In this episode, host Jonathan Maus (BikePortland's publisher and editor) sat down for a chat about the Portland Bureau of Transportation with Kiel Johnson, a Portland bike advocacy veteran and current chair of the nonprofit BikeLoud PDX.

PBOT is currently looking to hire a new director of the agency and Jonathan and Kiel have some thoughts about it! They share insights on the state of PBOT in general, why they feel this is a pivotal moment for the agency, what traits they'd like to see in a new director, and much more.

Links from the show:

• BikePortland story about departure of former PBOT Director Chris Warner
• On paving vs bike routes, The Oregonian got it wrong (2012 BikePortland story about former PBOT Director Tom Miller's controversial attempt to reduce the paving budget)

Jonathan Maus 0:02

Welcome to the bike, Portland podcast. I'm your host Jonathan Maus. In this episode, I sat down for a chat in the shed with my friend Kiel Johnson. I first got to know Kyle when he was a fresh graduate out of Lewis and Clark College. And he started to lead these things called bike trains. In North Portland bike trains were the precursor to what we know now as bike buses where he would meet kids and ride with him to school. That was Kyle's first endeavor as a bike advocate in our community. He got his bike trains, some national headlines and all sorts of attention. It was a really fun time. From there, he went on to doing a bunch of great work around southwest Barbur Boulevard safety issues. And then he went on to start and become the owner of the go by bike shop, and the valet service that's right under the Portland aerial tram in the South Waterfront District. So Kyle is sort of a serial advocacy entrepreneur in some ways. In addition to all that Kyle is also the volunteer Chair of bike loud PDX, a wonderfully scrappy nonprofit that is quickly becoming a strong voice for bicycling. In Portland, Kyle got in touch with me a few days ago and said, Hey, let's talk a little bit about the Portland bureau of transportations, new hire that they're looking to do for the director position. And like I've been wanting to do for a long time, instead of having that conversation with Kyle, privately on the phone. I said, Hey, why don't you come over to the shed so we can talk about it and share that conversation with everyone else. So this is a little bit of a different vibe than we've had before on this podcast. But I hope you like it. It's just, Kyle and I, two old guys sitting in the shed talking about Portland bike stuff. We talked about how important this hire is for Pbot. And why we think the new Pbot director could be such a pivotal person in terms of the future of the agency, and then of course of bicycling and transportation in general in Portland. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. I certainly did. Here's how it went. Okay, so Kyle, thanks for coming to the show to talk about this.

kiel johnson 2:08

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me,

Jonathan Maus 2:10

you actually reached out to me and wanted to talk about this. Why? Why is who we hire for the director of Pbot. So important to you,

kiel johnson 2:20

we have seven more years to meet the bike plan of 25% of all trips by bike. Since the plan has been passed, we've gone from 7% to 5%. And we're just not making progress. And this hire is going to be really important for sort of setting the policy for the next seven years about whether or not we accomplish that. And I think it's really important, especially this higher, because we're in this transition period moving into the charter reform. So in two years, Portland's government, city government is going to change how we hire these people is going to change. And so the director that we have going into this is going to be really important in sort of setting the culture and the policies moving forward.

Jonathan Maus 3:11

Okay, so if the director is important, and you started by saying you're concerned that we haven't been doing enough, and we're not making enough progress, I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume that you think that the directors up until now haven't necessarily done the best job.

kiel johnson 3:26

They have not made very much progress for the bike plan or Vision Zero.

Jonathan Maus 3:32

Let's, let's just talk about previous directors. Okay, I think you've kind of been around. You've been around this scene kind of for similar time period as me maybe a few years less. But I was listing them out. In terms of,

kiel johnson 3:45

I can still remember being in my college dorm room, reading bikeportland.

Jonathan Maus 3:50

kiel johnson 6:36

Yeah, I think it's really interesting. Like, reflecting on that list. Sukiya was under heard that the bike plan was passed, and developed. The least ideological of all the the director, yeah, good point, maybe sort of helped push the most like, you know, progressive and advanced, you know, cycling document or basically envision of of port.

Jonathan Maus 7:02

kiel johnson 8:46

they love talking about how 4 billion in the hole. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, so

