Dr. Fraug on one of Portland’s greenways. (Photo: Mike Bennett)
With bike ridership in Portland going down, some point to the city’s “hidden” neighborhood greenway system as a reason more people aren’t cycling. Since many of the city’s most popular bike routes — residential streets that feature diverters and traffic calming measures to reduce rider stress — are out of sight, not everyone is aware they even exist.
Perhaps, the thinking goes, more signage on the greenways could help turn the tide. For that, we turn to north Portland artist and “public joy creator” Mike Bennett, who recently released some new designs to his roster of “Bennett Buddies” that we’d love to see taking up residence all over our greenways.
Bennett is the mastermind behind the iconic “slow down” street signs that feature famously slow animals like snails and sloths telling drivers to take their foot off the gas and get on their level. When these signs started to proliferate on Portland’s streets a couple years ago, we drew the connection between their popularity and the increase in driver speeding/lack of enforcement during the pandemic.
Unfortunately, the conditions on Portland’s streets haven’t improved much in that time, and people are still relying on yard signs to serve as de facto traffic enforcers. Even the City of Portland knows the value of signage to create an identity for greenways and has an aggressive yard sign program. At an informal gathering of bike activists Friday in the Lents neighborhood, BikeLoud PDX Board Member Aaron Kuehn shared draft designs of a new large sticker he’s creating for the group. It would be emblazoned with “Bike Loud” and the idea would be to stick it on traffic poles along good cycling routes to help others find their way.
Now Bennett and his new character Dr. Thadeus Fraug, a “self-diagnosed bicycle believer” who wants to keep his fellow “spoke-folk safe”, will add to that mix.
“With his highly visible ‘Bicycle Zone’ sign at his side, he’s a ribbeting reminder for drivers and an adorable addition to your neighborhood,” Dr. Fraug’s description reads. We envision him making his mark on greenways from NE Klickitat to NW Pettygrove as soon as possible.
Current signage on Portland’s neighborhood greenways is lacking, though it’s better on some routes than others. SE Clinton Street, for instance, features many orange bike street sign toppers and yard signs letting people know they’re on a greenway. But other greenway streets could really use a boost.
BikeLoud stickers and Bennett’s buddies won’t be able to fix Portland’s declining bike ridership on their own, but more awareness of where bike routes are certainly can’t hurt.
How will Oregon pay for a major expansion of the I-5 freeway between Portland and Vancouver (also known as the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program)? We’ve known for a while that the magic number for Oregon’s share would be $1 billion — that’s the amount the state of Washington has already pledged, and with a project estimated to cost as much as $7.5 billion, the federal government needs to see cooperation and a local match before they’re willing to award coveted infrastructure grants.
With the clock ticking and all eyes on Oregon, we finally know how our state plans to come up with the money: they want to borrow it.
Last Wednesday the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation revealed a plan to bond against $700 million in Oregon Department of Transportation state highway fund tax revenue (which comes from gas taxes, vehicle registration fees, and fees from freight trucks). The remaining $300 million would come from bond sales from the state’s general fund. The state would be on the hook to pay back these debts beginning in 2026.
Source: ODOTSource: Joint Committee on TransportationLeft: Chart showing where state highway funding goes. Right: The IBR funding plan.
The payback would hit ODOT funding in particular starting in 2032, when they estimate it would carve $50 million per year out of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. To put that debt into perspective, it’s almost the same amount ODOT spends on public transit statewide each year ($60 million). It would also add to ODOT’s already heavy debt load. Of the $782 million ODOT receives from the state highway fund each year, just over 20% of it — $163 million — goes directly to debt service.
Another element of the funding plan is that lawmakers would set a hard cap for the total cost of the project so that it may not exceed $6.3 billion. It’s worth noting that when ODOT released their updated cost estimate back in December, they gave a range of $5 to 7.5 billion and settled on $6 billion as the most likely number; so while that cap is right in line with ODOT’s own estimates, it at least puts up some guardrails about runaway costs and it could be seen as a small overture from lawmakers that they don’t trust ODOT with a blank check.
The funding plan reveals desperation from lawmakers as tensions continue to rise about how ODOT will stay solvent in light of an ever-expanding portfolio of megaprojects and an ever-shrinking pot of money to pay for them. ODOT is obligated by the legislature start a tolling program to help pay for projects like this one, but that process will be anything but easy as they navigate skeptics across the public and political spectrum.
The Joint Committee on Transportation will have to take up a bill this session to initiate their plan. According to stories from The Oregonian and OPB last week, that will happen in April. If it all goes according to plan, ODOT would issue the bonds in 2025 — the same year the Oregon Legislature plans to pass its next large transportation funding package.
