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 should focus on building a transportation system that is reliable, affordable, and practical for how people move around the city. We have invested heavily in transportation, but residents still experience poor road conditions, unreliable transit, congestion, and gaps in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. One example is our system was built with a focus of moving folks to downtown and as our economy has shifted, we need to change the pattern of moving people around.

My approach would start with maintenance and accountability. Before committing to expensive new projects, the City should establish clear priorities for maintaining roads, bridges, sidewalks, traffic signals, and existing transit infrastructure. Every major transportation investment should have a transparent budget, timeline, measurable outcomes, and regular public reporting.

For pedestrians and cyclists, we should continue investing in safe connections between neighborhoods, schools, business districts, and transit, with particular attention to areas that currently lack basic infrastructure. Transportation design should reflect the needs of the specific neighborhood and corridor rather than applying the same solution everywhere.

Finally, transportation policy should be connected to housing and economic development. New housing, small businesses, schools, and employment centers need reliable transportation access. We should use transportation investments to strengthen neighborhood business districts and make it easier for residents to reach jobs and essential services.

Denmark and Amsterdam are international cities that provide great models for Portland to learn from, but within the United States, I would look to Chicago. The City of Chicago is now seeing the benefits of its Building a New Chicago program started in 2012, a focused, strategic initiative that coupled improving transportation infrastructure, expanding parks and recreation, and improving water, sewer, and other public works infrastructure together.

All three cities demonstrate that the most effective way for cities to improve transportation over the long term is through a balanced, strategic approach that rests on four core pillars: improving public transit; enhancing active mobility and pedestrian infrastructure equitably; providing an integrated, seamless experience for users across transportation modes; and environmental protections and sustainability.

In Chicago especially, the city has spent the past decade modernizing the Chicago Transit Authority and expanding services; improving and resurfacing over two thousand miles of sidewalks (while replacing hundreds of miles of water and sewer lines at the same time); and adding over 200 miles of bike lanes (esp. protected and buffered bike lanes) and several thousand bike racks. This effort has revitalized the city and completely transformed its waterfront.

I think Portland could learn quite a bit from such an integrated approach.

It’s been said many times over the years, but I think Amsterdam, Netherlands, is a great city for Portland to learn from when it comes to transportation. Portland has already adopted many of the ideas that have made Amsterdam successful, including prioritizing designing streets for safe bicycle travel and creating connected bike networks that can make biking just as fast, or even faster than driving.

I think we should continue investing in infrastructure that separates bicycle traffic from cars on busy streets, while also creating more bike and pedestrian only streets. Hopefully, someday, we can even create entire bike and pedestrian only districts. I believe these investments can help make biking and walking the preferred options for more people making local trips.

It’s difficult to overstate how transformative Paris’ transportation policies have been over the past decade. Paris has redefined “livability” in its city, not by the convenience of a car commute, but rather by public health, street vibrancy, and advancing its pollution reduction and climate action goals.

Instead of widening car infrastructure without any hope of being able to pay for its ongoing maintenance, Paris has planted street trees and developed local pocket parks. Instead of being satisfied with peek-a-boo bike lanes, Paris has invested in protected cycling infrastructure. Political leaders have withstood the backlash from business groups and local drivers, and it has paid off. As reported by NPR after Paris’ spring 2025 elections, “...66% of Parisians voted to convert 500 more streets into pedestrian zones, marking one of the biggest shifts in how the city moves.”

Many other cities have success stories to share, but few cities have, within the last decade, demonstrated the level of commitment and political courage that has resulted in such a significant transformation.

Dublin Ireland. hop on hop off service. streets wide enough to accommodate pedestrians buses and trains and I do not remember where the bikes were but I was never afraid of being run over by them. I don't remember private cars either

Seattle offers an approach Portland can learn from because it treats transportation as an interconnected system rather than focusing on one mode of travel.

I support that balanced approach. Portland should continue improving bicycle and pedestrian safety, but those investments should be considered alongside maintaining our streets and bridges, improving transit, reducing dangerous intersections, and keeping people and goods moving efficiently.

I also believe transportation projects should be evaluated individually. A protected bike lane may be the right solution on one street, while a neighborhood greenway, safer crossing, improved signal or other design may work better somewhere else. The goal should be a safe, well-maintained transportation system that works for everyone, regardless of how they choose to get around.

Montréal is a city that I think Portland ought to model itself after in terms of its overall transportation policy, funding, and design scope. The amount of high quality bike and transit infrastructure being added to their network is astonishing in contrast to the comparatively glacial pace of Portland. Montréal just seems to deal with less bottlenecks, particularly around negotiating "right-of-ways," that allow stated their visions to become reality more quickly with fewer cost overruns.

I have been to Copenhagen to see their bike lane network (It was a boondoggle financed by Big Bicycle!), but I’d look to cities that have had recent surges in bicycling, such as Paris and New York. Paris has invested heavily in protected bike lanes and established car-free zones. I know New York has invested in bike lanes too, but my impression from articles I have read is that their “bike boom” has been greater than one would expect from the bike lane investment alone. I’m interested in learning more. I suspect that one thing that helps fuel the New York bicycling boom is that there are factors other than bike lanes that make both biking and walking safer than it is here, and one possible factor is that New York has 3,000 speed and red light cameras.

