The record · Transcript
Council session — 2026-02-09
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (13,360 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.
I am online, madam chair. Mrs. Loretta.
Can you hear us online? Councilor Smith. Oh, yes. Thank you.
Good morning. I call the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to order. It is Monday, February the 9th at 9:30 a.m. Diego, can you please call the roll?
Good morning.
Smith here.
Koyama Lane here.
Morillo here.
Green clerk here.
And claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda@Portland.gov council agenda slash transportation and infrastructure committee. Or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard if public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
Thank you. Claire. Colleagues, we have two items on our agenda today. First, we're going to have a bridge naming resolution that councilor Morillo is lead sponsoring. And then we'll have a briefing from PBOT on autonomous vehicles and their potential impact on our local transportation system. Then I have some important announcements to make at the end of the meeting as well. So, diego, can you please call the first item.
Item one declare bridge between southeast 17th avenue and southeast 26th avenue to be named brooklyn bridge, and direct the city administrator to authorize update of signage as appropriate.
Thank you. Councilor Morillo office is responding to a community request to name a bridge in the brooklyn neighborhood. The bridge links districts three and four, so I'm pleased to be a co-sponsor with councilor Morillo. So with that, can I just hand it off to you? Councilor.
Yeah. Thank you so much, chair. Clark, I heard that my colleagues were tired of me bringing policies about antitrust law and more complicated things. So today we're doing something really fun and simple for the community. The brooklyn action corps has been pushing to get the brooklyn bridge named because right now it is just a nameless bridge that connects districts three and four. And this is something that the community has been asking for and organizing for for a long time. So we're really excited to, you know, help push this forward. And I also want to be clear, my office will be paying for the additional signage. So it's not going to cost anything for PBOT. It was something that we really wanted to do for the neighborhood. This was an issue that they had brought up to us repeatedly. And if anyone knows the brooklyn action corps, those folks are highly organized, highly educated policy makers. And so this is our opportunity to give a little something back to that neighborhood. And we also have Ryan, Ryan, lyle here from the brooklyn neighborhood to give a brief presentation on the sign and why we're making these changes. And we don't have testimony signed up for this right now, but we did have a written testimony submitted. So with that, I'll turn it over to you.
Great. Thank you. Councilor. So why don't we invite up, I think Ryan and andre, are you coming up as well? Nope. Okay. Do you have a presentation we're going to make? Okay. Is Ryan going to do it? Oh, super. Hey, welcome. Good to see you. You know, I spent probably 12 years over in that TriMet building, so I'm really familiar with the area. I really appreciate your coming forward with this and welcome.
Yeah. Thanks so much. And it is so cool that it's it's weird that brooklyn neighborhood is is actually just divided between district four and three by the the island there. But also the bridge connects the two. It's really. Yeah. It's really nice. Well my name is Ryan lyle and I am here to represent the neighborhood. Everybody is either working or having different medical appointments or having people working on their house. So I was the one who was able to squeeze it in. So. Basically, there's this unnamed bridge that we want to name it something. Next slide. It's a bridge you can see on the map there. It it connects the the neighborhood. It spans the brooklyn train yard. It connects brooklyn east and west. On the on the east side is this small part of our neighborhood that is kind of just floating out there. And it it's I mean, it's a real important commuter bridge. Next slide. And so a question came up a few years ago. It was basically what's the name of that bridge there? You know, the one that spans over the brooklyn train yard. And it connects to east and west brooklyn. And it's there's this big sign right there that says historic brooklyn neighborhood. And the answer was pretty obvious that it should just be called the brooklyn bridge. Next slide. It's got broad community support. Probably three years ago at a in a neighborhood meeting when this topic came up, they just said, or it was kind of agreed upon, that we should just name it on google maps. So it was named brooklyn bridge, at least for the last three years on google maps, it's got a 4.9 rating. One person says it's it's not their favorite brooklyn bridge, but it's it's second place. So they gave us a four star for that. We have an active petition going on. There's there's more than 60 names at the moment of of neighbors and, and businesses adjacent and in the neighborhood. Next slide please. And it's basically just ready. So let's see about a year ago, maybe maybe eight months ago, I reached out to PBOT after doing a lot of research to figure out if there was already a name. You know, I went to the Oregon historical society. They said, we can't find any records of it, but they assured me it wasn't called the brooklyn bridge. And then I was going through some records on the Portland website, and somewhere I found reference to that bridge. It's like it's definitely a Portland asset. And the bridge, it just had a number and I forget the term they used for it, but it was like a bridge with with no use or something like that. Just a, a worthless bridge is kind of like how it was written on this, this document. I haven't been able to find that yet, but there is a term for that, that anyways. So it's something that PBOT can easily change the name of. And they're working with councilor. Morillo has been amazing. She's been like putting her her effort behind this to draft this resolution. And, and it just feels like a very organic and easy thing to accomplish. And the community even said that we would pay for whatever needs to be paid for. But it seems like maybe that's not necessary. Next slide. So yeah, there's our neighborhood there. Why it matters it it honors I guess I'll just read what is written here. Honors the history and cultural identity of brooklyn neighborhood. It strengthens the community and pride and sense of place. And it symbolizes the connections that tie our neighborhood together. Yeah, for a long time. I mean, brooklyn is kind of a it's just a drive through neighborhood people, you know, most people just think it's part of Sellwood. They're like, oh, that's Sellwood, I guess. Anything south of powell. And we we've got mclaughlin driving through there. We've got the max cutting through. We've got the trains. It's just a it's a hard thing to navigate when you live in the neighborhood. It's kind of even a food desert. There's a couple restaurants. But if you want to find food you have to go across the holgate bridge and drive up to 39th. And yeah, we want to have a little bit more identity. And yeah, that's probably that next slide maybe. Oh yeah. So our ask is that we, we respectfully ask that the transportation and infrastructure committee support councilor Morillo resolution to officially name the brooklyn bridge. And there's a nice little picture of it. Any questions.
Well thank you, Ryan, so much for being here. The drafted one to be here represent all the other people from brooklyn neighborhood. Really appreciate appreciate your slideshow. I really appreciate turning what seems to be kind of an orphan bridge to being a meaningful bridge. And I hope you're already planning a celebration. Interesting that your research. I really appreciate that you you dug in like that to see if you could find anything meaningful about the bridge. Yeah. That's terrific. Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments for Ryan councilor Smith? I see your hand up.
Yes. Thank you so much for bringing this forward. Councilor Morillo and chair Clark, one of the things that I would suggest is PSU has like a population data center where they know about historical facts. And when I was trying to find out something about a building in Multnomah county, they had the the information on it. So I would talk to Portland state university in their population division because they keep a lot of historical facts about, you know, things, places in the city of Portland.
Cool. Thank you.
