2016 Mayoral Election

Ted Wheeler is Portland’s next mayor; new local gas tax will improve streets

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Ted Wheeler crosses Tilikum Crossing during Sunday Parkways in September 2015.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland

Portland’s next mayor is a Multnomah County commissioner turned state treasurer who embraced protected bike lanes and more neighborhood greenway traffic diverters from almost the start of his run for office.

Ted Wheeler was drawing 58 percent of Portland’s primary vote Tuesday night, easily defeating opponents Jules Bailey and Sarah Iannarone, among others.

Wheeler also set himself apart on transportation issues by endorsing a local gas tax to improve Portland streets on the day he announced his campaign — a position that rapidly became conventional wisdom among local politicians and won a narrow victory Tuesday night.

Wheeler, Bailey, Iannarone.(Photos: BikePortland) — Wheeler, Bailey, Iannarone.
(Photos: BikePortland)

Since many of you will probably spend some part of this weekend reading your voter’s pamphlet and/or filling out your ballot, here’s a quick way to compare how the three most prominent mayoral candidates are thinking about bike safey.

Mayoral candidates Ted Wheeler, left, and Bim Ditson.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Street Roots, Portland’s first-rate paper about homelessness and housing issues, sometimes asks questions about the closely related subject of transportation.

A questionnaire distributed to the mayoral candidates and published last week includes a quick window into the ways different candidates think about mobility issues.

The question:

Please place the following items in order of priority as mayor.
• Increase parking
• Bike infrastructure
• Low or no-fare public transit

Here’s what they said:

Portland mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Portland mayoral candidate and seeming frontrunner Ted Wheeler could imagine using decongestion charging to unclog Portland roads but isn’t ready to back a dedicated bus lane on Powell or Division.

He’s also a fan of dedicated bike signal phases and supports “rationing” auto parking as long as it’s done in conjunction with improved transit and biking options, but isn’t willing to specify how that rationing might take place.

Those were the takeaways from a blog post Wheeler put up Monday in response to questions that BikePortland and the advocacy group Oregon Walks relayed to him on Twitter after he was among the candidates to miss a mayoral candidates’ forum about transportation issues last week.

Here’s the full text of Wheeler’s responses. Some of the questions seem to have been paraphrased a bit, but not so much that their meaning was changed.

Portland mayor candidate David Schor-3.jpg

David Schor in the BikePortland office March 24. He’s pushing for a government that offers more or better services, starting with affordable housing, and charges higher taxes to provide them.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Every mayoral candidate talks about helping low-income renters. But only David Schor has a plan for raising enough money to do so in a major way.

Voters: Kristin Sweeney, Charlie Tso, Laura Krull.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Six Portland mayoral candidates sounded off on transportation issues Monday night in the first (and possibly the only) event of the 2016 election season to focus exclusively on transportation.

Hosted by the Portland chapter of Young Professionals in Transportation, the event drew candidates Deborah Harris, Jules Bailey, Jessie Sponberg, Sean Davis, David Schor and Bim Ditson.

We sat down with Sarah Iannarone to discuss her candidacy in Portland’s May 17 mayoral primary.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

No candidate for mayor is thinking bigger than Sarah Iannarone.

Sarah Iannarone
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

A political action committee that bills itself as “the political voice for Oregonians who bike, walk, or take transit,” has thrown their weight behind Sarah Iannarone in the Portland mayoral race.

That’s one of eight endorsements Bike Walk Vote PAC has just released for the 2016 election cycle. After laying low following the 2012 election, Bike Walk Vote has rebuilt its board and hopes to become a significant player in the education and influence of regional voters who care about transportation reform.

To make their decisions, members of Bike Walk Vote gave each candidate written questionnaires, reviewed public documents and forums, leaned on existing personal knowledge and experience, and conducting in-person interviews.

In choosing Sarah Iannarone over the other 15 candidates — including the much more well-known Ted Wheeler and Jules Bailey — Bike Walk Vote credited her “depth of knowledge about the intersection between the built environment and public policy.” Iannarone has learned about this subject over the past eight years as assistant director of First Stop Portland, a program at Portland State University that shows off Portland’s transportation innovations (among other things) to officials from around the world.

Here’s more from Bike Walk Vote’s endorsement:

Wheeler in our office earlier this month.
(Photo: M. Andersen/BikePortland)

Ted Wheeler started changing Portland on the day he started running for mayor.

Bailey came by our office Wednesday for an in-depth conversation about biking-related issues.
(Photo: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

When Jules Bailey served in the state legislature, he was usually known as one of biking’s best friends in Salem. Now he’s running for mayor.

On stage at Benson High last night.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

What a difference four years makes.

One thing that became clear at last night’s mayoral debate: For the first time in my memory (which is admittedly not very long), all the top candidates are firmly on the left of the political spectrum. At each of the mayoral races I’ve covered in the past decade there was always a right-leaning candidate who made veiled overtures to business interests and the status quo — especially when it came to transportation and environmental issues. Even our current mayor Charlie Hales was elected after a campaign where he ran as an anti-Sam Adams who would return Portland “back to basics” (wink wink).

The three candidates at last night’s debate: Sarah Iannarone, Ted Wheeler, and Jules Bailey, are having none of that. Each one of them are proposing policies that would upend business as usual and would put Portland back at the forefront of truly progressive cities.

Eight candidates for Portland Mayor on stage at Revolution Hall last night.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Eight Portland mayoral candidates met at Revolution Hall Monday night in a debate that was supposed to happen, then wasn’t, then did anyway.

Ted Wheeler is Portland’s next mayor; new local gas tax will improve streets

How Wheeler, Bailey and Iannarone answered OPB’s question about bike safety

Street Roots survey turns up differing priorities in mayor’s race

One week after forum, Ted Wheeler fields transportation questions

Mayoral candidate David Schor: The BikePortland Interview

Seven Portlanders share their views from last night’s mayoral forum on transportation

Mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone: The BikePortland interview

Bike Walk Vote PAC endorses Sarah Iannarone for Portland mayor

Mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler: The BikePortland interview

Mayoral candidate Jules Bailey: The BikePortland interview

Mayoral candidates make cycling part of green policies at environmental debate

Mayoral candidates sound off on transportation at big debate

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