Portland: authoritarianism, or nothing to see here?

Good urbanism

Bad urbanism

Obscenely terrible urbanism

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that your humble blogger is no fan of President Donald J. Trump. Putting aside policy disagreements (probably inevitable anyway), his historic levels of incompetence and corruption (beyond the scope here), and his innumerable malicious statements, Trump's greatest harms have been actions that directly attack the idea of inclusive common life. The most egregious, in my view (in chronological order):

1. maltreatment of refugees, extending to imprisonment and family separation;
2. encouraging armed assaults on state capitals;
3. deporting COVID-infected immigrants to vulnerable countries;
4. teargassing protesters in D.C. so he could hold a photo op; and
5. assaulting protesters in Portland.

In each case, the chief of state has forsaken America's image as the shining city on the hill, our ability to draw strength from the rule of law, and any notion of a common future. What's left is abuse of power to hurt people who have affronted him and/or to gain attention and the approval of his political base.

(Even more alarming: In none of these cases did Trump act alone, or really act at all. Actual policy implementation was done by other government employees, and in some cases private citizens, with the complicity of Trump's allies in Congress. This is about more than just one man, even if that man is the President of the United States, and that should be really scary.)

Last week, as Americans struggled with the twin blows of pandemic and unemployment, came Trump's latest atrocity: the unleashing of federal forces on protesters in Portland, Oregon. Without warning, identification, or any consultation with state or local officials, federal agents snatched people off the streets, teargassed a group of women calling themselves the Wall of Moms, beat up a Navy veteran who remonstrated with them, and when the Mayor of Portland appeared on the scene, teargassed him, too. 

(Apparently we love our veterans, but only when they're culturally useful.)

The justification, when it came at last this week, was so unconvincing as to be insulting. Reacting to criticism as "smear attacks," Acting Homeland Security Chad Wolf said "If you did your job from a local perspective, we wouldn't be there" (Bernstein 2020). Presidential press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the agents "don't identify themselves to crowds because it would put them at great risk" (Blake 2020). Reports from people who were actually there gave the lie to these attempted rationalizations anyhow. A letter-writer to the The New York Times stated:

I live in Portland, Ore. I am 68 years old, a retired psychologist, a mildly left-of-center boomer. I want to report that Portland is not at all convulsed by a "violent mob" of anarchists, as the acting homeland security secretary, Chad F. Wolf, claims, or anything close.

A small number of protesters, generally far fewer than 100, gather each evening to protest peacefully. A few wrongheaded individuals paint graffiti or throw rocks, and that is certainly not OK. But two blocks away, in any direction, things are completely normal. In fact, I had not watched the news for a few days, and I thought the protests had stopped. (Tilson 2020) 

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof added on Twitter:

In Portland when you're actually on the ground, you see a huge range of protesters. The majority are peaceful, e.g. moms linking arms. Yes, a minority are violent e.g. throwing water bottles. But the greatest violence, injury and escalation comes from Trump's federal troops.

No one in Portland city government or Oregon state government is backing up the Trump administration's pretext. Trump, meanwhile, threatened to set his agents on Chicago next, or perhaps Albuquerque: "We're looking at New York. All run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by the radical left." 

One thing you can say about Trump: He never tries very hard to hide his political pretexts. Trump to FOX News regarding the mayor: "They knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him" (Kristof 2020a). How do you expect him to stick to the false story when he's got some violence to brag about?

As upset as I am by this latest atrocity, the response from leading Democrats has me doubting myself. Because there hasn't been much response to speak of, apart from Oregon members of Congress like Rep. Earl Blumenauer, and Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden. As a professor teaching (mostly) American politics, I get myself on a lot of national politics mailing lists, but a scan of my current in-box shows only Senator Bernie Sanders criticizing the mess in Portland. Other Democratic e-mails are asking for contributions (7), promoting virtual events (5), polling our preferences on the vice-presidential choice (1), and celebrating the birthday of former President Obama (1). Two e-mails address the economy, and two the environment, with one each on voting-by-mail, justice writ large, and opposition ethics. All are worthy issues, but nothing on Portland?? Then why am I bothering to get so upset???

This too is disturbing, because even more than any policy differences, the biggest reason to vote Democratic at every level this fall is the attacks by Trump and his Republican allies on our national community (that already was flawed and fragile). Only by committing ourselves to that community can we as Americans address our problems--international as well as domestic--from a position of strength. Only strong political leadership backed by public opinion can restore the moral compass of immigration and homeland security officials. But the issue must be joined.

