The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-06-23
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (16,475 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee convened on Monday, June 23, 2025, at 9:30 a.m., with roll call confirming attendance. The committee first considered an ordinance to vacate a portion of Southeast Oak Street between Southeast 37th Avenue and Southeast Cesar Chavez Boulevard, transferring the right-of-way to Portland Parks and Recreation to formalize existing pickleball courts, a skate ramp, and a pump track adjacent to Laurelhurst Park. Presenters described the street vacation process, prior Planning Commission approval, public notification steps, and plans for expanded pedestrian and bicycle pathways. One member of the public, representing the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association, testified in support. Discussion covered how facility needs are determined through a "level of service" planning process and typical timelines for city-initiated street vacations. A motion was made and seconded to recommend the ordinance to full council; a vote occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The committee then received an extensive overview of transportation system planning, covering the Transportation System Plan (TSP), its relationship to the regional Metro Transportation Plan, funding sources, equity considerations, community advisory committee formation, and future planning steps. Members discussed topics including system development charges, sidewalk investment, tactical urbanism, plazas, and East Portland mobility challenges. The meeting concluded with previews of upcoming agenda items for July 7 and later sessions.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
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1 Yeah.
2 Good morning.
3 I call the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to order. It is Monday, June the 23rd, 23rd at 9:30 a.m. Diego, can you please call the roll?
4 Good morning.
5 Koyama Lane here.
6 Morillo here. Green present.
7 Smith here.
8 Clerk. Here.
9 And, christopher, can you please read the statement of conduct?
10 Welcome to the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance in the agenda at wwe. Agenda, transportation and infrastructure committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person, testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted. When your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
11 Thank you christopher. So colleagues, today we have two items on our agenda. The first, we're going to hear an ordinance regarding a street vacation at southeast oak street near Laurelhurst park. And then we're going to go into a long awaited deep dive into transportation system planning and hear about how our city plans align with community and regional planning efforts. So, diego, can you please read the first item?
12 Item one vacate a portion of southeast oak street between southeast 37th ave and southeast cesar chavez boulevard, subject to certain conditions and reservations.
13 Thank you. So this ordinance comes to us from PBOT, and I'm going to hand it off to the PBOT team to get us started to discuss the vacation.
14 Good morning, chair Clark and members of the committee. This is priya nepal, dc for public works and we have before you a street vacation for a small section of southeast oak street that bisects the Laurelhurst park street vacation relinquishes our interest in this right of way, and that interest transfers to the adjacent property owners, which in this case is portland's Portland parks and recreation. We have with us PBOT right of way agent gene yamamoto, to quickly walk us through the presentation and answer any questions committee may have.
15 Thank you. So, mr. Yamamoto, you want to kick it off?
16 Yeah. Good morning. Councilors. My name is yamamoto from the PBOT real property services division, and I'm here to present on the southeast oak street street vacation with me. I have dave mceldowney, who's the division manager for PBOT real property services, as long, along with lauren mcguire, who's the parks and recreation assets and development division manager. So here's the street vacation area. It's on this section of southeast oak street between southeast 37th avenue and cesar chavez boulevard. It's in the Laurelhurst neighborhood next to Laurelhurst park, which is in district three, in east Portland. So just a little bit of background on the street vacation process and what we've done so far. This is a city initiated street vacation, which followed a directive from mayor wheeler's office. The petitioner is Portland parks and recreation, which means that should a street vacation be approved at city council next month, the street area would be absorbed into the abutting portions of Laurelhurst park. We presented the street vacation at the Portland planning commission in June of last year, where it was unanimously, unanimously approved by the commissioners there and then, as part of the street vacation protocols laid out in ors 271 ahead of the council hearing next month. We have published notices in the daily journal of commerce, posted physical notifications, signs in the street vacation area, and then sent out notification letters to the neighbors in the affected area. Here's a quick view of all the parks equipment that's already been installed in the street area. Going from right to left. The numbered sections are the pump track. In the middle you can see the skate ramp and then on the left the two pickleball courts. The blue rectangles on either end of the street area showed the temporary barricades that have been put up to prevent cars from turning in to the street area. Here's some photos of what you just saw on the plan view. So at the top you have the two pump track sections. The bottom right is the skate ramp, and then you have one of the two pickleball courts in the bottom left. And these are the two entrances to southeast oak street that I just spoke about. So on the left is the southeast 37th side. You can see those three circular blockers. Those are removable. So city maintenance vehicles can have access to the area. And then on the right is the cesar chavez side again removable barriers. But this side will be permanently closed off using a sidewalk and curb. And before we jump into those we can jump in.
17 Sure. So lauren mcguire, asset development division, Portland parks and recreation. Just wanted to let you know that our choice in recreation activities was balancing maximum activation for the area during the open park hours, and what we could find quickly. We chose as. As jean noted, the pickleball and skate park ramp and then the off road cycling features off the shelf, all of which we looked at our level of service, and that's how we determined what activities would be appropriate. So combining all those things together, we also have the benches and the park, the bike parking for viewing and for transportation.
18 Correct.
19 So with the closure of both sides of southeast oak street, that means we have a certain amount of bike and pedestrian traffic that's being diverted onto the sidewalk that runs currently on the south side of southeast oak street, to ensure that folks still have a corridor to be able to bike through this area and not have to divert onto any parallel streets. The plan is to expand the existing Laurelhurst park path that runs just to the north of the street. Vacation area will widen this path to 12ft, and then add a right angle connector for bikes at the southeast 37th side. The park will also allow for 24 over seven access through these two paths, to ensure that folks can move through there at all times of day. So with that, that concludes the presentation. We're happy to answer any additional questions that you might have.
20 All right. Thank you so much, diego. Has anyone signed up to testify today?
21 We have one individual signed up to testify.
22 Great. Would you call that person up.
23 Stephen fisher.
24 Do I sit here? Sure. Thank you. We'd love to have you.
25 Good morning. Thank you for joining us.
26 Thank you, chair and committee members. And a special thank you to our district three council members, Morillo and Koyama Lane. My name is stephen fisher. I am appearing here as chair of the Laurelhurst neighborhood association land use and transportation committee. I'm here to speak in support of the transfer of land on a small portion of southeast oak street from PBOT to the parks department, which provides Laurelhurst park with pickleball courts, a skateboard, ramps and a bicycle track, all of which are heavily used in this park in southeast. There's a letter in your packet from the neighborhood association also expressing support. The only thing I would add to this letter is that it is really difficult to find new park opportunities in district three for these types of activities, and this action is fairly easy, and a small action that goes to address one of the main district three priorities. As per a recently completed survey by southeast uplift. To add new park facilities within district three. Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't thank the many city staff who weighed in on this process. And this has been this is a long process, and I'd like to also acknowledge the support of two former commissioners on the old council. Council member rubio, who had the parks department at that time, and council member commissioner Hardesty, who had PBOT back in back at that time. Once again, I urge you to support this measure. Thanks.
27 Thank you so much for taking the time to come and speak to us today. Really appreciate it. Representing the Laurelhurst neighborhood, is there anyone else.
28 That concludes testimony?
29 Thank you. Colleagues, do we have any discussion, any questions for the panel? I do, all right. I'm just curious, since we have a parks representative, how did you decide to put the skate park and pickleball in? What was your process?
30 So it was quick. We had to we looked at our level of service. As I noted a little bit earlier, which is where we look at the facilities that are available throughout the city and look for areas where there is a need for those facilities. And that's how we determined what we would put in there. So combination of what we need and what the community was, was looking for to activate their area.
31 So how do you know what we need? Is there a survey or.
32 What we've done our I'm sorry, our planning department has done extensive process, which we called at that time, the level of service which was looking at 13 different assets in our system. And we talked to the community about how far they would go to each asset. So we have mapping of all those different assets, and it shows how far they would go to walk to a park, for example, half a mile to a park. And then it as as we map those in gis, you can see areas where there are needs for people to have additional parks in order to meet that.
33 Great. Thank you for explaining that. I think some of us are very new, and it's interesting to learn how you make those determinations. I appreciate that, and this is apparently obviously a very thorough, long process. I appreciate all your work on that. So, colleagues, if we don't have any other questions.
