The kids want their allowance
I see that Portlanders are going to get a chance to vote in a few months on whether we want to keep the hideous 10-cents-a-gallon city sales tax on gasoline. I try to fill up in the suburbs to avoid it, but often I do get stuck paying it.
The City Hall bureaucrats will tell you it's to maintain the roads, but most of us see right through that. The money is used to pay the salaries of the bike children in the transportation bureau who sit around City Hall all day thinking of new streets to close off to cars. Road "diets." "Better Naito."
Just look at this roster. Are any of those people fixing potholes or plowing snow? I doubt it.
Did you ever drive around on the east side of town at night and try to read street signs that haven't been replaced or cleaned in 50 years – so old and moldy that they're illegible? No, the gas tax will never be used to replace them.
Instead, the money will go to pay the flacks who sell the utterly meaningless "Vision Zero" brand and myriad other dumb ideas. I count at least two senior "spokespeople" who spout the "smart" nonsense on behalf of the car haters, Hannah Schafer (pictured) and Dylan Rivera. Why do we need two? In fact, why do we need any? Why can't the transportation commissioner or the director of the bureau just pick up the phone and answer the reporters' questions directly? They act like they're so important and so busy, neither of which is true.
Meanwhile, traffic fatalities in Portland are at their worst in at least 30 years. There are no cops for traffic enforcement, and no real plan to get them. It wouldn't be equitable.
City gas tax? No, no, a thousand times no.
Read the directors bio…it’s like a woke AI created her.
ReplyDeleteThat is a word salad snowjob if there ever was one. Bonus points for the goofy glasses. So much equity......for everyone!
DeleteRead the first three profiles on their roster of saviors and nearly recycled lunch. Careerist wonks with lots of government and “nonprofit” experience on these CVs. One gets the feeling this is only a temporary stop on their nomadic journey to progressive canonization.
ReplyDeleteThe transportation bureau should be run by a 55-year-old person who spent the first 20 years of their career filling potholes.
ReplyDeleteYes x1000!
DeleteYES! YES! YES! I’ve been saying this for years about PBOT. They bring in these wonks who focus on everything that doesn’t matter, and ignore all the important things.
DeleteSome
ReplyDeleteOf us call it “the shitty” for good reason!
Sarah with the “Public Health Crisis” of “Traffic Violence” telling people to vote for the tax.
ReplyDeleteI count twelve government hacks on that link to the PBOT leadership page. You could cut six (or even more) of them tomorrow and no one would even notice. With the rate of pay city leadership hacks get, you could turn those 6 leader positions into at least 12 maintenance workers to help keep the roads drivable. That would make a big difference. These leadership paper pushing dreamers don’t make any difference.
ReplyDeleteAh, but they do. They make it miserable to drive a car and try to have a meaningful life in Portland. They see this as their job.
DeleteEvery route in and out of the city has been constricted . Imagine the daily mess if the core city has full or even half full in office employment.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t noticed the the word imbecile being used lately
ReplyDeleteEvery time I pass a "pothole hotline" sign around the city I make a note of it to my wife, who out-loud belly laughs at this point. There's actually a pothole with a big white circle around it on Skyline Blvd. literally 10 feet in front of one of these signs.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad they could send a worker out to paint a reflective circle around the pothole, and not actually FIX the pothole. Wonderful use of resources!