The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-02-24
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,622 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 met on Monday, February 24, 2025, with the body's members present per roll call. The session opened with an update on state legislative advocacy for transportation funding, including discussion of an anticipated statewide transportation funding package expected to emerge in the legislature in the coming weeks. The committee then received a detailed presentation from the Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) on its organizational structure, covering its Plan, Build, Operate, Maintain, and Empower groups, asset conditions including pavement, bridges, sidewalks, and signals, and its budget, including discussion of general transportation revenues, restricted resources, and a projected funding shortfall for the coming fiscal year; figures describing budget totals and shortfalls were stated inconsistently across speakers. Committee members asked questions regarding staffing, vacancies, debt service, and prior federal relief funding, and offered comments on infrastructure liabilities and climate considerations. Public testimony followed from invited panelists representing neighborhood associations, advocacy organizations, and community members, addressing pedestrian and cyclist safety, missing sidewalks, speeding, traffic fatalities, freight interests, age-friendly planning, and related transportation concerns, followed by additional public testimony on similar topics. Votes, if any, occurred during the session, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting concluded with announcements about upcoming agenda items and budget considerations before adjournment.
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.
0 Good morning.
1 Can I get the microphone going here? I'd like to call the meeting of the transportation infrastructure committee to order. It is Monday. Feels like Monday. Monday, February 24th at 932. Rebecca, can you please call the roll?
2 Koyama Lane here.
3 Morillo here.
4 Green. Here.
5 Smith. Clark. Here.
6 And. Claire. Can you please read the statement of conduct for the council committee meetings?
7 Good morning. 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 on the committee agenda at. Ca.gov. Council agenda. Slash transportation and infrastructure committee. Or by calling 311. 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. Please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent and virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
8 Thank you claire. So our meeting today is dedicated to transportation issues generally. First we're going to have a quick snapshot of from the office of government relations on where the city is advocating for state support for what? Our legislative session is underway right now. And we've asked sam to come in and give us a very quick update on how it's going down there. Sam.
9 Thank you so much, madam chair and councilors. Yes, I'm sam chase, the director for the office of government relations. And as you know, we have a team down in the legislature every day working on our city's priorities. And there are a whole host of priorities around housing, homelessness, protecting our local authority. And a number of other issues. And one of our very highest priorities is transportation. And with transportation, there are our three highest priorities our operations and maintenance, operations and maintenance, and operations and maintenance. And so there are thousands of bills that have been introduced and many hundreds are moving forward and hearings and other ways. One of the things that our team is staying very laser focused on is the transportation package. That is really in conjunction with the state funding. And I'll talk a little bit about that. We have worked with legislative delegation and that the joint committee on transportation in the legislature for a number of years, every five or so years, 5 to 10 years, there is another big transportation package. And the last big one was in 2017. And so there's a relook at this. And a real need to address on a statewide scale that the transportation issues that so many of our communities are facing, not just the state but cities and counties as well. And we have worked with with the PBOT and the subject matter experts, and they are highly engaged and incredibly effective in helping craft and put forward the best possible kind of work that we can. And collaborating with the legislature. We had a lot of interaction with the joint committee on transportation over the summer. And really kind of they did a road show around the state, and we spent a lot of time with them in Portland, having them see what kinds of operations and maintenance needs we had in the city here. Understanding our budgets, understanding what their priorities and budgets were. And one of the big priorities for the legislature is to really look at the system formula funding rather than having, you know, each each legislative district kind of come up with projects really to address that formula, funding and bring that forward as a, as a package as a whole. And that includes addressing odot's unfunded needs. The revenues have only gone up 33%, but costs have gone up 70%. And so there are some real significant, significant issues that they're looking at and understanding their own budget. But the a key component is the 50, 30, 20 split and making sure that ODOT has its its funding that it needs. But we want to be good partners in making sure that that 30 and 20 split, 30% going to counties, 20% going to cities and large and because we have overlap, large amount of that county funding goes also to our collective needs here at the city. I will so we expect that package to be coming forward in the next couple of weeks that they'll be hearing there'll be at least a hearing, and we expect to see that emerge in April, and we will be looking to work with PBOT and the and the council and the transportation committee to really identify what are the best ways for us to be continuing to make sure that our needs are understood and messaged down in the legislature.
10 Thank you sam. It's really, really important work. And I appreciate your efforts. We look forward to hearing more, possibly in April when the package is revealed. My colleagues, do you have any questions for sam? No. Thank you very much for coming today. We appreciate it.
11 Thank you.
12 We're going to do a dive into pbot's organizational structure and services today. We're going to hear from afterwards, hear from community members who've dedicated time and energy to advocating for transportation safety and services throughout the city. And finally, we're going to conclude our meeting with public testimony on community transportation. Priorities. So please see, rebecca, can you please read the next item?
13 Agenda item two. Bureau of transportation. Organizational structure and services. And a quick reminder to testifiers to please. Sorry, apologies, but lean into the microphone so you're within at least 8 to 10in. Thanks so much.
14 Great. Thank you. So we have the speakers already at the podium. Deputy city administrator priya, donna paul, public works service area. Welcome, director millicent williams from PBOT. Welcome. Thank you for coming today. And we have shoshana cohen, who is the chief of staff at PBOT, and jeremy patton, the deputy director of finance and administration at PBOT. Thank you for coming. We'll let you open that.
15 Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. It's good to see you again today. For the record, I'm deputy city administrator of public works, and I have the honor of overseeing the public works service area, which includes Portland water bureau, bureau of environmental services, and Portland bureau of transportation. All three bureaus play a vital role in shaping the city's infrastructure, and we look forward to the opportunity to explore the essential work of the water bureau and b as in future meetings. But today, we appreciate the chance to share more about pbot's organizational structure and services. As we have shared in previous presentations to this committee. Pbot is responsible for maintaining over $21 billion in assets out of the total $71 billion managed by the public works service area, PBOT delivers a wide array of essential services that manage our right of way and serve Portland community daily. And in this presentation, we will deep dive into pbot's. Org structure, asset conditions, the diverse area of work, and robust community engagement through its advisory bodies. While each of our public works bureau is essential to the foundation of our city, today's focus on PBOT will offer you insights into why investing on a transportation division is not only critical to its operations, but it's also an investment in the livability and the economic future of a city as a whole. And with that, I'll pass it on to director millicent williams to deep dive on PBOT.
16 Thank you, deputy city administrator donna paul. Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo. And members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. And good morning to the community members who are here today. We thank you for being here and look forward to hearing your thoughtful engagement. For the record, my name is millicent williams, and I serve as the director of the Portland bureau of transportation. While we've had the opportunity to come before this body previously, much of what we've shared has been focused on our widespread and long standing challenges, the fiscal cliff that we are quickly approaching, and the barriers to progressing our work. Today, while we'll spend some time focused on our budget and the potential shortfall as we head into fiscal year 2526, we will first provide insight into the overall structure and the organization with imagery detailing, in almost excruciating detail the length and breadth of our work. We will then share information on what constitutes our budget, including the varied lists of sources, expenditures and fund balances. We hope that at the conclusion of the conversation, you'll have a deeper understanding of why it takes $600 million annually to fuel the budget, no pun intended. What that funding achieves, why there are limitations, and, frankly, why we sometimes struggle to meet portlanders expectations regarding the maintenance and operations of the transportation system. Next slide please. Pbot has approximately 1000 employees, including vacancies, working across five groups. We are a complex, interconnected organization empowering dedicated staff to plan, build, operate, and maintain a safe and effective system that provides all users and all modes the access and mobility they need and deserve. Pbot is here to keep Portland moving today and into the future. Today, I'll provide greater detail about the bureau's departments, recognizing that the next several slides will be text heavy. We felt it necessary to offer actual lists of the bodies of work in which we engage to demonstrate that our efforts extend beyond far, far beyond what the eye can see. And while a picture can be worth a thousand words and certainly makes for a much more captivating presentation, and we will have a few of those, this committee should be informed by the details necessary. Oh my goodness, my thing did a thing. This committee should be informed by the details necessary for you to make sound decisions and offer comprehensive guidance. Next slide please. The planning projects and programs or plan organizational unit is where the future of our transportation system is envisioned and specific project investments and program responses are devised, funded and implemented. Portland's brighter future starts here and is critical to the effectiveness and funded work program of much of the organization. The transportation planning and project development team manages the state required transportation system plan, which serves as the long term mobility strategy for the city and the specific and specifies the policies and actions required to get us there. This includes area and project plans for Monday for specific areas of the city. System system strategies to support the use of walking, cycling and transit, accessible access to our daily needs, and ensuring that goods can be delivered efficiently to our critical commercial districts and the makers and creators that are foundational to our economy. A small investment in PBOT general transportation revenue leverages a myriad of outside investments and results in big things, including the bureau's $150 million annual capital investment program in just the past few years alone. The planning team has successfully pursued over $300 million in state and federal funds that will help to improve the city for the coming years, and we will speak to the federal funds as we talk about our budget later in the presentation. The capital project delivery team brings those funded project plans to reality, managing the design, contracting and delivery of all of the bureau projects in partnership with build and operate team members. This includes large scale projects like critical fixes on southwest capitol highway. I'm happy that mary anne fitzgerald is here from the southwest community, and perhaps she'll speak to that in her testimony. Safety projects on our commercial corridors, neighborhood greenways and other cycling and pedestrian investments and small capital projects responding to immediate needs of our residential neighbors, such as those funded by fixing our streets. Our local ten cent gas tax at PBOT. We recognize that it's not enough to build and maintain infrastructure to get our mode shift and safety goals, to get to our mode shift and safety goals that we also need to help people in choosing climate friendly modes and make sure that they can do it safely. The mobility and safety programs division is a suite of programs and services that do just that. Mobility and safety programs delivers people centered programs to make streets safer, reduce car dependency, and create equitable access in community. This includes vision zero and safe routes to school, bike town, Sunday parkways, smart trips, and the transportation wallet. It's important to note that starting this fiscal year, this organizational unit is almost entirely funded by the Portland clean energy fund, or pcf. Cannabis tax. Private sponsorship and grants. The mobility, innovation and public realm team pursue the transformation of our mobility choices and how we can use our streets for gathering and activation, vehicle electrification, freight decarbonization, new technologies and partnerships with private sector partners are key to our future. The public realm activation team partners with community to enable block parties, play streets and community events, and co-sponsors public plazas to support commercial hubs and community connection. Lastly, in plan, the major projects and transit team represents the city of Portland in major regional projects such as the I-5 rose quarter project, the interstate bridge replacement project, and the earthquake ready Burnside bridge project, furthering regional transit investments on streets like 82nd avenue and overseeing the daily operations of the Portland streetcar. Next slide please. The