While this funding plan hasn’t been scheduled for a public hearing yet, it will very likely be discussed tomorrow (Tuesday, March 28th) when ODOT leaders return to the Joint Committee on Transportation to brief lawmakers on their budget. The informational session is being continued from March 7th when lawmakers grilled ODOT about their spending priorities and left several questions unanswered.
Speaking of unanswered questions, the I-5 expansion and bridge replacement project has been dogged by them. Earlier this month the U.S. Coast Guard forced the project team to analyze a lift-span design, a move the project team hoped to avoid and that could sow further doubt and delays.
Adding to the cauldron of concern, lawmakers will also soon hear from activists who plan to descend on the capitol building on April 13th for what’s being billed as the Transportation Future Day of Action. The event is co-organized by the Just Crossing Alliance and is part of the “Right Size, Right Now!” campaign that seeks to convince legislators to re-think their approach to the IBRP project.
“We can’t let this behemoth bankrupt our state and our children’s climate future,” reads a statement about the event. “The current design is oversized and will suck up our state’s transportation funds for the next couple of decades and leave us without dollars to fill potholes, invest in safe streets and routes to school, or prioritize active transportation and public transportation. The current design is a five-mile freeway expansion that far outreaches the need for a safe, earthquake proof bridge and will increase traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Welcome to the week. Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers have come across in the past seven days…
King too green: Portland bike parts manufacturer Chris King Precision Components has left the B Corp certification program because their factory waste and emissions are so low the certification process has failed to establish a fair baseline to demonstrate improvement. (Bicycle Retailer)
Cars are the problem: It has taken way too long for major environmental advocacy groups to jump on the e-bike bandwagon; but hopefully now they are ready to move beyond their car-centric positions. (Slate)
E-BIKE Act, II: The support mentioned above comes just in time for the return of a new and improved e-bike rebate bill that has been re-introduced by Congress. (The Verge)
Second thoughts on EV cars: I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but new research makes it clear that we risk great peril if we simply switch our gas-powered car system for an electric-powered car system. (Energy Research & Social Science)
Raising kids without cars: Nice to see a national publication draw a direct line between sprawl and how it limits our ability to choose transportation modes other than driving cars (and the cameo from Sam “Coach” Balto was a nice surprise). (Romper)
Good idea: The thing I love most about this article that makes the case for regulating big SUVs out of existence is the publication it appeared in. (Financial Times)
‘Train daddy’ on the inside: Seems like great news that a guy who’s beloved by passenger rail enthusiasts just got a top job at Amtrak. (NY Times)
Public spaces and bureaucracy: Portland is way behind when it comes to being flexible with the activation of public spaces, so maybe it’s time to send a delegation of city planners to Viet Nam to see how they manage alleys. (SF Chronicle)
Remarkable feat: 310 miles every day for seven days: that’s what it took for Belgian Matthieu Bonne to break the official world record for the most miles ridden in a week. (Escape Collective)
Kristen and Ville Jokinen. (Photo: Kristen Jokinen)
“When you’re on a bike, you’re going the perfect speed…you don’t really experience a place until you’ve traveled through it on a bicycle.”
-Kristen Jokinen
A week before heading off on an 18,000 mile bike ride spanning the Western Hemisphere, Kristen and Ville Jokinen didn’t know how to adjust a derailleur. This is just how the Jokinens are: they’re the type of people who will decide on a whim to backpack the Pacific Crest Trail during a year of historic snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas, having never spent a night together in a tent before. (If the Donner Party had extended an invitation to them along the way, they’d probably say yes, and manage to get out of their clutches right in the nick of time.)
Despite starting off so green, Kristen and Ville did what they set out to do: bike from the top of Alaska to the southernmost point of South America. In the upcoming Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey from Alaska to Argentina (Hawthorne Books), Kristen chronicles their epic adventure. Yesterday, I had a Zoom chat with Kristen — a native Oregonian from Bend who is currently based in Portland — about the book and the adventurous ethos she and her husband want to share with the world.
Kristen and Ville, who is Finnish, met in 2008 while scuba diving in Vietnam, and have been adventuring ever since. Kristen said the idea for the bike trip came during their aforementioned stint on the PCT, when they realized they would like a slightly faster mode of transportation than their legs.
“We said, ‘You know what might be cool is to go a little bit faster than this, to be able to cover more distance’,” Kristen said. “Yeah, maybe we should try a bike trip.”
So, obviously, their next course of action was to buy two bikes and fly to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a town on the Arctic Sea known for oilfields (and not for having paved, bikeable roads).