Interesting. Great comment. Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you so much for being here today and for this presentation. I really appreciate the work of our city staff for collaborating with residents and enhancing wayfinding and community identity. Thank you so much to chair Clark and vice chair Morillo for sponsoring this, and especially councilor Morillo office for supporting this out of her own office budget and for her team's direct engagement of constituents in d three. Like you. This is awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo: Yeah, thank you so much, chair. Clark, thank you so much for being here to present today. I think it's always so special that we have community members that can come and engage with us directly in this new form of government in ways that we didn't have before. So I love that very much. And my staff have had such a wonderful time working with all of you as well. I also just want to add that TriMet has written a letter of support for this as well. They talk about how a lot of the transportation stuff goes over that space, and the fact that it has been a nameless bridge for so long is a very strange thing, and honestly, something that I think a lot of people wouldn't catch. But it's something that to this neighborhood, it creates a sense of identity and meaning that needs to be there. And because of quorum rules, we were also not allowed to bring more people in. But councilor Koyama Lane as the fellow district three councilor, if you wanted to add sponsorship before it goes to full council, happy to discuss that as well. I see her nodding and giving a thumbs up, so thank you all so much. Really appreciate your time today and I hope that we can move this forward through full council.
Awesome. Thanks so much.
Thank you Ryan.
Great. I have one little question. Just that's the first time I've ever seen the brooklyn neighborhood map, the outline of the neighborhood. And I noticed that you included ross island.
That is part of our neighborhood, which is super weird because it's in district four. I mean, we're just cut right, right in half there. So as a side note, for the last 40 years, we've been wanting wanting access, direct access to the Willamette river. And now we've got that asset of ross island, sand and gravel. And so that'll probably be the next thing that comes before you guys. How do how do neighborhoods, the neighbors actually get direct access to the river?
That's great. Are you working with the human access project?
And no, not yet.
I would suggest that you get in contact with willy. What's willy's last name? Levinson. I think because he's working, there's a whole group of people working on ross island. Great future. And, you know, it's been kind of stuck for a variety of legal reasons. But I think if you talk to willy, that would be really great. Yeah, we can give you that contact information later because I that was the first time I'd seen that. I thought, I thought it belonged to johns landing. But I'm glad it's yours. And we can all we can all work together on that. We have a long way to go there. So let's see. I would I would entertain a motion to send the resolution document number 2026048 to the full council with a recommendation that it be adopted.
So moved.
Second.
The motion has been moved by councilor Morillo and seconded by councilor Koyama Lane. I don't think there's any more discussion. So let's ask the clerk to call the roll.
Smith. I Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Green clerk. I with four eyes and one absent. The motion carries and the resolution document number 2020 six, dash 048 will move to full council with a recommendation to be adopted.
Terrific. Thank you. Thank you Ryan. Thank you matt. Back there in the back. And thanks to my colleagues for actually bringing forward something that's fun and meaningful. Diego, would you please read the next item?
Item two autonomous vehicles briefing.
Great. Thank you. You know, we've been hearing a lot lately about autonomous vehicles. There's all kinds of mixed feelings about it. And there's a discussion going on at the legislature. I think I'm trying to remember who was who sponsored the bill from our region, but I've asked PBOT staff to give us a briefing on autonomous vehicles and their potential impact on portland's local transportation system, which will be very real. The impact so we have we also think I have director chase from government relations in the room. He's not here. I don't see him yet to answer some questions. So looks like dc dana is not here either.
She we have director williams online.
Hi, director williams, good to see you. Are you going to kick this off for us? I am great, go right ahead.
Thank you very much. Council vice president clerk. For the record, my name is melissa williams and I'm the director of the Portland bureau of transportation. We are here today to discuss automated vehicles. This is quickly evolving new technology that is already having a big impact in multiple cities across the country. The city of Portland began preparing for autonomous vehicles in 2017, but much has changed since then, and the industry is expanding more quickly now. There is the potential for this innovative new industry to come to help advance our transportation safety goals. At the same time, many questions remain, and as we consider the path forward, we need to take the time to get this important topic right. You'll hear today from PBOT staff who've been learning from each other from other cities, and working with staff from across city bureaus to consider a path forward. I want to thank you for your time and consideration this morning, and now I'll turn it over to PBOT chief of staff shoshana cohen, to provide more details about the presentation this morning. Shoshana.
Councilor, clerk I'll jump in here. We are running about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. I so I'm wondering if it's obviously your call. It may be appropriate to take a brief recess until staff join us. I think we are expecting some staff in person.
I think that's a brilliant idea. Claire, let's take a recess. So we'll reconvene at, what, ten, ten, 15 ish? Maybe. Let's come back at 1015. Thank you. Colleagues, thank you for the suggestion. Thank you for being on hold. They're being patient with us. Thank you.
Absolutely sorry. I didn't realize the team wasn't in the room when I.
No problem. Thanks. We'll see you in a few.
Okay. Sounds good.
Mitch Green: Hello. I think we're going to reconvene now. I don't know if. Councilor Smith. Are you there online? She's not back yet. I'm hoping that councilor Green shows up any moment now. Those of us that had an opportunity to read through some of the material in advance, it was very interesting that the council in 2017 took this up, that this is not the first time that the Portland city council has talked about autonomous vehicles, and I don't know what happened between then and now other than san francisco, phoenix and a few other cities now have them. Since that time. I don't know where we fall on the list, but I'm just stalling for time. Which is hoping that councilor Green, maybe councilor Green, if you're out there, please show up and councilor Smith will rejoin us. I'm sure.
The problem is, we don't have enough of the council men here, and we're all very brief with our words and very efficient as women. So maybe if we.
I resemble that.
Remark, I know that's going to be on a news story soon. Probably. Right.
It's very controversial. All right, well, why don't we call up our panel? Let's see. I don't know, is dca coming?
She said to get started without her.
Okay, okay. We do have director williams who kind of has to start over again and great. And we have is that hannah and jacob. Great. Well, thank you all for being here today. I really appreciate the work that you put into bringing us up to speed. This is really important. It's becoming a hot issue. And I know you'll tell us more about what happened in Salem today. I don't know if ogre is going to be able to join us, but in any event, director williams, do you want to take two?
Absolutely. Thank you so much. So good morning everyone. Thank you. Council vice president Clark, for the record, my name is millicent williams and I am the director of the Portland bureau of transportation. We are here today to discuss automated vehicles. This is a quickly evolving new technology that is already having a big impact in multiple cities across the country. As you've just mentioned, the city of Portland began preparing for autonomous vehicles in 2017, but much has changed since then, and the industry is expanding more quickly now. There is the potential for this innovative new industry to help advance our transportation safety goals. At the same time, however, many questions remain as we consider the path forward and we need to take the time to get this important topic right. You'll hear today from PBOT staff who've been learning from other cities and working with staff from across city bureaus to consider a path forward. I want to thank you for your time and consideration this morning, and now I will turn it over to PBOT chief of staff, shoshana cohen, to provide more details about the presentation this morning.