34 Councilor.
35 Yes, thank you. Thank you, madam chair. How long is the process like? Typically from the concept of inception until, you know, you bring it to council, how long does that take for this sort of thing? Hi david mceldowney with PBOT I can jump in on that. So the street vacation action, which is separate than any of the parks facility issues, it's based out of aws. And so there's a very prescriptive route we have to follow. This one is actually a little faster than a typical street vacation. They could last, you know, up to 2 or 3 years, depending on the complexity and the number of streets being, you know, vacated. But this is a city initiated vacation which kicks the public process more towards the back end. And so typically about a year for that process. So would you say that if the city was interested in doing a lot more of these, we would look at like maybe a year would be the kind of the shortest feasible timeframe that we could pull something like this off. It really depends on the complexity and the, you know, the who's involved in this case, the city owned the property on each side and made it very simple. And we would also be able to manage the utilities in the future that are currently in the street. There's other places where it could be faster just because of, you know, being a paper street, not a developed street per se, when that's, you know, has never had a street on it or no utilities, it could be faster, but typically about a year. Okay. Thank you. Yes.
36 Thank you, councilor Green. I think I know where you're going with this. I think in the future we're going to be wanting to look at the future of, of streets, those that are underutilized, that maybe could be turned into other kinds of assets. So I appreciate that question.
37 You know, you know how my brain cooks.
38 I know, I know by now how your brain works. Any other questions from district three? Did you have a question? Councilor Koyama Lane.
39 Thank you so much for being here today. I know my eight year old and nine year old really love those pickleball courts. I don't think they're actually playing pickleball, but in their mind, they're they're doing some version of it. This is just a really creative way to meet the needs of community members. And I used to I have taught at sunnyside environmental school, so took my students there often. And we also studied the history of the park. And so it was great to learn that that playground wasn't originally part of the park until there was advocacy around that, and that's kind of why it is separately added on. And so this just seems like a it fits in with that history. I'm wondering if you can summarize any feedback you've gotten from community regarding any concerns that have popped up. I see that PBOT has required some conditions for approval, so maybe those are connected there and have been dealt with. But if you could give us any summary of has there been pushback, has there been feedback around concerns at all?
40 Yeah. So as part of the public process, obviously, you know, we've gone out and talked with the neighbors. We've also presented at the Laurelhurst neighborhood association meeting a couple years ago. We haven't received any concerns, even with posting all these notices. You know, the j.c. Out in the neighborhood, you know, we've seen folks kind of posting on the internet about this and having conversations, which is great, but we haven't received any formal complaints or concerns.
41 Thank you.
42 Great. Any other questions? All right. I would entertain or like to entertain a motion to have the ordinance document number 2025, dash 247 be sent to the full council with a recommendation that it be passed. So moved second. Great. We have councilors moving the ordinance second, seconding it to be sent to the full council with a due pass recommendation. Is there any discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none. Then I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll.
43 Koyama Lane I.
44 Morillo I.
45 Green. I Smith. Not sure if you can hear us councilor Smith online. Clerk I. With four I votes. The ordinance is referred to the full council with a due pass recommendation.
46 Terrific. Thank you so much, all of you, for being here today and especially our neighborhood representative. We appreciate your time and your thorough process. Diego, can you please read the next item.
47 Item two overview of transportation system planning.
48 Thank you. So, colleagues, this item comes to us. We've asked our our colleagues to provide an overview of transportation system planning, including city, regional and community neighborhood level plans. You know, Portland has been known for its planning, its urban planning. Starting back with senate bill 100. We have a long history of planning in this state and in this community, and it includes planning for housing, planning for citizen engagement, planning, transportation. So we really wanted to have a better understanding of those layers of planning and, and how we got to this place. And we appreciate your helping us kind of decipher that whole process from state to regional to local to the neighborhood level. So I think that we have dca, dana paul again to open this up. And then art pearce PBOT, planning programs and project deputy director with us.
49 Thank you, chair Clark. Good morning everybody. For the record, once again, this is paul, deputy city administrator for public works. Thank you for having PBOT provide you with an overview of the transportation system planning that the city engages in. This is a timely opportunity, as the bureau is in the midst of launching the public engagement process for the update of the 2045 transportation system plan later this week. And as you all may be aware, under oregon's land use and transportation planning regulatory framework, transportation system plan, often referred to as a tsp, is required by state law to guide the city's transportation policies and investments over a 20 year period. A component of the city's comprehensive plan, the tsp, the city's overarching document on transportation policy and major capital projects. And the tsp must also be consistent with the latest regional transportation plan maintained by metro. Pbot also conducts ongoing area, corridor and modal planning to deep dive into particular areas and to inform future tsp updates. Our peers PBOT deputy director for planning programs and projects will be grounding you in the what, why and how of transportation system planning. Thank you again for the opportunity to engage with the committee on this timely and important work, and we look forward to working with the council as the 2045 tsp update unfolds. Over to you, art.
50 Thank you, dana. Paul art, good to have you here.
51 Yes. Thank you. Good morning again. Art pierce, deputy director of planning projects and programs here at PBOT. Thank you for taking the time to go into a little bit of a deeper dive into transportation system planning and the transportation system plan itself. We broke the presentation into three steps why, what and how. So why are we doing this? How is the transportation system plan and the regional transportation plan set up? And then what are we doing and how will we be collaborating with you and community on updating the transportation system plan? So actually, one of the reasons why I pursued this as a career 27 years ago, which is a long time ago, was realizing how much transportation planning and the transportation network itself is so integral to access to opportunity and the flow and functioning of our city in general. And so I think it's just important for us to remember that the direct movement that we experience of our commute is just one piece of how a transportation system is designed and the implications of doing it well or not doing it well. So particularly access to opportunity, this is how people get to work, to school, to their to visit family, to worship. It is also part of our core requirements that the system is designed safely and that people are able to navigate the system safely, regardless of how they choose to get around. It is also important to note that that the transportation sector makes up about 43% of our carbon emissions in this region, and so is very a large contributor to climate change and our climate adaptation and public health is related to that as well. Emissions and the, you know, instances of public health are experienced differently in different parts of the city. It is also important to note that overall household budget includes both housing and transportation. So if we're able to make transportation more affordable, that is a has a key attribute towards people being able to continue to afford their housing. It's also important to note, if we are putting funds into building structured vehicle parking, for instance, that can be 50, even $80,000 per unit per parking space that should be spent. Both the space and the money should be spent on housing people and not on cars. And so we need to be able to make a system that is less reliant on that need goods movement, while is a relatively smaller part of our overall transportation, mobility is often caught in the crossfire and is not able to get its goods delivered on time and affordably. If they're caught in many hours of congestion. And then lastly, we have a constant choice about how we use our space with the public right of way being 30% of our overall land area, all owned by the by the public sector, about how we want to use that space, whether we want to use it for storing cars and mobility, or use it for creating public space. So those are constantly dynamics.
52 Can I interrupt you just for a second before you dive much deeper into the tsp? Could you tell us is this also a requirement that we do this on the part of the state? Where does that.