“If you think this was a very thorough discussion, it wasn’t,” Kristen said. “It wasn’t until I looked out the window of the plane from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay that I realized, ‘Oh shit, this is probably pretty dang remote.’ There were no roads, no houses, we were really going into nowhere.”
Some photos from their trip. (Photos: Kristen Jokinen)
The epic bike route. (Source: Kristen Jokinen)
They pedaled through this wilderness, heading south through Alaska and down the west coast of North and South America through some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. Throughout the journey — which took place over two years, from 2016-2018 — they realized how great biking is as a mode of transportation.
“When you’re on a bike, you’re going the perfect speed,” Kristen said. “You’re not separated from your environment like you are in a car or bus or plane. You don’t really experience a place until you’ve traveled through it on a bicycle.”
Kristen said a big reason she wanted to write this book is to encourage other people to take exciting chances in their lives, even if they’re not quite as much of an undertaking as this one.
“I feel like what we do is extreme and kind of crazy, but I’ve told a lot of people they don’t have to look at the big picture,” she told me. “You shouldn’t make a huge plan because you’ll see it as too big of a thing for you to handle. So if you want to do a bike ride or a hike, you don’t have to start with the whole PCT. Start by walking around the block or walking to the grocery store, and add to it.”
I asked Kristen if she thinks there’s a cost to seeing the world when it requires emitting carbon via so much air and car travel.
“If we did these things that we’re passionate about and don’t share it, we’ve done a disservice to everybody who’s helped us along the way.”
“Yes, I hear you…one thing you get from doing these bike trips is that you just start despising cars…you see all the dead animals on the roadside, people are just decimating these wild animals so they can get themselves as fast as possible from point A to point B,” Kristen told me. “And we can’t wash our hands of it, because we fly to be able to start and finish a bike ride somewhere. Ideally, we would like to figure out how to sail [to our destinations]. That’s our ultimate goal, because we plan to continue this life.”
She added that she thinks most people can start making change just within their daily habits, and she and Ville would like to be able to encourage them to do so.
“I think the most important thing is the daily commute,” she said. “If we could get more people commuting daily on a bicycle or walking or alternative modes of transport that isn’t getting in your car, maybe we’d be getting somewhere with the environment.”
How do people with as much wanderlust as Kristen and Ville have adapt to a global pandemic that prevents them from traveling outside their home? The Jokinens decided to move to Portland and work on some projects: a documentary for Ville, and this book for Kristen. And now that the world has opened up again, she wants to share their story.
On May 12th, Kristen will kick off a book tour with a reading at Powell’s City of Books (1005 W Burnside). Ville will be there as well to present some footage from his upcoming documentary about the trip. Kristen said she’d love to see some of Portland’s aficionados at the event, and hopes to make bike enthusiasts out of some new people, too.
“My goal with the whole book was to inspire other people cycling, bring the cycling fanatics together,” she told me. “If we did these things that we’re passionate about and don’t share it, we’ve done a disservice to everybody who’s helped us along the way of this adventure. We need to share it and keep it going, and inspire others to do these things.”
You can find out more about the Powell’s event and preorder the book here.
“Behaviors and are not accidents. You cannot prevent an accident. You can prevent a crash.”
Jeff Helfrich, Oregon House Rep
As a Portland Police Bureau sergeant for 25 years, Jeff Helfrich has responded to hundreds of traffic collisions. He has seen first-hand the tragic consequences of the choices people make when they drive. Now as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives, he wants to pass a law that would help Oregonians take more responsibility for their actions — and more importantly, to the conditions that lead up to them.
Rep. Helfrich (R-52) is the chief sponsor behind House Bill 3347, that would strike every reference to “vehicle accident” in Oregon statute and replace it with “vehicle crash.” There are so many edits to make, the bill is 91 pages long.
At its first public hearing at the legislature Thursday, Helfrich testified in front of the Joint Committee on Transportation (which he’s also a member of). “This is a simple bill,” he said in his opening remarks. “Historically, the leading cause of traffic crashes that result in death or serious injury is speeding, followed by alcohol drug use, riding without a seatbelt or car seat, distracted driving, or a combination of these factors,” he continued. “The change from this bill reinforces that most crashes are due to preventable human behaviors. Behaviors and are not accidents. You cannot prevent an accident. You can prevent a crash.”
While Helfrich wanted to frame this as a simple, technical fix. Two members of the committee weren’t so sure.
Rep. Helfrich.
Representative Paul Evans (D-20) was first to question him. “Your dog runs out into the street. You can’t move. I don’t know that that’s violence [referring to an earlier comment from committee member Rep. Khanh Pham who said, “I think it’s critical we rewrite our legislation to reflect that traffic violence isn’t just an inevitable accident”]. I think that’s an accident.”
