Chief
05-24-2008, 12:07 PM
http://bikeportland.org/2008/05/21/bta-at-a-crossroads-with-columbia-river-crossing-project/
After a year of working in good faith with the staff of the Columbia River Crossing project, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) finds themselves at a crossroads.
Despite the project’s contentious details, its potential ramifications for regional environmental impacts and massive funding implications, the BTA has remained on the sidelines of growing concerns about the project. Instead of opposing it, they have remained a supportive part of the massive planning effort that has been likened to “a train that no one wants to step in front of”.
When the BTA held a forum on the CRC last month they featured presentations from supporters of the project (one was a CRC project staffer and the other was BTA co-founder and Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder — who’s support of the project is the focus of a cover story in the Willamette Week).
The forum’s one-sided tone caused one former BTA Board Member, Steve Guttman, to fire off a letter to executive director Scott Bricker.
Guttman implored Bricker and the BTA to not support the CRC project. In the letter, he wrote that if the BTA continues to support the project they would not be able to, “maintain credibility as an advocate for sustainable transportation” and added that, “Portland deserves better, and BTA members deserve to hear the full story.”
When the BTA published an official position on the project (which laid out a series of “recommendations”) at the end of April, it drew criticisms from the community.
Matt Picio, a BTA member and the executive director of local non-profit riding club, Exchange Cycle Tours wrote in to say that,
“I object to the BTA’s official stated position and encourage the Executive Director and the Board of Directors to closely examine the mission and purpose of the BTA and how they relate to the CRC project. I don’t believe that supporting an expensive, unsustainable and ultimately unnecessary expansion of current capacity is in the best interest of the BTA or its membership.”
Lenny Anderson, a well-known veteran transportation activist and the head of the Swan Island Transportation Management Association commented that, “In the age of Global Warming I hate to see the BTA hitch its wagon the the CRC dinosaur, even if BTA’s surrender is conditional.”
Is there anyone other than the CRC Staff who thinks they have done a good job on this project?? When was the last time someone endorsed the whoe thing??
Ongoing...
cewl
After a year of working in good faith with the staff of the Columbia River Crossing project, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) finds themselves at a crossroads.
Despite the project’s contentious details, its potential ramifications for regional environmental impacts and massive funding implications, the BTA has remained on the sidelines of growing concerns about the project. Instead of opposing it, they have remained a supportive part of the massive planning effort that has been likened to “a train that no one wants to step in front of”.
When the BTA held a forum on the CRC last month they featured presentations from supporters of the project (one was a CRC project staffer and the other was BTA co-founder and Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder — who’s support of the project is the focus of a cover story in the Willamette Week).
The forum’s one-sided tone caused one former BTA Board Member, Steve Guttman, to fire off a letter to executive director Scott Bricker.
Guttman implored Bricker and the BTA to not support the CRC project. In the letter, he wrote that if the BTA continues to support the project they would not be able to, “maintain credibility as an advocate for sustainable transportation” and added that, “Portland deserves better, and BTA members deserve to hear the full story.”
When the BTA published an official position on the project (which laid out a series of “recommendations”) at the end of April, it drew criticisms from the community.
Matt Picio, a BTA member and the executive director of local non-profit riding club, Exchange Cycle Tours wrote in to say that,
“I object to the BTA’s official stated position and encourage the Executive Director and the Board of Directors to closely examine the mission and purpose of the BTA and how they relate to the CRC project. I don’t believe that supporting an expensive, unsustainable and ultimately unnecessary expansion of current capacity is in the best interest of the BTA or its membership.”
Lenny Anderson, a well-known veteran transportation activist and the head of the Swan Island Transportation Management Association commented that, “In the age of Global Warming I hate to see the BTA hitch its wagon the the CRC dinosaur, even if BTA’s surrender is conditional.”
Is there anyone other than the CRC Staff who thinks they have done a good job on this project?? When was the last time someone endorsed the whoe thing??
Ongoing...
cewl