build group is made up of technical experts who oversee a range of design, engineering and construction related areas of the bureau's work. The utility management and compliance division oversees the restoration of PBOT assets, manages utility infrastructure placements, and enforces compliance with permit conditions, city codes, and administrative rules. The real property services division is the real estate arm of PBOT that ensures legal compliance for the acquisition and disposition of property rights. They manage the privatization of the public right of way through leases and permits, thus guaranteeing clear expectations for encroachments and other uses. The civil engineering and drafting division designs construction plans and contract specifications for capital improvement projects. This division also develops standards for designing and constructing city infrastructure, as well as acting as point for technical coordination between bureaus and with partner agencies. The construction services division manages the construction of capital improvement projects, or the cip, to ensure transportation infrastructure is built in a safe and fiscally responsible manner, and that those projects meet city, state and federal standards and requirements. The ADA curb ramp division provides ADA curb ramps for community member requests, supports curb ramp design and construction for public and private utilities. Provides all curb ramp designs for the fixing our street program, and provides the final inspection for all curb ramps built within the city's right of way. Additionally, this division represents the city to ensure compliance of the civil rights education and enforcement center. Legal sediment settlement agreement, also known as creek. Next slide please. The operate group is responsible for the operation or movement of portland's right of way. The parking enforcement division manages parking throughout the city by enforcing regulations and assessing the use of the right of way. The group has taken on a significant role in addressing derelict rvs and helping people find temporary housing in the past few years, which includes responsibility for emergency towing and abandoned autos. The parking and regulatory, parking regulatory and operations division addresses the management of the parking system through the operation and maintenance of parking meters and parking. Kitty. The provision of parking permits and assessment of the system. This unit also has team members focused on rideshare or uber and lyft regulations, and manages the traffic speed safety camera program. Our traffic operations division addresses concerns from the community fielded through 311823 safe or other means, investigating publicly reported traffic concerns with site visits by engineers and in many instances, providing quick safety fixes. This team also responds to fatal crashes. Issues. Temporary street use permits 25,000 of them in the last year, and assesses developments in association with Portland permitting and development, or pnd. Traffic design works on a variety of capital projects for the city, everything from a series of marked crosswalks on a safe route to school to some of the major investments in the region, including the I-5 projects. While assisting with the design of trimet's bus rapid transit and light rail lines. Finally, signals and street lighting handles all facets of electrical aspects of the public right of way to improve the safety of people walking and biking and the needs of people riding busses or moving freight in our city. Next slide please. Our maintain group is the group doing just that maintaining the right of way. They are also the group that plays a critical role in emergency response, working in close coordination with PBOT, PBOT, pbem and other city bureaus for a variety of events. You all got a sense of the excellence they bring to that work. During our winter weather response just two weeks ago, everyone in this group has their regular job and is quickly trained and is trained to quickly transition to their first responder job should the need arise. The maintenance operations team also handles day to day, smaller scale emergency response as well. On a weekly basis, staff respond to sewage backups, often in residential basements, down stop signs, hit guardrails, and both natural and human caused hazards in the right of way. And just last night, the team responded to the first line landslides of the season on northwest thompson and northwest cornell streets. Our environment, our environmental systems division, cleans and repairs the city's sewer and storm collection system. They also provide the required 811 call before you dig locate program for sewer and storm assets. This work is performed as part of a cooperative work agreement with the bureau of environmental services. The street systems division works curb to curb to maintain our street surfaces. This team performs grind and pave, pothole, fill and repair, base repair, think large, deep potholes, asphalt restoration around the ADA concrete corner reconstruction. Utility cut, pavement restoration for the water bureau and environmental services division. Or sewers and the gravel street service, which is funded by fixing our streets. The maintenance construction division has two sections sidewalks and structural maintenance. The sidewalks team is primarily focused on ADA corner reconstruction, a part of the creek settlement, as was mentioned. Concrete curb repair and concrete street repair, especially associated with utility cuts. The structural maintenance team performs maintenance and repair for our bridges, city stairwells, retaining walls, traffic attenuators, and guardrails. This team also installs and maintains bike racks, benches, bollards, and other street furniture in the city. And the operations division. This division has many programs that operate on a seasonal basis, typically weather driven. There are two primary sections traffic and street cleaning for traffic operations, which includes long line striping, the white and yellow stripes on the road, pavement markings, crosswalks, Green bike boxes and stop bars, and sign maintenance. These teams also support our quick build, small capital projects and parking operations. Modifications. Graffiti abatement is a small but mighty team that actively removes graffiti from PBOT assets signs, posts, retaining walls, bridges throughout the city. As a part of a larger city wide strategy, this team works in tandem with the city's graffiti program led by the bureau of planning and sustainability. The street cleaning section performs street sweeping of the central business district, arterial and collector streets, and soon bike Lane sweeping through our new PCEF funded program. These teams also perform the annual leaf day collection program in the fall. The summertime mowing and upkeep of Green spaces and traffic islands, and brush cutting along our more rural roadways in east and southwest Portland. As a part of our coordinated citywide effort, PBOT also proudly supports the city's annual rose festival by prepping the event spaces before the public arrives, including repairing or preparing the right excuse me, including preparing the parade routes, cleaning, graffiti removal, pothole repair, pink stripe application and more. We also play a key role in supporting fleet week in coordination with other city bureaus, by helping the naval ships dock and placing the connecting bridges between those ships. And now I'll turn it over to jeremy patton, bureau's deputy director of finance and administration, and shoshana cohen, our chief of staff, to discuss how the bureau is empowered.
17 Good morning, chair. Members of the committee again, jeremy patton, bureau's deputy director of finance and administration. So the empower group includes all of finance administration and the chief of staff's office. I'll briefly outline kind of the areas within finance and administration. And shoshana will go over the chief of staff's office. Employees in both groups support all PBOT program delivery. Finance administration provides technology services, data analytics and performance, financial controls, budget and financial management, employee services, safety and emergency management, facilities and logistics and administrative services. These support services are crucial to our delivery of direct services to the public. Our field employees cannot be successful if there's nobody there to hire them, provide technology support, pay the bills, and provide a safe space to work. A few of the services that this group provides includes mapping of over 9000 assets and utility permits per year, providing the necessary data for proper asset management. Maintaining 150 separate software applications in over 40 of which are enterprise wide, completing over 1000 position actions per year, including new hires. Reclassifications working out of class assignments, family medical leave act requests and separations, processing about 400 contracts and purchase orders for services, and paying thousands of bills each year. Developing and monitoring a budget of over $600 million with multiple funding restrictions, 130 projects and 40 grants, all with their own reporting requirements, managing 13 facilities and over 900 vehicles and other equipment, and finally handling interview and onboarding logistics for about 150 to 250 hires per year. And shoshana will go over her chief of staff.
18 Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the committee. Again, I'm shoshana cohen, PBOT chief of staff. The chief of staff's office provides strategic bureau wide coordination, communication and partnership services. Our communications team provides critical communication to the public about extreme weather, traffic advisories, and many upcoming PBOT projects. They also respond to a steady stream of constituent and media requests for information. Our team's ability to respond accurately is based not just on their communication skills, but on their deep understanding of the transportation work that the bureau does. This office also oversees several bureau wide coordination and partnership programs. We partner with OHSU and the Portland aerial tram. We provide equity and engagement services and oversee the asset management program, which I'll touch on more in a minute. We provide program management and coordinate with team members across the bureau who are delivering projects funded by the Portland clean energy fund and the fixing our streets gas tax. We oversee the transportation system development charge program, worked closely with the finance team on revenue development ideas, and bring members of the bureau together to identify a coordinated grant application strategy to fund PBOT projects. We also work closely with director chase, whom you heard from earlier, and the office of government relations, providing subject matter expertise to help them represent the city in Salem and in other state and federal discussions. And we monitor various regional bodies to understand how regional transportation discussions will impact the city's transportation system. Finally, our team helps bureau staff advance policy items to bring them to you all for discussion or consideration. And we're helping to respond to your request for information, either individually or as committees, like this one. This team is critical to supporting the bureau as we continue to adjust to our new government structure. The empower services are important to delivering direct transportation programing to the public, both under jeremy and myself. At the same time, we understand the interest in looking for efficiencies under the new city government structure, and we look forward to supporting to working with city leadership on how to best maintain PBOT level of service. While we support the centralization of some of PBOT and power services. Next slide please. As we've already shared in previous presentations, the city has underinvested in transportation assets for far too long. The chart on the left shows the annual investment amounts that would be required each year for ten years. If we wanted to bring all of our assets up to fair or better condition. This is closer to the condition which we believe the community expects of us. This would require another $600 million a year, about the entirety of the same amount as the entirety of pbot's existing budget. And a very important caveat is that these numbers only reflect the investment that's needed for our existing assets. This doesn't even count the additional funding that would be needed to add sidewalks, pave unpaved streets, add additional street lights or signals, and more. We are unfortunately very far from where we need to be, and that's reflected in the state of our assets. Again, I think we shared last week that more than 50% of our roads are in poor or very poor condition. And if we don't invest substantially soon, we could see a majority of those streets fall into the very poor condition by 2045. With bridges, we've had a 6% jump in weight restricted bridges in the past five years, and currently about 20% of our bridges are weight restricted. We also have over 75 bridges that are 50 years or older and considered past their original useful design life, which puts them at higher risk of failure. This is a significant problem. Absolutely. I also want to provide just a little bit of hope. Our talented bridge teams have become very skilled at using our limited funds in the most strategic ways, with targeted maintenance activities to keep them serviceable. We will ultimately need very large sums of money to replace many of our aging bridges. At the same time, even relatively small increases in bridge funding to allow more proactive preventative maintenance could help us to better maintain existing bridges while we figure out longer term solutions, signals and street lights are aging asset classes as well. We're not able to fully maintain the signals and street lights that we have, and at the same time, we're adding additional signals and street lights. We know this is critically important, that we continue to address the gaps in our lighting and signals on our busiest and most dangerous streets to make them safer and better serve neighborhoods that currently lack lighting and safe crossings. And we're doing and committed to this work. For example, when we recently took over the ownership of 82nd avenue, PBOT took on the responsibility for maintaining 334 lights and 29 signals and won almost 100 year old bridge. Again, the work to improve 82nd avenue and other streets like it is critically important safety work. However, the more assets we have, the more resources it takes to maintain them. Next slide please. This map is a way to visualize our pavement condition. While the scale makes it hard to see specific streets and details, it's pretty easy to see that we have a widespread problem. The darker red lines are streets in very poor condition, and the light red lines are streets in poor condition. And again, this paints a pretty grim picture. Our paving budget has continued to be reduced over the past years and our paving condition is deteriorating. However, once again I want to provide just a little bit of hope. We use what limited funds we have as strategically as possible. This means that we focus our investments on pavement that still in