Blogtown, PDX: Meet the Contenders - Question #2

The Portland Mercury's Blogtown, PDX site has been producing a weekly series of questions for the various candidates running in the Portland mayor and city council races. This series is a great way to meet the candidates and learn about the issues affecting the public and Portland city government. We're reproducing (with permission) Chris's responses here, while also providing links to the original Blogtown posts.

Question #2:

(Original Post from Dec. 20, 2007)

If elected, which bureau would you most like to head up? How do you feel that bureau is currently being run, and what changes, if any, would you make as commissioner of that bureau?

Chris's Response:

I suspect your readers would be shocked if my answer were anything other than “Transportation.” (For those who don’t know, I have been a transportation advocate for more than 10 years.)
The Portland Office of Transportation (often known as PDOT) has made some significant changes in recent years. Under tremendous budget pressure due to declining gas tax buying power, the bureau has trimmed its budget significantly (which I assisted in, as a member of the budget advisory committee) while still maintaining critical services and working to making transportation in Portland more sustainable. My objective as Commissioner of Transportation would not be so much to change direction as to push further into sustainability.

This is a good opportunity to launch the transportation policy for our campaign. Readers can find the full policy on our web site ( http://www.citizensmith.us/downloads/transportation_policy.pdf ), but here are the highlights:

• Insist that all transportation investments be subject to a carbon footprint analysis
• Make safety the first priority for investment
• Maintain our existing transportation assets
• Use the system we have more efficiently through new technology
• Invest strategically to support growth in population more sustainably