“That is an unforeseen event,” Helfrich quickly replied. “But it’s still a crash. And who would be responsible for that would probably be the dog owner who was unable to secure their pet.”
Much of the discomfort from people who don’t think this change is necessary comes from an assumption that it’s based in assigning more blame to vehicle operators. Helfrich dispelled that idea. “This wouldn’t lay fault to somebody, but if a person was driving and the dog ran in front of them, we still know the crash happened, but it wasn’t their fault. Somebody else was responsible for that event.”
Cate Duke, who was there to represent Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), also said the effort to change “accident” to “crash” isn’t about finding fault. “It simply changes that definition to be ‘two things collided.’ It takes out any reflection as to whose fault it is and leaves that up to the investigation.”
Sen. Findley.
Another lawmaker, Senator Lynn Findley (R-30), felt the change isn’t necessary given the cost and labor it would take to enact. “It’s going to cost thousands of dollars and I just don’t get it,” he exclaimed. “I guess I’m a little too practical.”
Sen. Findley then posted a hypothetical: “You’re driving down the road. You hit a patch of ice and you slide off the road. It’s not an accident? It’s a crash?”
Rep. Helfrich seemed to enjoy the challenge. Through a wide grin he replied, “It’s preventable if it happens. Because if you’re driving too fast for conditions and you were aware of the conditions, the fault lies upon the driver.” After a few more exchanges, Findley was satisfied and had no further questions.
The bill hasn’t been voted on yet, but Thursday night’s hearing gave it momentum. Duke from MADD offered the final bit of testimony:
Cate Duke
“I think we can all agree that today we we live in a society where words matter…
I work with victims of impaired driving who have lost family members, loved ones, or they’ve been injured. Their lives have been catastrophically impacted by somebody else’s choice. And when you talk to a family who’s lost two of their three teenage children, or their only child was killed in an impaired driving crash. And you say ‘Well, you know, it was an accident.’ It causes a visceral reaction in somebody who has had that kind of loss.
It is not an accident. Spilling your glass of wine is an accident. But consuming that wine or consuming another impairing substance and then making the choice to get behind the wheel of a car and then drive and a crash occurs. That’s a predictable consequence of driving impaired.”
The Oregon Department of Transportation is planning changes to a nearly five mile stretch of SE McLoughlin Boulevard through Oak Grove and Jennings Lodge (south of Milwaukie) that would make it safer for biking, walking, and busing. And we hear from sources that they need more feedback about bicycle facilities and other elements of the project in order to queue up the best possible projects for future funding.
ODOT’s McLoughlin Boulevard Investments Strategy is a $250,000 planning process that aims to, “identify and prioritize equitable and impactful transportation safety improvements for all users who depend on walking, biking, rolling and accessing transit along the corridor.” (Seems similar to the approach the Portland Bureau of Transportation takes with its “In Motion” plans.) There’s no capital funding yet, but projects that get on the list that comes out of this plan will be more shovel-ready and more likely to get built in the near term.
Crossing SE McLoughlin in 2019. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Crashes involving vulnerable road users on SE McLoughlin, 2016 – 2020. (Source: ODOT)
Currently, this section of McLoughlin is a typical ODOT urban highway (99E) with a very wide cross-section, lots of commercial driveways, incomplete sidewalks, unprotected bikeways, relatively high speeds, and an overall feeling that only car users are welcome. We rode briefly on McLoughlin during the 2019 policymakers ride and it was jarring to leave the quiet calm of the Trolley Trail path and enter the loud, stressful highway environment.
According to ODOT, this corridor of McLoughlin between Sellwood and Oregon City is a top 10 priority statewide and ranks in the 99th percentile for bicycle and pedestrian needs prioritization (as per their Active Transportation Needs Inventory). Between 2016 and 2020 there were a beastly 666 reported crashes — seven of which were fatal and 23 led to severe injuries. And of the seven people killed in those five years, all of them were vulnerable users (walkers, wheelchair users, or bike riders). That’s a striking statistic given how few non-drivers actually use this road. Adding even more urgency to this effort is the fact that neighborhoods along the corridor score in the top 20th percentile statewide for disadvantaged community metrics.
ODOT staff working on the plan say adding more protection to the existing bike lanes and striping new sections of bikeways is definitely on the table. They also recommend bus queue jumps at four intersections, a new crossing specifically for Trolley Trail users (at Jennings Road), and improvements to the bridge over the Clackamas River.
