It seems that Frog Ferry should be a Portland thing. Both cute and defiant, going against the current yet in sync with a broader zeitgeist.
Maybe it will yet prevail, but there are moments—such as this week’s announcement of a new push to launch local ferry service—that cause one’s head to spin.
Susan Bladholm, who has championed Frog Ferry for eight years, introduced former Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy at a standing room only press conference to push the ball over the goal line. Murphy outlined the community funding model that has made the Packers the most enduring NFL franchise despite playing in the league’s smallest market by far.
Bladholm had another pitch. The grass-roots fund drive might tap into a major grant from the federal government, ironically from the administration of Portland-hating President Donald Trump.
“Just on Monday, the Federal Transportation Administration posted their passenger ferry grant program, so there is a couple hundred million dollars just there for passenger ferry,” she said, “and that application is due in about five weeks.”
“As a nonprofit, we can’t apply,” she said, adding that TriMet and the city of Portland could.
Here’s the catch. Those jurisdictions have for years steadfastly refused to be a conduit for FTA grants, and there is still no sign of wavering.
As a result, we have the oddity of the Trump administration, which has no more regard for mass transit or climate remediation than it does for Puddletown, now open to funding Frog Ferry while local governments say no way. Reminds one of states refusing Affordable Care Act subsidies from the Obama administration to the detriment of their own people in the name of some supposedly higher value.