Jonathan Maus 8:50

that so that came up and Tom was like, arguably probably the most like progressive Pbot director we've ever had. And he, like, you know, I've had this idea. And you'll see it out in among like urbanists and other things where it's like, why do we keep spending like throwing good money after bad in the sense of like, if if a transportation department in the modern era is struggling to pay the bills to maintain a system that's built around driving? At what point do we stop putting more money into that system that basically facilitates more driving? Right? So that's where you get into this idea of like, hey, maybe we focus on different kinds of roads where, you know, there's bikes and buses more likely to use and we don't necessarily throw all of our like most of our money into paving roads so that drivers can keep you know, having convenience and all this stuff. So

kiel johnson 9:34

we're spending $10 billion to widen six miles of urban for Yeah, stuff like

Jonathan Maus 9:38

that. But it was really controversial going after paving is seen as like, you know, paving equals equals driving politically right? And there was always that there was always that tension between do we support paving? Do we report or do we support quote unquote, safety projects, which is like a euphemism for bike walking transit. So Tom, to his credit, you know, like cut the paving budget by a lot. It didn't go well for him. It Got a huge, there was a huge hit piece in The Oregonian about it. That really took him to task and that was it. So you attract attention. Maybe in a negative way, you could argue, when you try to do that stuff, if you get too far ahead of, of where the public is. So, I mean, it's interesting to think about, you know, what kind of person would be right. For this, one

of the key things to think about is like, how is how does Pbot maintain legitimacy? And I feel like Tom Miller lost that little legitimacy, sort of in that argue, argument. And after that Oregonian article came out, and, you know, just with his connection to Sam Adams, too. And yeah, like, how, what the what kind of messaging those people do, and how does it, you know, have the legitimacy to change our streets? And who gets to sort of make those decisions? Is it at the neighborhood association level? Is it at the director level? Is it at the bureaucratic level? And, you know, I think that something that I think I've been thinking a lot about, is that Alameda diverter, this was a diverter. One diverter that was proposed on was at Fremont and like, 40th. And it just became this very like impassioned argument with his neighborhood association that thought that they had the power and legitimacy to decide this. And they did a neighborhood association, vote for it.

Oh, yeah. 37th in Fremont. 37 for Fremont. Yeah, Alameda in Fremont. But the name changes as you cross the street. Yeah.

And so you had this neighborhood association that like thought that they had the legitimacy to, like, make this decision. And, and then, you know, Pbot said, No, or we have the legitimacy. And this is part of our plans. And we're going to do this like one year trial. And it took a long time, and just a lot of bureaucratic resources and time to sort of do this one project. And so I think we really need a director who can sort of like, look at the big picture of how can we efficiently sort of maintain legitimacy to do these really big proposals and goals that we have as a city to transform Portland to 25% of all trips by bike is going to take a lot of work and a lot of changes, and we're going to have to move a lot faster than we have been.

Okay, so you brought up a specific project. To me in thinking about this conversation. I think one of the most important moments for former director Warner's sort of tenure was was the Hawthorne project where during his tenure, he laid the groundwork for what I think was the wrong way to handle the Hawthorne Boulevard project, where they ended up basically widening the road for cars. And there was a big push to get bike lanes which they they refused and all this other stuff. You can read about it on bikeportland If you want the background, but he laid the groundwork for having to make that decision by the biggest mistake was not talking to Commissioner former commissioner Hardesty about the importance of bicycling in Portland. And we know that right, because the commissioner came to a Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting. And when the idea of the 2030 Bike plan came up, she was like, What are you guys talking about? I didn't know we had a bike plan. That's interesting. I'll look into that. Yeah. And so right, all the jobs hit the table, because we're like, wow, that's, that's, that's not good. Right. And I think people were, I think in the moment, people were a little bit. You know, they weren't too happy with Commissioner Hardesty. But I think overall, I'm hoping people realize that, like, it's not necessarily her responsibility to know that at that point, and I think the bigger thing was that she was never briefed about it. By Pbot. I mean, to me, that was literally the director's job to make sure that the new commissioner, especially before they go to a bike Advisory Committee meeting, at least has some working knowledge of the bike plan. And it fits into like a wider thing of the director and just like upper management and Pbot recently, not wanting to put bicycles front and center in general.

Yeah, they it seems like they inform the commissioners a lot about their maintenance backlog and their funding needs, but not so much about their bicycling goals.

Right. And I think that's tied to the sense than City Hall and in recent years that bicycling is just sort of, like inherently controversial, or inherently, you know, rich white guys or something. Right, which I think is another kind of thing. There's a lot of different things have like hurt. I think the you mentioned legitimacy earlier. And I think that is a huge part of like, where Pbot is right now. They've lost so much of that relevance and City Hall, because the issue itself not just of bicycling, I think but of transportation more broadly, has just has much less heft in Portland, much less political heft because we're People forget former commissioner then Mayor Sam Adams came into office probably 2004. He was commissioner for four years then mayor, he for him transportation was like his main issue, right. And so that has an impact when sort of like the biggest one of the biggest movers and shakers in City Hall, when they're basically one of their most important issues is transportation. That means transportation then becomes pervasive at City Hall. And it just so happens that because of the moment Portland was in, bicycling kind of was the biggest part of transportation. So that meant bicycling was a big part of that building and City Hall. So people underestimate, I think the fact that without that President, it's just slowly eroded over the years. And so with that, P bots, relevance has eroded and I think it has something to do with like the morale at p bot as well, which I'm not in that office, necessarily. And I am unable to look at it as closely as I used to, because the people there don't talk as freely as they used to. But I think it's would you do you think it's like, correct or accurate for me to say that, like, employee morale? P bot is low. And that might figure into like, you know, the job that the director should or could do.