Key to making the safety changes stick will be to tame drivers and lower speeds. The current average speed is just over 40 mph. That’s way too high given that ODOT’s Blueprint for Urban Design (which is now fully integrated into their Highway Design Manual) calls for commercial corridors like this one to have speeds of 30 – 35 mph. The good news is the community advisory committee for the project has been unanimous in calls to reduce speeding, but ODOT needs to hear more support for this in their newly launched online open house.
ODOT slide.
We’re also watching closely to see what type of recommendation comes out of this process for bike facilities. Right now, ODOT says the plan is to first bring the entire corridor up to a basic standard of painted, buffered bike lanes without vertical protection. Once that happens, they’d add more protection (like plastic wands) at specific locations. But some folks we’ve talked to say that second step — some sort of physical protection for the bike lane — should happen without having to wait for buffered bike lanes on the entire corridor.
Then there’s the conversation about whether bicycle riders would even use McLoughlin at all — especially given the nearby (and carfree) Trolley Trail path. Because of the unfortunate idea that bike riders don’t want or need main street access, there could be a lack of urgency from ODOT to create quality bikeways on McLoughlin.
As for the Trolley Trail, the current plan is to install a diagonal, bike-only crossing of McLoughlin at Jennings to help path users make a connection. This would be a step forward from the two-stage crossing most people do now (taking the lane here is pretty scary!).
For the bridge over the Clackamas, ODOT says widening the current path isn’t being considered, but other treatments like; more lighting, a new paved trail/shared use path connection to the intersection of McLoughlin and Arlington Street, and flashing beacons indicating when a bicyclist is sharing the general travel lanes, are being considered.
If we want ODOT to do more of the right things, they need to hear from more bicycle riders. Their online open house is open now through April 5th and there’s an in-person event on March 29th (4-7:00 pm) at Oak Lodge Public Library (16201 SE McLoughlin) where you can learn more and talk to project staff.
Cords on the sidewalk in Portland. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Curbside charging with a cord is now allowed without a permit, but only if certain conditions are met.
As electric cars become more and more popular, you may have the experience of walking along a Portland sidewalk and stumbling upon (maybe literally) a cord running from someone’s Tesla or Chevy Bolt to an outlet on their porch.
This situation might strike some walkers as irritating: isn’t there enough to worry about tripping over on Portland’s sidewalks, what with the pavement cracks and those little toy ponies some people tie to the metal rings outside their homes? (Hey, I’m just kidding. I love those horses.) And let’s not forget that for many people, bicycling on the sidewalk is the safest option.
Irritating as it may be, city policy does allow electric vehicle (EV) charging cords in the sidewalk right-of-way in certain circumstances. In 2021, Portland City Council approved an amendment to the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Encroachment Manual to allow people who meet some requirements to charge their cars curbside, as long as the cords have an ADA compliant cord cover and “do not become nuisances.”
We’ve seen these cords popping up more often lately so let’s learn a bit more about the rules that govern them…
Prior to this amendment, the Encroachment Manual only allowed for landscaping and planter boxes to enter into the right-of-way, and people were required to seek a permit from the city in order to utilize this area. Curbside charging with a cord cover is now allowed by right (no permit is required) if residents meet all the following requirements:
The residence must be located in a Single-Dwelling Residential Zone. Information and maps on zoning designations can be found at Portland Zoning.
The residence must be located on a street classified a a Local Service Traffic Street. Information and maps on street classifications and the Portland Transportation System Plan can be found at PBOT TSP Classifications.
The sidewalk area adjacent to the residence must have a running grade of ten percent (10%) or less. Information about Portland topography may be referenced to determine compliance with running grade requirement and is available online at ArcGIS.
The residence must not have any off-street parking, such as a driveway or garage.
People who don’t have garages or other off-street parking facilities on their property would have a difficult time charging their electric cars if this policy weren’t in place. Still, the obstruction may be unpleasant for sidewalk users — especially people who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices to get around.
Earlier this month, Portland City Council directed PBOT to create rules to allow installation of electric car chargers in the public right-of-way to make it easier for people to use electric vehicles if they don’t have charging capacity at home. This is particularly meant to assist people who live in multi-unit dwellings by creating a reliable affordable public charging network. According to the rules of this ordinance, the EV charging stations in the right of way must not “present impediments to safe and efficient pedestrian passage, nor hinder ADA access.” The ordinance requires a minimum of a three-foot pedestrian through zone to be maintained, but a six-foot through zone is preferred.
“The installation of EV chargers shall minimize impacts and not conflict with other right-of-way users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit riders, and others,” the ordinance states.
This is different from the encroachment rules, which enable EV cords to run across the pedestrian through zone without providing a passage.
