work for me. I tried on Firefox and Chromium, just an FYI
Hi. Might have still been uploading. Should work now. You can also watch/listen directly on YouTube here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDmiZ9sDL6Y
Non-YouTube podcast audio was a bit odd, almost like you inadvertently sped up your own track to 1.1x in post processing.
Hi R,
Yes sorry about that. I actually wanted to try that and see what it was like. I feel like it sounded OK and it trimmed a significant amount of time from the episode. In the future I will not do that however, as I agree it’s better to keep the audio at normal speed. Thanks for the feedback.
Great conversation!
This s much more than about the diverters. We need to explore how this situation got to this place. Where were the discussions with the police, emergency services reps, the neighborhood and users? Placing a hunk of concrete in the middle of any roadway can be a hazard. Sight lines, adequate lighting, ped and ADA movements, reflective markings. PBOT missed the mark on this one, again. Come on PBOT. Do your job!
LOL.
They did.
Precisely the point.
Indeed. It’s also about corruption, old-guardism, power structures and political cowardice. Plus political courage!
Either you are new to Portland or are disingenuously pretending that the Northwest in Motion Plan and its many years of public engagement did not occur:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/planning/nwim/northwest-motion-project-overview-and-process
I suspect the latter.
It could be the police ignored the years of planning, meetings, notifications, and opportunities for input.
And if they did, that could be because they figure if they don’t bother to pay attention to things like the NW street changes, they can always just weigh in after things are built and ask for them to be removed–and the City came close to rewarding them for that strategy.
In this whole diverter discussion, it struck me that on the one hand, the City nearly removed the diverters because it couldn’t accept the compromised patrolling ability that the police claimed the diverters were causing, and it wasn’t even willing (until protests) to slow the removal process down to investigate alternatives or place compromises on the police to accept something short of total removal.
On the other hand, look (see street view below) at the compromise to safety that PBOT was apparently totally willing to place on bike lane users on NW 20th between Everett and Flanders in order to preserve about seven on-street parking spaces:
To get to the spaces, you cross the double-yellow line, and drive head-on into oncoming bike traffic. Then you park facing oncoming bike traffic, so when you leave your space, you can’t see oncoming bikes because your view is blocked from your driver’s seat by the parked car in front of you. That’s dangerous enough that the City bans that situation on typical streets. (Is it even legal here?)
I’m not saying there should or shouldn’t be parking there. I’m saying that the City (PBOT especially) should keep in mind that it routinely forces major safety and function compromises on bike riders and pedestrians–and really does to bikes on this street–so shouldn’t shy away from jumping to remove diverters because another street user (police) claims they compromise them.
Another aspect is that some people have mentioned that removing these spaces could open up possibilities for addressing police concerns while keeping the diverters. It looks clear that removing them would also be a safety improvement for bike lane users. I hope PBOT isn’t seeing removing parking as purely a negative.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portland,+OR/@45.5253341,-122.6923899,3a,75y,161.83h,82.16t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sijZniwAuu7QITmzgPVARsg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.836632916877605%26panoid%3DijZniwAuu7QITmzgPVARsg%26yaw%3D161.83459956975415!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x54950b0b7da97427:0x1c36b9e6f6d18591!8m2!3d45.515232!4d-122.6783853!16s%2Fm%2F02frhbc?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Jonathan you made it to the big time in Portland blogs. Your diverted campaign got a mention in Max Steeler’s Recalibrate Portland. Congrats!
https://substack.com/@coachmaxsteele/note/p-170378076?utm_source=notes-share-action
haha LOL. Thanks for sharing that with me. Max is an interesting character. He’s totally wrong, but it looks like he’s having fun.
Not sure about that. Is he wrong or are you?
I think “wrong” was the wrong word to use here. I just strongly disagree with Max let’s put it that way.