Category: Leadership

  • If I Were Asking the Questions

    If I were on the interview committee for TriMet’s General Manager position, here’s what I’d be asking: How will you ensure that the agency has sufficient financial reserves to whether economic downturns without extensive service cuts? How would you develop a series of measures to determine if transit service is being provided equitably across geographic…

  • Hansen to Leave TriMet, What Next?

    The Tribune is reporting that Fred Hansen will leave TriMet this summer when his current contract ends. This leaves me with three thoughts: Obviously Fred has had a tremendous and overwhelmingly positive impact on the region. For those of us who worry that TriMet’s agenda has become overbalanced toward Light Rail at the expense of…

  • The Question I Plan to Ask at City Club Tonight

    Tonight, City Club is hosting a discussion of their new report, “Moving Forward: A Better Way to Govern Regional Transportation.” (PDF, 5.5M) [5:30pm at the Club offices, 901 SW Washington] There’s one recommendation that has generated a bit of controversy: Voting Power on JPACT The elected officials of cities and counties on JPACT should be…

  • How City Club Would Flow the Money

    Last week I wrote about the new City Club report (PDF 5.5M) on transportation governance. I’d like to dig in a little deeper this week, starting with finances. Excerpted from the report is this chart showing how transportation dollars flow into and through the region today, and how City Club would suggest reorganizing this. Fundamentally…

  • Metro President Candidates on Bikes, Peds and Freight

    The fifth and final installment of our series on responses to our candidate questionnaire. Please remember the ground rules on comments for this series There are some special rules for comments on these posts. As a 501(c)(3), Portland Transport cannot and does not endorse candidates. So please no comments of the form “you should vote…