Good morning. Thank you, director williams, and good morning, vice council president Clark and members of the committee. And thank you for your patience with us this morning, as I'll talk about a little bit at the end of the presentation, we were actually listening to the state hearing that just happened from until a few minutes ago on the same topic. For the record, my name is shoshana cohen, and I'm the chief of staff of the Portland bureau of transportation. And on the slide you can see the agenda for our presentation. We'll first provide an overview of the state of the industry of automated automated vehicles and lay out some of the promise of this new technology, as well as some of the challenges that other cities have experienced as avs have begun to operate on their streets. This, I think, will help to really ground us and our conversation in the reality of where the technology is today. We will then share an overview of some draft updates to administrative rule as. As vice council president Clark said, there is a standing administrative rule which the city put in place in 2018. So we have some proposed updates to those and we just sort of are here to talk to you about them in the path forward. And as I said already, this conversation is happening at the same time as the state conversation literally this morning. And there's some legislation that we will share a little bit more about what happened and sort of the just in time updates from this morning.
Just so you know, shoshana ogre is here, by the way.
Yes. And we've been we've been collaborating very closely with. And then finally, we'll talk a little bit about our recommended next steps. And of course want to hear from you about recommended next steps. And now I will turn it over to jacob sherman.
Thanks, shoshana. Good morning. Vice vice council president Clark and councilors. For the record, my name is jacob sherman, and I lead the city's work on emerging technology at the bureau of transportation. We're a team that's been working on policy and projects around electric vehicle, car charging, goods, movement, zero emission freight. We also lead our regulatory policy and public engagement work on car share and the private for hire industry, including tnc drivers. We also support the bureau's work on shared micro mobility, e-scooters and biketown, and are providing leadership for the city on the topic of automated vehicles. Next slide. It's important to understand that the city of Portland has been regulating the private for hire industry since the late 19th century, when we started making sure horse drawn carriages were safe. With the advent of the model t, the automobile was used to disrupt mass transit for the first time. So Portland and many other cities started regulating jitneys in the 19 tens in order to minimize the impacts on transit. As technologies have evolved, so did our private for hire regulations. And it's worth noting that the Oregon state legislature has long since recognized the authority of cities and counties to regulate private for hire transportation services. Today, the city of Portland regulates about eight different modes or services, including the most recent innovations transportation network companies like uber and lyft, which first came to Portland in 2016. To be clear, we see on demand autonomous vehicle networks as the next evolution of the private for hire industry. They are not something new. They are not categorically different than tncs and taxis. They're simply the next innovation. We've watched as avs have come to the streets of other us cities, and over the past several months have been working hard to develop what we believe might be a thoughtful approach to avs. We want to allow innovation, but the possible impacts of avs are not fully understood, so we need to create a careful approach to avs in a unique way, in a Portland way. Next slide. Pbot staff have been tracking the topic of automated vehicles for many years. As council vice president Clark said. In 2017, city council passed the smart autonomous vehicle initiative. It directed PBOT to develop a permit to test avs to engage the av industry, and it charged PBOT with continuing to regulate and permit automated vehicles moving forward. It's following this city council policy direction that we then developed and adopted administrative rules to create a testing permit. While we've talked to av companies over the years, no permits have been issued. There's been there hasn't been any actionable interest in our permit until recently. And that interest prompted us to take initiative, to take initiative and start the administrative process to update our rules, which we'll talk about in more detail later. Next slide in thinking about the promise and thinking about automated vehicles, we see potential benefits that avs might bring to our streets. Avs have the potential to eliminate human errors, since avs will never drive under the influence, or tired robo taxis won't be distracted by their phones or their kids, or their dogs in the back seat. Additionally, avs have been suggested to have better sensing and faster reaction times than humans, allowing them to slow down more quickly when obstacles are detected in the roadway. Personally, when I rode in my first robo taxi one night in la, I was impressed by how the advanced sensor systems could see pedestrians, cyclists and cars two or more blocks away at night that I could not see with my own eyes, like taxis or uber and lyft, avs can help fill current transportation gaps by providing another mobility option for portlanders, including those unable to drive due to disability, to age or to medical conditions. Some also suggest that avs could remove the driving task and free up more time to relax or socialize, or be more productive by working more. Next slide. However, the promise of avs isn't automatically given. Left to their own devices, companies might seek out strategies to maximize their own incentives rather than also deliver on public benefits. Without local regulations to help us move towards the promises, avs could exacerbate existing issues within the transportation system or create new problems. There are several issues that cities need to manage in order to minimize the impact on our streets and communities. These include making sure for hire avs are following the rules of the road, and not harming our core responsibility to ensure public safety. As part of this, it's crucial we're able to effectively communicate with companies and send them data on where work zones or major events are happening, like timbers matches, blazers games or the rose festival parade for hire. Avs will likely displace human drivers currently working for taxis and uber and lyft, from issuing permits to resolving conflicts with the tnc. Pbot staff work directly with drivers on a weekly basis, without public policy strategies to try and mitigate these impacts, driver in the Portland metro area could lose their job. Also, if not managed properly, avs could add to congestion, and the advanced sensor and video systems also beg important questions about consumer privacy and cyber security. Finally, there's also additional questions around land use, including where the avs will charge while traveling to and from charging depots, cause local congestion. In other cities, there's been land use conflicts between neighbors and charging stations, something that we want to avoid for Portland. These are some of the questions on land use that we need to discuss with our partners at the bureau of planning and sustainability. Next slide. Some policy and public health experts feel hopeful about avs. Waymo recently hit 127 million driverless miles and 10 million total driverless miles, with relatively good safety outcomes so far. But as a professor of engineering at the university of michigan recently said, quote, it looks like the numbers are very good and promising, but I haven't seen any unbiased, transparent analysis on autonomous vehicle safety. We don't have the raw data. End quote next slide. These headlines from the last six months show a variety of real world impacts. Other cities have been experiencing that give some reason to be concerned. These include safety issues around school busses to less than desirable interactions with first responders, to the death of a beloved neighborhood cat, concerns from rideshare drivers, and an incident just a week and a half ago where a child was hit, crossing the street to go to school by an av which may have been slightly speeding. Next slide. Is it too soon to for these companies to be claiming broad safety claims? I want to take a moment to go slow on this slide and highlight a few key concepts for councilors and members of the public. First, as a regulator of the private for hire industry, it's important to understand that the city focuses. Our rules on services are like taxis, not on individual companies like broadway cab or radio cab. But this is uniquely challenging for avs because each company has a different technology, different sensors, different hardware, different automated driving systems. So each company's claims need to be analyzed separately. We need to look at waymo, then we need to look at tesla and so on. Waymo has the most experienced automated driver, logging 127 million driverless miles. However, waymo's director of safety and research and best practices recently told bloomberg news that, quote, there is not sufficient mileage to make statistical conclusions about fatal crashes. In that piece, they acknowledged the average human driver travels about 123 million miles for every fatality, and that waymo has been