In my opinion, it’s good to allow more people to charge their electric vehicles — if city and state policies are going full speed ahead with the EV embrace, at least they shouldn’t be restricted to people who have garages to charge them in.
On the other hand, Portland dedicates so much space to car storage, and this rule just allows them to cut in even more. I am excited about local programs hoping to take back curb zone space from cars and plant trees there instead, and if the city would do more of this — a la Amsterdam, where thousands of street car parking spaces have been overhauled and replaced with bike parking and playgrounds — EV cords in the pedestrian right-of-ways wouldn’t be such a big deal.
What do you think of this policy? Have you ever been bothered by an EV cord on the sidewalk? Let us know.
We’ve launched a new, free email newsletter designed to make your news diet a bit more digestible and fun. It comes out every Monday morning and it’s called the Weekly Reader (nostalgically named for the old weekly children’s newsletter Jonathan read as a kid). We’d love to have you on the list.
In the Weekly Reader, you’ll find a recap of the previous week’s stories — and it’s totally fine with us if you want to skim the list and click to find more about the ones that are most interesting to you. Even if you’re a regular visitor of the front page, it’s easy to overlook things sometimes, so this is just another way to make sure you stay in-the-know.
The Weekly Reader also includes a list of upcoming transportation advocacy events and public meetings you might want to put on your calendar for the week ahead. Each week we’ll also share a fun fact, a nugget of local bicycling/transportation history, some fun visuals… you get the idea.
From last week’s email.
Last week we shared some wonky wildlife — three budget charts that have been given silly animal names by ODOT or PBOT staffers (above). Yes, there are grown-ups who lead these august agencies who’ve named sober budget charts things like, “Jaws of Death” and the “Alligator Chart.”
Give last week’s edition a test ride, and if you want to get it Monday morning, just sign up below:
This is just one of several emails we offer. Check them all out and sign up here.
Slide shown during a “reading of the names” at recent Metro advisory committee meeting.
Ever been to a transportation-related government committee meeting where someone reads the names of recent traffic victims? It’s a practice that has become more common in Portland in recent years as agencies have adopted Vision Zero campaigns.
I’m at meetings where this happens relatively often. It’s done at the outset of a meeting and I find it a powerful and somber reminder of what we’re fighting for and why making roads safer is so urgent. It’s often followed by a moment of silence.
When the names were read out loud at Metro’s March 16th Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) meeting, it spurred a notable exchange between a Metro councilor, a Metro staffer and commissioners from Washington and Clackamas counties. As I watched and listened to the meeting, it made me realize that this reading of the names has even more value than I’d previously thought.
In this short podcast episode, you’ll hear the audio clips from the meeting along with my commentary interspersed between them.
L to R: Washington County Commissioner Nafisa Fai, Clackamas County Commissioner Paul Savas, Metro Councilor/JPACT Chair Juan Carlos Gonzalez, Metro Deputy Director Margi Bradway.
What I found notable was how Washington County Commissioner Nafisa Fai used the reading as an opportunity to ask Metro about their road safety work. And in doing so, she spurred not just a quality dialogue with Metro Deputy Director Margi Bradway, but also an eyebrow-raising response from Clackamas County Commissioner Paul Savas. Savas chimed in by saying he was in alignment with Fai (“I actually appreciate what Commissioner Fai is trying to tease out and identify,” he said) and then shared how he feels we shouldn’t just blame road design because, “sometimes people are careless, and it’s unfortunate if it cost their lives and also the impacts to the people driving their cars as well.”
After Commissioner Savas’ response — which tiptoed a very fine line around straight-up victim-blaming — there was an awkward pause from JPACT Chair and Metro Councilor Juan Carlos Gonzalez. And then Commissioner Fai responded with, “I’m not sure I was teasing that out.”
It was an entertaining exchange. Beyond the Savas part, it shows how reading the names of road traffic victims at the outset of meetings like this can actually have a lot more value than you might think.
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Screenshot from home page of new ODOT website at OregonTransportationEmissions.com.
“They claim to be making progress in reducing emissions, which sends a powerful message to policymakers that we don’t need to do more and we can take our time.”
– Bob Cortright, 350 Salem
Five years ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation did not have reason to be hopeful about meeting their greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. ODOT’s 2013 Oregon Statewide Transportation Strategy (STS) calls for the agency to reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 (compared to 1990 numbers), but a 2018 monitoring report (PDF) said emissions were only projected to fall 20% by 2050. And in 2020, the leader of ODOT’s (newly formed) Climate Office said, “We’re heading in the complete wrong direction,” when it comes to carbon emission reductions.
