ODOT delays STIP funding vote due to intense public interest

What a long, strange STIP Trip it’s been.

Thanks to a big effort by community organizers, Oregonians will now have a few more days to do their homework and take part in the most highly scrutinized STIP funding process in recent memory.

The STIP, or Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, is the Oregon Department of Transportation’s capital project list and it accounts for $2.2 billion in funding over a three-year period. The 2024-2027 STIP has gotten a lot of attention in part because it’s the first one ever where ODOT has been obligated to assess its impact on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. At this point in the process, ODOT needs to come up with a general funding “scenario” and get it adopted by the five-member Oregon Transportation Commission. This scenario will serve as a road-map for future project spending. Put another way, it will tell ODOT how much it has to spend on highway expansion projects and bike paths.

ODOT staff have about $600 million in discretionary funds (out of the $2.2 billion total) to put into different funding scenarios.

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Outgoing Commissioner Eudaly shares candid remarks, offers advice to cycling advocates

Commissioner Chloe Eudaly at the Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting Tuesday night. (Via Zoom)

Outgoing City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly addressed the Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) last night in a wide-ranging address that touched on the death of her father, expressed regret for not pushing cycling further, offered advice for cycling advocates, and much more. Eudaly, who took over as transportation commissioner in August 2018, lost her re-election bid last month.

During her time at the helm of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Eudaly was a polarizing figure in cycling circles (and beyond) and her remarks last night likely won’t do anything to change that. As PBOT commissioner she spoke forcefully about the negative impacts of cars and drivers in our city, fought against an unpopular freeway expansion project, stood up for Vision Zero, and pushed a progressive transportation agenda that included the “Rose Lane” bus priority program. But Portlanders seem to be split on whether she did enough to move the needle on transportation reform. Road fatalities are at a record level, cycling and transit use are down, and our road user culture is as toxic and scary as it’s ever been.

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The dangerous highway that claimed the life of Gene Courtney

(Photos of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd/Hwy 99E by Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

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A look back at the transportation legacy of Commissioner Chloe Eudaly

Eudaly at the launch of Adaptive Biketown event in 2017.
(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly is on the agenda of the Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) Tuesday night. It will be the final time the BAC hears from the commissioner-in-charge of the transportation bureau and an opportunity for her to cement a legacy. When it comes to cycling, many of us will likely recall a tenure that delivered a lot of promise and solid progress on key issues, but missed out on cycling-specific opportunities.

Here’s a look back at Eudaly’s time as transportation commissioner.

Despite being seated as commissioner in January 2017, Eudaly wasn’t given the Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) portfolio by Mayor Ted Wheeler until August 2018. That gave a political newcomer just over two years to steer the PBOT ship, a rather large vessel with over 1,000 employees and an annual budget of $570 million. PBOT is one of the most difficult agencies to oversee not just because of its size, but because how we get around intersects with so many other controversial and emotionally fraught issues such as racism, policing, income/geographic equity, and an entrenched resistance to change the driving-centric status quo. Eudaly also took the helm of PBOT at a time when the transportation issue carried much less political heft than in past eras.

Given this context, Eudaly handled the assignment well. She (and her Chief of Staff Marshall Runkel and Policy Director Jamey Duhamel) plunged into the topic head-first by participating in the widely-respected Portland Traffic and Transportation class at Portland State University. Eudaly also proved early on that just because she didn’t have a deep transportation policy background, she would not be afraid to go up against those who did.

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Job: Frontend Engineer – Ride with GPS

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Frontend Engineer

Company / Organization

Ride with GPS

Job Description

We’re looking for a Frontend Developer to join our team.

Our frontend is implemented in React, structured as an API consumer of our Ruby on Rails backend. We’re in the midst of a comprehensive redesign of the look and feel of our product, and we’re seeing years of foundational work realized in developer productivity and value delivered to our users. Your opportunity is to join us in implementing design principles of usability, and discoverability, and in making good on our promise to enable our users to go on better rides more often. We’ve built a strong presence in the cycling community over the past 10+ years, and we’re committed to supporting the core features and values important to our long term supporters. We do not require prior React experience; we are much more interested in candidates who are excited about what we’re building, and who can’t wait to help us improve products that make cycling better for our millions of users. That said, in order to excel in this position, we do expect multiple years of experience putting complex, functional code in front of users at scale. At this time, we are not accepting junior developers.

Technology that we regularly use:

– React
– Babel
– Webpack
– NodeJS
– Figma
– CircleCI for frontend CI
– Jenkins for backend CI
– GitHub for version control
– Existing code is traditional Rails and HAML/SASS based templating, as well as Backbone and sundry other Javascript. All new frontend development is done in React.
– OpenStreetMap rendering and routing stack (mapnik, postGIS, TileMill for style dev, GraphHopper based routing). Bonus points if you have map styling experience!

The Company:

Ride with GPS is on a mission to create great cycling experiences and help people go on better rides, more often.

Our website is used to plan bike routes and events, manage bike clubs, analyze ride data, and publish great rides. Our companion app is a bike computer, route navigator, and ride recorder. Within the cycling world, we serve weekend riders, clubs, event organizers, tour operators, and racers. We are committed to not running any ads on the site or in the app, and are able to maintain a singular focus on serving cyclists.

Our business is bootstrapped, profitable, and growing.

The Team:

We are cyclists. We are explorers. We are artists. We are writers. We are parents. We are friends. We are a group of people with diverse interests who lead healthy, balanced lives and are all very passionate about what we do. By joining Ride with GPS, you will become a part of a team that helps millions of people have a great time on their bike.

Benefits:

We offer a competitive salary as well as health, dental and vision insurance, and a 401k with a 10% match. You’ll be equipped with a new Macbook Pro, iMac, or Linux machine, a standing desk and any other productivity tools that are needed. We strongly believe in testing our own software, and as a result are more than happy to help defray some of the costs of cycling, including offering a one-time new bicycle stipend.

In light of the global pandemic, Ride with GPS is working remotely and offers a stipend for setting up a home office. Moving forward, employees will be able to work from home indefinitely, and we are also monitoring health guidelines and hope to offer an option to work in a shared office environment when it is safe to do so.

How to Apply

We are based in Portland, OR and encourage residents across Oregon and Washington to apply by emailing careers@ridewithgps.com with your resume and an overview of any work relevant to the position. Please include at least a paragraph explaining your relationship with cycling, and optionally a cover letter with your pronouns. We'll respond in a timely manner and move things forward for promising candidates.

Ride with GPS is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming workplace for all members of our staff. We believe having a diverse team makes our product and our company better, and we are working to ensure our reality reflects those ideals. We invite applicants of any race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability or limitation, religion, or background to apply and look forward to hearing from you.