53 Yes for sure. So yeah, I'll go into the specifics of the tsp and the rtp. But we do have both federal and state requirements for compliance. Absolutely. And I've got a slide in a moment. I'll get there. You know, just to make sure that we are really grounded in this, people experience the transportation system differently. For instance, 27% of black households in Portland do not have access to a car, compared to just 13% of white households. And also the time spent commuting can be 20% longer. For bipoc portlanders, this matters to people's daily time that they can spend with their families, whether they're making it to work on time. All those things are of critical import. It is also really important to note that the provision of vehicle transportation consumes not just road space, but land space. For instance, from 1933 to 1960, you can see the number of buildings that were torn down to make surface parking in our avid pursuit during those years to accommodate vehicle growth, we know that that is not what's best for the city, and we have changed course. But it is, I think, a stark reminder that many of those surface lots are still exist today, and we're still working our way out of that trend. Transportation planning is inherently very, very complex, and one of the reasons is we're always building off of an existing land use and infrastructure pattern, and we're trying to change the way that the land use and transportation system interact, the way that we have the built environment set up changes, the travel demands and how far you need to travel, what is convenient to travel. All those things matter. If a grocery store is five miles away, it's very hard to do that through a short walk with a tow behind cart. If a grocery store nearby. If we're attending to food inequities, those things will actually help with transportation equities. And so we're always working on these sort of trade offs within the transportation system. And I think it's important to note that the transportation system, while being overseen by PBOT and overseen by us council members, is actually co-created by all of us on a daily basis. The choice that we make in terms of how we choose to get around, the speed we drive, the amount of space that we're taking. All of those things has an implication for others that are also trying to get to where they need to go. And so each time we decide to take the bus that day, we're making a contribution to the overall system benefit, leaving space for someone that doesn't have that option quite as readily. As chair, clarke iterated PBOT and Oregon has been a on the vanguard of transportation system planning for many years and really starting back in the 1970s. At the same time, there was there was a lot of statewide land use goals established the beach bill, all those various things. This was a time in which Oregon was really shifting its focus from focusing on vehicle travel to really focusing on creating a balanced transportation system, really emphasizing walking, cycling and transit as our key modes that we want to have safe and accessible for everyone. As I already stated earlier, this is a goal to create thriving places, emphasizing and supporting the land use development pattern that already exists within Portland and the places that we want to see growth happen. And so you'll see in the highlights, those are the various designated centers within Portland. And then you can see the key corridors. And this is showing the investments and how they match up with those key centers and corridors where we want to create thriving, accessible, welcoming places. We are also very conscious, particularly at this point, about reducing the impact that we have on the system. And as I know, you've already had a lot of good conversations around vision zero. Continue to be striving in a safe system approach to make sure that we are attending to everyone's mobility needs. We've also done some interesting studies looking at how we can convert our transportation space to emphasize the moving of people. For instance, this is one location where we filmed the number of vehicles, the number of pedestrians and cyclists, and noted that in just six busses we were treating and moving the same number of people as 241 cars. So if we're if we're mindful about using our space effectively, we can have a large impact on the mobility of our space. But there's trade offs and choices inherent in that. It's also important, as I noted a little bit already, that we're always focusing on helping people shift their patterns as the city is growing and adapting. And so we have all these great programs that are lifted up within the transportation system plan that are now also part of pbot's program strategy, such as safe routes to school or transportation wallet, but always helping people. And of course, Sunday parkways, which is one of everyone's favorites. Pbot is also a great partner in using all of our land area to help remedy urban heat island, and we have new programs such as curbs, trees in the curb zone, as well as partnerships with the bureau of environmental services and the urban forestry of adding more and more tree canopy into our street areas. And then PBOT is also continuing to look at our transportation assets and wondering which of them can become community places. And with the overall ethic that Portland needs, many living rooms all throughout the city to create places for community connection and shared commerce together. So specifically to the transportation system plan. So this is a state required 20 year investment blueprint. It establishes both the policy framework that guides all of our decision making. And then it also integrates the capital projects, asset management, project delivery and various policies. And it's meant to match our forecasted funding together into being submitted as part of our comprehensive plan. It also establishes a financially constrained list of projects that then can be added into our capital improvement program, and also into the regional transportation program. So it's a while. Sometimes it feels like it's a long off sleepy process. It's integral for community members or for you if you want to see projects happening, the transportation system plan in the regional transportation plan is actually where the game is. So we are within the tsp. We're looking at overall system priorities. And as we talked about earlier, looking at prioritizing walking for trips one mile or less, emphasizing cycling as a safe and comfortable option for trips that are three miles or less, and prioritizing transit for trips that are three plus miles. Is a way that we're helping the city ensure its mobility over time. We are also looking within the transportation system plan at connectivity and master street plans for areas that are developing, such as gateway, making sure that as that district develops, there's local streets that can provide access. Also within the tsp is a is a stark reminder that demand management and parking policies are key to our growth management strategy. Parking and parking pricing. Parking time management is one of our key strategies to make sure that commercial districts have ready access to customers, and that we're incenting people to maybe own one less car, to make up less, to make more space for others within the community. Within the current transportation system plan, we have 254 projects that are within the financially constrained project list and 77 projects that are outside of our financial constraint list, making up our overall tsp major projects list. And so the map on the right is an illustration showing the lines and the dots for all of those those projects.
54 Art, can I interrupt you just for a second? Can you just talk a little bit about what it means to be financially constrained?
55 For sure. So I'll speak a little bit more in detail about the overall forecast. But essentially what we are submitting to the state is both existing known revenues and anticipated revenues. And those make up our overall revenue allotment essentially. And we're matching up those projects into that, that financial forecast. And so it has limits of course, to it. And so we end up with projects that are outside of that limit of that, of that anticipated forecast that we aren't predicting we're able to fund, but are still important projects that we want to essentially have in the queue. And so at times, we are making choices between key projects or choosing phases of projects. Also, this is an opportunity for us to look at our funding mechanisms and decide if we want to bring more funding to specific types of projects, to be able to open up more opportunity for those financially unconstrained.
56 And is that constrained list dynamic? Does it change? Do projects drop off? Do you add.
57 With each update? So this is another. With this moment, we have an opportunity to look at the existing set of projects, remove those that we've already completed, and then potentially add in new projects to match up with our forecast.
58 Excuse me, we have one more question.
59 Oh sure. Yeah, yeah.
60 So let's make sure that we understand financially constrained. That means that those are a list of funded and not funded.
61 Even very important. I'm going to I might just jump. Well, give me a moment. I'll come to that in a second. Let me finish a couple slides. I have a specific slide that will help us understand that. Also within the transportation system, plan, our ten program categories that we anticipated about 316 million of needed investment over the next 20 years. And these are designed to make those quicker investments. A lot of them are the ones you're hearing about that we don't know all the details of to include them specifically, but we know the categories of investments that we want to make, and it allows us to be more nimble as an agency to respond to concerns around traffic safety, around pedestrian connectivity, around cycling connectivity. And so we have these ten program areas pedestrian network completion, bikeway network completion, improvements to neighborhood greenways, high crash corridors, safe routes to school transit, priority freight priority, overall transportation system management, which is signalization. Types of changes. Transportation demand management and parking strategies, and then alternative street design. So together this makes up a large amount of anticipated need. Much of this has not been funded yet that we would love to be able to deploy into community.
62 I hope you don't mind us interrupting you.
63 That's great.
64 Demonstration of our enthusiasm.
65 For this topic.
66 I think. Councilor Green, do you have a question that's germane to this part of the presentation?
67 Yeah.
68 Yes. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. So I'm curious how and if, like when we do a tif district, how does that interact with the tsp? I imagine there is a close connection there.
69 Absolutely. So tax increment has been one of the really instrumental funding streams over the years, mostly in helping match together with other revenue streams like system development charges. But the anticipation of whether or not we're going to have these tax increment districts was hard to forecast. And I think that's one of the new funding streams that we would be able to anticipate now that we have these new tif districts formed, which we didn't necessarily know what the outcome was going to be in the 2018 passage of the last one. So I think it's a very important question.
70 Thanks. And then so yeah, and I think, of course, the east side is going to get a lot of new tif districts and, you know, resources to do that that investment. But I'm also thinking about north macadam, for instance. I know that, you know, there's funds left in that district. And I'm just curious if there are the upgrades there in that district. That's for sure. Part of this plan.
71 Yeah. Yeah. So we have a I wonder if it's on the map. It's probably very hard to see. But if you look down into in the shaded area, the sort of the tail of the of central city, there's a number of dots there. Those are key portal improvements to that district that are essentially unfinished business, that are really key, particularly if we are going to be hosting baseball in that district. We're going to need to be making additional district improvements there for sure. Yeah.
72 Thank you.
73 And they know they know well about these projects. So I appreciate your reinforcements on this.
74 Great great question. Councilor Green councilor Green and I are both very concerned about our the tip of that district and, and what those projects are. I want to ask you another question. Just back up to the list of program areas. Do you do you prioritize all the projects in each of those categories and they have timelines associated with them? And is that how do we access that kind of list?
75 No.
76 That's great. So on our website is a reference list for each of these program categories. And we have a program manager for each of those categories. So our pedestrian coordinator or our cycling coordinator would be the hub of those requests. And they're working with our traffic engineers to look through those requests. Some of them actually come directly from our a23 safe phone line requests. And they get added and reprioritized every year to look at what we think are the top priority investments. One of the this is one of the areas that we were faced with reductions in the last couple of years, but we were able to get some funding for some portion of this and also safe for us to fixing our streets, funding for some other portions. So some of this, we're not by any means doing it at this level, but some of these programs have been able to continue on with those one time sources.
77 Thank you. I can imagine that some of my colleagues here are very, very interested in what's in these categories and that we may want to, at some point revisit these in greater detail.
