It's OUR money too! And for what?

The recent Willamette Week had this nugget - a follow up to their exposé of the Portland Bike Share program in August.  The paper decries the attempts of members of Portland's city council to expand a program that hasn't yet achieved initial funding, and is even considering filling the funding gap with city money in direct opposition to their own demand that Alta Bike Share find their own source of money.   Concerning state and federal grants, it's our money too!

As you read about this and other transportation programs, notice how they seem to benefit the well-off and leave the poorest neighborhoods out in the cold.  Ever wonder why?

Novick Seeks $2.5 Million for Portland Bike Share's Second Phase  NewsDec. 11th, 2013, Aaron Mesh

The Big Bike Bailout  News StoriesAugust 14th, 2013, Aaron Mesh

Records show the city may spend millions to finance Portland’s Bike Share—and leave out many neighborhoods. 

"When the Portland City Council accepted a $2 million federal grant to start a bike-share program in 2011, it did so on one condition: No city money would help pay for it.

Instead, the council insisted, the company that ran the bike-share program would have to find any additional money needed to get the program rolling.

At the time, several local leaders voiced objections to the bike-share program because it served mostly the affluent central city and didn’t reach poorer neighborhoods in North and East Portland.

But documents obtained by WW show city transportation officials are discussing reversing that plan and using  city money to finance as much as $4.6 million of the start-up costs faced by the private vendor, Portland-based Alta Bike Share.

The documents also indicate fears about the exclusivity of the program may be justified: Preliminary maps show bike-share stations will be concentrated in downtown and close-in East Portland, cutting out many low-income neighborhoods.

Nearly all of those sites are in downtown, Northwest Portland and the inner east side, with a few outliers along North Williams Avenue and in the South Waterfront. 

The easternmost station on the map is at Northeast 22nd Avenue and Broadway. "

Perfect comment from a WW reader:

Pluke PDX • 4 months ago

$6.6M for 750 bikes? In a city where anyone who is likely to bike already owns a bike? And where you can regularly find bikes for $100 on craigslist? Genius.
Why not allow 66,000 low-income individuals to apply for a free bike instead?

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This isn't just a boondoggle for Portland - the Portland Bike Share program (still stalled for

 lack of funding) would gobble up our state and federal tax dollars too.  This isn't "free" money
folks - the country is drowning in debt (going under faster and deeper) and the state is continually
cutting back on Medicaid and education because of budget constraints.  But there is money
in their tills to be funding bicycles for the well off?  

Every time you hear that ANY locale, including Lake Oswego, starts down the road of
using grants (even private grants that rewuire matching funds, future public operational
expense, or strings attached), or allowing tax dollars spent on facilities that will serve only a
tiny portion of the population, think again.  As attractive and utopian Copenhagen and
Amsterdam are with their dominant bicycle and train cultures, it isn't possible to transplant
this social and physical environment by force or by any amount of money and hope to
achieve the same thing.