I think that there is an acknowledgement of people who work at p bot that they have these goals, and they're not meeting them. And I think that that's really frustrating for you know, people working in that bureaucracy. Yeah, so

to achieve those goals, they're gonna have to push hard on stuff that like, that's kind of why brought up the Hawthorne thing, in a way, it's like, they're gonna have to do stuff that maybe makes people uncomfortable. I know people assume that I'm like bike centric. Obviously, I can't do much about that bias when people come to me, obviously, as the bike Portland guy, and I'm not trying to be bike centric. But I do think that bicycling is the best tool to achieve the goal, the many different goals we have around transportation, health and other things, actually, it's a really powerful tool. Yeah,

I completely agree. Yeah,

yeah. And I think I think it's I think it hasn't been talked about in the right way. I won't say enough, because I actually personally stopped talking about bicycling, too, in a lot of ways, in recent years, as other issues have become more pressing. Right. And when I say stop talking about bicycling, I mean, I'm not down at City Hall pushing it I'm not holding people to account in the same way. Because I know that they're struggling down downtown with other issues like police brutality, you know, race, racial justice, stuff, housing, affordability, homelessness. As those things percolated up, I sort of naturally said, Hey, this isn't the time for like, the bike people raising their fists at City Hall. That's just not cool. But I do think we're at a moment where it might be time to start being more loud about biking downtown. Again, I think it's an important time, I think this director position is going to matter. Especially because it's going to outlive like the commission form of government. Right? I mean, so like, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think? Do you think not having to answer to a specific commissioner is going to make the the Pbot director position more or less powerful or influential,

I think it has the potential to make it a much more influential and much more powerful. Because you don't have one director that's, you know, responsible for this. And that power is kind of diluted. You know, I think that one of the things, one of the reasons why bike loud supported the the charter reform was that we saw that, you know, we don't have those like champions at City Hall anymore, that, you know, transportation is their thing. And there needs to be at least one person, hopefully, two people, a couple of people that, that, like transportation is their thing. And if you have, like, those few people who make that their thing, you can like accomplish a lot of things. And so I really hope that, you know, once the the charter forum goes into effect, that, you know, a lot of the people listening to this podcast, consider running for, for for Office. And, you know, with the the way, the rank choice voting, there's just a lot more, it's a lot more accessible, and there's a lot more opportunity to, to join city council.

So I hear you so far, you're saying that you Oh, wait, first to finish your thought on that? Or to add to your thought on that? Do you think it's going to be like the Pbot director's job to go like, you know, to go find those champions on council? And to make sure that those people are there, even folks that aren't necessarily one at the time? Do you? Would you see it as like, would you see a great Pbot director being able to go over to City Hall and like have the lunches and build the relationships to find those champions.

I hope that those champions, you know, are very vocal and, and apparent on city council, and that they find the director and, you know, are able to sort of use the power of city council to sort of like, advance the transportation goals in Portland.

Right, all right, but like maybe we're seeing this is just like differently, but like, I would think that a really great director would walk out of the Portland building walk across the street to City Hall. All and proactively say it's so and understand that it's so important to have champions at city hall that it's my job as director to make those champions even if they're not there, right. So you do that by, you know, coffee, one coffee, one beer at a time, one, you know, whatever it takes to build those relationships. So that's, that's, that's, um, that's just like to finish your your thing about, you know, finding the champions do you? Do you hope they're there and that they interact well with the PR director? Or do you? Do you say, No, we need a PR Director that's gonna go force those relationships to happen, you know, I'm saying, Yeah,

Pbot without those champions on City Council is just not effective at just doesn't have the resources and the political capital to do all the big projects and goals that we have for it.

So when they went out to hire the last time that I remember them having like a national search actually got to be on the hiring panel, which was interesting. And I was like, very pleased that Pbot invited me or the mayor's office actually invited me to come sit on the hiring panel. Yeah. This is when this was like 2013 when they ended up hiring Lea treat. That was interesting. They didn't, I am not expecting an invite this time, because I kind of I probably, I don't think they were too happy with the fact that after the retreat was hired, and they said we could share what we heard in the panel discussions after the person was hired. And so I did and then she had to go into the Oregonian and like, walk back, because then she she ended up saying in the hiring process that she believes that Portland is stagnating around transportation. So of course, I did a story saying that the Pbot director said, you know, Pbot is stagnating, which is a narrative that I really worked hard to kind of, like, make people understand. And anyway, so then I don't think they were super excited that I that I shared that because it got it got them into a little bit of trouble. But at that time, you know,