78 Sure.
79 Thank you for bringing.
80 This to our attention.
81 Sounds great. Yeah.
82 Excuse me one more question.
83 Oh, sure.
84 Councilor Koyama Lane.
85 So looking at this list of citywide programs that still need investment, are these part of the 77 projects that are unconstrained or are they're part of.
86 They're actually neither. So the these are the major projects that are listed here. So these are all projects that are mostly above $2 million is roughly the scale in which these become we end up with major projects. And so these programs were a way of capturing the sort of myriad of smaller investments that are always needed. And so they're not listed. They're actually separate unless my colleagues kick me. Am I right?
87 They are, I think, separate from the council. Double check on the funding. And I should introduce myself, I guess.
88 Can you come up to. The dais and introduce yourself?
89 For the record, Eric hess, supervising planner for policy and regional planning team, has responsibility for the tsp, working with with art and leadership. And so I think we'll we'll double check to confirm that the number is definitely separate from these these program areas. I just want to double check that $1 billion estimate, whether it includes that funding or not. So and I'll just note also in the 2035 tsp, there are also other major projects. Some of the ODOT highway expansion or improvement projects, TriMet projects, things like that that are also in the list. These are particularly ones funded and led by PBOT. So we just wanted to articulate that as well.
90 Gotcha. Do you have a follow up? No.
91 I think I continued reiteration along. I think you should stay up.
92 I can do that.
93 Yeah. I continued reiteration on this. This is planning money rather than actual secured funds for much of these areas. So we are predicting the capability on some of these projects. But then we are projecting the need and trying to show how with some additional investment that could be anticipated, such as passage from the state legislature or further investment from this body, we could do more of these projects. And so there's a space in there that is always that gap. And so particularly for these program areas, these are areas that we're continuing to really pursue the funding for. More so than we have the funding to expand. Other than those couple key programs.
94 Thank you.
95 Yeah, right. So grounding a little bit more into the transportation system plan, you'll see that what I just highlighted in orange is the area of the transportation system plan. That is those modal plans various where the street classifications, the master street plans, all the project lists go. But then you'll see that there's an overlap with the city's comprehensive plan. And that's where goals and policies, our project list and the finance plan lie, because that's part of us demonstrating our compliance with the overall comprehensive plan requirement each time we're in periodic review. So maybe I'll sort of go slowly here for a moment. So you can see below. Each of the transportation system plan are each of those modal plans as well as neighborhood and over area plans, neighborhood street plans and other plans. All of those feed into the transportation system plan, and there's a new snapshot with each of these updates where the most relevant and up to date council adopted information is all within the transportation system plan. And so what we are in right now is a is an update to that specific zone. There's also been there's also been a lot of conversation over the last year around the regional transportation plan. So I think it's important to highlight that that's outside of our transportation system plan. But we are feeding into that with our adoption of the tsp. And then we are participating in each of those rtp updates. So the rtp is held brought together by metro jointly jointly approved by jpac and metro council. And so it's a process that metro is leading, that is for both Portland and all of the other jurisdictions, as well as state agencies that are have projects within the metro area. And this is federally required and updated every five years. And we're in kind of mid cycle right now from that last update. The last update I think was in 23, right? Yeah. And so we are submitting our project list to those areas is into that overall and conversation. And they are part of what helps us determine what is our overall allocation of funding is in conversation with around regional resources. Again, important to note that you need to be, you know, projects and programs need to be in the tps version of a financially constrained list in order to receive federal funds. We've had moments where we have discovered a new priority project and realized that it wasn't in the rtp and had to go through an rtp update in order to be able to pursue or get federal funds for those. At the regional scale. So this is an example of the policy framework for the last rtp. You'll see that it has broader goals, such as the 2040 growth plan. Also their version of centers and corridors that are receiving emphasis. And it is including a lot of the same policy objectives that we share, such as equity, high injury network, high capacity transit network, different efforts on congestion management.
96 Excuse me. Let me just ask, councilor Smith, do you have a question you want to ask now to.
97 Thank you, madam president. I can wait until he's finished.
98 Okay.
99 Thank you.
100 All right.
101 Councilor Green, do you have a question that's.
102 Can go back to slide 24?
103 Yeah. Okay.
104 Thanks.
105 So when I look at this, there's a lot of intersecting plans and processes. And I guess I so I can appreciate how if a proposal comes forward that's not on the prioritization list, it can maybe potentially throw a lot of things out of sync. But I wonder what's the binding like? What is the master overarching authority? When I look at this diagram, like at the end of the day, I mean, they're state planning goals. But but there's we have the Portland plan, the climate action plan, Portland comp plan. We've got the tsp. So what is our sort of north star? If we had to sort of default on like a single guidance directive.
106 I think a lot of the state planning goals which are governed by dlcd, I think I would think of as the overall north star that is guiding us. Luckily, it's a star we're already aligned towards and heading towards. So there's, I guess, less tension than there might be, but we are needing to be to demonstrate compliance with all of those state goals with each of our submittals. And there's a review process that that they do and might give us feedback on that. We're out of compliance depending. Does that make sense to you?
107 It does. That's very helpful.
108 Thanks.
109 Can I just add on one other observation there art in the future, I think it might be interesting for our committee to have a parallel chart to this that shows the money flow.
110 Yeah, totally.
111 What comes from the federal government through the state government to our region, to our city, how those dollars, where they come from, how they get distributed and their relationship, maybe an overlay to this document.
112 Yep, yep.
113 I think that might be helpful for us to be able to track where the money comes from.
114 Mini version of it in this show, but I think we could go a lot.
115 Okay, terrific.
116 Sorry, I'm jumping ahead.
117 No, no, this is good. You are. You're on the right track. One of the new things, there's new state requirements that were just passed in the last couple of years that include additional requirements around public engagement and equity principles. Also a requirement that we are demonstrating no per capita increase in vehicle miles traveled. So that is a pretty significant requirement that we're going to need to demonstrate that are on in total, our plan is able to accommodate that requirement at the state level. And there's a state required performance measures around safety, equity and climate that will be needing to use to prioritize our projects along with you to demonstrate that that our plan is in alignment with those goals. There's also additional state requirements now that are further pressing on us to demonstrate financial constraint with our project lists. The early tsp's were able to be kind of a dream list without as much constraint. And with each successive update over the years since the early 2000, there's been more requirement for reality. Even in the plan, which is healthy, it allows us to really weigh the tradeoffs and make sure we're making our smartest choices. It also this requirement, which is, I think, new at the state level, is that in order to be in the capital improvement program, a project has to also be in our tsp. And that was something that was sort of a best practice, but maybe not a core requirement before.
118 And maybe just briefly note one nuance there that not all operations and maintenance are ongoing. Things need to be in there necessarily. So this is more the capital improvement type projects. So just wanted to add that that slight nuance. Yeah.
119 So we are undertaking the next of these journeys. When we waited for you, we wanted to make sure that we had a new council on board and kind of have you have your sea legs under you before taking on this new journey, because you're going to be instrumental in helping us with this process. So we're just just now starting up this month with, with some of the process. So we're working through now overall developing the engagement plans. What are the overall vision and goals for the planning process, looking at existing and future conditions and then also starting to look at revenues scenarios. So we're sort of preparing all the back preparation work. And then later this fall we're going to be starting to looking at various scenarios. Essentially that will be then working through with you. And then heading into next year looking at refinement phase of working with both, both this body as well as the technical advisory committee and a community advisory committee to work through revisions of some multiple drafts.
120 Can I interrupt you here? Sure. So tac must be technical advisory committee.
121 Technical advisory.
122 Committee is the community advisory committee. And can I ask you, how does one get on the community advisory committee?