Seville, Spain. What stands out to me is not simply that Seville built good bicycle infrastructure, but that it treated a connected network as something to complete. The city built an initial 80-kilometer network in about two years and expanded it to 120 kilometers within four years. Cycling went from roughly 0.5% to 6% of trips between 2007 and 2011.

Portland already has an ambitious vision. The Bicycle Plan for 2030 calls for a 962-mile “World-Class” network, and Portland has made substantial progress. But the city’s most recent comprehensive progress report found that only 28% of the full World-Class Network was complete or funded at that time.

I think the lesson from Seville is to turn that remaining vision into a completion program: identify the critical missing links and dangerous intersections, establish a realistic timeline, dedicate multi-year funding, and incorporate those improvements whenever streets are paved or reconstructed. A world-class network should mean that someone can travel on a low-stress route across Portland without the safe infrastructure disappearing when they reach a major arterial or intersection. Portland does not need another bicycle vision. We need to finish the ambitious one we already adopted.

Barcelona. Portland could learn from Barcelona’s superblock model of using street hierarchy, traffic diversion, and speed management to reduce through-traffic on neighborhood streets while maintaining access for residents, deliveries, emergency services, and transit. I would adapt that incrementally through Portland’s neighborhood greenways and Metro’s Community Quick-Build Guide, using diverters, chicanes, curb extensions, safer crossings, and other low-cost treatments. With budget constraints, I would pursue coordinated funding through Metro, TriMet, Multnomah County and the State and empower neighborhood associations to help identify and support projects. Projects should be evaluated using speed, crash, traffic-volume, and mode-share data before scaling.

New York City has made significant progress by giving people more practical options for getting around without a car. Portland is obviously a different city, but we can learn from its investments in protected bike infrastructure, safer intersections, pedestrian improvements, and transit priority.

Portland already has a strong foundation for biking, but too many routes are disconnected or become uncomfortable at exactly the places where people need protection most. We should prioritize closing those gaps, building protected infrastructure on major corridors, improving neighborhood greenways, and creating safe connections to schools, businesses, parks, and transit. We also need to make sure our transportation funding reflects the goals we’ve already adopted. If we want more Portlanders to bike, it needs to be a safe, convenient and realistic option for everyday trips.

venice, they have rivers through all their streets, i think we should start building rivers through our city all the way from like the sandy river and just have water roads to the willamete that would be awesome, everyone get around by jet ski

Tokyo, or japan in the effect that you can get anywhere in the country and everyone from non profits to commercial groups to regions are paying for it with subsidies given so smaller stops can be added, and the majority of the system is handicap friendly.

Post pandemic with work patterns changing, I’m not sure if there is one city we can emulate but I’m open to learning more from advocates and experts. There are specific policies here and there that we should consider such as congestion pricing and alternative ways to fund transit. We are already closing and repurposing streets. We were once a leader in alternative modes for cities our size with bike routes and a radial transit system (most routes going into Portland); we need to re-evaluate and update these policies as well as transit finance. Last I heard, we are at a 2% bike mode split and need to focus on how we re-invigorate bike travel.

Portland should get serious about moving toward a transportation system that does not automatically build car-focused roads as the venue for sharing public space with cyclists and pedestrians. Cities like Barcelona have used superblocks to route through-traffic to the perimeter and reclaim interior streets as plazas and slow local space. Filtered permeability, using modal filters so bikes and pedestrians pass through but cars take the long way around, does something similar at a smaller, cheaper scale. We should learn where in Portland's complete neighborhoods this could work, particularly in areas we're upzoning, so density and street design are being planned together rather than treating the road network as fixed.

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.

Amsterdam. It's a walkable city, but it's also accessible for people with disabilities. They prioritize public transit, bike, walking and car pooling. I believe we should prioritize public transit and use PCEF to help fund free public transit for all Portlanders. Once that is implemented, I would advocate for neighboring cities to create city connection transportation systems that lower the cost and make it more affordable to travel around our region. I also would advocate for reduction in costs to carry, transport and bring your bike when you travel.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

More water taxis, turning streets into pedestrian only walkways for special events, designated scooter stations, light rail with fully grade-separated tracks and gates on all stations.

I'll admit that for the questions here I did not have answers at the ready. I needed to do some research, which was fun, actually. My understanding, now, is that Paris, starting in 2015, decided what kind of transit-oriented city they wanted to have and began a major expansion of protected bike routes, and then, in 2020, began a large-scale rollout of a schools streets project. This resulted in 300 pedestrianized streets around schools by September 2025. This thinking - decide what kind of city you want first, then decide what that'll take, is my approach. Everything is connected. One of my goals as a councilor will be to complete the Safe Routes priority network around every District 4 elementary school within one Council term.

I’d say two: Washington, D.C. and Copenhagen, but for different reasons.

When I worked on the Silver Line metro extension project in D.C., I really came to appreciate their public transportation system. More than 20% of D.C. residents use public transit to get to work, compared to under 4% nationally. It works because it’s accessible, fast, comprehensive, and extremely convenient. In most cases, the best option is to take the metro, so why drive?

When I visited Copenhagen, I saw the same idea applied to biking. The city feels designed around biking, so the infrastructure and connections make it really easy and safe to get around that way. Portland is pretty good in this area for an American city, but traveling to Europe makes it apparent there is a lot more we can do.

Some of those improvements would take significant funding and time, but there are also smaller changes we can make now. One funding source I want to explore is a mileage-based charge on large commercial delivery companies, so some of the money generated by all those delivery trips goes back into improving the transportation system they rely on.