I'll just say that I don't have a bike blog and would be happy to be on any hiring committee, you should

as as the leader of bike, loud PDX, which is like, you know, our main sort of voice for strong bicycling advocacy in Portland, I would think that they would want you at the table. So hopefully they pick someone from Bacolod to be on that panel. So what I wanted to say about the panel, sorry, is that they I think they have like, we learned that they had like 44 applications from like all over the country. And I remember writing at the time when I wrote about the panel, how impressed I was with like, the process they went through. And I was super impressed with the candidates, all three of the finalists that that we interviewed with were really, really good. And so I had this thought of like, I mean, correct, like, I'm curious what you think but like, Portland is not the city, it was in 2013, we've taken a huge hit in our reputation. Like we've said, like people know, our reputation, even around transportation isn't what it was, for sure. Just even more broadly, like, we've just been trashed in the media so much. And there's some some pretty big things going on here that have I mean, do you think we would even get, do you think that's going to hurt our candidate pool? I mean, do you have any concerns that like, we're not going to get necessarily the best and brightest to back then, you know, jumped at the chance to come to Portland, which is like the leader for transportation, policy and stuff nationwide? Do you worry at all that we may not even attract those kinds of candidates?

Totally, I think that that's, uh, you know, back then, Portland was like, the only city that was like, had all these plans and doing all this stuff. And now there's just like, so many other cities, which is great, that are doing this stuff, and they have a lot more money to, you know, to implement these changes. And, you know, Portland, our street system is just so big. And I landmasses is a lot of street to have to be responsible for. I think that there's a lot of great people internally at Pbot. And,

okay, who should it be? Let's name names. So you would Okay, so okay, I'll let you think about that for a sec. You wouldn't be opposed to hiring. What about internal versus external? So do you think it's important to have a national search or should they look inward? And what are the differences and benefits and disadvantages between those two things?

Yeah, I think that I think that they should definitely do a national search and see who they can get, but I'm perfectly happy with with a an internal choice. I think that with an internal choice. There's a lot of advantages. Somebody who knows the system they know you know, the politics already they know City Council already there's a lot less of a learning curve. You know, what happened with the the police bureau director Daniel outlaw? Cetera

Yeah, Danielle. Yeah.

Danielle Allah. Yeah, yeah, the city spent a lot of time and resources, you know, recruiting her and and then she was I don't even think that she lasted a year before she got a job in a bigger city. And we really need Somebody who has committed to Portland. I think that that, to me, that's like one of the strongest things. And maybe that's somebody internally, but somebody who is committed to, you know, implementing all these goals and visions of Portland,

have you heard from them specifically, if they use the word of we're going to use a national search. I don't recall if they've actually said that or not. Because a part of me thinks they might, given the charter forms coming up, maybe their internal strategy is specifically to hire from within just to minimize that sort of whiplash. I mean, if you imagine hiring someone from a different city, you have to come in, familiarize yourself with our super backwards, almost unique form of commission form of government, and that's gonna change and then it's going to change as soon as you get comfortable. So maybe they are going to look at within I mean, we should mention that they do have an interim director right now, who is Tara, I think it's how you say her name Tara Wozniak. Unfortunately, I've never had a conversation with her or meta and I don't know a ton about her. I've heard some things about her. So she's there. I think I agree with you. There are other people inside the bureau that I would be excited to see take on the role. I'm sort of of two minds about that. I mean, I would love to see some fresh eyes. I've been saying for a while that one of the reasons I think maybe Pbot is things are a little bit stagnant is because we don't have enough fresh eyes in there to really kind of like shake things up and go, y'all what the heck you doing this for that for? But also I do see, like you were saying there, I do think there is a ton of value in someone who can hit the ground running has the relationships, and who can like appreciate the recent roller coaster that the city has been through? And like, like you said, yeah, be committed to saying like, you know, like President Biden was saying last night, like, let's finish the job. You know, like, when he was saying that in the State of the Union, he kept repeating it, I think that was like their main mantra from the whole speech, I kept thinking about the bike plan. It's like, hey, hey, folks, let's finish the job, you know, like Joe Biden. So I hope that new director comes in and has that kind of thing. And if you if you're not from here, I don't think you're going to have that same like intimacy or like that same dedication to wanting to finish some of this, wanting to finish the bike plan, wanting to finish some of the other goals and stuff that the city's laid out. I mean, people shouldn't forget, this isn't just the bike plan, we're talking about the bike plans, a piece of, you know, the climate plan. It's also in our transportation system plan, like it's, it's actually woven directly into the major city policies that we're trying to reach.