123 Well, here, let me I'll get there in a second. We have a slide.
124 Sorry.
125 So it's okay. This is. You are.
126 Forgive us.
127 So in terms of this 2045 tsp update, we're focused of course on ensuring compliance with those state planning rules, including the updated rules, wanting to work directly with you and the entire city council and the public on making sure we're understanding what are the most timely and critical needs. Looking at any existing of goals and policies that need refinement, and then going through the process of updating the project list, which is always a pretty substantial effort, of course, because both community and business, as well as council members, care deeply about what investments we might be able to make. This, I think, will continue to daylight a structural deficiency in terms of how we are funded as a bureau and particularly what's becoming, I think, more and more obvious is without a base funding for our operations and maintenance, we're further and further challenged to even produce these new quality investments. And so we need really base funding for the bureau for us to be able to even begin this journey. With. There's additional state guidance and direction around equity analysis. Pbot was already ahead of the game and has already been working on a history of racism in portland's transportation system. We have a report that is coming together or maybe is ready, mostly ready. And then the exciting thing is we have a video that we'd love to share with you at some point, and potentially might even invite you to a broader viewing that we might do at a public venue, just given. I actually have not seen it yet, but I've heard it's amazing, I director williams said she cried, which is not that does not happen that often. Yeah. So I think it is. I think it's something that we probably all want to be sort of grounded in as we're heading into this next conversation. But so this a major equity analysis is, is required as part of the but is something that we have already been well aligned with as a bureau. So this is a demonstration of what we did at this point almost ten years ago, which is crazy. Well, eight years ago maybe. But as for the last tsp update, we took all of the tsp candidate projects, all the projects that made it into our tsp from modal plans, from area plans, and from other community requirements and requests. And you'll see this was an attempt to demonstrate it as sort of a gumball machine. So each of these bubbles is the size of actual projects that were that were in the last tsp. And then we were working them through a variety of filters, looking at safety, economic benefit, equity, neighborhood access, climate, health, cost effectiveness, and public support to then sort into three categories first, into constrained and unconstrained, as we already spoke to, but then into a one through ten year list and an 11 through 20 year list. And so that's where the choices start getting harder. But it's also helps us really focus in on our priorities as we're pursuing grants and other outcomes. So we'll be doing a similar exercise this time. As we already spoke a little bit before, the transportation system plan is relying on funding to come into reality and turn it into a capital improvement plan. And as we're looking at the transportation system plan, we have sort of ongoing, predictable funding streams such as the state gas tax. And then and but that's primarily used for operations and maintenance, less than $2 million a year of our general transportation revenue goes into our capital improvement program. It's mostly the rest of these categories, such as system development charges, funding that we passed with the fixing our streets, and then our ever nimble and optimistic planning team is always out applying for federal grants and pursuing new funding and new solutions for all of these needs. But those are tenuous. So in the tsp, we need to project sort of how much optimism and tenacity we think we have, both as a bureau and as a council, to pursue funding solutions for these projects. Federal funds are a key part of our overall funding, but most of that goes to the state dot and is only shared through a couple specific programs down to the local level. So funds that we regional flexible funds allocation, or ruffa, is one of those key categories that we're each round every couple of years are pursuing, you know, 3 to 4 projects maybe. And then there's also federal competitive grants such as fta small starts. So that would be for something like the montgomery streetcar extension or the reconnecting communities grant, which we did receive funding for broadway and weidler and then safe streets for all. So safety projects. We have 120 and a couple of other projects, but those are very, very specific one time applications. So for the most part, it's the state funds and local funds that are really carrying us. However, as I said, good planning and project solutions does lead to more investments. And so we forecasted some possible solutions within the last tsp. And some of them came to be such as the fixing our streets. We passed, I think twice now since the last tsp. We have a heavy vehicle use tax that is a companion to that. The clean energy fund has proven a really instrumental revenue stream for supporting our programs in particular, and also our projects. And then really through a lot of collaborative work with the state, we were able to fund the transition of 82nd avenue from a state highway to the city. And I think we should anticipate that there might be more of that in the future, but of course, would need state funding to help make that be. For this next process. So we have a community advisory committee that has been selected and their first meeting is coming up this week, June 25th. We have 31 members that applied to be I think we had over 100 applications.
128 160.
129 160 applications applicants. So this is a popular a popular committee to be process on. I haven't yet introduced her, but francesca jones is the project manager for the effort and has done an amazing job with recruiting a really wide variety of people from various backgrounds and interests. And so that committee will be advising the PBOT director in particular, and the tsp project team on how to navigate through the process and getting on, giving us feedback on what the technical analysis shows us. Chair steph ralph from the planning commission is the liaison to that committee and will also probably be helping us with some of the communication with you as well, given her formal. All right, last slide. We've been on a journey. I appreciate your patience. So we are anticipating four steps for our engagement process with you. And so this is sort of our first stop along the way. But plan to check in with you at key milestones through the vision and goals process, through the development and then the refinement processes. So both as formal briefings and then also happy to go on deeper dives with you all as appropriate. All right. More questions.
130 Thank you art. And thank you Eric. All right colleagues, this is our chance to dig into this this a lot of information to digest and complicated web of relationships. And I think we're tracking and you know, we've got three members of this committee that either have had or do have a relationship to jpac. So this is really valuable information for us. And we're all and if you follow the committee, you know that we're very interested, we're very engaged. We're very interested in safety. We're very interested in the future of our streets and our asset management in particular. So, councilor Smith, you had your hand up. Would you like to go next?
131 Thank you, madam president. Madam chair. I don't know if this if this art, if this question goes to you or dca, donna paul, but one of the things I was concerned about is our sdcs. And there's apparently $63 million in that will be foregone if we if we waive the fees for the for the new market rate housing that's going to be built. And so I was looking at this and it sounds like 27 million less for parks, 22 million less for sewer and stormwater, 10 million less for transportation and 4 million less for water over three years. So in terms of us creating our tsp and contributing to the rtp, how will that impact us in a way that that we can still do what we need to do going forward, or is that going to be a problem for us as we create these plans?
132 Well, this is a long term plan. So in terms of the transportation system plan, I think we would anticipate that sdc would still be a key resource over the life of the plan, the 20 year period. In the short term, it does produce a challenge in terms of our ability to use sdcs. Mostly, we use that as matching funds for externally funded projects. And so, for instance, for tif districts, we often would use sdcs to match tif funding. We may be more reliant on tif funding for those near-term projects, because we won't be able to bring as much match necessarily. So we're continuing to look at our project list as we're trying to anticipate what the tradeoffs might be. But and I think we are we are ever, I guess, tenacious in our approach of pursuing additional funding from other sources. So if sdcs can't be as as robust in the near term, we're going to work on adapting to finding other ways.
133 Yeah, I was looking at a editorial this morning. Someone was talking about the sdcs that we're going to forego and that that was going to have a huge impact on what we're doing in terms of our planning. Are you are who on PBOT sits on jpac.
134 Oh.
135 It's the mayor. And then I think, chair.
136 Oh.
137 Are there any other like PBOT personnel that or is it just the mayor and the commissioners? Is there anyone else who who pays attention to this?
138 So there's a technical staff level called tpac, the transportation policy alternatives committee, and I represent the city there. Okay. And we work to coordinate with the jpac representatives.
139 Great. Thank you.
140 Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.
141 Thank you so much. I feel like I'm getting to dive in and learn a lot. Can you go back to the slide that showed the progress, like the timeline? The process schedule is what it was called. And just can you confirm exactly where we are? We at that first star?
142 Yeah.
143 Eric, you can answer why.
144 Sure. Yes. The intention is that that's that first start sort of at the end of our groundwork, which we as a team have been pulling together, a lot of information have been working on since January with our technical advisory committee, which is staff across various bureaus as well as neighboring jurisdictions and state agencies and TriMet as well. So they've been kind of getting the material ready. And then we're shifting into the public process starting this week, as we noted. So yes.
145 Okay, great. And then I found a website that goes even more in depth with all the tsp documents, and just wanted to confirm. To see the full list of all the projects. Is that going like looking at appendix a? Is that all of them? Everything? Yes. Okay.
146 And we also have an interactive map at Portland tsp. So that's another place to be able to interact with. And we're happy to follow up with all these resources to summarize them.
147 For you. And that certainly is my preferred method. When someone asks me, is there a tsp project here? Pulling up that that map app is really, really quick and you can click on and get the background data on all the projects. I'm also a visual person, so I like being able to navigate that way.
148 I think I found the one that you're talking about, the pdx maps dot r, that one is.
149 That there's a version that's within pdx maps world. We built a separate one, which also integrates more of our functional classifications and networks as well as the text of the document. So we have a specific website we built just to be interactive around the transportation system plan that will direct you to.
150 And for these when you click on them and it says estimated time frame. If it says not applicable, would that mean that it's one that is not secured.
151 That's the unconstrained list okay.
152 Great. And then you talked a little bit about new revenue possibilities. I don't know if you're able to go a little more in depth on that. It seems like a an important thing that we need to talk about.
