From Portland Afoot

Charlie Hales (with Amanda Fritz, left) campaigning for mayor at an Oregon League of Conservation Voters panel, February 2012.

Charlie Hales is a Portland-based politician who served on the Portland city council in the 1990s and early 2000s. He had a deep interest in transportation, serving as the Portland Bureau of Transportation commissioner and helping lead the charge to paint some of the city's first bike lanes and launch Portland Streetcar in 2001.

As of December 2011, Hales is running for mayor of Portland, opposing Jefferson Smith. For more details on his positions, see our low-car voter guide to the 2012 Portland mayoral election.

[edit] Positions

[edit] Less capacity for automobiles

"We're going to improve biking, walking and transit and that's going to take capacity away from single occupancy auto driving," Hales said in his BikePortland interview. "That's Portland. That's bedrock for us. Doesn't mean you won't be able to drive your car downtown; doesn't mean that cars and trucks won't still be able to circulate in the city; but we are moving from being a very auto-dependent city that we were 20-30 yrs ago to being a city that has a lot of choices and a lot of people not using their cars. And that's progress.

"We've made a lot of progress, we're going to make a lot more and we're not going to chase you off the street if you want to drive your car — but you're going to have to understand that automobile convenience is not what we're designing for.

[long pause]

"... And it's really important to remember too that, in doing this, we've made Portland a more prosperous city."

[edit] 'Iconic' bike projects

In an extended interview with BikePortland.org published in December 2011, Hales promised a focus on major [[bike[[ projects rather than more incremental or universal shifts.

"I think we need — and I will look for and find — one or two iconic projects like the Springwater Corridor that are game-changers and that get people thinking about the role of bikes in a new way.

"If you look at the data of how many people ride, it jumped after the Springwater opened because a whole bunch of people that wouldn't have thought about it started riding. The same thing with Sunday Parkways. That's a game-changer, it gets thousands of people out on their bikes with their kids, with their neighbors. Those kind of iconic projects to me are important. ... I do believe that it's important to find a project that appeals to that broader majority; so, Sullivan's Gulch or the North Portland Riverfront trail, maybe those kind of opportunities to really kick it up to another level."

Hales also specifically suggested converting of a railway from Portland to Astoria into a bike path.

[edit] A smaller Columbia River Crossing

Hales said in the late 2011 interview that he supports "a bridge, not the CRC as currently envisioned" to carry I-5 over the Columbia River.

"I don't believe that the project on the table today is the project that's going to be built because it has become so expensive and so enormous that I think it's going to collapse of its own weight or at least be significantly downsized long before I take office," Hales predicted. "I'm looking forward to the renegotiation over what the project will actually be. ... You can't make $3.5 billion fall out of the sky and they don't have a dollar for construction yet."

[edit] Skepticism of new rail projects

"I want us to build more transit projects, but TriMet's ability to operate even one more rail line after Milwaukie is questionable with their current resources," Hales said in his BikePortland interview. "I want us to build the 60 miles of unpaved streets in Portland and the sidewalks."

[edit] Call for new transportation revenue

"We have to finally face down the fiction that we'll be able to pay for transportation with gas tax revenues for the rest of our lives — that is not reality," Hales said in his BikePortland interview. "We will have to spend other money like general fund dollars on transportation and we'll have to come up with new money, probably a regional source. So yeah, I'm very concerned."

[edit] Accomplishments

[edit] Support for the first bike lanes

"I rode down the street on a city paving machine when we started striping the first bike lanes back in 1995 with a big smile on my face," Hales said in his BikePortland interview. "I don't know if there's a picture of that moment, but I remember riding that stripping truck and hearing shhhhhhhhhh, that continuous hiss of the paint nozzles laying down that white line and that fresh white paint trailing behind the truck.

"Portland was going to have some bike lanes. It was fun to start it and it will be fun to carry it on."

[edit] Early construction of the Red Line

In his BikePortland interview, Hales cited his work on speeding up the Airport MAX extension as an example of the influence a mayor can have on the planning process.

"The regional planning process was supposed to start thinking about airport light rail seriously in 2009; we opened it in 2001," Hales said. "That's because it had been in the regional plan, it was a dotted line on the map and Vera Katz and I and a couple of other people were able to put a partnership together that got it done. So that's what collaborative leadership can accomplish in city government — you reach out and find the partners and say, 'We're going to do this one, now!'"

[edit] Opposition to speed-centric transportation projects

In the BikePortland interview, Hales said: I'm the guy who led the city council to face down ODOT and not build the Water Avenue ramp; I'm the guy who told TriMet, no you will not build the light rail line in the I-5 ditch, you will put it on Interstate Avenue even though the engineers didn't like that because it goes slower; I'm the guy who told the JPACT table we will only build a two-lane Sellwood Bridge, we will not up-size that bridge because neighborhood plans trump regional auto convenience."