I think that one of the biggest, biggest successes recently, instead of developing at epi bot and how they, how the bureaucracy works, has been these in motion plans

in motion in motion. Right, right. Like Northwest emotion, East Portland in motion was the first one North Portland Yeah, and

they have, you know, this big planning process where they bring in, you know, a lot of diverse voices and groups and sort of, like, come up with, you know, a shared vision for sort of a district. And then, you know, they look at all different modes, and all the streets in the neighborhood, and then they sort of get the sign off on it. And it goes to city council gets approved by city council. And so like, in northwest Portland, after that emotion plan was passed, you know, pupae was able to create, like, 17 diverters in a year, install 17 diverters in a year, right. Whereas in Northeast Portland, where there hasn't been this emotion plan, you know, it took so much work to get this one diverter in place. And so I think that somebody who can understand that that power dynamic and can really help support the emotion plans, becoming a more like integral part of how planning is done epi bought,

okay, cool. Yeah, I agree with that. Someone who's smart enough to recognize the value in that in motion planning approach, right? Okay. We talked about national versus local, and the balance of like, those two options. What about another one? Like, how about what do you think about? What is your feeling about if the person is like this firebrand visionary, charismatic person, versus someone who may might be better at sort of the operational side and the financial side? I don't think they are either, or we can have both. But what do you think about the balance? Are those two different types of people?

I don't know if it's the role of Pbot to be the firebrands. I think that that's the role of bikeportland of MiCloud of advocacy groups in Portland need to be like promoting that vision and building that coalition that can be really loud about sort of having that, you know, the making the case and the argument. And so I think I would err more on the operational side. I think that that's, that's a more important and it's up to us to create that message.

That's, that's good. That's good food for thought. What do you think then about, like, kind of related to that? You know, like, I've been watching like the director of Seattle's Department of Transportation, I think his name is Greg spots. He's on Twitter a bunch, you know, posting pictures goofy selfies of him in front of a project. To me that's kind of on that side of being like the, the more retail politician, the more retail kind of director person where you have those interactions. And I think that does build charisma. And it builds a little bit of like interest in your office, which I think gives you legitimacy. Like, do you think that kind of thing is important? Like, would you rather have a director that's on Twitter, doing cool stuff on Twitter and interacting with the community that way? Or just social media in general? Or would you rather have somebody who's not really like that then not interacting in that way?

I would rather see people in Portland, going online and sharing stuff as opposed to the director, I would rather have Janet bikes going to, you know, talking about infrastructure project, or, you know, more videos of Sam bolsos bike bus. To me, I think that that's a lot more effective than the director having a Twitter account.

You okay, that's great. I appreciate that. Maybe they get a retweet from the director account. Yeah.

To see the director on their, you know, replying to reply guys instead of definitely retweets. Yeah. Okay, good. Okay, another sort of another sort of either or, What's the balance? How about? I'm always thinking of leaders in terms of are they more sort of political or they have? Are they a politician? Or are they like an activist advocate person? Right. And I think in Portland recently, we've had some really interesting illustrations of those two personalities, like I'm thinking, like, Commissioner, you daily, right, was had nothing to do with politics at all. Yeah, before she came into office. And, you know, she was a small business owner, she was an activist, organizer type of person. And we saw what happened with her in office, you know, people can like or not like the stuff she did. But that's that is what it is. And, you know, we've definitely had more

so I think laid the groundwork for the Hawthorne. Decision to

Yes, you're right. Absolutely. Because in her office made a conscious choice along well, Director Warner was there, her office, they made a conscious choice to de emphasize cycling. And to emphasize transit. Yeah, based on their perception that that was better for racial equity, and around the racial justice issue, right, which I can argue that they're right. And I can argue that that's not the best way to go about managing Portland's transportation. I think that's a little bit of a digression. But you're right. You're right. And it wasn't until, you know, she was supposed to start focusing on cycling, right before she didn't get reelected. Yeah, and actually did a story saying how excited I was that their office said they were going to start focusing on cycling. But then she didn't get reelected. They also and this is sort of related to this conversation. There was supposed to be a city council day for bicycling. I think it was like September of her final like tough 2021. When you did the election, right before the election, it was supposed to be a bike day at Council basically. And there were several really interesting things I mean, for you and I really interesting things that they were supposed to talk about, it was kind of like to educate commissioners on cycling. And it was kind of a tacit acknowledgement from the daily administration that they had been basically ignoring cycling up until then. So I was like, excited getting ready for that, like this is the time when cycling is going to start to reenter City Hall. But guess what, they postpone that council thing, they took it down from the agenda. Based on the idea that they didn't, they hadn't done enough work around racial equity, and that they were afraid that having a bunch of white Pbot staff and other white people come to Portland come to City Hall and talk about cycling, would send the wrong message about how far they still have to go around their commitment to be anti racist, and integrate racial justice into Pbot. Anyway, and then they lost the election, and then they lost the election. But that bike thing never happened in those kind of sort of like, attitudes and ideas, I think still permeate Pbot, where there's a lack of confidence there. Because I think some of the leading people, some of the people who might be putting their name in, for this director position, I think have this mistaken perception, or an inability to talk about cycling in a way that embraces, you know, the past sort of like mistakes, or the past realities of it being more like too much of a white thing and Portland, embracing them, but then figuring out a way to change the narrative and to talk about it differently so that it still stays true to like the values and beliefs and everything that we've adopted goal wise for the city. Right. So anyway, that's going to be really interesting to see how that how are if that plays out? Yeah,

I think that that's a really good point about like, what does cycling mean for Portland? What does bicycling mean for Portland? I want a director who can like answer that question. And I really like thoughtful and knowledgeable way. I actually asked Chris Warner we were on a bike ride and I asked him What does bicycling mean for Portland? And he kind of like paused for a second and he said well, you know, I think that it should be this like non political thing. Every street should have bike infrastructure. or it should be just like sewer sewer lines and utility lines. It's just like noncontroversial, and not a very exciting, not a very exciting to answer. But that goes with Warner that goes with his sort of demeanor and stuff. So that makes sense. But I think that that's a really wrong answer to I think basically means so much more to Portland, even to people who aren't, you know, as interested in bicycling as maybe you were I are, I think that it's still a really important thing. That like, is part of, you know, this idea that Portland is a place that has these lofty liberal goals, and is able to, like, do it, and to build it. And the fact that we haven't been able to build it, I think really is pretty demoralizing. You know, we're talking about just the Pbot staff, but I think demoralizing to the whole city, that we have these goals around climate change and around safety, safety, vision 00 traffic deaths, and that we're not able to meet it. And so I think that being able to answer what basically means to Portland, in terms of the culture in terms of pedal Palooza, in terms of seeing big bike rides rolled down the street, you know, it's basically in sort of represents a lot of, of, of different values of like, you know, a relationship to public space, right? That I think, you know, people even if you don't ride bikes, you just like so many people know, and want to talk about the naked bike ride. Like, to me, that's a very important thing. Even people who, you know, don't ride bikes at all like still that Portland has this large, the largest naked bike ride is like, a cool thing.

Yes, I hear you on that. And I agree, but I think the director is going to have to be somebody who can talk about that stuff, but also defend against the people who are going to instantly clap back, when you talk about that stuff. And by saying that, you know, it's only for certain kinds of people who cares about riding bikes, naked, right, all that kind of stuff, which, at this point in Portland, I think, is like a dominant part of the discourse. It's like, or people talking about the racial justice stuff, the racism stuff, like, I think one of director Warner's biggest, the biggest piece of his legacy, probably, or like, maybe one of them, is the fact that well, he happened his tenure happened around when the George Floyd killing happened and the protests that followed his like, Action Plan thing, which like every director gets to do, they get to put together this really nice brochure, which I have in front of me here are more like a catalog. Really, his was called moving to our future Pbot strategic plan, right. So it covers 2019 to 2022. It was under Commissioner you daily, and also director Warner, where they decided that the entire Bureau is going to ask two questions, whenever they look to make a decision about project or policy, two questions. The number one question, the first question is, will it advance equity and address structural racism? The number one question, so that the second one is will it reduce carbon emissions? Right? So but like, you know, and director Warner said several times, and speeches and other things that equity is his is the North Star of the agency. So like, that's kind of like where he left it. So whoever comes into this role, as Pbot director is going to have to, in my opinion, to be successful, they're going to have to like, reintroduce cycling to Portland, and remind people why it's so important to our city in so many different ways, but also be able to talk about it in a new way. That allows it to be sort of like, not free of that question about does it address structural racism, but say that it can, that it's a value add, you know, embracing the problems it's had around that perception and that reality to some degree, but also talking about why it's so important for black and people, you know, for black people, indigenous people, people of color all over the city, and why tons of, you know, black people ride bikes, and there's all this stuff there. They're going to have to be able to like weave that narrative very carefully, I think, or else they're going to be subject to, you know, this, this pushback around it. So that's not an easy thing to do. But it's not impossible. In somebody who I think does a great job of that in a way of like being very bike forward. But also having letting people understand why their bike forward and why it matters is like Oregon House Representative con fam. This is someone who was like an activist on 82nd Avenue, an activist for East Portland was involved in some transportation issues out there, relatively new to the legislature. She puts herself on an electric cargo bike and her fundraising emails. She's She's behind a bunch of she's behind the ebike rebate Bill among other things. She has not been shy about putting bikes front and center and I hope that others are politicians and other leaders in Portland see that? And go Oh, so you can have a person of color a Vietnamese immigrant come to Portland embrace cycling, for all the great things that could do for our city especially someone from East Portland. I mean, that's another negative that people have these people in East Portland like, oh, that might work for you downtown but not for us. Well conference from his Portland, that's who she represents.

Works, especially for if you have an electric bike.

Yeah. And there she is getting injured. She's putting it front and center. And having success. I mean, from my, from my view, she's getting there's a lot of people around her that are excited about her. She's good at raising, you know, she's, she's a good politician, it's working for her, I think so, I think that I would hope that the new director can kind of like, mimic some of that, or at least be able to navigate some of those controversial sensitive topics that have that have been tied to biking, especially in recent years in Portland, and get us through them. Because for me, part of the stagnation thing isn't just that our biking rates are basically plateaued if not going down. And maybe we're not building the infrastructure, we need to get to, you know, the bike plan kind of thing. It's a public discourse kind of stagnation. It's like we're stuck in the mud of this, like, of these, I think, you know, false labels that have been attached to bicycling for years now, that have never been refuted by people that matter. I've tried to refute them a little bit, but I'm I am who I am, I'm only going to have a certain amount of impact. We need I think we need like city staff, people and City Hall elected officials to sort of like bring us past some of this stuff about about the negative perceptions that bicycling has. So I don't know, I think I might be putting way too much hope into the director. But that's how desperate I am for a good leader to emerge. Yeah,

it'd be great to have a few con fams on city council, that would that would really change the conversation.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Anything else? Like any hopes, dreams for Pbot? Director? What else do we need to talk about about this? This higher?

I think, oh, you know, one thing that I want to talk about is is a little bit of a risk taking, you know, I think that with with Director Warner, you know, he's a little risk averse to making, making mistakes, and sort of getting burned by those those mistakes, and would only sort of like, you know, seemingly do like a better NATO project, if there was just so much support lining up behind it.

And how many years they do have to do a pilot before they finally like, Oh, my God, I'm ready to do it. Right. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah. risk averse, okay.

And so yeah, I'd love to see, you know, a candidate who has taken has a history of taking some risks, and is willing to do that. I think that that's gonna be one of the biggest challenges of finding somebody.

Yeah, I totally agree. The lack of risk taking and the controversy avoidance policy, which has basically been like the dogma of Pbot. For years now. It's like, nothing that's going to create controversy. There cannot be any opposing votes or counsel, there can't be any anything bad. And what ends up happening, right, is that they end up over compromising the projects they do, or the policies to make everybody happy. But then you get a product that no one's excited about. And both sides, neither side is enthusiastic about you, again, getting back to legitimacy and morale. One of the reasons why I think Pbot doesn't have as much, you know, juice is that is precisely that is that because they are so risk averse, and they hate controversy so much. They end up compromising everything they do, so that no one really feels like it's a huge win. So the no one supports them. No one has their back. Hathorn in a nutshell. Exactly. Right. Exactly. So I hear you on that. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay.

And then I think, you know, just leveling with the public about we have all these goals, we have this 25% Bike mode share all these, you know, reducing auto dependency, what is it going to take? Financially, we cannot keep on hiding behind, you know, our maintenance backlog, to not do anything and to not move on these goals. And so if it requires, you know, doubling the the gas tax, tripling the gas tax, you know, coming up with parking districts, how are we going to fund this? I think that we need somebody who is able to sort of like to figure out what that number is, how much money do we need to invest in our transportation system so that there are declining deaths and injuries on our streets? And yeah, and be honest with with us about that, before we you know, pass all these lofty goals, because otherwise we're just not going anywhere. Yeah.

Yeah. To me that, to me, that gets to the whole thing about how, how public and how, how visionary is sort of the firebrand versus, you know, the more conservative vibe person that gets to that question because I think Pbot does. I think Pbot internally does a good job about thinking about those goals. Right? When they're sitting around tables around the budget around other things, you have people, I mean, just a story today about how Pbot bike bike coordinator, Roger Geller really has stood up for those city goals and policies around the I five rows quarter project, and really frankly, handed it handed it to ODOT. In terms of his comments, they're very critical comments about ODOT rose quarter project, standing up for those goals and make in a very public way, saying, hey, this does not going to get us to those goals. And I think also I think other managers that Pbot have those goals in mind and realize that they're accountable for those. But it never usually never sees the light of day, it doesn't really get out there. And I come from like a PR background, I guess, or like a marketing background. So like, maybe I like think about that too much. But if you can't get like a lot of Portland on board with you, you're not going to be able to do stuff that is more controversial. Like that's that's just it. And that's how I've always thought legitimacy. Yeah, that's how I've always thought about biking, biking in Portland, while I would have a conversation with someone saying it's not this like marginalized tiny thing. And I tried to argue that it's this massive thing. And it's bigger than you think. The reality is, it's not the status quo default thing for people to do driving is. So if you're going to raise something up, that's going to challenge the status quo, you need to have the marketing, you need to have the charisma, you need to have that public facing narrative out there. That's why I keep coming back to my concerns around the fact that no one in City Hall talks about those goals, right. And even people I think Pbot could be even more forceful in reminding the community more broadly, like not in their press releases, which only people like you and I read, right, but maybe having more proactive campaigns around, hey, Portland, we have a bike plan, we have a 25% of all trips goal, here's what we're doing. Like, I would love to see a director come in and really like harness the stuff we've already all agreed to, and have adopted and start just promoting the heck out of them to try to get, you know, change some of that narrative more broadly in the city, because I think we're losing, I think we've lost a ton of people, I think a ton of people in Portland are just sick of it. There's, there's this perception, it's kind of like the pendulum swinging where, you know, we've gone from this like really bike friendly city to a lot of people in Portland being like, hey, I don't, I don't see any bikers when I commute to work, which is true, because remote work has changed that people don't see bikers on the street, you know, are increasingly divided society, you more people see biking as an act of politics, and they want to you know, so there's that all there. So I think we need something to counter those sorts of,

that's one of the reasons why by cloud adopted as our sort of motto making 25% of all trips by bike possible. And we've really like, you know, held to sort of like talking about that as often as we can. And yeah, I don't think it's just up to Pbot, or the director to, to do that. I think that that also has to come from the people of Portland to talk about, you know, bring up those those issues, and that these goals as often as possible. And try to get like the Oregonian and the Willamette week to do stories about like, why aren't we meeting these goals? And we have these goals? And how great would it be? How great would it be to live in a city, where 25% of all trips by bike was possible, where you could ride your bike, to the park, to school, to the church, to the grocery store, to get what you need to do safely? Like, that would be a better city? And we need to talk about how we can be a better city and not just about I don't know, whatever we're talking about. Okay,

no, I hear you. I hear you. I hear you, do you think? Okay, final question. Do you think it's going to be how, how much value do you put on whether or not the director of Pbot is like a bike rider? Is someone who's like, a regular sort of, you know, not, I won't say a bike racer, or like an enthusiast in that regard? How much value do you put in on the Pbot director, being someone who has intimate experience on sort of an everyday biking around the city kind of experience? how important this is, uh,

you know, one of the first conversations that sort of came up and by cloud, as we were sort of talking about, you know, how do we want to address this director's position? And there's definitely like two sides of it. And I think it's still an ongoing conversation. For me personally, I, you know, I'm somebody who's, you know, never one to car rides a bike a lot. I've never I've never raced a bike. But it's an important part of my identity. But I don't think that I don't put very much value and the director Having done that, and I think, you know, like Sue keel perfect example somebody who, I don't know how often she rode a bike, but maybe the most like, impactful director in terms of you know, advancing bicycling and setting the stage and having, you know, when she was the director bicycling went from what? Like 1% to 7%. She was like the only director who's bicycling increase in Portland and you know, not a not a very vocal or have had much experience riding bikes. But I do think that having a director who's able to like, understand and articulate what basically means to Portland, and also I think is able to, like communicate that to the commissioners to city council to news. That's, that's much more important to me.

Yeah, I hear you on that. I think when you're talking about that, I'm thinking of the idea of like an ecosystem. And while I would be thrilled if the person was sort of a regular biker, because I know what comes with that in terms of lived experience and why that's important. I agree that that is not an it's not an I agree that it's not like imperative. It's not a necessity, that there are bike riders only. But it could be if the ecosystem is off, I think of the ecosystem around that, like in Sook Hills case, right? I don't know how much she she personally had to do with the the growth of bicycling under her tenure. Because the ecosystem was so strong then in terms of the bureaucrats and Pbot just being like hitting on all cylinders in terms of like leading the nation and like hosting a Bike Summit and like, number one city in America and Bicycling magazine every year, that was a big part of the ecosystem, that part of the ecosystem is not there anymore. So does that change? Like, you know, to me that's like, well, maybe maybe now it is more important to have a director that's really bike centric to make up for it. Okay, Kyle, either way, whatever happens, you and I will be part of the ecosystem. So we will have a role in trying to make it turn out the best way it can for biking and transportation. Really appreciate you coming over and talking about it. Oh, this

is great. That's so much fun. Thanks so much.

That was the chair of Bikeloud PDX. Kiel Johnson, thank you so much for listening, and to all of you who support bikeportland Thank you very much. It's your financial contributions that make our work possible. And if you're not a subscriber yet, please do sign up as soon as you can at bikeportland.org/support. I'm your host, Jonathan Maus. And until next time, I'll see you in the streets.