fair condition because it's the most cost effective investment. Every dollar invested in preventive pavement maintenance can save up to $10 in future pavement reconstruction. We also focus most of our investments on the streets that see the most traffic. Streets that carry high volumes of transit cars, freight, pedestrians and bicycles. Like with bridges, we need a very large amount of funding to solve our problems. However, every additional dollar makes a difference in improving our streets and preventing future higher costs. This map also contains light purple lines, a little harder to see, but these are the places that currently have gravel streets. When we took over ownership of these streets from the county, this was how we received them without the funds to pay them. We have over 50 miles of gravel streets in the city. The fixing our streets ten cent local gas tax program provides funding to reach these streets on a three year cycle and fill in ruts and potholes and then smooth them out. We know that the community wants more, and we welcome further discussion about how to make more progress on these streets. Next slide please. This is a map that shows missing sidewalks. When we hear from you all and from the community about district one and district four saying they don't have sidewalks, it's clearly true. The missing sidewalks again are most common in the areas that were annexed later to the city. There are approximately 120 miles of streets with no sidewalks on either side, and another 52 miles of streets with sidewalks on only one side. This is another problem we would very much like to tackle, but for which we lack funding to address. Each year we are able to make some small progress on sidewalk infill through capital projects and development requirements. But we know again that community expects more. One recent bright spot worth mentioning is that the Portland clean energy fund has awarded us funding for nine sidewalk completion projects near schools. We're receiving $20.5 million, which is also leveraging additional funding, and it will allow us to add a total of three miles of sidewalk plus street trees, stormwater management, ADA compliant corner ramps and street lighting. Again, this is great news. But it's also a drop in the bucket compared to the need. And I want to mention that this project was made possible thanks to the advocacy of Oregon walks and other community members, community partners who worked with us to get that piece of funding. Next slide please. Speaking of community partners, this slide shows the many different advisory bodies that help to guide pbot's work. We have 14 advisory groups that cover a variety of topic areas across the bureau, and we appreciate the time and dedication that each member of these bodies bring. The overall purpose of these advisory bodies is to help us to effectively deliver services based on community and council developed plans and policies. Pbot has both standing advisory bodies for ongoing policy and program needs, and project specific bodies that are sometimes more time limited. We also staff the bike, pedestrian and freight communities that are advisory to you as city council as well as city bureaus. We're just beginning a process to update the transportation system plan. The state required 20 year mobility strategy for the city. The tsp will identify a 20 year list of projects to support multimodal mobility and support the city's growth. It also outlines the city's transportation policies. This is a planning and policy process that we look forward to working with all of you on. We'll be convening a community advisory committee in the next few months, and we hope to start by being able to work with you as we spread the word about this important engagement opportunity. The advisory groups that you see on the screen are not the only way that PBOT engages with community. We send staff to community events, we hold project open houses, we send mailers and much, much more. And in just a few minutes, you'll hear from representatives, both of some of these advisory committees and advisory bodies, but you'll also hear from other individuals and organizations, many of whom we work with. Pbot is an organization that is asked to attend many different and sometimes often even competing goals. Every decision that we make or that city council makes to guide our work involves trade offs. Sometimes we have requests from some of these groups represented on the slide, or from other groups and individuals that we can't accommodate. Sometimes due to lack of resources, the need to balance multiple perspectives or limits on our authority. Regardless, we value each and every committee and organization that we work with and individual that we hear from, and they make our work better, and we look forward to continuing to work with these committees, with community members, and with you as we work together to improve the transportation system. And I'll hand it back to Jamie.
19 All right. Next slide please. So we can't have a presentation without a little bit of budget talk. And apologies for the somewhat of a chart, but we think this is the best way to just kind of show you the overall PBOT budget, kind of where all of our resources come from, and then how those resources are allocated to kind of start this initial conversation. So looking at the chart, if you start in the upper left hand corner, this is what we're looking at is our general transportation revenues or what we call gtr. You'll hear us often call it gtr. This includes our state highway funds, which are gas taxes and dmv fees, and our parking related revenues, which are our meters, permits and citations. There's also a few other smaller revenues in here, such as interest earned from cash balances and a few of the one time repayments of loans given to a couple of different funds, like the general fund. These are our most discretionary revenues, but also have limitations in how they can be spent. The bottom left provides details on our restricted resources, which represents a majority of our budget. We categorize them as restricted because they can only be spent on the programs that they were either awarded for, such as the federal grants, or for which we charge a specific fee for, such as permits to dig up the street. These federal grants are also the same revenues that are under the federal review at this at this moment. Other significant sources include Portland clean energy funds, a majority of which are supporting the replacement of streetcars and other programing. Fixing our streets funding, which is restricted for use as outlined in the ballot language work for other jurisdictions, mostly for the bureau of environmental services. Within the city system. Development charges which can only be spent on expanding the system, and parking garage revenues, which is an independent business entity moving over to the right side or where we have our expenditures in the upper right. This is the all of the gtr related expenses. It's important to note that even though these resources are our most discretionary source of funding, we have significant required expenditures or revenue generating programs that are supported with these limited resources. We call them required expenses because we don't have the ability to reduce these expenses in order to fund other high priority needs. Payments for citywide services, such as general fund overhead, are determined by a citywide allocation model. We have our ADA ramp program expenditures, which are required by a settlement agreement with the civil rights education and enforcement center. We have debt repayment costs, which include costs for the Sellwood bridge, portland-milwaukie light rail and pension payments. We have reductions to parking enforcement or reductions to parking enforcement. Staff would only lead to less revenue collected. The remaining flexible expenditures, totaling about 71.4 million, are what's most community members think of when they refer to PBOT responsibilities. And that's kind of that light blue in the middle box there. These include paving, street cleaning, signals and streetlight maintenance, transportation planning, and support services. When we talk about reductions to general transportation revenues, specifically the $38 million shortfall for next year. Those reductions will come from these flexible expenditures in the lower right. We highlight the expenditures supported by restricted resources. As you can see, most of these resources are dedicated to our capital program, both for the current year expenditures and future year expenditures, which are shown as reserves. Here you'll also see expenditures related to permit issuance work on the behalf of the bureau of environmental services and the restricted resources contribution toward support services and payments for citywide services. It's important to note that these restricted expenses also provide services that are viewed by the public as core PBOT responsibilities. We just don't have the flexibility to move these resources to other programs if the needs arise. Next slide please. So as we begin discussions around mitigating the $38 million general transportation revenue shortfall for the next year, it's important to provide some context in history, which is this slide is hoping to show that over the last six years, we've had to cut a total of $42 million in investments and a completely depleted our $63 million in reserves. Prior to the pandemic. In 2020, PBOT had already begun making reductions and implementing hiring freezes as the financial forecast started to become more concerning and those reductions increased significantly over the last couple of years as our one time reserves were no longer available, and it became apparent that our revenue sources may not recover to pre-pandemic levels. I'll now turn it back to director williams and dca for some final thoughts.
20 Thank you jeremy. The goal of this. Next slide please. The goal of this presentation was to demonstrate not just what each team does individually, but to highlight the cyclical continuum of the work and to underscore that while it might look like we can cut one thing or another because of the interconnectedness of the organization, the pain and damage that cut would likely be felt throughout the whole of the organization. But I don't want to end on a sad note. Instead, I'd like to conclude with this key point that you'll hear from me again and again. Investment creates opportunity. Portlanders deserve a safe, reliable, accessible, and affordable transportation system that supports portland's prosperity with a high quality of life and inclusive and connected community, and a low carbon footprint. Even though we can point to and must support parts of the city that have experienced dis or underinvestment for decades, the bureau must take a whole community approach to asset management and maintenance. Every user and every neighborhood using every mode should be able to experience the best of what a word of what a world class transportation system has to offer. The beauty of that is this as we create a transportation system that helps our city thrive, we can also provide family wage jobs, support local businesses, and strengthen the economy through investments that make this system a reality. Pbot is poised for greatness. We look forward to working with this committee and more broadly, city leadership, community supporters, and every portlander as we move together toward that promising end. Thank you. And now, donna paul.
21 Thank you to the PBOT team for the thorough and detailed presentation. What stands out most for me today is that it's not just the scale of the challenge, but the incredible resilience and dedication of the PBOT PBOT staff. Pbot provides a wide breadth and reach in level of services, and boy have they done the best to maintain our transportation system despite significant fiscal constraints. And that effort doesn't go unnoticed. In many ways, the bureau's ability to respond to and adapt under difficult conditions has often masked just how urgent the financial situation really is. And as we have seen today, the resilience of the staff has come at a cost, one that cannot be sustained without meaningful long term investment. It is important that we recognize this train on infrastructure and the need for sustainable investment to keep our city moving safely and efficiently, and public works service area is committed to working together in lockstep across the service area, across the city, with our council and committee and all stakeholders to ensure portland's infrastructure remains strong for the future. Thank you for your time. And with that, I welcome any questions you may have.
22 Thank you panelists very much. I appreciate the upbeat ending with some vision, because it's a pretty grim picture. That's my gut feeling is we're in deep trouble here. And PBOT, as well as the other bureaus and the service area, touch people every day. And all of us hear about these issues every single day. So with that, I would like to offer my colleagues an opportunity to ask a few questions, knowing that we really have very limited time. I would say about five minutes, actually. I'm going to take my own my own questions and actually email them to you at a later date, because we have a lot of people in the room who, whether invited or have shown up, want to speak to us today. So with that, I will defer to counselor Smith.
23 Thank you.
24 Madam president. Thank you all for coming and giving us this presentation. It's very good. And I'll go quickly. So I imagine that in previous councils, you have said and rang the bell about the needs of the transportation department and what's going on. Correct.
25 That is correct.
26 And it looks like, as I looked at your your presentation, that you all have been consistently reduced in your budgets. That's correct. Did you all get anything from the ARPA funds. Over the last five years?
27 Yes, we did receive ARPA funds. Jeremy can probably speak to some of the details of that, but yes, we did receive ARPA funds.
28 And as you know, I am the district one commissioner, and I was. Blown away by your by your picture of where the sidewalks were in the city of Portland. And I do believe, director williams, that investment is opportunity. And I believe that that investment should happen quickly. And I think there needs to be a deliberate ask about increasing the number of sidewalks that are in district one and to be completed and prioritized. We it is it is. I understand what you said in the in the reason, you know, when we went from the county to the city that they left us with this. But at the same time, this was many years ago and we should have still since we took it on, we're getting the tax. We're paying the same amount of tax as everyone else. And in fact, I think we're paying more property taxes than than others in the city of Portland. So I think we need to prioritize sidewalks. That's that's a big issue. And the other issue is I noticed that you had $23 million in debt service. Is that for the overall transportation department, that that $23 million? Okay. The last question I noticed that there was a chief of staff office. Is that chief of staff office, the communications office, because I didn't see a line item for chief of staff. Was was that communications that you were talking about?