involved in at least two fatal crashes despite not being directly responsible for them. It's important to note that the statistics for human drivers being involved in one fatality for every 123 million miles is literally based on millions or trillions of miles of travel data. So while waymo just got to their first 123 million miles without being responsible for a deadly crash, they'll need to provide millions or billions of more miles before we can have an actual apples to apples comparison. It's also worth noting that waymo's for hire avs have primarily driven on urban streets, with a speed limit of 35mph or less, so it's not quite fair to compare that to human drivers who operate on all sorts of different road conditions. Looking at another av, the national highway traffic safety administration recently investigated tesla's robotaxi data. Nhtsa showed that tesla's for hire avs have a crash rate of one per 55,000 miles, which is significantly higher than the average human driver rate of one. Police reported crash per 500,000 miles. While avs might one day prove to be safer than average human driver, it doesn't necessarily translate to safety improvements on our streets today. The biggest safety benefits would happen if the worst human drivers were the ones to take up avs. But those human drivers might not be the ones taking ubers or taxis or lyft's. Human drivers can bend the rules, but avs might as well, without appropriate regulatory oversight. For example, last fall, tesla's full self-driving software allowed an update that was called mad max mode, which ignored speed limits and drove dangerously. Teslas using autopilot or full self-driving have been responsible for fatalities, and this begs the question of whether we want robots to be allowed to break our society's rules of the road. Lastly, while avs can react faster than humans today, they're also making mistakes that even a 16 year old with a learner's permit permit probably wouldn't make. Robotaxis have taken a passenger into an active police standoff, as seen in the bottom right photo, and they recently drove with a passenger onto light rail tracks in phoenix. Next slide. After years of testing in a few markets, companies like waymo are now starting to scale. Waymo has successfully rolled out in five major us cities san francisco, los angeles, phoenix, austin and atlanta. They just announced a they've announced a goal to expand to 20 cities in 2026, and they literally just closed on a $16 billion funding round. So we can expect that number of cities to continue to grow. Waymo has not publicly announced a plan to come to Portland, but we did start having discussions with them last fall. As we'll discuss later, they are advancing legislation to enable avs in Oregon that would put limitations on how cities can regulate them, which we're very concerned about. Next slide. The expansion of avs in fleets like san francisco are starting to show the impact on the taxi and ride hail market, just as tncs disrupted the taxi industry, it took waymo only 20 months to gain nearly one third of the market share in san francisco, already overtaking lyft in total market share. We need to continue to watch how these trends shift and consider what this could mean to human drivers in Oregon. Next slide. All of the opportunities and challenges of avs that I've presented on make one thing perfectly clear. Cities, not state dots, are on the front lines of responding to these impacts and these issues. Just as with taxi companies and uber and lyft, we need to be able to properly enforce our rules and regulations and hold these technology companies accountable, whether that be through financial penalties or even permit suspensions or revocations. And this is only done when cities can maintain the ability to provide oversight, to put guardrails in place through our permits and our regulatory authority. However, there's a very concerning trend of statewide preemption afoot. Based on our early research. 31 states have some sort of preemptory legislation around the commercial operation of testing or avs. These state laws prevent cities from properly addressing concerns and ensuring that avs are smoothly added to the transportation system. It's against this backdrop that we've been hard at work to develop our proposed updates to administrative rules that we think could provide some oversight on automated vehicles. Our intent is that these draft rules will offer a viable alternative to statewide preemption that they balance, enabling innovation with a level of accountability that we believe portlanders will demand. To talk more about our draft rules, I'll pass the presentation to hannah morrison.
Thank you jacob. Good morning. Council vice president Clark and members of the committee. For the record, my name is hannah morrison, and I'm a planner on the mobility and innovation section at PBOT. Next slide. As has been discussed, we are here today to share our proposed updates to the administrative rules, which currently regulate the testing of automated vehicles in Portland. While developing these updates, we've engaged in one on one conversations and on national working groups with staff from over a dozen peer cities that are either actively preparing for this technology or already have avs testing, or commercially operating on their streets like austin, seattle and san francisco. These proposed updates contain what we consider to be best practices from model regulations, particularly those from the california public utility commission and the city of seattle. We've also modeled these proposed regulations off our own experience and successful history of regulating the private for hire transportation industry, as you've heard already, as well as our history of developing go to market frameworks for new technologies, including uber and lyft and e-scooters. Finally, I want to note that per our standard administrative rule update process, all rules go through a robust internal bureau and citywide review before going out for public comment. During this review period, we've received over 75 comments from subject matter experts across the city and have incorporated much of their feedback already. Next, I'd like to take you through our proposed updates to the administrative rule. These updates are designed to create a framework that enables PBOT to properly manage the integration of testing and for hire avs onto our city streets, and could help maximize the benefits and minimize the harms that have been previously described. Next slide. The submission of something called an operational design domain is standard practice for av regulations, and it requires the company to tell us where and in what conditions their fleet will operate. This includes what time of day and what environmental conditions the avs are prepared to operate in. From light rain to heavy rain, fog, snow or even wildfire smoke. The operational design domain would also describe any restrictions on operations that local jurisdictions should be aware of, including, for example, only traveling on streets with speeds of up to 35 miles an hour, or also traveling on highways, not driving through roundabouts. How they will navigate our unique bicycle safety infrastructure, or not driving through school zones or active work zones. Companies would also propose a map showing their intended service area in the city. From what we've seen in other other cities, service areas may be smaller and might not serve the whole city to start, but our goal would be to achieve citywide service. We would be working with the companies to grow their service area, and any proposed changes in service area would not be dictated solely by the company. They would be reviewed and approved by PBOT. Next slide. As previously mentioned, there are already some av companies operating in other cities and we suspect there may be more entrance to this market. One of our priorities is ensuring that we only permit safe companies and not possible bad actors. One way we propose to do this is by requiring companies to provide a statement detailing their testing and deployment experience that would disclose all reported crashes, injuries and other incidents that have negatively impacted the transportation system. This statement, as well as all other permit documents, will be posted on our website to promote transparency and let members of the public view them themselves. Av companies would also be required to comply with robust insurance and liability requirements, similar to other private for hire modes that we regulate. Our proposed rules would also require av companies to comply with our existing private for hire accessibility requirements, including providing reasonable accommodations to passengers with disabilities. Finally, we've included the best practice learned from seattle that would require these companies to host at least two annual public outreach events. These events would allow portlanders to get more comfortable with this new technology, and have questions answered directly by company representatives. Next slide. As you've heard this morning, the safety benefits that avs might bring could be substantial. I want to highlight a few sections of our proposed rule updates that are meant to help realize those benefits. First, companies would be required to submit a passenger safety plan. This would describe the main risks passengers could face and the steps taken to mitigate those risks. This includes everything from how passengers should safely identify, enter and exit their for-hire vehicle, from what passengers should do in the event of a crash, or how they should respond to unsafe scenarios