SEE ALSO

Maxine Bernstein, "Can Feds Legally Fire Tear Gas, Sweep People Off Portland Streets?," MSN, 26 July 2020

Kriston Capps, "How Trump Justifies a Surge of Police in Cities," City Lab, 22 July 2020

Umair Haque, "Do Americans Get That Trump is Instituting Martial Law," Eudaimonia & Co., 23 July 2020

Marilyn J. Mosby and Larry Krasner, "Mr. President, Stay Out of Our Cities," Washington Post, 23 July 2020

Mass transit, here and there

What should be the future of public transit in the Cedar Rapids area? There's still time to add your comments at http://corridormpo.com

(2/17/2016) Ideas were rolling at two public open houses for the 2016 Corridor Metropolitan Transit Study, hosted by the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization yesterday at the Ground Transportation Center in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Passengers disembark at the Ground Transportation Center (photo by Ben Kaplan)

Multimodal transportation planner Brandon Whyte, who was on hand along with regional transportation planner Hilary L. Hershner, said the gatherings were for "looking at ways to improve transit in the metro." Attendance wasn't huge, but there was no shortage of people willing to fill out surveys. There will be a second open house in April.

The transit operation provided ridership data for the various lines.

The chart shows annual figures; about 4300-4400 people ride the bus on an average day. Assuming those are unique persons, that's about 4 percent of the population. Saturday ridership is lower, but is up since they eliminated fares.

Transit director Brad DeBrower said they couldn't tell if those were new riders or just regular riders riding more.

 Some lines (marked in red on the map) have considerably more ridership than the others...

...with numbers for the lines that serve the southeast side on which I live rather modest.

So they're aware of ridership data and can respond to them, although they are not tipping their hand as to how radical a change they're willing to undertake. The money isn't there, either from federal or local government, to expand service, either hours (service runs from before 6 a.m. to after 6 p.m.) or number of buses (most lines run one bus per hour).

There were displays of better bus stop infrastructure.

Whyte touted the electronic apps that make the service far more user-friendly. RideCRT allows the user to see all active buses in the entire system in close-to-real time, and get an expected time of arrival for the nearest stop. (And, I can confirm, it is compatible with older versions of iOS.)

Google Transit integrates the transit system with Google maps, enabling the user to plan travel routes including options for bus routes and departure and arrival times.

Multimodal transportation advisor Brandon Whyte explains the new functions

Since they asked, here is my vision for transit. I assume (a) public transit is an important alternative to the private car, particularly for the poor and handicapped, but also for environmental reasons; (b) funding for ongoing operations is not going to balloon any time soon, and in fact may become more constrained given fiscal realities at the national level; (c) the dispersal of residence and business locations that occurred during the age of sprawl is going to correct itself slowly, if at all; and (d) government agencies serve no one well if they spread themselves too thin. SO, I would:

• Contract the system by about half in each direction from the center of the city. I'm sacrificing complete coverage for quality coverage of the more densely populated areas. Instead of covering the entire city with 1100 bus stops, it would cover about 1/4 of the land area. I'd make exceptions for places of high value outside of this area, like Kirkwood Community College and Uptown Marion.
• Replace our loopy routes with more direct lines along major thoroughfares like 1st Avenue, Mt. Vernon Road, 16th Avenue West, and the like. Buses could then compete with cars for travel times. If we could arrange some dedicated lanes, so much the better.
• For the same reason I'd thrown in some express routes to Kirkwood and Uptown Marion. Maybe some others?
• Somehow we would have to accommodate those people with physical and mental handicaps who because of where they live would lose ease of access in a contracted system.

For further imaginative fuel, the national group Transportation for America this afternoon released their new resource for integration transportation policy into place making, "The Scenic Route." Creative placemaking, said T4A director James Corless, means transportation projects not only "should be welcoming," but additionally provide "a sense of where you are." The rollout touted examples from Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis-St. Paul that combine ambitious transportation projects with social capital building in affected neighborhoods.

• The Powell Division High Capacity Transit (HCT) project goes through Jade District and Division Midway, low-income areas in eastern Portland. Community organizations, with funding from the city, explored ways in which the project could advance community priorities. One specific goal was "Do not fuel gentrification and displacement." They funded two rounds of small projects celebrating the community, including a storytelling festival, installing a bee hotel in community gardens, and creating an Art Plan for Jade District that will interface with Powell Division BRT project.
• The Green Line light rail project goes through areas of the Twin Cities with small businesses that worried about displacement, as had happened with a nearby interstate highway. The group Springboard for the Arts looked for ways that local artists could be involved, "focus on existing assets" and giving the people of the neighborhood "common cause." They funded numerous small projects that had small business partners (so relationships had greater potential to sustain). They found they were able to change media as well as personal narratives from inconvenience-of-change to more positive stories of engagement & small business visibility.

Cedar Rapids is much smaller than these areas, but I wonder if similar engagement with community organizations (where they exist) could raise visibility of affected neighborhoods, build social capital, and perhaps gain some buy-in for transit projects from bike lanes to (maybe, someday) BRT?

SEE ALSO:
"Envision CR III: Improve Public Transportation," 6 April 2015
"Transportation: Which Side am I On?" 28 July 2015

Passengers wait for buses at the Ground Transportation Center in downtown Cedar Rapids