Fast forward to 2023 and the climate crisis is more dire than ever. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released earlier this week, made it clear that time is running out to avoid climate catastrophe. But over at ODOT headquarters, the mood is more optimistic. According to a new website unveiled March 9th, the state is on track to reduce emissions 60% by 2050, which is “short of the 80% goal, but still a dramatic improvement from 2018 projections.”
Great! Now we can just sit back and relax, right? Not so fast.
A closer look at assertions made on the website casts doubt on that rosy picture. Advocates are not only skeptical of how ODOT frames their emissions efforts — they worry the website and PR push behind it could placate policymakers and the public into a false sense of progress.
What’s on the website?
From the website’s front page.
The website is a dashboard detailing ODOT’s progress toward its overall goal of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 (see chart). ODOT outlines two objectives for this goal: reduce growth in vehicle miles traveled by using “land use laws, incentives and policies to support reductions in the number of driving trips people take and how far they drive each trip”, and clean up each vehicle mile with “new technology to reduce emissions via the kinds of vehicles people drive, such as electric, and the kinds of fuels used to power those vehicles.”
In order to meet these objectives, ODOT has split their actions into six categories: transportation options (which concerns public transportation, biking, walking and rolling and transportation demand management strategies); pricing, funding and markets; vehicle technology; land use; system operations and fuel technology.
It all sounds good, but some agency watchdogs don’t think the new website provides sufficient information to back their claims.
An analysis of the website on Salem bike news blog Salem Breakfast on Bikes calls it “unconvincing…propaganda more than sober analysis, a bit of a slick farrago.”
“The structure is designed to look informative, but in fact it obfuscates. If the progress were truly so great, the structure would be more transparent and easier to parse,” the Breakfast on Bikes article states. “More specifically, it lacks any detailed discussion of what changed between the 2018 forecast and 2022 forecast.”
Salem-based transportation and climate advocate Bob Cortright (twin brother of No More Freeways co-founder and City Observatory writer Joe Cortright) also has some qualms. He reached out to ODOT staff about his concerns, writing in an email to several staff members that he was “troubled by the absence of analysis to support the broad claims about progress” on the website.
“While [the website] is very good at providing a high level description of the broad range programs and efforts to reduce emissions I do not see links to the detailed analysis that supports the conclusion in the press release,” Cortright wrote.
Suzanne Carlson, who leads ODOT’s climate office, responded to Cortright’s email last week. She said the team is “working on some updates to how information is displayed in the website to better highlight the key assumptions and inputs,” which they expect to have ready soon. In an email to BikePortland yesterday, ODOT Public Affairs Specialist Matt Noble said ODOT is working on a new webpage for the site that should be made public during the first half of April.
“The new page will give more insight into our progress since 2018, and what changed to allow for the 60% forecast emissions reduction. We’ll handle requests for deeper data dives on a case by case basis, as that level of detail is beyond the scope of the site,” Noble said.
Without this information, Cortright said the website seems to present a dubious conclusion that could cause people to rest on their laurels.
“They claim to be making progress in reducing emissions, which sends a powerful message to policymakers that we don’t need to do more and we can take our time,” Cortright told me. “It sends a message that we’ve done something in the last five years to turn this around…there are lots of reasons to be skeptical of that conclusion.”
Active transportation stats
From the website.
The website features a page analyzing Oregon’s progress toward the state’s active transportation goals.
“Transportation options create opportunities for Oregonians to use active modes of transportation on Oregon’s system. Especially ones that emit less greenhouse gas emissions like biking, walking, rolling, scooters, carpooling, public transit, and passenger rail,” the website states.
Here is the vision ODOT has for what active transportation will look like in Oregon in 2030:
By 2050, 30% of short trips (under 20 miles) in urban areas will be made via biking, walking or rolling.
By 2050, a majority of urban households have equitable access to biking, walking, and rolling options close to their home.
The Oregon Department of Transportation continues to provide and expand dedicated and reliable funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure through 2050.
Sounds pretty good — how are we going to get there?
Apparently, we’re not so far from meeting the first goal as it might seem: ODOT claims that 12% of Oregonians travel by walking, biking or rolling, citing the Oregon Household Survey conducted from 2009-2011. (The survey they linked to actually said the number was 11%). Even better: they said this number has grown during the pandemic. But when BikePortland tried to find a source for this statistic, it was nowhere to be found. When BikePortland reached out to ODOT for more information about this, they walked back that claim.
“Some data we looked at suggested this, but on further scrutiny, we’re going to remove that line from the site until we have more data certainty,” Noble wrote.
When BikePortland tried to find a source for this statistic, it was nowhere to be found… they walked back that claim.
Considering Portland’s bike ridership numbers have gone down substantially in recent years, it is surprising to read the opposite is true for active transportation statewide. The Breakfast on Bikes article calls this out, questioning why ODOT would use data from more than 10 years ago to calculate progress on statewide bike goals and saying the dashboard “misuses that data for unwarranted optimistic ends.”
“There are no grounds from this one data point to infer any great progress. And from the Portland bike counts, it looks like there are strong grounds to infer a lack of progress,” the article states. “On the whole the dashboard looks like slick bells and whistles and greenwash rather than substance.”
To reduce VMT or not to reduce VMT? That is the question…
As mentioned earlier, the dashboard outlines two objectives: to reduce vehicle miles traveled (via things like investing in active transportation) and cleaning up the car transportation that does occur. These are good objectives — but they have to work in tandem. Advocates say ODOT’s actions have indicated they are focusing more on the electrification element than the VMT reduction part, at everyone’s detriment.
The website highlights the fact that progress towards cleaning each vehicle mile is driving ODOT’s progress and there are significant gaps remaining when it comes to reducing VMT.
“This objective has the most opportunities for improvement. Trends suggest that Oregonian’s driving habits won’t change much through 2050 if the state doesn’t make progress here,” the website states.
In a conversation with BikePortland yesterday, Cortright pointed out that the advances in clean transportation aren’t necessarily ODOT’s doing. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is the agency responsible for setting fuel standards and managing large parts of the state’s electric vehicle program (including by administering a ban on purchasing new gas-powered cars by 2035). ODOT has been involved in car electrification efforts, but not all the progress can be directly attributed to their work.
Cortright said although ODOT is acknowledging the state hasn’t made adequate progress on reducing vehicle miles travelled (VMT) overall, their departmental focus on increasing car capacity through projects like the I-5 expansion at the Rose Quarter flies in the face of this stated concern.
“It’s not that we don’t know what it will take to reduce emissions,” Cortright said. “We need to stop expanding highways.”
Underlining Cortright’s message is a recent interaction he had with Oregon Transportation Commissioner Lee Beyer at the March commission meeting. At this meeting, Cortright made the case that ODOT needs to do more to reduce VMT in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Beyer’s response wasn’t encouraging to Cortright and other advocates.
“That’s more of a societal attitude issue rather than something that I think [ODOT] can do directly,” Beyer said. “I think as we move to less environmentally damaging cars, EVs or whatever, that people will continue to drive, because they like the freedom of personal mobility.”
All in all, it’s apparent that ODOT staff and the commissioners overseeing the agency have varied perspectives about how the state is going to reduce its transportation-related emissions. According to Beyer, electrification is the most reasonable step, because it’s too difficult to change people’s behavior. But ODOT knows VMT reduction is a crucial part of the equation.
“Yes, we need to electrify the fleet, but that doesn’t get us there. In terms of vehicle miles traveled reduction. We really need to change the way we provide options for people if we’re going to accomplish that,” Cortright said at the OTC meeting. “And I think people do respond when we provide an environment and choices other than driving.”
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The bicycling decline in Portland is very unfortunate. But it’s our new reality. The sooner we face the facts, embrace the issues that got us here, and have a productive conversation about what to do about it — the sooner we will get back on track.
Even though the decline wasn’t a surprise to me (BikePortland wrote about a major shift in local politics and culture at the start of the decline back in May 2014), reading the hard numbers from the City of Portland’s Bike Count Report still hit me hard. I’ve spent nearly two decades of my professional life trying to fan the flames of cycling in Portland, so to see us slip this far back down is a major bummer.
There are a lot of reasons why cycling is down in Portland, and Taylor Griggs and I talk about some of them in this episode, including:
The pervasive sense of danger many people feel on our streets — from drivers and their cars, to interactions with unpredictable and/or unstable people
The work-from-home shift and how it broke the cycling habit for many Portlanders
How (and why) politics and culture in Portland shifted away from cycling
The epidemic of bike theft
The lack of bike routes on main streets (the “hidden” neighborhood greenways)
The ease of driving and resulting increase in number of cars on the road
and more!
We also read a few notable reader comments and share clips from interviews Taylor did around town over the weekend. My goal with this episode was to address what we feel are the key reasons for the decline and begin a conversation about how we can dig out of this hole. I hope it’s helpful and we’d love to hear your feedback.
Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Read a full transcript below:
The BikePortland is a production of Pedaltown Media, Inc. If you liked this episode, subscribe and browse our archives for past shows, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, and tell your friends about it. BikePortland is a community media source that relies on individual subscribers to stay in business. Please sign up today if you aren’t a subscriber already.