outside the vehicle. Companies would also be required to submit a first responder plan, which has become standard practice across many jurisdictions. This plan would provide detailed information specifically for our first responders, who would be the ones directly interacting with avs in a collision or other emergency situation. Several peer cities have expressed the benefits of an in-person training for first responders that would show them how to check if the automated driving system is turned off, how to disengage that automated driving system if needed, and how to safely remove an av from the roadway. In order to ensure the safety of each av on our streets, we would also require companies to attest that all of their avs meet federal safety requirements and to complete our standard private for hire requirement of an annual mechanical safety inspection. Finally, I want to note our commitment to protecting other transportation modes like walking, bicycling, and taking transit while introducing this new technology to our streets. For this reason, our proposed rules include the prohibition of picking up or dropping off passengers in a vehicle or bicycle Lane. Also, to that end, we are reiterating the need to comply with all state and local laws, including local traffic laws and parking regulations, in these rules. And while we would be able to issue financial penalties for noncompliance, were also reiterating our ability to suspend or revoke permits for continued noncompliance. Next slide. So we have two main goals around data and privacy, both ensuring that we receive data from these companies and ensuring that the companies are protecting the data they're getting from passengers and from our city streets. Av companies would be required to share the same trip data with the city that taxis, uber, lyft, biketown, e-scooters and other modes already provide. This anonymous trip level data would help us understand how avs use the transportation system, and would help PBOT plan maintenance and form upgrades, or implement curb management strategies like new pickup and drop off zones that better support av operations. To ensure the passenger data is protected, companies would have to submit and receive approval on a privacy policy that details how the company will safeguard passengers personal, financial and travel information. Finally, while this is not in the proposed rule updates, I also wanted to share that we are engaged in conversations with peer cities about how to integrate av companies into our existing data frameworks, so that we can seamlessly share city data with companies around street closures. For events like Sunday parkways, planned protest locations, work zones, or first responder conflicts. Ideally, this information would be transmitted in real time to the avs operating on our streets, and they would be able to support public safety by updating their routes accordingly. This is an ongoing national conversation that aligns with much of our bureau's existing work on digitization, and would take advantage of frameworks already in use at PBOT. Next slide. Thank you. As I'm sure you're all aware, the transportation sector is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the city. Currently, all automated vehicles are electric vehicles, but our proposed rules would require that to remain the case so that this new mode contributes positively to our city and state decarbonization goals. Also, as a new entrant to the private for hire market for hire, avs would be required to pay the standard program permit and per trip fees. Just like taxis, uber and lyft, these fees would support the administration of the program, as well as make sure av companies are paying their fair share for maintenance and operations of the transportation system. Next slide. So all of the proposed updates that I've shared would not only cover the existing av testing permit, but also the new for hire av permit that we propose creating, as is currently allowed by the rule, any company may apply for an av testing permit. We have proposed two ways that a company can become eligible to apply for a for hire av permit, which would allow them to begin commercial operations. The first way is for a company to simply start with one of our av testing permits, and prove their technology on our streets by completing at least 500,000 automated miles in Portland without their permit being suspended or revoked. The second way to become eligible to apply for a for hire av permit allows a company to demonstrate that they have already proven their technology in other cities. If a company has tested or deployed in at least five other us cities, has completed at least 500,000 automated miles, and has had no permit, suspensions or terminations in the last three years, then they can also apply for a for hire av permit. Applying for a permit, of course, does not guarantee the issuance of a permit. The applicant must demonstrate their readiness to operate on our streets safely by meeting all requirements in our proposed rules. Once permits have been issued, PBOT retains the ability to limit fleet size and can increase or decrease the fleet cap based upon performance. Finally, as a reminder, these permits could be suspended or revoked for noncompliance. We believe that these proposed rules create a thoughtful framework that can balance the public interest with av, with allowing av companies to demonstrate that they can support safety and follow the rules in Portland. Thank you. And I'd now like to hand it back to PBOT chief of staff to give an update on the proposed state legislation.
Next slide please. Thank you hannah. So as I already mentioned this morning, the house committee on transportation held a hearing on house bill 4085. This bill would enable a personal avs, as well as avs for passenger and some goods movement across the state, and it would preempt local local cities from regulating these modes. We have been working closely with the office of government relations director chase and his team on this topic and on this bill actually for a couple for a while now. And PBOT director williams submitted a letter in opposition to hb 4085 that details our concerns, not just with the preemption, which, of course is sort of first and foremost, but that the bill does not adequately, adequately address essentially the topics that you see on the screen and the topics that we really just went through. As we're thinking about regulating regulation, we are concerned that if we are preempted, we will lose the ability for Portland to decide for ourselves an appropriate framework or frankly, just an appropriate path forward on this topic. And we do understand, and I think was made clear in the discussion this morning, there may be other jurisdictions and other folks who have an interest in a statewide framework and have an interest sort of in a statewide floor. So watching we just watched jacob testified also. And I you know, I wasn't keeping track exactly, but it seemed, you know, around 50, 50 maybe with folks showing up in support of the bill and, and people in opposition of the bill, there wasn't a decision to move it out of the committee or a vote this morning. They said they would be voting next time. We we were in opposition. A couple of key folks, the league of cities was in opposition. One of the one of the there was a lot of discussion about the promise of safety. And I think the promise of mobility, although then there were some different there's a lot of discussion about the ability for these to help the disabled community, but at the same time, waymo doesn't have wheelchair accessible vehicles. There's there's sort of, again, points about this. And then there were some people sort of making counterpoints to that. So that's essentially where we stand with the with the state bill. We will again continue working closely. We haven't had a chance to fully debrief, but we'll continue working closely with the office of government relations and stay very engaged on that topic. That's sort of the highest priority right now, is making sure we don't get preempted. And then finally, I would like to and actually one more one more point on that bill, just as I started with, again, that not only regulates things like waymo that we've been talking about for passenger autonomous vehicles, but some goods movement and some personal vehicles. And so one of our main points, again, is not just about preemption, but that the bill is simply too complex. And those are different, all different things that need to be tackled separately. Next slide please. Next slide again. So finally I would like to share. And this is where we of course want to hear from you all and move into discussion. But our sort of recommended next steps at this point are as as hannah detailed, we have been working on this draft administrative rule update from what we have, and we would put that out normally. We put out administrative rules for public comment for 30 days. Knowing the complexity of this topic, we're proposing to put it out for 45 day public comment period. In that time, we would also schedule a public hearing. We also schedule industry specific listening session with the for hire industry, including the drivers and, you know, continue with really robust engagement both internally and externally. After that period, we would, of course, gather all of the feedback and summarize it. And essentially that's sort of where we are. We gather feedback, summarize it, and then sort of figure out the next steps with city leadership together. And I think that concludes our presentation and want to hear from you all at this point.