29 Communications is one one portion of the chief of staff office. It's. It's within the.
30 Position is the formal position is not chief of staff in the budget that we have.
31 Okay.
32 Yeah. So that's a functional title for shoshana. But we can give you the specifics about.
33 Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to figure out. The chief of staff has a whole office that has a whole infrastructure. Correct. And I'm looking at the communications department. It has nine ftes. Are all of those nine ftes filled.
34 Right now? Yes.
35 I think so. Yes.
36 And I think we'll be talking to you back in, I think on the 13th of March. We'll go into greater detail. I'm getting ready to wrap up, madam chair, but it would be helpful to me. I love your presentations with the different breakdowns of where where people are. But what I need to find out. What are the hard to fill jobs? I didn't know how many. I know how many you have. It's about 144 ftes that you have that are vacant. But I didn't see on those different slides where the vacancies were and what the hard to fill jobs were.
37 We can be prepared to share that information.
38 Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much.
39 Thank you for your questions.
40 Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Green.
41 Thank you, madam chair. And I, while I have many questions, I'll take your leadership. I will submit those questions in writing and I will post them on my website so the community knows what questions I did intend to ask. But I will use this time to make some comments. The fiscal picture facing PBOT is dire. I mean, there's no sugarcoating that. And without substantial cuts or substantial new revenue streams in the hundreds of millions of dollars, we can't right this ship. And those are the those are the facts on the ground. I say that the most pressing issue of our time is climate change. And I see an opportunity here, okay. If we need to make huge investments to make our city climate resilient and do our part in mitigating, then I think the single most impactful thing that we can do during this period of transition, where we need to think structurally about our budgets, is, is reduce the Lane mileage in our city. Because while we think about these roads as assets, they are also liabilities. And I don't think we talk about the liability side very often. Every mile of road is a is a liability in terms of unfunded ongoing operations and maintenance, which will then be always costlier in the future. So I would offer that you should work maybe have some conversations with it must be the bureau of planning sustainability and talk about opportunities to take some streets out of service. Turn them into superblocks, turn them into cul de sacs, turn them into plazas, what have you. Community gardens even? Because if we do that, I think we can lower our expenses over time. I think we can create more buildable land to create more housing density, which will then allow us to have a transportation, a transit forward city and active transportation city, which is always going to be less costly than continuing to rely upon, you know, vehicle, vehicular Lane mileage. And so that's that's what I would offer. And I would like to see as we sort of think across our community or our service areas, but I'll, I'll stop talking now and I'll, I'll submit my questions in writing. Thanks.
42 Thank you.
43 Council clerk, if I may, just to address, I do want to mention that our planning team, led by art pierce, is actively engaging in that conversation. There are a number of projects that are underway that speak specifically to what you've outlined. We have made site visits all over the country and outside of the country to see how cities do it and do it well, and hope to be able to incorporate some of those best practices here in the city. But yes, of course, working closely with planning and sustainability and others, especially community groups, we do hope to see a different future that allows us to reimagine what we say when we mean roadway or or street or superior superblock, things like that. So yeah.
44 I'm glad to hear that.
45 Thank you.
46 And I also appreciate your vision and looking forward and looking for other solutions and partnerships in addition to that. So if there aren't any other questions, what I'd like to do, thank you again. It's terrific presentation, especially the graphs, which it was rather shocking to see the lack of sidewalks in both district four and district one. We have a lot in common, actually. But thank you so much for all the preparation work that went into this, and I know we'll use it wisely as we begin to look at the future and the budget that's coming up, I know we'll have you back to do even a deeper dive. So thank you all very much. I appreciate.
47 The opportunity.
48 And I think, do we need to ask rebecca to open the next item? No we don't. Okay. Let me just remind everyone in the audience that we have a lot of people who want to speak today, both invited and people who have spontaneously arrived. And we need to limit everyone to no more than 2.5 minutes. So I believe the clerk will actually ring a bell when you have 30s left, and then we're going to have to cut you off so that hopefully everybody here today has a chance to speak. So what I'd like to do is ask a panel of invited speakers to come up. No, that includes lisa caballero from southwest trails, marina ingalsbe from the hayhurst neighborhood association, don bock from southwest trails, come on, come on up. Mary ann fitzgerald from the ash creek, crestwood neighborhood association keith leyden from bike loud. Are you here, keith? I wasn't sure.
49 Not here today.
50 He's not here.
51 I was.
52 Hoping I could say his prepared.
53 For him. All right. And then michael kaplan from the south Portland neighborhood association. Can you please join the panel? Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming here today to speak to the transportation infrastructure committee. And each of you has 2.5 minutes.
54 I got to get my thing out. Oh, did I would you get my thing under there? Thanks. I was over prepared. I took it out before I cut up.
55 For all folks testifying. If you could please state your name for the record. And then I'll start the timer, which you can see on the screen in front of you.
56 Okay. Thank you. Madam chair. Vice chair Morillo councilors. My name is lisa caballero, and I'm here today as part of prepared testimony from southwest transportation advocates. And I know I speak for the group when I say how excited we are to be here. I personally excited to see everybody in the same room. That's that's a big change and it's neat. And I maybe I'm the only person here, but I'm optimistic for the future. The city of portland's reorganization just two months in, has already changed the dynamic between city council constituents and the bureaus, and we look forward to participating in the reimagining of our city. We hope this is the beginning of an ongoing conversation. Next slide please. Where do I see the slides?
57 My apologies, I.
58 Sorry, I had a yes.
59 I did not.
60 We can work out the bugs on me.
61 I'm happy to share my screen. Just one moment please.
62 Okay I apologize for technical difficulties and I.
63 Actually need the photo on this one. Or I would keep going.
64 And I pause the timer for while she's pulling the slides up.
65 Thank you.
66 Now, just while we're going through this, I forgot to mention that we have two speakers who will immediately follow this presentation. Sarah and arun from. Mr. Street trust. Thank you. And john jarvis, who I think is. On speaker. No. Yes. We'll have those folks follow this panel. Thank you. As you can see, we are working the bugs out.
67 Well we're waiting. I'd like to invite all of you out for a walk in southwest to see what's going on on the ground. Take advantage of the time available. But, you know, we do have a little bit of a unique situation out there.
68 Thanks. All right, here we go.
69 Oh. Thank you. So this woman is walking down southwest. The next slide please. Could you advance the slides. Thank you. This woman is walking down southwest gibbs street along a stripe of white paint. She's just uphill from the emergency room of portland's largest employer, OHSU. Pbot required. Pbot development review required this white stripe as a frontage improvement from the developer of the newly built apartment building to the right. This was in lieu of a curbed sidewalk, and despite the land between the guardrail and the facade of the building being public property owned by the city of Portland, next slide please. This is what this area could have looked like if the city had prioritized pedestrian safety. This is not the middle of nowhere. If the city can pass off a white stripe as a sidewalk this close to a major employment center, then it can happen anywhere. And it does. Southwest is pocked with these disconnected white striped sidewalk fragments, like an enormous bingo game that lasts ten, 20, 30 years with no row or column or sidewalk ever completely filling. No one ever gets to shout bingo! This piecemeal sidewalk policy is why southwest, at 25%, has the least sidewalk coverage in the area. Any area of the city by far. And someone mentioned annexation. I just want to say the shelf life is coming due on that explanation. Parts of southwest have been started being annexed 100 years ago. Most of it was complete by the 50s. So we've been talking about annexation for a long time anyway. The lack of sidewalk coverage hinders southwest in many ways. For example, citywide transportation initiatives, things like ADA ramps pass us by because we don't have the basic infrastructure to participate. Why would someone without a sidewalk need an ADA ramp? But southwest Portland needs is a plan of action which prioritizes bringing continuous sidewalk and bike Lane networks to our major streets. Until that happens, PBOT should lower the speed limit to 20mph. On streets which don't have a protected sidewalk. Streets like gibbs, markham hill road, fairmont boulevard, which this woman has just walked along and which are all posted 25 miles an hour. We all need to pull in the same direction if we were to get anywhere. Otherwise, half a century from the future, from now, the future advocates and city councils might find themselves sitting here having these same conversations. Thank you so much. Thank you. Keith is out of town, but if I could just take a little bit to go through his comments. He's been playing transportation bingo longer than anybody. He was on the steering committee of the 1996 bicycle master plan, and he was 25 years on the bicycle advisory committee. Currently, he's on the fixing our streets oversight committee, and he. Oh, could I advance the slide, please? Sorry. And he points out that at 29%, the completion of the southwest bike bike system is dead last in the city. Next slide please. Next slide please. Another. Let's go past that. Okay. This is an interesting photo. It's a stretch. It's a unique little stretch of road between the overpass of barber boulevard, which you see in front and in back of keith is the overpass for highway five. So you're kind of sandwiched between these two arteries and the slides, not really about that kind of artless ending of the bike path into the bioswale. It's about it's a it's a photo of a gap. So it's sort of a photo of nothing in back of him is the 26th avenue project with a bunch of Green paint and multi-use path and plastic wands. And if you look about 2 or 3 blocks past that overpass bridge, the bike lanes start up again. So what keith sees when he looks here is a lost opportunity. So that gap is actually part of the 2030 bicycle system plan. It's a project. So keith's point is when you had all the paint trucks, all the striping trucks out back to put the enormous amount of Green paint that's in back of him, why not just take advantage of the efficiency of it and go ahead and stripe a bike Lane? This is not complicated. This is a wide road. You could keep the parking. You just need to drive the truck and put the Lane in. What's going to happen instead is that project is going to percolate up the bike 2030 plan. And who knows how many years from now that's going to get striped. So he's saying, just do it. Now. Given that there's the money is tight, let's take advantage of expanding projects when they're that close to each other. Okay. Could I go to the previous slide please? Okay. So keith asked himself, how has it come about that we only have 29% of our built out of bike lanes? And so I was just going to go through a few of these one, he says insufficient funding, which we know, but we have a southwest in motion plan, which is well, there's a lot of city in motion plans, but ours didn't receive any jump start funding. Like the others, it was intended to be a short term action plan, but occurring current funding levels, it will take decades to complete.
70 Excuse me, lisa, we're running out of time. Can you submit that? In writing keith's testimony?
71 I'll. I'll try.
72 Thank you very much.
73 Thank you so much.
74 Great.
75 Rita, are you next?
76 Next up. My name is marina ingalsbe. Thank you. Chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. I really appreciate this opportunity. I'm chairperson of the hayhurst neighborhood association, and our neighborhood is experiencing the transportation bingo that lisa has described. Next slide please.
77 Apologies. I need to reshare again.
78 That's okay. I'll start. I'll keep talking. Last November, the city approved the development of 263 new homes on the 50 plus acre former alpenrose dairy on southwest shattuck road. And we'll have a picture of it in any minute here. I'm just sure.
79 To go about two forward.
80 Should be. Yeah. There it is. There it is. Oh, yes. So we have 263 new homes along a former farm farm road that you can see there from the start. Our neighborhoods top priority for this development has been safe transportation, active transportation and access to public transit. While the city's policies prioritize walking and biking, this new development, as approved, will unfortunately be car dependent. It's expected to increase traffic on southwest shattuck by 50%, with 1800 additional car trips per day. Next slide please. Traffic monitoring done by PBOT last August showed that 91% of drivers on shattuck are speeding. The developers traffic consultant recommended speed cushions, but they were not approved by PBOT for some unknown reason to us. Next slide please. The raleigh crest developer will be building a nice walking and biking pathway along the frontage, which is about half the way to Beaverton hillsdale highway. That leaves a half mile gap to get to Beaverton hillsdale highway. Now that's where the golden ring is. Golden ticket beaverton-hillsdale highway has frequent bus service east through hillsdale to downtown Portland and west through the raleigh hills town center to Beaverton and Washington square. Thanks to trimet's forward together plan, it also has grocery stores, banking, other services, and bike lanes, but we can't safely get there. Next slide please. Priority should be given to extend safe walking and biking facilities to beaverton-hillsdale highway to complete the important network connection, but without better coordination from the city. Between frontage work required of the developer and capital projects the city provides, this half mile gap could easily be here for another 50 years. Next slide please. There are nine unfunded southwest in motion plan projects identified for static road and its cross streets to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety. We look forward to working with you to get them done. Thank you.
81 Thank you maurita. And could you submit that as written testimony? Thank you. Next we have don bark two and a 2.5 minutes.
82 Next slide please. Hi, chair. Vice chair. Councilors. Good to be here. I'm don bark, a retired professional civil engineer, a 52 year resident of hillsdale. I founded southwest trails to improve our bike and ped infrastructure in 95. I want you to remember three points and take a walk with me. The hills of Portland require different standards and approaches to solve stormwater and transportation challenges. Our geography precludes a grid street pattern and concentrates traffic on a few busy, narrow streets, most without sidewalks or bike lanes. And they're mostly uphill. All, all. There's no downhill. It's all uphill. Slide, please. It's expensive to build sidewalks in southwest because we don't have a big pipe stormwater system. Street runoff goes to open ditches for environmental reasons. You can't build a concrete sidewalk without paying to manage the stormwater. That means it's expensive. Slide, please. For lack of storm sewers, our creeks are eroding. This is a serious problem and it's cost across southwest TriMet has been reducing. The second point is TriMet is reducing service to the residential parts of southwest Portland. For decades, these service cuts have made southwest more car dependent. Slide, please. To compensate for lack of bus service, we need continuous, safe, family friendly bike and pedestrian routes in southwest Portland. A key route is a city council approved in 2007. Red electric regional bike trail, which largely utilizes low traffic streets to connect southwest and Washington county to the waterfront and downtown. Some segments have been built. This is an extremely important infrastructure project. The final mile segment of the from hillsdale to downtown involves planning how the route will utilize a key barber bridge. It's a wooden bridge built in 1933 to secure future metro and state funding related funding. For this route. The city council and the city staff need to agree on a feasible plan. Slide, please. Southwest in motion is a list of worthy low cost pedestrian project has been. As has been mentioned, it is seriously underfunded. Empowering volunteers to help with scarce will help stretch scarce resources further. We are organizing a committee to work with PBOT in selecting and managing future southwest in motion projects.
83 Thank you don.
84 Join me for a walk. Thank you.
85 Thank you so much.
86 If you could keep the.
87 Slides.
88 Good afternoon or good morning. My name is mary ann fitzgerald, and if you could go to two slides, I think. Yeah. Forward, forward next one. Perfect. So I'm the chair of the ash creek crestwood neighborhood association, a long time resident. I actually wrote a letter in 1990 to commissioner Blumenauer that kickstarted the first capital highway plan, because markham elementary did not have sidewalks when my children attended it in 1990. For context, we're talking about where that red circle is at the bottom left part of this map and where that arrow is, is my neighborhood. And this designation of west Portland town center is the same as hollywood lens and saint john's, but it probably more closely resembles what Lents looked like 20 years ago, before the city began investing in its infrastructure. So next slide please. So I want to point out that it's got an independent grocery store, barber world foods, a pharmacy, an elementary and a middle school, a library, two mosques, the islamic school of Portland and more. But no safe streets. We have a very high percentage of communities of color. We have a large cluster of east african immigrants. Markham elementary is a title one school and has a very strong head start program located within its building. So this is not what I hear. Our stereotypical southwest Portland. This is a community with tremendous needs. We've had a few scattered investments over the two and a half decades that I've been working on this project, but I want to thank PBOT for the fabulous investment in the southwest capitol highway project between west Portland and Multnomah village that concluded in 2023, and the reason why it was a successful project is because it combined pedestrian, bicycle, stormwater and water bureau investments to capital highway under one fabulous project manager and one fabulous construction contractor. This is the kind of strategic investments that we need in the future, because we know we have scarce resources when we need to get the best bang for our buck. I think I'm going to fast forward to the next one. In the interest of time, we also have I-5, two high crash corridors on and off ramps, and this huge parking ride in the middle of the town center. And the vision and the plan is for that park and ride to become a multicultural center, a light rail station, and a mixed use density development that support people in the community. If you can just fast forward, I'll go really quickly, but we have a lot of people that are hurt when they're walking and biking in the town center. They're afraid to. And if you see this one dot in this line in the middle, that's my neighborhood, taylor's ferry road, where people are trying to walk to barber world foods. But they can't because they're getting hit.
89 Mary, I'm mary, I'm going to have to cut you off, I apologize. We're we have a lot of other people following, but can you submit those pieces to us? Because the maps are really hard to read.
90 I know, I know, and that's why I did submit them as testimony already.
91 Thank you so much. Thank you. And michael kaplan, you're next.
92 I'm michael kaplan. Thank you for inviting me to speak a chair clerk and everyone else in front of me. I do not have any slides, and I'll keep it very brief. I'm going to talk primarily about south waterfront, which is one of three neighborhoods composing south Portland neighborhood association john's landing, south waterfront, where hill south waterfront has great transit, walking and bike access, and developable land, and can help grow more housing to meet the significant housing demand facing the city, the neighborhood and this is a long standing position, supports improving access into and out of south waterfront, particularly completing south bond avenue across the zidell owned land and fixing the bancroft and mcadam intersection. These projects are included in the prosper port one tax increment district budget, and are necessary to ensure more housing can be built. We have two affordable housing buildings in the neighborhood already, and each apartment is required to. Building is required to include affordable units. South Portland is not a exclusive enclave. We have another, shorter position that we would like to present. I mean short in terms of it's a more recent addition. We've asked PBOT and they've agreed to lower the speed limit on southwest hood, coming off ross island bridge to 35 miles an hour, which would put it in accord with mcadam, which is 35 miles an hour. Odot has opposed that, and which is odd because I believe ODOT is going to lower the speed limit at some point in the near future on the ross island bridge to 35 miles an hour. So that's another position that is important to us. Don mentioned southwest trails, his work goes to the grover pedestrian tunnel, which we maintain as volunteers. We paint over the graffiti and pick up all the garbage. Thank you.
93 Thank you, michael, and thank thanks. The panel. It was a strong presentation from southwest Portland. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And I'd like to call up sarah if she's still here from the street trust. I apologize, sarah, for making you. I misread my agenda. So thank you for being patient.
94 No worries.
95 I don't have any slides, so keep it quick. No shortage of need, no shortage of people here to testify about how we can do better for the city. So thank you. Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today. For the record, my name is sarah iannarone. I serve as executive director of the street trust and the street trust action fund. We represent the interests of all street users, regardless of mode, and we fight to make sure that the needs of non-drivers in Oregon are met, especially people who walk, bicycle and take transit for transportation. We also endorse candidates for office who share our priorities and values. I am a registered lobbyist with the city of Portland. I chair the state's jurisdictional transfer advisory committee and previously advised PBOT bureau and budget advisory committee and bicycle advisory committee. We. The street trust is a founding member of the statewide move Oregon forward campaign. Dozens of organizations fighting for you and Salem to pass a forward thinking transportation funding package, which you heard about from sam chase this morning. We want to make sure that that works for oregon's workers and families, as well as its cities and counties. I'm here to offer you our support, you know, ensuring stable funding for PBOT and its critical safety and multimodal programs isn't just about balancing a budget. It's about saving lives and keeping Portland moving in the right direction. Every leader in this room, in this city, in this state, agrees on one thing safety matters foremost. Cutting safety projects isn't just bad policy. It's a choice that will cost lives. Pbot is facing a significant budget shortfall, and without real leadership, we risk cutting staff and programs that keep our safe, our streets safe for everyone. We're largely on our own in this. The state is facing its own budget shortfall $1.8 billion, and Portland can can afford to wait for outside help. This committee has the power and the votes to take action. So we would like to see your plan. And as you mentioned, revenue follows vision. There's no if there's no clear plan to fund safe, complete streets for our city. It's going to be very hard to connect with the voters about why we need them to support that. Some will argue that we need to prioritize motor vehicle movement in lean times, but businesses also need safe, accessible streets for workers, customers.
96 And deliveries.
97 A transportation system that only serves cars and trucks fails the economy. The solution isn't to shift funds away from safety. It's to reinvest in what works and build a funding strategy that protects the programs we all agree on and keeps everyone moving safely, regardless of mode. We have the votes on council of complete streets and multimodal champions to act now. The city's new government structure means there's a space here for you to lead on this. And if we don't prioritize safety now, we will be back here next year with even bigger gaps, more pedestrian deaths, and fewer options to fix this mess. And I know I'm out of time, but I'm going to leave you with a challenge. I'm asking you to commit to not cutting safety funding for Portland. It is critical. We need you to put forward a real plan to fully fund PBOT now and into the future. A modern transportation system will keep us out of that doom loop narrative, and make sure that we are on the right track for our future. Thank you again for having us.
98 Thank you so much. And is janet jarvis online? No. Okay.
99 She is. She's up there.
100 Janet is here. Oh, terrific. Great. Well, and while we're waiting for janet to come down the second panel, let me announce. Get ready, get set. Sarah, from families for safe streets. Michelle dewberry, families for safe streets. David is a binding from bike loud and zachary lauritsen from Oregon walks. You're going to be on the next panel. So hopefully janet is finding her way through the building. Come on, on down. For those of you that don't know, janet is the I think. Is she the chair of the freight advisory committee?
