This article is exactly accurate. Pbot and other bureaus kick the costs of maintenance and crucial infrastructure down the road while spending on what they believe are necessary like bike lanes, diverted roads and expensive street cars they get federal funds to pay to build but cost portland to maintain. Zero accountability for a crumbling infrastructure because they'll be making 6 figures and an early retirement before those deferred maintenance issues start showing their ugly head.
PBOT is a farce. PBOT needs to be held accountable for their massive debts. STOP PBOT from looting the ordinary citizens of Portland to pay their debts. Enough is enough with the taxes and shenanigans from PBOT. Hold them accountable!!!
Well said Allan and long overdue in getting this message out! The forthcoming PBOT budget for FY 2026-2027 will reveal a considerable amount about what PBOT sees as its priorities vs. what the citizens really want. The so-called bicycle Green loop is another example of waste, sorry bicycle community, we can and should do better than spend untold limited funds on a "concept" study that has been in process for over 8-years with little to show in terms of actual constructed Green loop facilities. Let's get real about what is really needed vs. a wish list of pieces and part that do not make the city whole but simply, once again reflects a city /leadership/bureaucracy that has a reach beyond its grasp. No new fees, taxes, or other magical solutions to a budget dilemma that only looks to additions and not subtractions.
I'd support the suggested taxes if PBOT agreed to a four year pause on new projects with a focus on reducing the maintenance backlog. The 4th Ave improvement project is an example of something that did not need to be done.
Here’s an idea: why not have more enforcement of parking violations such as parking on a yellow line, parking within 10 feet of a fire hydrant, parking on the wrong side of the street, no front license plates, parking more than 10 inches from a curb,and expired registrations. These are all City Parking Codes. The city and state could make thousands just by patrolling my neighborhood
As a resident of Downtown, I have witnessed the creation of new bike lanes with parking "designed" to "protect" cyclists on 4th and on Broadway, just as bike traffic has actually declined as WFH has become the norm and Gen Z has shunned bikes and Millennials age. The novelty of the bike lane solution actually seems to make them more dangerous for all involved; parkers getting out, bikers and scooters rolling by and drivers trying to figure things out. Fortunately, traffic is so low, we don't know. And the scooters ride on sidewalks anyway whenever they can and there is no geocoding and there is nobody to enforce the rules everyone agrees to when they rent one. The traffic transitions on Naito should be used in an IQ test. I also watched as we pleased almost every curb cut downtown, often with an identical one last summer. Fourth, which gets little auto traffic is the only street with new paving. The rest are a patchwork of temporarily poorly filled potholes. PBOT seems to me to be the poster child of the "City That Does Not Work". I have no problem with government workers earning a living wage serving the public need, and safe sidewalks, roadways and curb cuts for all forms of transport and those walking and with disabilities around the City should be the priority, but they need direct input from those stakeholders and they need to prioritize according to the revenue we have. We need an independent performance audit before the City Council votes on ANY new revenue. The City seems to be a microcosm of ODOT. PBOT is not a corporation funded by investors. It is a public service agency funded by the public. It needs to be accountable to us. End of diatribe. Sorry.
Well said, but if you think this City Council has the ideological will put any rational curbs on "spend, spend, spend by tax, tax, tax" I have lakefront property on the Mojave Desert to sell you.
It’s important to remember that these are the same folks pushing to spend $60-$150 million - depending upon federal match- on a streetcar extension to an abandoned development at Montgomery Park area.
Money that could fix the damn potholes, and improve street and sidewalk safety throughout Portland.
PBOT is the most opaque city bureau; they'll run "comment" sessions in neighborhoods, then do whatever they damnn well please. The butchery of Washington St on the east side is a good example--one lane reserved for one bus line (and, of course, the lane provided free for no bikers). It's mostly residential, so the project removed half the parking spaces. One lane of traffic heading toward the I-205 ramps isn't "quieter" but more congested, crammed in with parking (God forbid someone exits on the passenger side), and the interchange at 82d crams three lanes of traffic into one in a half-block. Sideswipe city!
