
tony jordan
Why are parking mandates bad? YIMBYtown panelists count the ways

(Photos: Taylor Griggs/BikePortland)
On days two and three of the YIMBYtown conference at Portland State University, parking and land-use experts from across the country shared insights on how our national overabundance of car parking leads to bad outcomes for people who specialize in all kinds of city planning topics.
And based on the boisterous (and productive!) conversations that followed, I think it’s safe to say anyone who didn’t know how big of an impact parking policy has on all elements of urbanism – from housing, to transportation, to safety, to climate – does now.
Portland launches new revenue strategy with passage of ‘climate and equitable mobility’ parking fee
Parking reform gets a boost as Portland-based nonprofit comes of age

(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Influential Central Eastside transportation committee seeks new members
Guest Opinion: I’m Tony Jordan and I endorse Jo Ann Hardesty for Portland City Council

(Photos courtesy Tony Jordan)
Tony Jordan is a long-time BikePortland reader and founder of Portlanders for Parking Reform.
I’m Tony Jordan and I support Jo Ann Hardesty for Portland City Council Position 3.
I’ve been active in the housing and transportation political scene for many years and I think Jo Ann has the integrity, resolve, and lived experience to help Portland earn its celebrated position at the vanguard of progressive and sustainable cities.
City weighs parking rule for NW that could block a fifth of new homes

(Photo: Ted Timmons)
Portland’s City Council will meet Wednesday to consider a new mandatory parking requirement that, if it had existed for the last eight years, would have illegalized 23 percent of the new housing supply in northwest Portland during the period.
The Tess O’Brien Apartments, a 126-unit project that starts pre-leasing next week and will offer some of the cheapest new market-rate housing in northwest Portland, couldn’t have been built if they’d been required to have 42 on-site parking spaces, its developer said in an interview.
“Do the math,” Martin Kehoe of Portland LEEDS Living said Friday. “The apartments at the Tess O’Brien are between $1250 and $1400 a month. If we were required to build parking, you’d be between $1800 and $2000 a month. … It probably just wouldn’t have been built. And then what’s that going to do to the existing project that’s out there and has been built? It’s just going to drive the rents of those up.”
Guest article: Want safer streets? Ask for them

(Photo: Cory Poole)
This essay was written by Portland resident Tony Jordan. He wrote it before yesterday’s tragic crash on East Burnside that resulted in the death of a 10-year-old boy.
Traffic violence is a big problem. More than 30,000 people die every year on American roadways with many many more injured or maimed. The cost of this carnage is tremendous, nearly a trillion dollars a year in social economic harms.
So what do we do about it?