153 Absolutely.
154 Yes. I think that's that's constantly an effort on both for our team as well as within the director's office of making sure that we're sort of lifting up those needs for capital investments. You know, we always end up with, I guess, choices between that and maintenance investments. But in the end, the I think one of the key things for the bureau right now is the core foundational funding. And so we both have an active conversation at the state legislature. And then we have a continued conversation here. One of the, I think, key highlights, if you look at transportation system planning and all the things I've been talking about, you might notice that it's hoping for a less reliance on the automobile. You will also notice that our primary funding streams are through gas tax and parking. So we have a structural challenge. The city administrator described us as intentionally driving ourselves out of business. Right. You know, so we you know, we need your help with that structural challenge. We need to shift our our funding streams reliance just as our personal choices, reliance away from driving in order to be a successful bureau. And so looking at us as a utility that is funded by sort of all households is one of the key, you know, philosophies that I think would be really important. And this is when I knew the director might appear.
155 Yeah.
156 Good morning. Millicent williams, director, Portland bureau of transportation. Thank you so much for having the team here this morning. I didn't want to jump in as ardent Eric are fully capable of handling this conversation. But as it relates specifically to future funding for the bureau, one of the things that we shared with this committee and with the full council early on January and February, was our overall funding picture, and we talked about how much of our budget was restricted, and then we spoke specifically to the amount of funding that goes to the capital improvement program I will share. And I just wanted to highlight this because I didn't think that art was going to brag about this as much as he probably should. The planning team is probably one of the more impactful and effective fundraising grant award winning teams in the city. The cip, the capital improvement program, is largely funded by grants 250 600 million over five years. But, you know, on an annual basis, working with around $250 million. Did I say 1000 million?
157 Yeah.
158 We. We have about a 10 to 1 leverage ratio with our use of local funds versus external funds. So yeah, we're we're constantly fundraising. Yeah.
159 And so as it relates to the general funding for the bureau, and again, I know we're going to talk about this probably ad nauseam over the course of the next 12 months because budget season starts on July 2nd, I look forward to working with this committee and full council to help to identify ways that we could look at a more sustainable funding that does remove the reliance on that fossil fuel funding. That right now is the major engine for our budget.
160 And just moving ahead at our next meeting, this committee on July the 7th, we'll know at that point what the state legislature has done with their package, which is a very diverse package, moving away slowly from the gas tax. But we'll get those results before the seventh. But we'll discuss it here on the seventh, and let's hope it's good news. Did you have another question.
161 Just to clarify, because I hear the like the language like work with council in order for us to move forward with thinking about some other ways to get revenue, it needs to be driven by councilor, by electeds is that.
162 I think.
163 Together with us.
164 Is the executive and the legislative. I think from the policy perspective and putting forward notes and recommendations about how you would like for us to move forward. It is important for us to receive that guidance from you. But of course, we must work first in lockstep with the mayor and city administrator as it relates to the broader funding picture that we seek to draw.
165 So it would be more of a conversation or an ordinance.
166 I know that the mayor is very interested in pursuing alternatives here, and we'll have that conversation with him. And I know that he'll start with his agency people or bureau people and then include us at some point.
167 Great.
168 Thank you.
169 We certainly have robust background information that we'd love to work through with you to deliberate on what's the best type of solutions.
170 So councilor Green, did you have a question?
171 Yes. Thank you, madam chair. My question is so as we kick off and we head into this 2045 refresh, how does this intersect with like the housing production strategy and some of the other kind of transit oriented development? Because as I see it, you can't really solve what you want to solve without being in lockstep with our our housing strategy.
172 100%.
173 No. Very good question. That's why the transportation system plan and the comprehensive plan are so intricately overlapped is the, you know, the best transportation strategy actually is a land use strategy. If you're able to create thriving, dense communities where the things you need are nearby, you don't need to go as far to go to work or to school or to, you know, recreate those kind of things. And so the various land use and development strategies we need to continue to emphasize, luckily, we have many, many years of that integrated thinking. And so the locations where we have our major project lists, those are emphasizing already those commercial either centers or corridors. And so but I think as we see more and more activity happening in those areas, we're going to need to bring more improvements, at very least more pedestrian crossings to a busy street that's the hub of a commercial district. As that district grows more and more, you know, more, more easy access to walking and cycling to that location from, you know, a mile or even longer out. So you're able to easily walk there ensuring and partnership with TriMet that there's good transit access to that center so that that's a competitive choice, all of those things, if we're not doing it well together, we're we're chasing longer and longer distances with harder and harder solutions.
174 You're you're speaking my language. I really appreciate that. I think it's important for us to talk about this in relation to the system development charge discussion, because I think, councilor Smith, you raised a really good point, which is that if we're going to waive these fees, and I've been a champion of that, of course, but there is an opportunity cost to that. But the way that I think about it is if that is successful, then we'll see that increase in housing production, which will then create new ratepayers, will create new new property taxpayers. And so there's this sort of, you know, I think the director said it's, you know, we're thinking ourselves more as a utility. Or maybe you said that. And when utilities, utilities expand their rate base, you lower, you lower the cost pressure for everyone. And so I think as we move forward, it if we get past the point where the sdcs, you know, it's a temporary time limited thing, but if it was very successful, we might consider a version of that rolling forward. But at that point, we really need to think about a very curious what the mayor is going to bring on the question of how do we pay for infrastructure in a post gas tax world? How do you then leverage that with, with bond issuances as, as a stable revenue stream? Because then we can start to, to really make hay while the sun shines on this bigger list and then drive forward on this integrative tod approach.
175 Absolutely. And I think, you know, the one of the great opportunities that we have in terms of the shifting of our structure, in terms of having a public works and having PBOT and parks and water and bs together in a public works, is that we are thought of as a shared utility offering, providing a set of services. One of the structural challenges we have now is while a lot of the things we do creates vibrant communities, that produces business license, tax and property taxes, but those streams don't are not designated towards PBOT. And so we are sort of we're we're a contributor to the system without maybe having some of the built in mechanisms that help us with the co-investment over time. And so I think you're absolutely right, as we're thinking about this at a higher level structurally, how do we create really thriving urban communities? We need to really wrestle with that structural funding challenge for sure.
176 Thank you. And then just the last point, I suppose, as we do the public aspect of this, I suspect you guys will hear a lot about plazas. Yeah, preserving what we have and then expanding that. So I, I'm really eager to see how that how plazas fit into this, this broader plan.
177 Speak in my language as well. Yeah. We do have a presentation, I think, planning to come to you in September. I think if I'm remembering right, to go more deeply into the plaza program. But you're absolutely right, certainly in cities all over the world, as you're creating more vibrant, dense communities, and especially if you're creating less space in your in each apartment or each house, you need more and more space for people to, to be connected outside together. And I think it's has economic implications. It also has social implications. If we're thinking about being an interconnected community who sees each other outside and being less sort of stuck in our own bubble and algorithms, it is in those public spaces where maybe there's music happening and there's kids playing that you're having really human connection. And I think that's instrumental to portland's next chapter, for sure.
178 Yeah.
179 Thank you. Art councilor Smith, did you have another question?
180 Yes.
181 Thank you, thank you. So I have two questions. You had mentioned something earlier about making sure that people get a chance to get out of their cars and, and move about around the city. But I can tell you that in district one, that is a very long district. And it is going to be hard. And I don't know what your idea or vision is for how people can move around in, in district one, which is east Portland, and what that looks like. I know that going north to south is a bit of a problem, and we're trying to speed up what we do on 82nd. Right. And then if you're talking about the east to west, those are very high crash corridors that we're speaking about. So I'm just curious, what were you thinking or if there are any thoughts yet on what it would look like to move around if we had a chance to wave our magic wand, what could we and would we do to make it easier for people to get around?
182 Absolutely.
183 Well, I think what we're probably continuing a lot of what we have already been doing, which is ensuring that transit and pedestrian access is safe and comfortable where it can be for shorter trips. You know, you're right. For some of our streets, we are doing transit priority to try to make it faster and more competitive to work. I think it's important to note, and we have, even in the transportation system plan, that each district, each environment is different and the strategy needs to be different for each environment. And so one of the maybe sort of unexpected attributes of having the inner neighborhoods. Neighborhoods maybe be more able to transition more quickly to someone. Being able to get around through transit or other ways is it's making space for someone who has a longer trip that it's harder to make that that adjustment. And so we are going to need to be sort of constantly making that shift together. It does, of course, depend on where you're trying to go. You know, a lot of the east Portland attraction is to the columbia corridor. And so making sure that we're providing good, reliable access at all hours of the day to those workforce jobs. And columbia corridor has to be one of the kind of strategies that we're offering up to make sure that it's going to work.
