Yesterday I attended Sam Adams’ second Transportation Operations Steering group meeting. A long, involved discussion of the nitty gritty of snow and ice response. Not particularly newsworthy, except it’s good to see our public officials focused on serving the customer well.
The news of the meeting is that Sam announced that Sue Kiel, who for 18 months has been the interim Director of PDOT, is now permanent.
For the last 18 months I’ve found Sue to be quietly but solidly competent in leading the Office of Transportation. It’s good to know that she’ll be sticking around.
Congratulations, Sue.
3 responses to “Probation’s Over”
“Yesterday I attended Sam Adams’ second Transportation Operations Steering group meeting”
Although I am not surprised at its formation, this is the first I have heard that Sam has organized such an official group. That brings up the following question(s) framed to make a point with but with no offence to anybody who participates intended:
Is their direct motorist and motor vehicle commuter representation (there is a difference) other than freight in is this group? – or is it like the majority of so-called cross-section transportation related citizen advisory committees where only those who are recognized to sing in the same choir (transit, bike, walk, anti-auto) are invited to participate with the good old boys thereby with no direct representation from the stakeholder financiers known as the motoring public?
Terry, I blogged about the first meeting last month.
The groups consists of people who operate transportation services in the City (ODOT, TriMet, etc. – it’s amazing how many groups are involved).
You’ll have to ask Sam why he asked me to join, maybe he considers PortlandTransport.com part of our transportation infrastructure :-)
There is one other ‘citizen’ a representative from a neighborhood association in SW Portland.
There are no advocacy organizations involved (and I don’t consider my role there to be as an advocate). It’s about how to operate the system we have in the best interests of the users.
Thanks Chris, I don’t always read some of the threads due to time constraints. I would conjecture from your discription of the group PDOT has reps focusing on street maintenance and the such.