PBOT doesn't take care of streets--it's an ideology. Why Portland drivers are compliant with the paint on asphalt crowd is a mystery.
I attended countless City Hall hearings over the years to speak out in opposition to the "bikes first" ideology that has reigned for quite some time in PBOT, but I was always drastically outnumbered by the "bike nazis" wanting to carve out barely used dedicated lanes for bikes, resulting in a maze of auto traffic barriers and traffic flow inhibitors throughout the Pearl and Northwest districts. Every time in drive in that region, I find myself cursing at the boneheads who devised these schemes that few taxpayers asked for or want.
PBOT will not be reigned in by the current City Council (which can't seem to do anything but virtue signal and form committees) because their ideological buddies are deeply embedded in the bureaucracies over whom they hold the purse strings. They are largely kith and kin. As long as our City Council members can be elected with 25% of the vote +1 (thanks to so-called "Charter Reform"), the majority of voters will not have a real say nor a real influence, on the ballooning expenses of our City/County governments' long years of mismanagement and profligacy.
The condition of our surface streets is 3rd-world and a major embarassment. I'd like to see an audit of PBOT expenses and a requirement that $10 on repaving be spent for every $1 on anything else.
I tip for the Northwest Parking Stakeholders Advisory Committee: refuse to submit to your PBOT minder's deep-breathing woo. Just about everyone is born with an autonomic nervous system that lets them breathe, walk and chew gum at the same time.
Focus instead on subverting unpopular lane closures, traffic diverters and excessive bike infrastructure. For fun, move to suspend the recital of behavioral norms until such time as committee memebers' behavior indicates a reminder is in order.
This article is exactly accurate. Pbot and other bureaus kick the costs of maintenance and crucial infrastructure down the road while spending on what they believe are necessary like bike lanes, diverted roads and expensive street cars they get federal funds to pay to build but cost portland to maintain. Zero accountability for a crumbling infrastructure because they'll be making 6 figures and an early retirement before those deferred maintenance issues start showing their ugly head.
I made up an acronym for PBOT.
People Blundering Our Transportation !!!
PBOT is a farce. PBOT needs to be held accountable for their massive debts. STOP PBOT from looting the ordinary citizens of Portland to pay their debts. Enough is enough with the taxes and shenanigans from PBOT. Hold them accountable!!!
Well said Allan and long overdue in getting this message out! The forthcoming PBOT budget for FY 2026-2027 will reveal a considerable amount about what PBOT sees as its priorities vs. what the citizens really want. The so-called bicycle Green loop is another example of waste, sorry bicycle community, we can and should do better than spend untold limited funds on a "concept" study that has been in process for over 8-years with little to show in terms of actual constructed Green loop facilities. Let's get real about what is really needed vs. a wish list of pieces and part that do not make the city whole but simply, once again reflects a city /leadership/bureaucracy that has a reach beyond its grasp. No new fees, taxes, or other magical solutions to a budget dilemma that only looks to additions and not subtractions.
I'd support the suggested taxes if PBOT agreed to a four year pause on new projects with a focus on reducing the maintenance backlog. The 4th Ave improvement project is an example of something that did not need to be done.
