My dissention and objection to the Street Maintenance Fee is not the concept itself, but that (1) NOT all the money collected will be used for street maintenance, and (2) the residential discount program that allows bicyclists and transit users to poach the costs for their use of streets, roads, and their mobility costs from other taxpayers. Sam’s orchestrated town hall charade, citizen committees disproportionately crammed with special interest stakeholders looking for a free ride, and bias sanctioned hoopla has been a preconceived
back room plotted agenda to deceive Portlanders into providing more public funding for freeloading pedal pushers rather than a true concern for fixing streets, reducing congestion, and minimizing taxpayer funded transportation costs and subsidies to businesses and the majority of households. User fees must only to be used to pay for the infrastructure used, not a socialistic means that attempts to dictate how people travel.

The special interests of freeloading pedal pushers (who are bending over backwards to thank Sam for his earmarking of taxpayer dollars for them), snail rail streetcar activists and other transit advocates has become so embedded into Portland politics, the City has become a no compromise welfare community for bicyclists and transit riders. This good buddy usual suspect network that now dominates Portland’s stacked deck transportation citizen committee process needs to be changed, and better reflect actual transport mode split with quantitative business, motorist and motorist commuter representation. This is not to say that good people with majority and freight interests do not already have minority representation on such committees. However red flags should be raised all over the place when taxpayer funded alternative transport lobbyists/non-profit groups are aggressively urging and influencing taxpayer policy including spending taxpayer dollars for their non-user taxed transport infrastructure schemes. Bicyclists need to be paying for bicycle infrastructure and transit riders need to be paying the majority of the costs for streetcars.

As for the BTA, it is like a leach organization attaching itself to taxpayers sucking on their wallets for their own self serving special interest. They act like spoiled little gen-x children that want everything delivered to them free of charge on a silver platter. Sam has become their sugar daddy acting more like a mafia thug that goes around and extorts protection money from businesses and residential households. Because the bicycling community has been supportive of Sam’s bid for public office, Sam is returning the favor buying into their rhetoric with taxpayer funded political perks in true socialist dictator fashion. Because of this cozy relationship the BTA has with Sam’s office and his transportation advisor cohorts, PDOT at the expense of motorists, motor freight carriers and non bicyclist taxpayers has been realigned to create more areas where the freeloading pedal pushers can display their carelessness, recklessness and irresponsible behavior. That links Sam to Portland fast becoming a bicycling mayhem city and the out of control bicycling behavior that is partly responsible for and devastatingly contributing to deadly conflicts between motorists and bicyclists. Sharing the road not only means sharing the financial responsibility, but it also means compromise, bicyclists STOPPING and yielding/giving up the right-of-way in some areas and under some circumstances.

One other note, referring to my statement: “the majority of bicyclists, as well as many of those who are employed by the City, arrogantly ignore traffic control devices including not stopping at stop signs and blowing through red lights” - A number of City staffers have admitted to not stopping at stop signs and simple observation at intersections with traffic control devices that are frequented by bicyclists prove that bicyclists deliberately, intentionally and knowingly ignore traffic control laws and devices.