Thank you so much, shoshana. And panelists. This is an excellent overview. I know we're going to have a lot of questions and comments both on your administrative rule, but just generally, I don't know if sam chase wanted to make any comment or if shoshana covered that adequately. Okay. Thank you for being on point this morning in Salem to a really appreciate that we offered that testimony. I've got lots of questions, but let's first go to councilor Koyama Lane who has her hand up.
I really appreciate the briefing today. I'm getting constituents reaching out about this topic, and from what I'm hearing, PBOT staff are doing a really good job at highlighting concerns, questions, and the need for more information. I could see that in the presentation, and it seems like you guys are displaying a really thoughtful approach, and it's great that you're working with ogre. One of my first questions for the city staff is how do autonomous vehicles align with or potentially conflict with our vision zero goals?
Thanks for the question. Councilor Koyama Lane. Again, I think we see the possibility that these technologies could help improve safety on the streets. And at the same time, we're also seeing real world challenges in some other cities. So I think this is a big part of the reason that our conversation with the state legislature is that we should go a little bit more slowly on this, and that we should have an ability where cities can have some level of accountability and oversight on the companies, if they're regulated solely by a state dot. We can't be certain that our issues will get the level of care and attention that we know our community members are going to be asking of us. So, you know, we have spoken with our vision zero lead for the city. We've also spoken with our own vision zero team in developing these draft rules, and we welcome a lot more feedback on them to see if we think we might cross the bar on some of those safety considerations.
Maybe I'll just add a little bit. I think really at the crux of the issue is that the promise of helping to to achieve vision zero is, you know, is really what what people who are excited, that's one of the main things is can we make our streets safer? But as some of the data that jacob referenced earlier, it's just too soon to make that claim. And so we need that local control because it's just not clear that that's true yet.
Thank you. And it is great to hear that there is an awareness that it's preempting. Cities would be not great and that we need meaningful local guardrails to make sure that we're protecting our protecting portlanders. And I it was interesting to look back at city council in 2017 talking about some of this. And I have some of the same priorities about personal safety, data sharing, use equity, accessibility. If you're if you've followed recent meetings, you'll know we're talking a lot about privacy and surveillance. And from what I'm learning, autonomous vehicles rely a lot on 360 degree camera systems that are capturing faces and license plates and detailed information about people just moving around in public spaces and having vehicles like that in our neighborhoods could seems like it could dramatically expand surveillance, particularly of children and people biking, walking, or other vulnerable community members. So other questions that I have that I'm asking that I think you guys are hoping to be asking to what data is being collected, how long is it stored, who has access to it? Local, state, federal agencies? Are there privacy preserving alternatives that we can that can be considered? I've heard about radar based systems rather than the constant video recording, and then also alternatives to app based interfaces. So we're not widening that digital divide that that is real. Yeah. So I appreciate that you all are being very thoughtful. And if you want to respond to any of that, that's great. But I think these are also questions that you are bringing to the state level.
Thank you. Councilor. Great list, great questions, great observations. Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo: Thank you, councilor Clarke. I completely agree with all of the questions that councilor Koyama laid out. I think the storage and who gets to access that information is really important. And maybe these companies are doing it differently company by company. I think that's also part of the issue, that it's going to be incredibly difficult for us to have to track and regulate every single different company, the type of software that they use, how it interacts based on how the algorithm tells one vehicle to, okay, if you're coming up against a crash like you turn, whereas another vehicle might stop, you know, if they're basically algorithmically designed to react differently there, the safety component will potentially conflict. I think for me, one of the top issues, apart from everything the councilor Koyama Lane laid out already, is also how this is going to impact workers. We know that a ton of people right now, especially in this economy, are using lyft or uber or other rideshare food delivery things and taxi services to stay employed or doing that part time to supplement their income. And to me, I, I see no purpose in how this would possibly help our constituents because a lot of the employees who do that work are often disabled themselves, which is why they have to work in the gig economy and do different types of work. And a lot of those people are also immigrants, people who are doing this labor in order to take care of their families. So I have just immense amounts of concerns about the impacts on our economy and on people moving forward. And I am frankly, disturbed and very frustrated that the state legislature would try to preempt our ability to regulate this, because this is going to impact cities the most. This is where these vehicles are more densely being driven and used. And I cannot see at this time being convinced in any way that I would want any autonomous vehicles to be allowed in the city. The net negatives that are being provided completely outweigh the net goods to me. And I appreciate you guys looking into all of this, and I really appreciate your work, particularly to sort of outline the different regulations or ways that we could, you know, address how they actually operate with some guardrails if they if it comes to that. But I think my position as of right now is that we completely halt them all together. Thank you.
Thank you, councilor Morillo, and for being so candid. Appreciate that, councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith: Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you all for presenting today. And I have a bunch of questions. Administrative rule trn 14 .34 already treats autonomous vehicles operations as a privilege, not a right, and requires a permit for sea level three plus vehicles. What are the top 3 to 5 changes you're making now, and what new enforcement leverage does PBOT gain?
Yeah, thanks. Councilor Smith, I think some of the biggest changes that we're making now is updating what had been our testing permit, which we were working on in 2017 and 2018, and again, which we have never issued to a company, despite conversations we've had with some of those companies. So I think that in and of itself has been a big piece of the work, trying to kind of take thinking from seven, eight years ago and bring it into the reality of what we're seeing based off of san francisco or austin or phoenix. I think some of the other big changes that the proposed rule is allowing would allow for a for hire commercial permit. So some companies waymo, I think, in particular would say we have already tested our vehicles in other markets. We're currently operating in five other markets. We're getting ready to test in london and tokyo and other places like that. And so this for hire commercial permit would put some of those rules and regulations and guardrails in place that could allow the company to smart start operations in a small way. And then if they show, they can follow the rules of the road, we could kind of grow that over time. I think we would clearly need to have a conversation about what an appropriate fleet size looks like, how many vehicles. And I think the other piece of both of these permits is that we believe they provide the level of accountability that, frankly, we're not seeing in the state's current bill. The state's bill would currently only let an automated vehicle company get their permit suspended or revoked if they had a substantial risk of death, or if they killed someone or had bodily dismemberment. We're concerned that automated vehicles could get hundreds of traffic tickets. And as we know for human drivers, when you get hundreds of traffic tickets, at some point your driver's license gets suspended or revoked. In fact, our tnc and our taxi drivers, if they get two traffic citations in one year, we actually say they're not safe and shouldn't be driving on the streets of Portland. So I think we we feel that we need to have some line, some level of accountability where if we say, this is the 47th time we've seen this automated vehicle stopping in a in a bus Lane or picking someone up in a bicycle Lane, maybe this doesn't make sense right now because they're not following the rules of the road. And so I think the level of accountability that we've included in this proposed rule is something that's significantly different from the past.
Where you're going exactly where I was going to go. So to support vision zero, the proposal requires a passenger safety plan. And when what is PBOT approval standard and what are the clear no go conditions where PBOT will deny a permit or cause or pause operations?
