Left to right: Mingus Mapps, Chloe Eudaly, Seth Woolley, Sam Adams, Keith Wilson.
(Photos: Respective campaigns)

It’s been a tough pill for me to swallow, but the truth is cycling just doesn’t command the same attention in local political circles that it used to. With so many people struggling to put a roof over their head and all the systemic injustice and inequality that has become even more glaring in recent years, it’s understandable that personal mobility doesn’t merit as much attention as it did a decade ago.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask candidates for local office what they think about it! [Read more…]

Mingus Mapps
(Photo: Mapps campaign)

Locked in a heated race against incumbent City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and former Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Mingus Mapps has jumped into the Covid-19 open streets discussion.

Eudaly, who’s in charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, doubled down on her decision to not adapt our streets to realities of the virus outbreak last week. Eudaly’s position thus far hasn’t changed for nearly a month now and puts Portland further and further outside the mainstream as big and small cities nationwide seize this moment to create healthier streets (see our Monday Roundup for the latest updates).

Mapps’ campaign announced this morning that he wants to “reclaim our streets” and has a “constructive compromise” to offer.

“Mingus Mapps calls on the City of Portland to publicly encourage neighborhoods to apply for block party permits to close down streets in their own neighborhoods,” the announcement reads. “Mingus supports this ‘bottom up’ approach that empowers Portlanders to build social capital and bring neighbors and children outside while also maintaining social distancing. He encourages the City to allow permits to last for up to one week.”[Read more…]

Sarah Iannarone at a rally for the 2030 Bike Plan in February.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

If Sarah Iannarone gets elected to be Portland’s next mayor our streets will probably look and feel a lot different.

A strong transportation reform activist who gets around via e-bike and sits on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s bicycle and budget advisory committees, Iannarone would very likely oversee PBOT if given the opportunity.

That might be why many of Portland’s grassroots transportation activists support her campaign. That might also be why her recently released Recovery and Resiliency Plan calls for things like more investments in bikeways, free transit, and an e-bike ownership incentive program. She’d also created “zero emissions thrive zones” and “pedestrian streets”.

I recently asked Iannarone to weigh in on the open streets debate. That is, what (if anything) should Portland do to take advantage of major changes in how people are getting around during the Covid-19 outbreak?[Read more…]

Mary Peveto.
(Photo: Peveto for Metro)

It’s hard to know what the future holds, but we’re operating under the assumption that we’ll still have local elections on May 19th.

One of the hottest races in town is for a seat on Metro Council. District 5 is up for grabs because Councilor Sam Chase (who’s held the seat since 2013) is running for Portland City Council. In the past month or so we’ve shared posts from two other candidates in this race: Portland Planning Commissioner and transportation reform activist Chris Smith, and civic and nonprofit leader Cameron Whitten.

Today we’ll hear from Mary Peveto. She answered five of my questions.

First, some background. Peveto is known for her work in air quality activism. She founded and still leads Neighbors for Clean Air, a nonprofit that forced a big steel company in northwest Portland to install air cleaning equipment at their plant. Her group has also successfully lobbied the legislature to reduce diesel pollution. Peveto told me she has experience not only in going after big corporations, “But also ineffective and sometimes intransigent government agencies to hold them accountable for doing their jobs of protecting people.”[Read more…]

Governor Kate Brown holds up the signed executive order at a signing ceremony held today.
(Photo from Oregon Legislative Information System livestream.)

Fed up with repeated walk-outs by Republican lawmakers over their objections to climate change legislation, today Oregon Governor Kate Brown took the matter into her own hands. Brown signed Executive Order 20-04 (PDF below) at her desk in Salem this morning surrounded by young students from around the state.

At the signing, Brown said, “I think this Executive Order is extremely bold and aggressive.” The order itself justifies the action by stating, “Given the urgency and severity of the risks from climate change and ocean acidification and the failure of the Legislature to address these immediate harms, the executive branch has a responsibility to the electorate, and a scientific, economic, and moral imperative to reduce GHG emissions and to reduce the worst risks of climate change and ocean acidification for future generations, to the greatest extent possible with an existing laws.”

The order specifically calls out 19 state agencies and governor-appointed commissions. Among them are the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC).[Read more…]