Portland City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a transportation vision leaders hope will speed up buses and streetcars stuck in traffic, reduce carbon emissions and encourage residents to ditch their cars in favor of public transit.
The final report, what the city is calling its Rose Lane Project, was the culmination of more than a year of planning, design and outreach to residents and community groups.
The council signed its support for spending up to $10 million on a suite of projects during the next two years to dedicate additional travel lanes to buses, remove or restrict on-street parking in some areas and make changes at traffic lights to give transit a head start. A second phase of projects, which could cost anywhere from $6 million to $8 million, is still in development and unfunded, and likely wouldn’t move forward until 2021 and 2022.
Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who oversees the transportation bureau and championed the transit priority vision, said she knows all too well from her years navigating transit services and the city with her son, who uses a wheelchair, that Portland has its issues. “This city was not made for cyclists, pedestrians or bus riders,” she said before voting to adopt the Rose Lane vision, with a red rose attached to her lapel. “Unfortunately it was made for automobile drivers, and we are now trying to correct that kind of over-dedication of resources.”
Eudaly, who is up for reelection and faces former Mayor Sam Adams and challenger Mingus Mapps, among others, said despite broad support for improving public transit, she’s aware of the political risks in doing so. “I know it’s painful and it’s unpopular with some people, but it absolutely has to happen,” she said.
Not all the projects entail dedicating an entire travel lane to buses or streetcars, and the precise changes at various intersections or on congested streets are not finalized. Some changes could include removing or restricting on-street parking during rush hour to give buses a chance to get around bumper-to-bumper traffic. Hannah Schafer, a transportation spokeswoman, said the bureau didn’t yet know how many lane miles may be affected or converted to transit lanes nor how many parking spaces could be removed or restricted.
According to city staff, the proposed street changes could affect about 100,000 people who currently ride some 45 various bus lines or the streetcar every day.
Eudaly said time is of the essence, citing the fact that 42% of the city’s carbon emissions come from transportation. By 2035, Portland hopes to essentially double its transit ridership. Just 12% of commuters today use transit, officials said.
Staff gave an update on the existing Rose Lane projects, three transit-priority lanes in downtown Portland introduced last year. Those developments are already carving minutes off riders’ commutes and rippling out across the city, officials said. They showed a video of the lane on Southwest Main that showed six buses carrying 272 people during a 15-minute observation period, compared with 246 cars transporting 282 people. Buses are just more efficient, the bureau said.
Bernie Bottomly, TriMet’s executive director of public affairs, called the transit priority projects “a seminal moment for the city” and likened it to other big moments in the agency’s history like building the downtown transit mall and starting the light-rail network.
The tri-county transit agency seeks to add what he termed “premium service” to Line 6 in September and hopes to boost Lines 20 and 14 starting next year. Those changes would make buses come every 12 minutes or fewer during peak hours, he said.
He said TriMet plans to ramp up its service to meet what it expects to be increased demand. Buses will be “fast, frequent and full,” he said, “but not overfull.”
Council separately approved an emergency ordinance that gives transportation leaders the authority to execute a design-build contract with a construction firm for its second wave of projects, instead of seeking a customary low bid from prospective firms. The city transportation bureau said that will allow the city to be nimbler and move forward with the second wave of projects on time.
The more than three-hour meeting wasn’t without drama.
City of Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty on Tuesday, June 4, 2019. Dave Killen / StaffThe Oregonian
Commissioner JoAnn Hardesty, the first woman of color elected to the citywide office and the lone representative who lives in east Portland, called into question the transportation bureau’s claim that the first phase of projects represents a focus on racial equity. She said the first wave of projects is still clustered in close-in neighborhoods, where residents already have a number of transit options.
“If we invest in the central city and then the economy takes a downturn,” she said, “then once again east Portland is going to be told, ‘We don’t have money for Phase 2.’”
Eudaly said those comments demonstrated a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the bureau’s approach. “The congestion is happening in the central city,” she said, noting that if east Portlanders have to wait for a bus, it’s probably because it’s caught in traffic downtown.
Hardesty, who ultimately approved the plan, said that she was “not buying it” that everyone would benefit and noted the lagging inequalities in the existing transit service, particularly for east Portland residents. “We’re not starting from a place of equity,” she said.
Eudaly responded that the city, which doesn’t own or manage the transit agency, can’t fix all the problems through one “pilot project,” a nod to the Rose Lane initiative.
But Eudaly also pushed Bottomly and TriMet to do more to increase service. “I had hoped for a greater commitment to increase service to run simultaneously with the Rose Lane(s),” she said.
Bottomly said he viewed the agency’s service expansions, which would likely be funded by the 2017 statewide transportation package, as a down payment. “I would hope we look at this as a minimum commitment from us,” he said. “If we can do more, we will do more.”
Some members of the public testified that the transit agency is actively choosing not to do more.
Kem Marks, who is legally blind and is a long-time transit advocate, pictured in a file photo along Southeast Powell near 130thThomas Boyd/The Oregonian LC- The OregonianLC- The Oregonian
Kem Marks, an east Portland resident and representative from the Rosewood Initiative, said he looks forward to holding Bottomly’s “feet to the fire” if the agency reneges and decides to further eliminate bus stops in east Portland, as is occurring on the Division Street high-capacity bus line. “That’s a hill we’re willing to die on,” Marks said.
Marks said TriMet, through the Metro regional government’s 2020 transportation package, has chosen not to add additional service, noting that the agency hasn’t asked for money through that package to do so.
Jose Mikalauskas, an east Portland resident who works with works at the Cully-based nonprofit group Verde, testified that close-in neighborhoods still see outsized advantages. “What we’ve seen TriMet propose is simply not enough,” he said.
Mary-Margaret Wheeler-Weber, the chair of North Portland’s Portsmouth Neighborhood Association, told the council that the grueling congestion on her commute caused her to abandon the Line 35 bus.
Wheeler-Weber said she did so despite knowing that climate change is real and despite the fact she has a free bus pass to use thanks to her employer. She now drives to work “most days.”
“I actually enjoy a ride that doesn’t suck out my life force by the time I get home from work,” she said.
Potentially good news for Wheeler-Weber: The city plan does call for restricting street parking on North Greeley Avenue during peak hours to create a bus-only lane.
That project will likely occur in Phase 1, meaning it would move forward this year or in 2021.
On Friday, the bureau announced that it would hold open houses to get community reaction to the next wave of projects expected to break ground, which include extending the bus-only lane on East Burnside Street to 12th Avenue and speeding up bus service in Southwest Portland near Collins Circle, among other changes.
UPDATE: A previous version of this story said city officials observed and counted buses and vehicles for 30 minutes on one of the dedicated bus lanes. The observation period was 15 minutes.
-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen
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