That's a great question. We're still working through the details of what would be included in a passenger safety plan. We are happy to have conversations with your office if you have specific feedback on that. Again, this being a little bit of a stepwise process, we wanted to see where council was kind of broadly before we start investing significant staff time. And in some of these next steps.
I understand. So what is the required reporting timeline to PBOT and what happens if a company fails to report or delays their reporting.
So through the proposed rules, if if companies fail to meet the requirements, we can move through civil penalties. Those penalties could be anywhere ranging from 12 $1,250 per incident per day, up to $5,000 per incident per day. And then it could escalate beyond that, out of financial penalties into suspension of permits, whether that's 30 days, 60 days, 90 days or just complete revocation, terminating their permit and their ability to operate. These are similar approaches that we took when we managed the introduction of e-scooters to the city back in 2018, where we created a structure of rules that had both, I think, opportunity for company to to show they could meet those rules, but also had penalties. And we did in the e-scooter pilot end up asking some companies to no longer continue to do business here because they weren't able to meet our standards.
Right. And I'm glad we have that history of being able to do that and not, you know, thinking about the everyday resident who may have some some issues with that. And I too have some of the same concerns about data sharing that my colleagues were talking about. Councilor Morillo and councilor Koyama Lane. I'm going to send you all these questions. I'm not going to go through all of them, but the concern that I have is the proposal requires trip level data sharing, compliance with the Oregon consumer privacy act, and submissions of a privacy policy. What exact data fields are required and who has access, and how long is it retained, and what audits or penalties ensure compliance. And I'm going to send you these these questions and we can talk about it in the last one that that I'm going to send you as well. What I am really concerned about is the presentation highlights labor impacts, reducing the need for human drivers. What is the city's plan to address workforce displacement? And I think councilor Morillo alluded to that as well earlier. I'm concerned about that. We're in a realignment process right now here at the city. We're also in a process of finding out exactly how much money we have in the city coffers. And I'm not ready to to go forward with our realignment processes until I understand what our money across all bureaus look like. And if there are any subaccounts in different and different bureaus that we don't know about. And so for me, this coming alongside our realignment process and, and actually trying to figure out about the avs, I'm concerned that that's going to have a huge impact on our our workforce. I'm the chair of the labor and workforce committee, and I'm I'm just worried about people losing their jobs. And after being at the city for so long. And, you know, what can we do to make sure that we keep living wage jobs in areas where we need people to make those split second decisions and and not necessarily on an avi? I still remember, I think it was at christmas time in san francisco. Those cars, those avs going in circles and no one could stop them. That, that that gives me a bad image in my head of what could happen here in Portland because of how our our streets are one way, particularly downtown, one way and the other way and how we could get I mean, it could actually happen. They could go into circles around city hall. So I want some more. You don't have to answer all these questions right now. I'm going to send you all nine of them. And we can we can follow back up on that. But I just wanted to let you know what I'm thinking about and that this is I'm taking this very seriously.
Okay.
Thank you. We look forward to getting those questions and we're happy to provide detailed written response.
Thank you.
Thank you, councilor Smith. I really appreciate that. I, I so appreciate my colleagues digging into this and taking this very, very seriously. We're really on the threshold of so much change. And sometimes it's it's overwhelming. And I want to thank you, jacob, for giving us a little bit of historical context on technological changes, how this is not the first time that the city has had to deal with these kinds of changes over time, but right now, you know, this feels like the ai of transportation. You know, we're we're dealing with that. It's just it's it's a brave new world out there. And and I think it can be very at least for me, I'll speak for myself. Kind of disturbing, you know, that that that change that's coming. And I always just my nature, I'm sort of resistant to change and don't not really interested in this. Here we are, the change they want to see. But it's it's interesting. I was in phoenix and san francisco and saw these waymo's just flash by one after another, and I felt like I was in a science fiction movie. It was. Just it was really too much. I wanted to ask you somebody. I'm not sure which one of you mentioned that they're looking at london. Are there is any of this going on in europe other than london?
That's a great question, hannah. I don't know your perspective on that.
Yeah, I know waymo has introduced has announced that they're going to deploy in london and tokyo this year. There are several other companies just not us based that are testing in europe and all over asia. So we're not the only ones dealing with this for sure.
I'm just interested because we're like one of the most european kind of cities and, you know, stressing transit, stressing pedestrian and bike transportation, that this is going to be a very complex environment for them to enter into. Can you tell me? I don't know, we may need sam for this, but this bill, house bill 4085, was, I think, sponsored by senator mclean. Is that right? And was that in the transportation committee? Yeah. This morning.
Yeah, the house committee on transportation this morning.
And have we had much of a chance to talk to our Portland delegation about this? Sam can help us out.
Sam.
Just I would just say in my experience working in representing TriMet for many years that our Portland delegation really didn't seem to be very interested in transportation related issues. Maybe that's changing, but I think it's important that we let all of them know what their risks are and how we're feeling here at the city that. Sam, can you introduce yourself?
Hi. Sam chase, director for the Portland office of government relations. You know, I think derek bradley is our full time lobbyist on this on this issue and is working closely with legislators to make sure they're understanding the city's concerns. You know, so this is in the house committee, chaired by mclean. And if it goes through the committee, then there is a fiscal on it. So it goes into probably the ways and means transportation and economic development subcommittee for more work there. So there's there's more opportunity to continue to socialize and get and ensure that legislators are understanding the city's position. But there's still more work to to do. And the the communication needs to continue to really make sure that legislators are understanding the importance of getting these issues right and working toward solutions in future long session 2027 or beyond. But but the real message being, you know, the the that the city has not taken a position of opposition. You know, I know that we're hearing different perspectives here. She has not taken a position of opposition to av visa, but to this legislation moving forward with preemptions that has all of these issues still. So a lot of communication happening with legislators. But I want to be clear that there still needs to be a lot more communication on this.
Can you just remind us who who chairs the ways and means transportation sub?
I wish I could remind you. I'm not.
Sure we'll find out later. Or maybe.
Be ruiz.
Oh, okay. Thank you. He's chairing that. Interesting. Thank you. Sam, I appreciate that. As far as the updating the administrative rules, I think we all need to weigh in on that. I can see the importance of updating them and getting ahead of the issue. I'm not excited about it or happy about it. I think my colleagues have reflected my own concerns and comments about it, but I think it's important that we get ahead of this and that we do pursue the administrative rules. Colleagues, do you have any concerns about that? Councilor Koyama Lane, do you have your hand up? Not on that one. Any comments about going forward on the on administrative rules? Okay, so I know. Go ahead. Shoshana.
Well, and I was just going to say the next step really is the public comment period. So we also if we if we go to that step and then we sort of see how much more comment we get and how much, how much, what else comes up during that period, then I think there's an opportunity to sort of check back in at that point as well.
Would you or do you coordinate with the city's community engagement person?
