Mingus Mapp on April 21st, 2023. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Portland Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps wants to make one thing clear about the revenue generated from the local gas tax: it will not be spent on bike lanes. Unless you’re a bicycle rider who loves bike lanes. Then in that case, yes, revenue from the Fixing Our Streets program will definitely fund bike lanes.
Over the course of the last week, Mapps told different audiences different things about the renewal of the Fixing Our Streets program (FOS) that Portlanders will vote on May 21st.
At a meeting this past Tuesday with Laborers’ Local 483 (a chapter of LiUNA, Laborers’ International Union of North America, the union that represents about 280 maintenance and operations employees at the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT)), Mapps showed up in hopes of earning the group’s support for the measure. “I’ve come here today to ask you for your support… Ultimately, I sure hope that we can get LiUNA’s endorsement on this,” he said.
After telling a hybrid online and in-person audience that the failure of the ballot measure would, “Be bad for PBOT, bad for the people of Portland, and an outcome we very much need to avoid,” Mapps opened up the floor to questions.