101 Thank you.
102 And she's with thank you for reminding me of that. She's with Oregon trucking as well. So we'll get a freight mobility viewpoint here.
103 Thank you. Okay.
104 Hi, janet. Nice to see you. Thanks for coming. I'm sorry for the delay.
105 Oh. Good morning. I just ran down the stairs. Good morning, chair. Members of the committee, I'm janet jarvis, president and ceo of the Oregon trucking association and chair of the Portland freight committee. This advisory committee was established in 2003 and serves the city as an advisory group to both the Portland bureau of transportation and to you as city council members. The freight committee has a broad membership comprising freight representation from trucking, both for hire and private carrier, rail consultants and rail lines, air freight and the port of Portland marine, represented by barge interest and the working waterfront coalition. Freight consultants and business association interests such as the Oregon trucking association and the columbia corridor association, as well as real estate and passenger vehicle representation. Additionally, there is agency representation including PBOT staff, metro, ODOT and the fha. And lastly, we added a community representative this past year who provides valuable input from those that live in the freight districts. Our goal is to provide industry expertise on freight issues to assist in decision making at the city level. We meet monthly on the first Thursday of the month, and I would welcome any and all of you to take the opportunity to attend one of our meetings. Throughout the pandemic, we met virtually, but are now meeting in a hybrid fashion at the Portland building. On the first Thursday of every month. We regularly provide input on road improvement projects, policy issues that impact the movement of freight, and economic factors that impact the freight industry. Our meetings regularly include hot topics and then scheduled presentation on a wide variety of topics. The ability to combine input from the wide range of business interests assembled helps PBOT identify and prioritize issues. And recently we've also included some field trips, such as the port of Portland marine terminals and electric island. The Sameer facility on swan island. So field, please feel free to reach out to me or to staff if there are topics that we should include that would benefit you in the coming months. And I welcome you to come and visit our freight committee. Thank you.
106 Janet, thank you for the invitation. Appreciate appreciate your time. Can we have the second panel come up, please? Sarah, are you going to kick it off? Okay.
107 Oh, I'm too far.
108 Just remind everybody you've got 2.5 minutes. You have a lot of people in the room.
109 All right, I will talk fast.
110 So my name is sarah reiser, and I'm here on behalf of families for safe streets, the Portland chapter. All members of families for safe streets have lost loved ones or have been seriously injured themselves in road traffic. We believe all traffic deaths are preventable, and it is the fundamental basic human right to travel safely throughout Portland, regardless of the mode. Our road fatality crisis is often referred to as an epidemic. Today, I will speak to the benefits of using a public health frame to help us more clearly understand our road fatality problem and identify solutions when using a public health approach. Identifying the agent that kills is the first order of business. In this case, it is simple. What kills people in road traffic is the transfer of kinetic energy from a vehicle to a human body, which is too vulnerable to tolerate the impact. How severe or deadly the crash is depends entirely on the amount of kinetic energy carried by the vehicle. I'll pause here to dedicate this presentation to anyone who has. A teen sat exasperated in their high school physics class, asking themselves, when will I ever use this information? The time has come. You can use your high school physics to save lives in Portland. As you may or may not recall, the formula for kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared. There are two variables in this equation mass and speed. And while mass is important, speed contributes exponentially to total kinetic energy. This is extremely important. Small increases in speed have an outsized impact on the agent that kills. Speed also makes a vehicle harder to control and stop. There is a lot more kinetic energy, a lot more danger on portland's roads today than a decade ago. We have seen a 25% increase in vehicle registrations in Multnomah county since 2007. Vehicles are getting larger with light truck, suvs dominating all new car sales, and more drivers are speeding the danger. This concentration of kinetic energy is particularly prevalent on our high crash corridors and in districts one and two. To increase safety, we need to focus on two things. First, we need to protect or isolate road users from the danger with infrastructure that separates pedestrians cyclists from vehicles. Secondly, we need to intentionally and deliberately remove or lower, lower total kinetic energy throughout the system. This can be done by getting cars off the road, by giving people transportation options that to leave their vehicles behind. I'm running. I'm. But before I end, I want to say that a lot of local communities around the country are turning to intelligent speed assist technology in vehicle technologies and transferring their local fleets to using this technology. And the last thing I'll say is that in no other realm of public life do we tolerate this level of danger and death, and we really need to address this problem. Thank you.
111 Thank you. Sarah. Michelle, are you next?
112 I think I'll.
113 Go ahead. David's going to go next okay.
114 Thank you. I'm dave binning I'm speaking on behalf of bike lab pdx. Thank you for inviting us. And thanks, sarah, for that. I was here two weeks ago at the first of these committee meetings and again today, and I heard about the budget challenges that PBOT is facing. And I know that's very real, and I hope that the council is open to finding ways to address that. What I want to talk about is what happens when there are limits on funding, because sometimes I hear an idea that we need to get back to basics and fixing potholes, not the extras like sidewalks and bike lanes and crosswalks. Councilor Smith, I appreciate that you emphasized the sidewalks in east Portland, because that is that is really fundamental. And I know some of the councilors here were at the world day of remembrance back in November and heard from people like sarah, like michelle, who have lost lost family members, who have lost children to traffic violence. And that's that's what I wanted to say, that that's the most basic responsibility of the city, is making sure that people go into work, that kids go into school, that people waiting for the bus can get back home alive. And with more than 60 traffic deaths last year and the year before that and the year before that, we're not doing that right now. So how do we do that? How do we do that with limited funds? Councilor Green, I appreciate what you said about reducing Lane mileage and reducing liabilities. And to add to the science portion of this roadway increases with the fourth power vehicle weight. So a vehicle that weighs ten times as much does 10,000 times as much damage to the road. So we can reduce that. That helps. Second, when we do spend money on repaving projects, use those opportunities to make them safe for everyone so that we're not just painting new stripes on the same deadly road. Right now, the city is in the process of spending 185 million on 82nd. They're making important, needed changes, but there's still not going to be a safe way to bike that corridor without making a 20 block detour. And that means, in practice, that people are going to keep biking the unsafe way. So I know councilor Morillo has a vision for sandy boulevard. They're going to keep being more of those opportunities and I hope that we use them. Third, make sure that the city isn't tying our own hands. I've had the chance to talk with with PBOT staff about what they wish they were doing to save lives. And they say slow people down. That means Lane reductions, Lane reallocations. That means speed cushions that we heard couldn't be installed. That means raised crossings at intersections. Portland's current transportation system plan doesn't allow using those at a lot of the most vital, vital intersections, and that's something that this council could change. Finally, commit. Under the last council, we had a situation where protected bike lanes three blocks from here had already been built after years of planning, and the project was expressed concerns on the verge of being removed. Other places safer designs haven't been built or were bogged down for years because the city was waiting for consensus. There will be tradeoffs. People have legitimate concerns, and what I hope is that the councilors here will be able to hear those concerns and commit to saying, we hear you, and safety has to be the priority here.
115 Thank you. David. We hear you, we hear you. Thank you so much. Who's next on the panel?
116 I'll go next. Thank you. Good morning, chair Clark and members of the committee. My name is michelle dewberry, and I am co-chair of the Portland chapter of families for safe streets. I am the mom of seamus dewberry, a one year old boy who was killed by a careless driver while being pushed in a stroller by his dad through a marked crosswalk in north Portland. In 2010. Seamus was one of 26 people to be killed on Portland streets. 2010 is also the year a long time downward trend in traffic fatalities began to reverse, so 26 in 2010, 37 in 20 1550 and 20 1759 and 2020, and in 2023. Crash deaths hit a 30 year high with 74 people killed. This trend is reflected nationwide, but even so, Portland is an outlier. Seattle, a city with 100,000 more people than Portland, had only 35 traffic fatalities in 2023, so fewer than half of Portland. And this rise in traffic deaths is especially pronounced among pedestrians. I didn't know this at the time seamus died, but the road where he was killed is very typical of the type of street where pedestrians are most likely to die. North lombard is a multi Lane state highway that cuts through a residential neighborhood on the corner where he was killed. There is a school, a grocery store, a light rail stop and two busy bus stops. But there's no physical infrastructure to slow cars down or to protect pedestrians. And there still isn't today. On paper, Portland has committed to pedestrian safety and PBOT policies clearly direct leaders to prioritize walking, biking and transit over driving. Pbot transportation system plan states that saving the lives of people walking and biking is the bureau's top priority. And I just want to point out that by aligning our budgets and our actions with these priorities, it would not only save lives, but it would improve the quality of life for all Portland residents. Very few people would choose to live in a place where we can't safely get around. We all want and deserve to live in vibrant, safe, walkable neighborhoods. My family will never recover from losing seamus, but I hope that our loss will inform your decisions so that other families never have to experience this type of loss. Thank you.
117 Thank you michelle and sarah, both our hearts are with you. We really appreciate your being here and your message. Thank you.
118 Good morning. Zachary lauritsen, executive director of Oregon walks, a pedestrian advocacy organization. We believe everyone is a pedestrian. It's nice to see everyone. I want to take two quick notes that are a little off script. Councilor Smith, thank you so much for talking about the gaps and prioritizing that in east Portland and councilor Green. Thank you for saying there are creative ways penny saved is a penny earned, right? And so there are creative ways that have not traditionally been on the table, at least publicly. So I appreciate that you all. We've heard the dire situation we're in in terms of fatalities, in terms of gaps for maintenance, in terms of the gaps for infrastructure and building it out. We recognize that, and it's going to get harder, probably right as you get close to having to make some of these decisions. And so when you have difficult decisions to make, it's really important to have your north star, the thing you know, you're aiming towards. And about a decade ago, we adopted vision zero as a policy in Portland. And sometimes when you kind of marry something, you renew those vows. And I think that time is now because none of you were on council and neither none of your colleagues were. Neither was the mayor. But I'm asking you to not just say to me today we are vision zero city, but as an entire council to come together, have a discussion about what that means, what are the implications of that? And are we are we reaffirming that we are a vision zero city because there will be difficult decisions. And I'm hoping and I think I speak for all of us, that the council will come together and say, yes, we are a vision zero city. And then our decisions that we make, both our money, but also political and social will that's going to be needed to make some difficult decisions, are guided by the fact that we are indeed a vision zero city. So that's my request to you. Not one for money. There's plenty of that you will get, but one for action, where you come together as an entire council and publicly say we are vision zero city and then we can make some really great progress on this real challenge that we're facing. Thank you.
119 Thank you zachary. Thank you to all the panel members. We really appreciate your coming today to talk to us. You've given us a lot of food for thought. So let's bring up the third panel. Christina ditullio from the reed neighborhood association, steven seagraves, reed neighborhood association. Rob, I think it's going to galanakis from the bike bus safe routes to school. I don't know if sam balto is joining as well. And alan, from the age friendly cities. Great. Welcome all of you. Christina, are you going to kick it off?
