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  • Flickr user “parks.”

The City Club of Portland is a local institution that allows a venue for wealthy and/or important people (and the rest of us, in theory) to commission studies of local trends and governance, and adopt recommendations for how to fix stuff that isn’t looking too hot.

On Friday, July 30, the club will host a discussion (unsubtly titled “Portland’s Bridges Falling Down”) on whether the city’s bridges should be managed by a regional authority. This is one of the recommendations of a recent study (PDF) that looked at the region’s transportation infrastructure. In brief:

The report considers three categories of regional and local transportation facilities: the Willamette River bridges, regional roads and local streets, and transit. It discusses the creation of a bridge authority affiliated with Metro and a funding source to support the authority.

This bears an uncanny resemblance to the club’s recommendation on what to do with Forest Park, released in a May report. Read on after the jump.

Conclusion 1. Forest Park is regional a resource and should be owned, managed, funded, and protected by a regional park authority.
Recommendation 1. A regional park authority, perhaps modeled on the Minneapolis system, should be established as quickly as practicable, and Forest Park should be moved into its portfolio.

It looks like lately the City Club has been big on pushing for regional oversight of widely utilized Portland assets. But while they may want Metro to take over the bridges—and a minority report on Forest Park called for Metro to immediately take over the park—they weren’t always so pro-Metro. From a 1986 report:

People generally want to simplify government, not make it more complex. Although Metro was created to replace proliferating service districts, it has not done so, and the public generally perceives it as just another layer of government. These people are not wrong. Metro, in fact, is an added layer of government.

As a solution to this redundancy, the 1986 City Club report (PDF) recommended strengthening Metro to have more clearly defined power, or creating a single “Willamette County” that would combine and absorb Metro, Tri-Met, the Urban Growth Boundary commission, and the three existing metro-area counties.

12 replies on “City Club Takes on Portland’s Bridges”

  1. Does Kevin Mannix ever get tired of failing? Someone should place a referendum on the ballot whether Mannix should be allowed to stay in Oregon. I hope he gets aides!

  3. @ujfoyt It’s bad karma to wish someone AIDS, but not aides. I’M NOT THAT EVIL! But I do hope his aides help him get AIDS.

  5. This is why Metro took over the Zoo, it certainly makes sense that they take over the rest of Forest Park…

    As for the bridges and the mix of state/county crossings, yeah, that is a mess and someone needs to be in charge of it. Actually, the entire thing is a mess even before you get to the river, half the major streets in town are owned/controlled by the state, the other half by the city. If you want a crosswalk or a bicycle lane somewhere, you have to take a class at PSU to even learn who you need to talk to! (It is a good class, but still, it shouldn’t be that complicated.)

  6. I don’t get the part about needing a new “regional park authority”. Metro already buys open space and operates parks around the region.

  7. @Blabby

    The Forest Park report had a minority report that recommended an ownership transfer to Metro. The minority report failed (I voted for it, and also for final adoption of the report), so the final version recommends that the City of Portland retain ownership of the park until such time as an independent regional parks authority can be set up. I tend to think that was redundant, because you’re right: Metro already does buy/operate parks, and they have also proven able to pass bonds to actually fund park maintenance.

    In contrast, the Moving Forward report recommends that a regional transportation governance structure be set up, and my sense is that Metro is the best course of action for this, especially considering that Metro has the authority to take over TriMet.

    I think this Friday Forum will be a great one, and we’d love to have you join us!

  8. Yeah, the recommendation of a new regional authority just makes no sense to me. But tranferring Forest Park to Metro does make some sense.

    Metro is also already in charge of regional transportation planning, but I don’t think they actually own any facilities, so if they were to own the bridges, that would be new, I think.

    I don’t really want Metro to have more power. I think Metro is a tool set up by Portland interests to push the rest of the region around. And I think Metro has drunk the planning Kool-Aid even worse then the city has.

  9. I propose the City Club of Portland be placed under the management of a regional discussion authority, perhaps modeled on the Chautauqua system, as quickly as practicable. It could be held at Horning’s Hideout, sort of a summer camp/jamboree for wonky rich people…

  10. Metro running the bridges would have one big advantage; it would avoid the type of ridiculous buck-passing and cost-passing between different counties that has prevented the Sellwood Bridge being replaced yet. At the moment, Multnomah County residents are going to be paying an extra tax for it, Heaven knows what Clackamas County residents (who are mainly the ones using it) will end up paying or how; it’s a huge mess.

    However, if we wanted true progress, we’d have to find a way to get Vancouver into Metro as well, so they can achieve their supposed mission of addressing issues that affect the entire metro area. Not least, bringing some joined-up thinking to the I5 megabridge project. Not easy, but surely something worth trying?

  11. @Blabby: Stu pretty much sums up what I was going to respond with.

    And the Vancouver idea has a number of pros and cons that I’m not going to bother getting into here.

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