184 So I want to give you just to paint you a picture of east Portland. 40% of our k through 12 youth live in district one. And you said something about trying to get people out of their cars. A good number of those people are taking their kids to daycare in the morning, and so it is really impossible for them to bike or to take a bus. And so we have to keep that in mind. And so I want you to think about those, those young families who are trying to get around. And that is an impossible way to, to travel with a, with a youngster having done that before, I know that that is that is a challenge every morning. So if we're if we're encouraging that, I mean, I think we need to have a strategy that that is for you probably going to have to do a neighborhood strategy for different people, because getting folks out of district one, out of those cars, that's going to be tough for at least 40% of the people. And we don't have transportation for kids to go to high school as well. And so school districts are constantly talking to us about getting funding to because sidewalks are issue. And that's going to be my next question. Getting those folks out of those cars. How do how do you get kids to school. And so that's a that's a issue. So I just want us to think about those things when we make a blanket statement that we're trying to get, you know, people out of their cars, that's going to be difficult when you're talking about equity and diversity of people. Certain people, particularly moms, they're going to have a tough time.
185 Yes.
186 Director williams.
187 Yeah.
188 I was going to thank you. Councilor Smith. I was going to allow art to answer the question from the gsb perspective. But one of the things that I wanted to share is part of why it was important for us to have a diverse committee representing the different interests of all types of stakeholders and community members within the city was because of just what you've shared and something that we recognize as being a challenge as as art has mentioned, is every neighborhood, every community is different. And one of the things that I often bring to a conversation is, well, what about well, what about well, what about? I know what our goals are, but there are things that require a certain lens and perspective that should be incorporated in the planning of our overall system and our overall plans, that we are challenging ourselves to do. And so, yes, we recognize that that is a challenge. And I myself have said, here's why I don't or here's why I wouldn't. And this is based on my lived experience, not just as a single mother at one point a mother of color, someone who lived in an outer part of town. This is before I moved to Portland. These are the reasons why I would not. The bus might not be fast enough. A bike is not necessarily a tenable solution, and I know that people figure out how to create the opportunities that they need to move their families about safely. Our responsibility as the transportation bureau is to ensure that we are making sure that every mode that folks are using is safe, and that they have the opportunity to make a choice to do something different. Should they have the opportunity to do that.
189 I appreciate that, and you may want to stay here because there are a few members on this transportation committee that are co-sponsors of my resolution called cip. It's the sidewalk improvement and paving program. And I was going to ask you and I am going to ask you, how does that program? We separated it into two pieces. One is the non-revenue piece that passed just to give you all direction to come up with a plan on how to improve sidewalks in district one and district four. The second piece is going to be coming along here pretty soon. And, you know, I was really pie in the sky, but I thought it was the level of investment that we should take to move this along. I was thinking of a $400 million package, and I don't think that's going to happen. So.
190 But I love your focus here.
191 I'm looking I'm looking at councilor Green, but I think it will probably end up being half of that. Would that would that project if passed the revenue piece? If it passes, would it be a part of the tsp project as a major project that that PBOT would be putting forward and then put it in the rtp and all that?
192 A portion of it? Probably, yes. So my understanding of the overall program is some of it would be small maintenance oriented types of investments. So these are things that are being done by by our maintenance crews to add in segments of sidewalk. But it's not deemed a major project type of investment. So those probably wouldn't be included in the tsp. But as we're using this as a source, for instance, for sidewalk projects that are already in the tsp, perhaps we would want to acknowledge that funding stream as we're doing this.
193 Well.
194 I yes and no. This is not just going to be maintenance. This is the project to build and to make it safe and to put barriers up on streets and sidewalk areas that haven't had them before, to make it easier for our families and our children to walk to school, to walk to work, and just to walk in their neighborhoods, whether it be for work or play. So I would think that that I mean, just the number alone would, would actually put it into the tsp.
195 I think.
196 You're right.
197 Yeah.
198 Councilor Smith, if I may, the program, as we are envisioning it while we talk about maintenance versus a capital project, for example, we speak to maintenance from the delivery arm. It's not necessarily that it is a maintenance program or project, but that the maintenance operations team, based on their ability to feel fit and go out immediately and do work on a block by block basis, would be able to help to meet the objectives of the program. Some of the larger, more comprehensive projects that would inquire multi-step, often multi-year planning efforts would be something that would be more readily. Directed through the tsp or part of the tsp. So there's going to be and you'll hear more about it perhaps this afternoon as the funding.
199 To understand the language here before before my term is up, I guarantee you. And when I thought about maintenance, I was just thinking about maintenance of the current existing.
200 No, no, no, it's the maintenance team based on the type of work that they currently do.
201 Okay, perfect. I just I also wanted to have another opportunity to talk about cip and how important it's going to be, not just for our community, but for our region, because we butt up against state streets and, and highways and, and I think it's just really going to be a fantastic way to invest in, in areas that we have not invested before to this degree.
202 So I think, you know, your two questions are very much interconnected. You're the two topics. And so I really appreciate you both helping us with the problem statement and coming with a solution so quickly. You know, when you think about each transit rider, they start as a pedestrian and to be a pedestrian, leave your house and have that be a logical choice. You need a sidewalk that is safe and comfortable, a pedestrian corridor that's safe and comfortable. So if we're going to try to support trimet's, you know, service and support, you know, more people taking transit, it actually starts with a sidewalk investment. That's that's the first step, a pedestrian crossing. Those various things are what removes some of the barriers of why someone would say, this does not make sense or this isn't you know, I don't feel seen in this in this network. And so absolutely, sidewalk investment is instrumental to all of these follow on steps.
203 And I think, you know, one of your slides said, I think it was 27% of black residents don't have a car. I can't it was on.
204 40%, actually.
205 What was the 27%?
206 27% of black households do not have access to a car. Yeah, 13% of white households.
207 Okay. Thank you. And so and that part right there, that is that is also another layer as we're looking at things and trying to figure out how do we help people move around just in their neighborhoods.
208 Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's also one of the things that within the transportation system planning, we're looking at many trip purposes. So one of the trip purposes might be to go to work. One might be to go to worship, one might be to go shopping. These various things, each of them have a different destination. And I think the more we're able to create a complete, you know, local network through sidewalk improvements and pedestrian crossings and safe cycling facilities, it's allowing one of those trips. Perhaps. Maybe it's just the trip on Saturday to be taken a different way, where the other trip is still the only the only logical choice is certainly if you're driving to Washington county, you know, for work, it's very hard to produce a good alternative to that trip for somebody.
209 And I think the other issue is so preschool for all is they have, what, $480 million in reserves right now over at Multnomah county. And I think if we're having conversations with them, we need to identify preschool for all opportunities in east Portland because people are driving in to take their kids. And so there there are opportunities for us to build daycare, preschool for all. And so I just want us all to be really thinking globally on how you're talking about new money's coming in. That is a source of new monies. I think they're going to have to build some. They just don't exist right now.
210 Totally. No. I think, you know, again, as we're looking at complete communities, daycare, you know, food, worship, these various things that are close by that could be close by creates a complete community. And you're absolutely right that child care and child services, if they're not provided locally, you're going to have to travel much further to go and get right.
211 In our gateway, we have a lot of empty storefronts, and we have a lot of stuff that I could see that we can turn into a preschool for all, a building or something, to be able to give us some, some density as it relates to opportunities to take your kid to preschool, for sure. Well, that is all that I have for you today. Thank you so much for your work. I appreciate it.
212 Councilor Smith. I thank you for that observation. I think it points up that there are so many opportunities for partnership between programs, funding sources. If we could pile all those together, we might get a better result. I appreciate that. Councilor Koyama Lane did you have a question?
