He used to head Metro, and has thankfully left for New York. But he wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Statesman Journal yesterday, and it's actually pretty spot-on. If you ignore his obligatory blather about transit and look just at the take on overall transportation, even he recognizes that the problem in Oregon isn't funding, but incompetent management.
Oregon’s transportation problem is not lack of money. What Oregon really has is a transportation governance and management problem. That problem needs to be fixed before Oregon’s streets, highways, bridges and transit can get fixed.
In response to concerns about ODOT mismanagement, Gov. Kate Brown asked the agency’s own board to review its performance. But asking an agency to review itself rarely provides fresh critical thinking. And ostensibly “independent” consultants who are supervised by the agency itself and dependent on the agency’s future contracts are part of the familiar cronyism of consultancy, telling agencies what they want to hear.
As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