Yeah, yes. We will definitely make sure that she can help us spread the word as robustly as possible.
And I'm happy to put something in my newsletter. And perhaps my colleagues are too, to encourage community feedback on the whole concept at this point. Yeah. Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane: Yeah, I was glad to see that slide that you all are already thinking about the outreach point, and I had already sent it to my team and said, let's make sure we activate community and just want to emphasize the importance of outreach. Specifically, I am talking to my colleagues up here because I think we can be doing that with our constituents of older adults, people with disabilities, caregivers, families. So as much as we can be reaching out to those communities to make sure that they're part of this conversation, as we know that those communities might be disproportionately impacted by whatever rules are adopted and how autonomous vehicles operate in neighborhoods.
Thanks so much, councilor. I just also wanted to add, as of Friday, we launched our first website on this topic, so we'll be putting more information up there. As it becomes available. We'll include a link to the slides from today. We can probably include a link to the test, the written testimony the city submitted on the bill. But as we get ready to do open house and other things like that, we'll be able to publicize those events on the website. We'll make sure you all have the link to that as well.
Great. I really appreciate that you're ahead of the game. I really appreciate that. Any other comments from my colleagues? Well, thank you so much for today's presentation. It was very thorough, interesting historical context 2017. Who knew I wasn't paying any attention then? But again, I'm a little rattled by the fast pace of technology. What's coming at us as reflected by waymo and ai and so forth. But thank you for your good work. Really, really appreciate your presentation today. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
Okay, colleagues, just a couple of announcements before we break. I am I'm really I'm really concerned about this. I don't know about you all but how this is going to evolve is, is to me almost frightening. Our next meeting is February the 23rd. And what I want to do is remind all of us that in the month of February and actually going into March, we have our open houses going on. Regarding transportation funding. I hope you've all put those on your calendar. District one is February 23rd at the elementary school cafeteria in the evening. District two is Tuesday, March the 3rd at the mlk elementary school cafeteria in the evening. District three is February 25th, 630 to 830 at the atkinson elementary school cafeteria, and district four is February 19th. It's just around the corner at elementary school gym. I intend to be there. I'm going to. I hope to be at all of them if I can make it just to kind of take the pulse of where folks are. But I think it's important that we as much as can and we can afford to, to be at those. So I just want to remind everyone on the 20 back to the 23rd, we are going to have an update on asset management. The resolution that we passed last August just get kind of a status report on how that's going, what's happening there. And then we're also going to have a presentation from the water bureau. They're going to give us an update on the bull run filtration project, which is very, very important. What's been happening with that, all the delays and how that's affecting the cost. Our last meeting in this format is in March, March the 9th. And what I'm hoping colleagues at that meeting, we can dig in a little bit more to what we heard in the community engagement sessions and see if we can't ourselves start to zero in on something that we want to pursue as far as revenue, if we want to pursue anything. So think about that for March the 9th, that if we do want to pursue something, then we'll want to start having an ordinance drafted that we can maybe even I don't know, I haven't really thought this through, but maybe share with finance committee or some of our other colleagues certainly bring anything to committee of the whole. If that's the way we go, we'll definitely want to bring our proposal there if we have one. So that's March the 9th. That's our last meeting as this particular committee. And at that day we'll also talk about the get a short session brief from ogre. And I think PBOT may have a street vacation. Who knows what else will come up that will have to do at our last meeting. But that's what I intend for March the 9th. So, so without any further questions or comments or discussion, I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee. Oh, sorry.
You have a handout.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see.
Thank you. I think you're absolutely right. I think that we do need to put something forward because we may have some information back, possibly from the disparity study. And if we do, we want to put a committee bill in front of the finance committee so that so that the finance chair and the mayor will have this in front of them as, as, as a priority, because I think it is so important that we also put some money because the the, the apprenticeship program money is coming up for renewal for 26, 27. And I'm hearing that we don't have enough money for cobid. And I'm also hearing and I think we need to expand the cobid dollars. And we also need to identify some, some ongoing resources for our summer works program, because we passed that bill last year, but we did not pass a, you know, an ordinance that says we will do x, y, z dollars. But if we're going to do a committee bill, I think we it should include some of those things that we've already passed and that we have already had a commitment to. And we know that the apprenticeships are going to be critical specifically on these big three projects that we have with ibr, with the rose quarter, that's in whatever form it comes through during this session. But we're going to need to have. And the third one is cip. I consider that the third big infrastructure project, because we're going to need apprenticeship apprenticeships, and we're going to have have to have those pre-apprenticeship programs funded. And if they're on the chopping block during this realignment, which I'm really I'm telling you, madam chair, I am so not comfortable right now with realignment because I'm not comfortable with the numbers that that came out this weekend about the Portland housing bureau. And I think some of those dollars can be used because that's that is where the money comes from, from the housing department. And we may need to I know they have other things that they have on their agenda, since we can't talk about 26, 27 yet, but I certainly want us to be mindful that there there are opportunities to have specific dollars come out of that, out of that pot. But, I mean, it's timely. I'm saying this to say what you're suggesting about having a committee bill go through finance. I think that is that is the appropriate thing for us to do, to weigh in from a committee level and to ask for dollars, because in other spaces, in other legislative spaces, policy committees have money attached to them, and we didn't get any monies attached to to us. I mean, we're I'm going to I'm going to give us a little bit of grace, you know what I mean? Because we can't do everything. We can't think of everything. And we are we are a government and and process and process of getting all of our foundation together. So we did what was necessary this past year. So now we can start building on that foundation of having actual dollars associated with our committees and bringing forward committee bills like they do in the Oregon legislature. And those are usually the priority things that that committee really wants.
Well, councilor Smith, I'm glad you brought that up, because I think this committee is interested in growing some money. Yes. And we may maybe one of the.
I want to grow it in.
That's growing and spending for cip. Of course. Yes. But are you are you talking about introducing something around those apprenticeship issues or workforce issues in your committee?
No, I'm talking about from the transportation standpoint, just just because.
But you're talking bigger than transportation. You're talking works.
Right? But yeah. And like I said, it can actually go through the the arts and economy committee because that's where the housing stuff comes from. But I think it crosses because, because there are so many things going on. We heard ivr said that they're going to have 20 to 25,000 jobs last year.
Right. Where's the workforce coming?
Where's the workforce coming from? We don't have no let's put it like this. It's not where we don't have it here. We got to grow it and build it and mature it. And if we put something forward from the transportation side.
Well, I'm glad you're thinking about this. We have time to develop something. When we come back after we have these committee hearings, I'm hoping that everybody will come back with a preference or an idea how we want to pursue, because the the PBOT did a great job putting that report together for us on those those 20 different revenue mechanisms, narrowing it down to four. It's incumbent on all of us to really give that some thought when we get together on March the 9th. So perfect. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. I guess now I will adjourn.
Okay.
T&e committee.
Thank you, thank you.
That was.