213 I do.
214 But councilor Smith said so many great things I want to discuss some of them first, I, I did just want to say, councilor Smith, I'm genuinely so glad that you're on this committee. I think it's important that we have a voice of someone from district one in on every committee, but especially for this one, I, I really appreciate what you're saying and what you're bringing forward. I know last summer I was in district one at a playground and then took my kids over to mcdonald's for a little treat, then visited a friend's house and even just like moving through that space, it really I could feel it, what it was like to have my kids. And it felt scary crossing in a few places. And there weren't sidewalks. And so it made me think about conversations that I've had with director williams about us as a committee, maybe doing some field studies together and going out and seeing some of these spaces. Seeing some of these projects in action, too, I think is really powerful. It's one thing to hear, hear your perspective, but I think it would be good for us to actually go physically feel it if we have some time to do that. And I love that you're bringing up preschool for all. I think oftentimes we can think of like county city, but really the average constituent is like government is government. Feel figure it out, figure out how to work together. And I would love to think about ways, even though this is something that's technically housed within the county, how can we as a city, help incentivize more preschools to open up in east Portland? What are ways that we can support fast tracking some of that? And as someone who had my kids with me as I was collecting signatures to get preschool for all on the ballot, it's something that I do care about and would love to collaborate on, and also know that it's something that we have. I mean, I remember five years ago saying it was just an idea, and I said it would take about ten years for this to fully roll out. And so we have to make sure that we are invested in making sure it can fully roll out and not kneecap it. Before we get to that place. Yeah. Okay. So then my other question and comments come from a few different conversations that I've had. And I think things that a lot of us up here value, which is are these street plazas heard councilor Green talking about those. And I've heard them talk about them in interesting ways, too, of thinking about we have a lot of maintenance to do what's what. Our plaza is something we can be doing more of as we're thinking about that hearing chair Clark, talking about community partnerships and bringing in the community more, and then knowing that a lot of us up here really do care about eliminating traffic deaths and injuries, had a constituent come speak to us and email us about tactical urbanism, which I hadn't heard that term yet, but it's something that I think a lot of us have kind of been talking about, maybe without using those exact words, which is just opportunities for community members, businesses, grassroots organizations, other similar entities to lead and even fund some interventions within the public right of way. And so I've only done a little bit of looking into this. I know you all know a lot more, but I'm just wondering your thoughts about this topic, whether it's technically tactical urbanism or this just this idea of working with community to, to make our streets safer and more vibrant.
215 I'll jump in the theme for my team this year, the projects policy and planning team is enabling co-creation. So that's we had a retreat at the beginning of the year really focused in and I think this, you know, creating with community is instrumental to that, really wanting to make sure that we're thinking through moves big and small that can be done together with community or done together with business, business groups and other entities. And so you're absolutely right. Tactical urbanism is like the easiest step along that journey is how can we identify a street, location or street space that doesn't need to be as large as it is, or doesn't need to be used for traffic movement? And how can we have a conversation on what would be another use? And so plazas are one of the examples in which we've had a lot of successes with that. We also have our triangle and other areas where we are we are creating community space, and that we do have a team of public realm and plaza team that is set up in exactly that way, combining both the team that is creating plazas proactively and also the community use permitting team, which really is wanting to engage in those specific conversations about what's an alternative that we could do, either just for a weekend, just for a day, or for a whole summer or permanently, you know, how can we look at converting street space? For sure?
216 And regarding the tactical urbanism, and I, I heard the comment, I believe it was last week when the gentleman brought it forward about what's happening in other countries and other cities around the country. We are supportive of that. As art has mentioned, the opportunity that we have is to make sure that we are working with community and helping to move nimbly so that we can move quickly. I think what we find often is that there is some frustration with the pace with which we're able to move, and so we find people with pent up energy and excitement about doing something, and we'll potentially go out and put things in the right of way that are well intended. But we then have to go back and make some modifications to or adjust. And so that creates a little bit of discomfort, as you can well imagine. But the opportunity for dialog for how we can best do this, as has been mentioned in partnership. But we must make sure that as managers and stewards of the right of way, that we're creating the safety that's important and that we aren't trading off safety in one space for safety in another because of people's frustration, anger, angst, or even excitement. And so we have a tremendous opportunity. As I've shared with art and his team many times, hey, now is the time to look at how we can do things differently. As has been mentioned, whether it's a weekend, a season, a pilot, something that can become a permanent installation, get people used to some of the change. As I mentioned in a conversation months ago, one of the hardest things about our job is helping to steward in that excitement about change and community, and helping people see that it's not a threat, but really an opportunity to reimagine our communities and see them as we'd like to see them. So excited about that one.
217 One plug for a partnership between better block, Portland state university and our team here is there's an annual call for proposals. Psu students help with developing the projects, both planning students and engineering students. And then the PBOT team helps with tactical urbanism, you know, tests of various projects. That type of experimentation is what has brought us better nato, actually the transit Lane just outside the store, those various things came from that kind of ideation together. And so a really appreciate better block and PSU in that partnership. So yeah.
218 Thank you so much. And I really appreciate the openness to collaborate and think about ways that we can be more nimble. And that's what I've experienced in my conversations with you all. And I'm really excited about this idea of things that can be piloted or used temporarily and to kind of like when councilor Green was asking, oh, how long would it take to make the plaza happen? I think for some folks, a year does seem long, even though that that might not feel long. And I understand that there's a sweet spot in making sure that things are well planned. And yeah, so if there's anything that we can do to help make sure that that some things can move along quickly, but also make sure that that boxes aren't left unchecked and things are still safe. I know, I think at least I am very interested in collaborating, however possible.
219 Terrific.
220 There the mention of it taking a year that was around right of way and needing to vacate spaces. There are plenty of places where we don't have to do that. The Hawthorne plaza is one where it only took a couple of months for us to move from. Well, there was a lot of community conversation, but there did not have to be a process by which we came to council to get permission to vacate a space, to then activate the space in a different way. We have that as an opportunity. And so when we find out about those things, we're excited about them. Hawthorne's plaza at 37th, is it. Yeah. That, that.
221 That's our latest one.
222 Yeah. That's our latest and greatest one.
223 And I guess if you hear of ideas as a former project manager, I'm always counting the months back. Now's a great time to start conversations about what might happen next spring, next may. So if there's conversations and people want to, we would really be happy to get that conversation happening. So it doesn't feel like an emergency. And we can really work through the steps through the winter and have it ready to bloom with with the roses.
224 Yeah. Imagine that.
225 Yeah, yeah.
226 Thank you. Just to kind of bring this to a conclusion, I think today's presentation has been incredibly grounding. We've all learned a lot. I've certainly shocked when I hear that. I think you said 30% of the land area in Portland is streets. Is that correct? That's correct. That's rather astounding and gives me some pause, especially when we think about the fact that we're so far behind in asset management and in taking care of those streets. So many of them are failing that, we've had some informal discussions among the committee members here about how we can convert those spaces. I know I was at the charrette with director williams and were you there to art? Sorry, about a week ago. And Eric, I'm sorry a lot of people there looking at all the downtown streets, flanders in particular, really struck me as a street that could be greened or whatever they called it. But I think there's a lot of interest on this committee to look at alternatives like that, not just plazas, but other, other ways of looking at these assets. Because as councilor Green has reminded me, this is a long term liability. Will we be able to raise the funds over time to really maintain 30% of the land, space, the streets? That's kind of amazing. Anyway, just to conclude here, it's been a great presentation. I know we want to do more of this. It's been a great discussion between my colleagues here. We really appreciate all the work that you're doing. I was going to suggest that I don't know if my colleagues are interested, but we may want to be put on your mailing list for your cac for what's coming up. We can track those meetings, and some of us may even want to go to a couple of them. And I love the idea of some tours we'll work on that with, with your help. So thank you so much for being here today. It was a great presentation. Really appreciate it.
227 Thank you, thank you.
228 So, colleagues, in the few minutes we have left, our next meeting is July the 7th. And as I said earlier, we'll know at that point what's happened with the transportation package in Salem. Fingers crossed. It's a big package. It means a lot to us. And on that meeting on July 7th, it'll either be a really happy day or it won't. And we may be we may be having to discuss other kinds of issues that day. Just want to let you know, too, that we've got quite a few other topics planned for our future meetings. We're going to have a meeting on the one water integrated management plan with the public works service area in August. We're going to be bringing back the mega projects, the ibr and the rose quarter projects. Take a look at those. We're scheduling time. As art said, with the plaza program, perhaps phase one on the service areas, cip investment plan, and we're going to want to get an update progress report on the asset management plan that we've all supported as well. So we have quite a few things scheduled. I'm happy to meet with each of you individually to talk about those, or also to glean your ideas of other things that we should be putting on the agenda to track and to have input on. So oh, and also on the seventh, we'll be talking about the public utility board. There's a couple of appointments that are coming up. We'll hear a report from the public. So without other comments, I'll adjourn the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee.