Mitch Green
Council - District 4
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Q1 A city to learn from
What city has an approach to transportation that Portland should learn from? What specific policies, funding, design, etc., could be adopted to work here?
Portland can learn from New York City, its DOT and the MTA’s Central Business District congestion pricing program that launched in January 2025. This program has demonstrated the kind of transformation that’s possible when a good policy is studied for years reaches implementation and is allowed to flourish when leaders are committed to its success rather than abandoning it after some criticism. NYC’s congestion pricing program is the first of its kind in the nation, generating $50 million in its first month and more than $550 million net revenue in its first year. Its also fighting off President Donald Trump’s attacks on the program, calling it “unlawful,” while the courts eventually struck this down. The program remains operational.
The program’s early results include decreases in vehicular traffic and car-related crashes and injuries, with increases in pedestrian traffic, business activity, and transit ridership in the district. With lowered vehicle volumes on some corridors, the DOT has also been able to redesign and reconfigure streets to install permanent and protected bicycle infrastructure, making it possible to expand their bike network. Getting cars of the road is a good thing.
Revenue from congestion pricing has also funded complementary innovative programs like small business incentives to shift their delivery schedules to off-peak hours for reducing daytime traffic while also investing in public health prevention and case management programs to address childhood asthma in boroughs with populations most adversely impacted by health inequities and air pollution.
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Q2 Got it right, got it wrong
What is one specific Portland transportation project (built, abandoned, under construction, or proposed) that you think Portland got right, and one that Portland got wrong?
I’m a big fan of Central City in Motion’s NW/SW Broadway Bike Lanes. PBOT has transformed a high-crash corridor to become a safer, more comfortable parking-protected bike lane for people biking south through the Pearl District through Downtown and to PSU. More recently, PBOT and Parks have added streetscaping to enhance the design with planters between the parked cars and the bike lane.
What makes the Broadway Bike Lanes especially worth celebrating today is its history, which includes the successful efforts from bike advocates and local independent journalism from Bike Portland to create pressure on City officials to back off from removing the bike lanes. This episode showed us all that our modal plans for biking and walking need to be implemented and defended, and transparency matters when it comes to dealings between then commissioners, bureau leadership, and influential actors like the business lobby and hotel owners who have played a role in demanding the removal of valuable infrastructure that’s been planned or constructed. City Council has a role to play when it comes to conducting oversight on these matters and to ensure the funding and implementation of plans we’ve adopted, instead of going backwards on them. We can’t compromise safety and our vision for sustainability and a bikeable and walkable city just because some business interests want a few more street parking spaces or convenience. In this new form of government, we’re still in a transition period where old processes and power structures co-exist with new dynamics among constituents, councilors, bureaus, and the administration. We got a taste of how power operates when our northwest traffic diverters were facing removal until advocates and my office worked together to create urgency for saving them and questioned the reason for their removal and the cost of removal.
On the other hand, it’s disappointing to see how the State has handled the Rose Quarter I-5 Improvement Project. I don’t need to say much on this one. From the outrageous project cost escalation to ignoring expert research and cases from across the country for poor results from freeway expansions (e.g., induced demand), the Rose Quarter project shows how transportation officials and elected leaders have completely lost the plot. Megaprojects are not the way. We need to invest in a just transition now, and we could still support the local and regional economy with transit and active transportation projects.
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Q3 Progress on biking, walking & safety
Is Portland making progress on getting more people biking and walking, and on making streets safer? What do you think is behind that trajectory?
Portland is making progress for active transportation and safety, but we can still do more, and we can’t get too comfortable with these incremental wins in some areas. We’re still seeing East Portland and SW Portland disproportionately impacted by traffic crashes, injuries and deaths and poor infrastructure like missing sidewalks and high-speed roads with dangerous intersections. We’re making progress with new revenue streams but still need to address fairness instead of regressiveness with the Transportation Utility Fee. The state legislature failed to pass a comprehensive transportation package to address even the most basic maintenance and operations needs and failed to stabilize our transit system in the Portland Metro area. We can’t celebrate progress until the legislature prioritizes walking, biking and transit instead of megaprojects and freeway expansions. I’m raising this issue at every chance I get, and submitted these items as my top priorities for Salem to work on for Portland. We also have to protect the Portland Clean Energy Fund from being raided for the Moda Center renovations, for police, or other uses that are not even remotely aligned with the voters intent for PCEF.
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Q4 How they get around
How do you actually get around Portland day-to-day? Commuting, errands, evening plans, etc. What is the last trip you took by bike or transit, and what's stopping you from doing more of your trips that way?
I’m a transit user and someone who bikes whenever I can. Working at City Hall along the transit mall makes it easier to catch connections by bus or train, but service in my neighborhood in deep southwest has been unreliable since the massive cuts in August. My household is “car light” and we can do better. My team in City Hall and I frequently use a mix of Biketown, scooters, and buses to our district activities. Lately, it’s been hard to have back-to-back appointments around town exclusively on bikes or transit because I have to haul things or offer rides to people. The schedule can be unforgiving with little flexibility. For a Week Without Driving, it’s easy to see how transit cuts for people who are transit-dependent are threatening people’s stability and reliability to get to work and keep their jobs or keep medical appointments. More elected officials need to experience transit on a regular basis.