District 3 councilors talk transportation at City Club forum

The topic of transportation got a lot of attention at a forum of city council members in District 3 Wednesday night. At an event hosted by Portland City Club at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church, moderator Sophie Peel (a reporter at Willamette Week) asked councilors Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo and Steve Novick what they felt was a unique challenge facing the district.

Morillo and Koyama Lane both brought responded with transportation.

“We have some of our most beautiful parks and pedestrian areas,” Morillo said. “And at the same time, we have pretty high traffic fatalities on multiple corridors.” Morillo mentioned 82nd, Cesar E Chavez Blvd, and Sandy as examples of dangerous corridors in District 3.

Morillo also offered what she thinks would help make streets safer. “We are going to have to find creative ways to address how we harden our safety barriers in the street to protect pedestrians and bicyclists,” she said. “Because if we don’t do that, the alternative is that we lose our community members and we continue to fund car infrastructure without making sure that people feel safe to find other alternatives.”

Koyama Lane said she hears District 3 come up a lot when talking to cycling advocates, “Because so many people go through District 3 to get to the other districts. So I think it is something that that is huge in D3.”

Both Koyama Land and Morillo mentioned personal stories about how traffic violence impacted them or someone they know.

“There are more and more stories,” Koyama Lane said. “This is going to be something that is kind of systemic, so it’s changing systems, and it’s going to take a long time, but it’s absolutely worth it.”

The councilors also shared their views on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s nascent new funding effort. Novick said he’s hoping any new revenue mechanism raises at least $45-50 million a year (the annual cost to keep up with paving major arterials), and Morillo expressed reluctant support for some sort of new fees. She also offered what she framed as a “creative” idea — to simply stop maintaining some streets and transition them into carfree community spaces. That’s an idea her colleague, Councilor Mitch Green, proposed a year ago.

It was good to hear politicians talk about transportation, road safety, and bicycling. It used to be much more common for these topics to come up at events like this. Perhaps this is another sign that Portland is poised to start leading on transportation reform once again. We certainly seem to have the right political environment for it.

I’ll be watching to see if the next three district councilor forums planned in the coming weeks give transportation this much attention. The next event in this City Club series is February 17 in District 4. Check out their website for more information.