Here’s an idea: why not have more enforcement of parking violations such as parking on a yellow line, parking within 10 feet of a fire hydrant, parking on the wrong side of the street, no front license plates, parking more than 10 inches from a curb,and expired registrations. These are all City Parking Codes. The city and state could make thousands just by patrolling my neighborhood
As a resident of Downtown, I have witnessed the creation of new bike lanes with parking "designed" to "protect" cyclists on 4th and on Broadway, just as bike traffic has actually declined as WFH has become the norm and Gen Z has shunned bikes and Millennials age. The novelty of the bike lane solution actually seems to make them more dangerous for all involved; parkers getting out, bikers and scooters rolling by and drivers trying to figure things out. Fortunately, traffic is so low, we don't know. And the scooters ride on sidewalks anyway whenever they can and there is no geocoding and there is nobody to enforce the rules everyone agrees to when they rent one. The traffic transitions on Naito should be used in an IQ test. I also watched as we pleased almost every curb cut downtown, often with an identical one last summer. Fourth, which gets little auto traffic is the only street with new paving. The rest are a patchwork of temporarily poorly filled potholes. PBOT seems to me to be the poster child of the "City That Does Not Work". I have no problem with government workers earning a living wage serving the public need, and safe sidewalks, roadways and curb cuts for all forms of transport and those walking and with disabilities around the City should be the priority, but they need direct input from those stakeholders and they need to prioritize according to the revenue we have. We need an independent performance audit before the City Council votes on ANY new revenue. The City seems to be a microcosm of ODOT. PBOT is not a corporation funded by investors. It is a public service agency funded by the public. It needs to be accountable to us. End of diatribe. Sorry.
Well said, but if you think this City Council has the ideological will put any rational curbs on "spend, spend, spend by tax, tax, tax" I have lakefront property on the Mojave Desert to sell you.
But….but can we talk about foie gras?
No fwa gwa!
It’s important to remember that these are the same folks pushing to spend $60-$150 million - depending upon federal match- on a streetcar extension to an abandoned development at Montgomery Park area.
Money that could fix the damn potholes, and improve street and sidewalk safety throughout Portland.
See my piece “Streetcar to Nowhere.”
https://nwexaminer.substack.com/p/streetcar-to-nowhere?selection=ce6d90d2-c26a-4cc2-b848-d4ce403de781&r=1ldykh&utm_medium=ios
PBOT is the most opaque city bureau; they'll run "comment" sessions in neighborhoods, then do whatever they damnn well please. The butchery of Washington St on the east side is a good example--one lane reserved for one bus line (and, of course, the lane provided free for no bikers). It's mostly residential, so the project removed half the parking spaces. One lane of traffic heading toward the I-205 ramps isn't "quieter" but more congested, crammed in with parking (God forbid someone exits on the passenger side), and the interchange at 82d crams three lanes of traffic into one in a half-block. Sideswipe city!
PBOT doesn't take care of streets--it's an ideology. Why Portland drivers are compliant with the paint on asphalt crowd is a mystery.
I attended countless City Hall hearings over the years to speak out in opposition to the "bikes first" ideology that has reigned for quite some time in PBOT, but I was always drastically outnumbered by the "bike nazis" wanting to carve out barely used dedicated lanes for bikes, resulting in a maze of auto traffic barriers and traffic flow inhibitors throughout the Pearl and Northwest districts. Every time in drive in that region, I find myself cursing at the boneheads who devised these schemes that few taxpayers asked for or want.
PBOT will not be reigned in by the current City Council (which can't seem to do anything but virtue signal and form committees) because their ideological buddies are deeply embedded in the bureaucracies over whom they hold the purse strings. They are largely kith and kin. As long as our City Council members can be elected with 25% of the vote +1 (thanks to so-called "Charter Reform"), the majority of voters will not have a real say nor a real influence, on the ballooning expenses of our City/County governments' long years of mismanagement and profligacy.
The condition of our surface streets is 3rd-world and a major embarassment. I'd like to see an audit of PBOT expenses and a requirement that $10 on repaving be spent for every $1 on anything else.
I tip for the Northwest Parking Stakeholders Advisory Committee: refuse to submit to your PBOT minder's deep-breathing woo. Just about everyone is born with an autonomic nervous system that lets them breathe, walk and chew gum at the same time.
Focus instead on subverting unpopular lane closures, traffic diverters and excessive bike infrastructure. For fun, move to suspend the recital of behavioral norms until such time as committee memebers' behavior indicates a reminder is in order.