120 Sure. Thank you. Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the transportation committee. My name is christina ditullio, and I'm president of the reed neighborhood association. Our neighborhood boundaries have several busy roadways, with holgate boulevard at the north boundary. Cesar chavez is our east boundary and part of steele street at the south. My testimony today is about specific personal experiences with southeast holgate. At the intersection of holgate and 34th avenue, there is a crosswalk for pedestrians to get over to the kenilworth park in the creston-kenilworth neighborhood. This is a heavily used crosswalk by residents. I've experienced two instances where I have been crossing from south to north and have been in the crosswalk in the eastbound Lane and unable to complete crossing holgate because cars in the westbound Lane are not stopping driving right in front of me. On one occasion, I finally had to wave my arm to get the next vehicle to stop. It was a truck that did stop, but as I was crossing, as I crossed in front of it, they honked at me. Both of these instances have occurred in the middle of the day and made me feel very unsafe. I have also been on the south sidewalk, approaching the crosswalk at 34th, and watched as a pedestrian was trying to cross from the north to the south. They also had difficulty getting vehicles to stop and they were also honked at. We have another crosswalk at southeast 29th avenue, right in front of the tucker maxon school, where some of the students are deaf. Hard of hearing. At this crosswalk, there is an island where pedestrians can pause between lanes. This island has been damaged by cars hitting it, I assume because of speeding at this crosswalk. Again, I've encountered many times where vehicles are not stopping to allow me to cross. I have a neighbor who uses a motorized wheelchair, and she regularly travels holgate from southeast 33rd place to walgreens at the corner of holgate and cesar chavez. I have asked her how it is for her to navigate holgate. She shared that she often struggles to get across the crosswalk at 34th because drivers are not stopping. She said she travels on the north sidewalk because the south sidewalk is not accessible for her chair to for the entire stretch to walgreens. I've also witnessed two. I have also witnessed two different individuals in motorized wheelchairs riding in the roadway on holgate, going eastbound to cesar chavez and wondered if they were riding in the roadway because the south sidewalk on holgate was not accessible for them to travel on. I'm requesting a traffic and speed study of inner southeast holgate to be conducted to then assist with making traffic improvements for residents to safely navigate holgate. Thank you.
121 Thank you stephen.
122 Good morning, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the transportation committee. My name is stephen seagraves. I'm the land use chair on the reed neighborhood association. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I've been a reed resident since 2019, and in that time I've seen the speeds and unsafe driving along holgate exponentially get worse and it's really become unfriendly for walking and biking. There are two schools along holgate in this area. There's grout elementary and tucker maxon, which christina mentioned, is a school that is founded around the deaf and those with speech delays. Holgate is also home to a very large retirement community, where a number of residents use motorized and non-motorized wheelchairs to navigate the area. The speeding and failure to observe crosswalks around the schools has made every morning drop off and every afternoon pickup for parents, very stressful and very unsafe. In addition, those tight sidewalks that christina mentioned and obstructions on the south side have forced neighbors using wheelchairs into the street. And this is clearly not safe. There's not been a traffic or speed study performed along southeast holgate since 2012. However, the speed limit was reduced to 25 miles an hour shortly after the start of 2020. I would like to see you councilors direct the city administrator to perform a speed and safety study along southeast holgate, starting at mclaughlin, which is the entrance to holgate on the west side, all the way out to 82nd if, if, if possible. I'm also the father of a preschooler and reed does not have any parks or playgrounds within its boundaries. So we rely on crossing holgate at least twice a day, sometimes four times a day, to go to a playground, and I use the crosswalk that christina has mentioned. Even at that marked crosswalk, I can wait minutes to cross the street safely. I'm not going to let my preschooler jump out into the road. It is ridiculous that I have to wait that long to get across the street to go to a playground further east on holgate. There are no marked crosswalks at all, and those folks that live there have to wait even longer for people to stop for them. So again, I ask that city council prioritize asking the city administrator, making the city administrator perform a speed study along holgate. And then I ask that anything that is found with that safety study be prioritized to be made and have improvements made. Thank you.
123 Thank you very much, rob.
124 Sure.
125 Good morning, committee members, and thanks for the opportunity to speak. My name is rob galanakis. You aced the pronunciation. I'm here on behalf of bike bus pdx, an association of 25 Portland public elementary schools with weekly bike and walking busses. An article last week in the guardian credits bike busses with rescuing, biking to school from near extinction on bike bus days. Some of our schools are at higher than 50% bike mode share, showing how much latent demand there is for safe riding. The work we've been doing in Portland has inspired hundreds of schools around the country to start their own bike busses, and it's been an inspiring local narrative about one of the great things in our city. But as we roll into year four of portland's bike bus, it's increasingly clear we need help. The bike bus is the software for change, the social infrastructure, but we need the city to provide the physical infrastructure, the hardware. Having run bike busses across the district, we've seen that the only truly effective infrastructure is modal filtering, which removes car cut through traffic on neighborhood greenways. As teachers and pta members used to working with tight budgets, we appreciate high impact, cost efficient solutions like modal filters that make the most of limited resources compared to other traffic calming like speed bumps. This morning, we sent a letter to committee members asking for a bike bus friendly neighborhood greenways resolution to pilot a maximum of 500 average daily traffic volume on greenway bike bus routes. This would align our greenways with best practices in cities that have increased bike mode. Share. Like Vancouver, canada. We need the city to act on this and quickly. As coach balto says, the bike bus is a movement, not a moment. But movements require momentum to keep going. If we can't move quickly, we'll lose this critical opportunity to advance city goals. The resolution laid out in our letter advances city equity goals by improving safe streets across the district, advance its climate goals by supporting zero carbon options. Improves congestion by replacing cars with bikes for short trips. Demonstrates our commitment to our all ages and abilities. Approach to transportation on greenways. It advances the city's identity by demonstrating we're able to act quickly on practical solutions, supporting goals that are so positive across so many measures. One. Stick for the beat. I'll mention something often overlooked at city hall that our public schools are facing the same crisis that the city is facing. We cannot have a thriving city without thriving schools. Bike busses are great for kids and community and gives families in Portland something they cannot get elsewhere, which is unambiguously good for their kids. Health, attendance, proficiency and independence. Bike busses are a key component of moving Portland forward, and we ask the city council to move forward with a bike bus friendly neighborhood greenways resolution as soon as possible. Thank you.
126 Thank you so much, rob allen.
127 I thank you, chair Clark, vice chair Morillo and members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. For more than 20 years, my role in the city of Portland has been to show up at meetings and on committees and commissions and say, what about older adults and what about people with disabilities? I'm here again to do that. I'm excited because I feel like we've got new energy and opportunities for moving things forward. I had a chance to actually talk with all of you at some point in your history, including commissioner Smith. When george hocker was your staff more recently working with with councilors Koyama Lane and dunfee to think about age friendly next steps and councilor Green. I'm going to be succinct here in saying we have existing action plans that are on the books. In 2013, we city council adopted by resolution the action plan for an age friendly Portland in 2023 and 2024, the age and disability inclusive neighborhoods action plan was moved forward in the bureau of planning and sustainability. For almost four years, I worked inside the city of Portland as the age friendly program manager, and I continue to push this forward in my role now with northwest pilot project, as an advocate and as a community builder, there are opportunities for us to take our existing documents and to implement them, and I look forward to working with you all to do things such as looking at first and last mile opportunities within 15 to 20 minute neighborhoods, planning for older adults, people with disabilities and caregivers. As part of what I heard you say, chair Clark as our indicator species, to say, are we doing this stuff correctly or do we have more to do? So I'm excited about this opportunity. I'm excited that older adults and people with disabilities have an opportunity again, to be at the heart of planning for communities of all ages and abilities. So I look forward to working with you again, wherever and whenever that opportunity presents itself.
128 Thank you so much. Thank you all. Panelists. Excellent testimony. We really appreciate your coming to talk to us today. Lots of food for thought. I'm going to do something unusual and ask mr. Middaugh if he would mind coming back at a different time. We only have 20 minutes left and we have a hard stop at 1130, and we have a lot of citizens here.
129 To speak.
130 Is that for me? If, jim, if you can come back at a different time, I'd really appreciate it. And also, tabitha, I believe boschetti if she can come back at a different time and zoom in to the committee, I'd really like to prioritize the people who are here who've signed up to testify, if that's okay with you. Can I get a nod back there?
131 I got your directions here, so.
132 Thank you. Thank you. So let me turn to rebecca. Can you please read the next item?
133 Item three. Bureau of transportation. Organizational structure and services. Testimony.
134 And because we are running out of time, I'd like to ask people to limit their comments to two minutes and we'll see if we can fit everybody in today.
135 Our first testifier is sarah taylor.
136 Thank you.
137 Hi, I'm.
138 Sarah taylor from the linnton neighborhood, kind of the far other end, and I didn't really write, or I could have taken slides, but I'll just try to paint you a picture. When I drove here, there is water pouring off every hill in linnton. There are no school crosswalks for children. They don't exist. The ADA sidewalks were long closed and we are in the middle of the ci hub. We are between a river and a forest, and I also want to say that district two and district four share a river. And so the transportation issues of st. Johns are the transportation issues of linton. I don't have a lot of time. So I just want to tell you we are a river community, and I know we've been blocked off by the tanks, but I want to tell you, we want the frog ferry. I think you know that everybody in north Portland on either side of the river feels that this will ease our transportation problems and will make us feel safer in the event of a catastrophe. We don't want you necessarily to pave our dirt roads. We have dirt roads, of course, and we have no sidewalks. But what we want is you to get out of our way. Let us. I will paint the crosswalk. Just don't forbid.
139 Me from doing it.
140 Is that my time? We also have a trail. We got $850,000 for a walking trail for the city of Portland. And we do not have permission to make that trail. So if you want to save money, let us build the one flat trail along the river for nine miles. And I want to say one more thing. When I went to cathedral park, we now have parking meters in the only park in north Portland.
141 Thank you sarah, thank you for thank you for driving down from linton. We appreciate it.
142 I'm going to call up the next two testifiers, pat kazmarek and laura curry. Pat kazmarek.
143 Yeah, I'm upstairs and laura wants to go first.
144 Okay. Thank you.
145 Okay. Let's see, I did some quick editing. We'll see how that goes. Wow. All right. Good morning. Council councilperson clerk and committee. My name is laura curry I live in the northwest stadium. Hood I see northwest 15th avenue, the 405 southbound and northbound ramps, the cathedral elementary school and northwest couch now couch plaza. Out my windows. We need your help. Drug dealers and users camp within the cathedral elementary school zone. Drug users and drug sellers enjoy open air drug dealing and use in high traffic areas near schools and businesses. The nearby bottle exchange provides funds for drug purchases. We have a surge of organized criminal activities. Drug suppliers speed through my neighborhood to make deliveries and then drive the quick, one way, uninterrupted streets back to 405 north Portland people's outreach project sets up every Friday at northwest 19th avenue and northwest couch street to hand out needles not in exchange foil and other drug paraphernalia. Inadequate enforcement of permits and regulations allows this. We have a flight of businesses and residents, increased vacancies and neglected properties, increased financial burden on businesses who are forced to hire private security. We experience an accumulation of hazardous waste generated from self-identified harm reduction organizations, specifically, this includes needles, drug paraphernalia, human feces, and garbage. I know because I clean it. Please meet me. Please meet with us to understand where to install stop signs and street lights to slow traffic and stop this drug freeway. Do not use boulders or gardening as an intervention strategy at couch plaza. Police our streets help us so everyone may enjoy a quality of life absent of junkies, human waste, drug paraphernalia, camping, shoplifting and the violence this brings into all of our communities and lives. Thank you for hearing me.
146 Thank you.
147 Hi. Could you say your name for the record?
148 Hi, I'm pat kazmarek and I'm a resident of southwest Portland, and I want to thank you for setting up these regular meetings on issues that are of importance to Portland residents. We are in a climate emergency. At the February meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee, there was a presentation that documented the modest incomes the city has made towards reducing carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. While some reductions have been accomplished in residential, industrial, commercial and solid waste areas, transportation has made very little progress on these goals, and in fact, the sum of the increases in emissions in the transportation sector have eliminated those of other sectors that have made some progress. I ask the committee and our city council representatives to adopt a climate lens for all work within city government. This would be similar to the dei lens that was instituted at the state level ten years ago. In that instance, department by department, information, seminars and tools were provided to employees and supervisors to assist them in to transitioning to working to include the lens. We need similar effort in our city to bring the focus of all activities to include consideration of the threats and damages of climate change. This does not preclude work on other concerns, but it must be a consideration in setting priorities and in guiding city employees in their day to day decision making. I do have some ideas on how to do low cost improvements for transportation. I don't know how much time I'll have here to tell you, but we have oversize busses. I see TriMet busses with hardly anybody in them. Can we propose a fleet of electric vans that would be able to make more transit opportunities?
149 Your time is up, but thank you. And please submit your testimony to us. We'd be interested to hear what your ideas are. Thank you so much for coming.
150 Next is esme daenerys.
151 Good morning.
152 Thank you for having us here today. Notice my name is esme. Daenerys and I live in west moreland. From the time I first saw the neighborhood ten years ago, I fell in love. It's like a small town nestled in the city. My dreams came true and my partner and I bought our 1913 craftsman home in 2020. We used to love to sit on our wraparound porch. We don't anymore. It's too loud to hear one another. Our home is on southeast 17th, on the corner of yukon, and the volume of traffic and the speed have gotten progressively and dramatically worse. Several years ago, the bus line was removed from 17th and rerouted to the almost equally beleaguered milwaukee avenue. While this sounded like a great move for reducing noise, the new reality slowly revealed itself. Now unchecked by the busses. More and more cars were using 17th and much faster. I estimate most drivers are driving at around 40mph on a fairly newly designated 20 mile per hour street, and it's relentless. There are no crosswalks at yukon, with three businesses on milwaukee that are centered around children. Two of them are daycares. There are parents with scarce parking who are parking below southeast 17th and crossing it where there are no crosswalks. I'm home. I'm disabled so I can see throughout the day strollers pushing up through cars, reluctantly stopping if stopping at all. We have had altercations with drivers who don't want to stop, and so have many of my neighbors. Wow. We definitely we desperately need traffic calming measures. I'm not a civil engineer, but more speed limit signs, bump outs, pedestrian refuge islands, speed cameras. The city of tigard has issued 800 citations in their first 14 days of camera use. Stop signs smile at the moreland improvement league. They've said that stop signs are out of the question, but with the bus line gone, there's no mass transit anymore. Why can't we have stop signs? The yellow line.
153 Thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate your testimony.
154 Thank you so much.
155 Next is joe cortright. Joe is online. Joe, you can unmute.
156 I can't hear myself.
157 You're on mute, joe.
158 Sorry.
159 I got a message.
160 Saying that zoom was not allowing me to unmute myself, but thank you very much. For the record, joe cortright, I'm an economist with city observatory chair Clark and members of the committee. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. I want to link to themes that you talked about today. You started off by talking about the financial situation and about the state legislation that's going through. And what I want to suggest to you is that you have to view transportation in the city of Portland, all of a piece federal funding, state funding and local funding. And in that context, it's very clear that despite what you were told, that by sam chase, that our top three priorities were o and m, o and o, m o and m. Legislatively, what we're doing is we're committing to huge highway widening projects. There are two projects broadly within the city of Portland the interstate bridge project and the rose quarter project, that are, respectively, $7.5 billion and $2 billion. The reason we don't have money is because essentially the city is supporting those projects at a time when your staff tells you that they're got they've got their bridge team working overtime to come up with clever and low cost ways to fix things, you've got the Oregon department of transportation, which has spent $300 million on consultants and staff work for those two projects in the city of Portland. And in effect, those projects become the city's ask in the Salem if we go ahead with them. And so while we face a climate crisis, while we have dire safety needs, while we need to be spending more on operation and maintenance, essentially what the legislature is going to do is say, hey, we're giving Portland all this money for the rose quarter and the ibr. We don't need to give them any more. And finally, I want to suggest to you that that we need to think seriously about climate. And as previous speakers have pointed out, car dependance is what's driving climate pollution. We're not making progress. And as councilor Green said, more road miles are a result of Lane. Miles are driving our problems. So we need to look carefully at that and we're not. So I hope we have a further opportunity to explore these projects in more detail. Thank you so much.
161 Thank you joe.
162 I'm going to call our last three testifiers. Sally nguyen and jeanette banuelos bolanos and Ryan sotomayor.
163 Hello.
164 Hi. Would you like me to start?
165 Yeah, we only have about five minutes left.
166 I'm sally canavan. I live in sylvan-highlands neighborhood, and we're here to ask for your help to address speed and safety issues on southwest skyline boulevard. Pbot designated southwest skyline as a neighborhood collector street, but it carries cut through traffic from highway 26 north to Burnside. Traffic originating from southwest scholls ferry, raleigh hills, and southwest hills. It also carries cut through traffic south to highway 26 from various northwest neighborhoods such as forest heights, forest park, and other northwest neighborhoods, including the northwest district in downtown, PBOT designates southwest skyline as an emergency response route. Fire station 16 calls skyline home, southwest skyline bifurcates our neighborhood, which was formerly a logging road. Thus, its winding nature and blind curves. The posted speed on southwest skyline is 25mph, but the average speed is closer to 45mph. For years, sylvan-highlands neighborhood has advocated for speed and safety modifications, but the most we have ever gotten is painted lines on a blind curve close to southwest fairview, and a motorcycle cop posted on the straightway. On a few occasions, we're asking for speed enforcement devices to monitor speed and warn drivers when they exceed exceed the speed limit. If drivers observe the speed limit, the road would be much safer for drivers and cyclists. There are no sidewalks or pedestrian pathways, so you seldom see a pedestrian brave enough to walk on the road. The elevation of skyline rises quickly to 1100 feet at its crest, and we experience ice and snow in the winter, potholes, landslides and the curvature of the road, which are sketchy and downright dangerous conditions for drivers and cyclists. There have been no traffic counts since 2010 on southwest skyline, and we say, what about skyline?
167 Thank you sally. Please submit your written testimony.
168 I will. Next go ahead.
169 I am not Ryan sotomayor, I'm james o'laughlin. I would ask the chair to accept the substitution. We both work for laborers for 83 representing city employees. Okay, yeah. So I just wanted to be here today to speak on behalf of our approximately 260 workers in the bureau of transportation. We've seen this council working hand in hand with labor and management to get to the shared interests that we both have. We view transportation as a tremendous opportunity to express that same interest. And hearing the priorities expressed here today around safety and a renewable budget model are the ones that we emphasize. But I did want to really communicate that the way these budget challenges express themselves on paper as ftes and employees in this role doesn't adequately represent the challenges of backsliding on the employee front, losing people that you've invested training in, the cost of low morale, really just seeking to emphasize that if this council somehow navigated the absurd challenges present here to meet the needs of our community and put a plan together that really was perfect in its design, the execution would be a failure without sufficient engagement of the employees that execute this work. And require sufficient cultural investment in building themselves up to be able to perform the complex tasks that we have. So I wanted to communicate that our labor union is dedicated to collaboration with city management, with city leadership to address these challenges, and want to be advocates with our members to buy into the future we see as possible.
170 Thank you. James.
171 Good morning. Chair and co chair and members of the council. My name is anjanette bolanos. I am a resident in district one. I purchased my home 14 years ago and when I purchased my home, it was on one of the roads that were undeveloped. When I purchased my home, when I wanted to ask about getting the road developed, they said it would cost $50,000 per house to have a lien on it if we wanted the city to do it, and if we were to do it, we would lose ten feet of my 20 foot front yard to be able to have bring it up to standards, to have sidewalks put into it. Over the years, there's been budgets and programs that were to help pave these roads or resurface these roads. And in the ten years that I've had my home, not once has it been paved or not. Once has it been resurfaced by the city. And now, with the city and Gresham deciding whether they want to, you know, let go of that zip code or not. It's another uncertain. Also, not only am I a home homeowner in the in district one, I also am a proud member of local 737 and I support our our city workers at 43 with the ask that that they're asking for to build these projects if they're not being built by the city. I encourage the city to also utilize the orea project and not only just have these, not have them as goals, but have them as standards, that because the it would aim in the communities that they're being built in, if they're built with a project because it's those are the communities that will be most affected if you hire with locally within those communities and giving them living wage jobs and not only just having apprentice standards, but doing away with the training.
172 Thank you. Jeanette, thank you for coming today. Thanks to all the panelists. I really appreciate everyone who took the time to come and talk to us today. Unfortunately, we're out of time. I have a couple of quick announcements to make before we have to surrender the room to another committee. But we're going to be considering the zenith resolution at the March 10th meeting. I believe the zenith energy terminal. We may also plan to hear an update on the city's solid waste and recycling program. And in the coming weeks, we'll also be considering the public works bureau's proposed budgets. The city administrator's draft budget proposals will be publicly released this week at the end of this week, and we've been asked to offer our recommendations to the finance committee. So all of your testimony is very relevant to that task for us, and we appreciate your being here today. And with that, I'll adjourn the committee meeting.
173 Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Commissioners. Thank you. Our city.
174 Sitting ovation.
175 Right. Thank you.