From Portland Afoot

Catherine Ciarlo is an active transportation activist who became transportation policy manager for then-city commissioner Sam Adams in 2005. She continued to oversee the subject for Adams' office after his 2008 election as Portland's mayor.

Before entering government, Ciarlo served as executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance from 1998 to 2005, succeeded by Evan Manvel.

[edit] Transportation background

Ciarlo started riding her bicycle for transportation when she lived in the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1990s.

"It certainly wasn't a political decision," she said. "It was a way to get outside, it was a way to get exercise, it was fun, it was interesting."

She began working in transportation because of her environmental inclinations, but soon got carried away.

"I just became obsessed," she told PSU's Traffic and Transportation class in November 2010. "I am obsessed with transportation. My poor husband, when we drive around, he's like, 'Could you talk about something besides intersections?'"

Ciarlo has since come to believe in designing transportation systems "in service to something larger."