Tom is running for one of the three District 3 seats on Portland City Council. He's a community organizer who founded Asian American Town, a platform that supported Asian American makers, entrepreneurs and small business owners. In this interview with BikePortland Editor & Publisher Jonathan Maus, Tom shares his views on transportation-related topics like: bike lanes on Sandy Blvd., where to park cars, Vision Zero, the 82nd Avenue Transit Project, the city's public outreach problems, and more. He also explains his general platform which is heavy on building economic resilience for Portland by starting with small businesses and the people who own and work at them.

Links:

1. Tom's campaign website
2. Tom's IG
3. Asian American Town
4. City of Portland 2026 Election website

Portland-based economist, co-founder of No More Freeways, and publisher of City Observatory Joe Cortright talks about the massive new cost estimate for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program in this interview with BikePortland's Jonathan Maus.

Links

1. Joe's blog post with all the details
2. Video of this interview on YouTube
3. Willamette Week story
4. Joint Interim Committee on Transportation Oversight 1/14/26 meeting on "cost overruns"

Very excited to share this episode with the two leading generals in the War on Cars, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon. They joined us at Bike Happy Hour last night during their visit to Portland to promote their new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile.

Sarah is a writer and former editor at Streetsblog and Doug is a bike advocate extraordinaire who joined with Sarah and (Streetsblog founding editor) Aaron Naparstek to create The War on Cars podcast in 2018. That pod is now a huge success and this book is an extension of their efforts to mainstream a low-car world.

We had a wonderful conversation, made even more special in front of the energy of the live audience. Thanks for listening and please support and subscribe to BikePortland if you value my unique brand of community-building journalism. I rely on individuals like you to support this work! Subscribe today here.

Link: Life After Cars book website with links to purchase!

*BikePortland - Community Journalism Since 2005*

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Abdulrahman "Abe" Alkhamees is the man behind The Paperclip, which I've followed for years on Instagram for his excellent photography and profiles of riders and framebuilders. Abe's latest project is a square-bound magazine. He stopped by the Shed with a copy to tell me about his inspiration, what stories made the cut, and more. We also talked about his inspiration and background.

Pre-orders for the $25 magazine are open until November 14th. Half the proceeds from sales will be donated to the Gaza Sunbirds paralympic cycling team, who are one of the stories featured in the issue.

Links:

• BikePortland writeup with short video highlights from this interview.
• The Paperclip website where you can pre-order.
• The Paperclip on IG

Two years ago this week I was in Manhattan covering the Vision Zero Cities conference hosted by the great nonprofit Transportation Alternatives. At a panel discussion titled, Supersized SUVs, Mega Trucks, and Regulatory Failure, one of the speakers made me sit up and take notice: He railed against feckless leadership that wouldn't improve bus service, critiqued the "war on cars," called for higher taxes on large vehicles that are more prone to kill people, and spoke about traffic victims and transportation policy with the candor, clarity and conviction you'd expect from an activist.

But this wasn't an activist. It was an elected official. He was a member of the state assembly named Zohran Mamdani. Yes, the same Mamdani who might very well be New York City's next mayor in a few weeks.

This audio from that 2023 conference is a detailed view inside Mamdani's mind and it reveals how he approaches what are still some the most important road safety and transportation topics of the day.

Links:

• BikePortland recap of this panel discussion
• Mamdani campaign website
• Please support this work! Subscribe today!

1000 Friends of Oregon Transportation Policy Manager Cassie Wilson has worked for over a year as a leader with the Move Oregon Forward coalition in hopes of passing a transportation bill that goes beyond freeway expansion megaprojects and continues the march toward better transit, bicycling, and walking conditions statewide.

As someone who's been in the trenches on this effort for more than a year now, I wanted to check in to see what's on her mind and how she's feeling as the bill has been whittled down to almost nothing and might be headed to referral.

Links:

• BikePortland coverage of the bill.
• 1000 Friends of Oregon
• HB 3991 Bill Overview

Portland road safety advocate Sarah Risser (Bike Loud, PBOT Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Families for Safe Streets) and I talk about the pros and cons of blaming individuals over the system when it comes to traffic crashes.

This conversation was inspired by a social media post when I scolded a driver for causing a bad wreck. Sarah then suggested I watch a video about Safety Science from Transportation Alternatives and narrated by safety expert and There Are No Accidents author Jessie Singer.

We dive into the need for blame, the limits of systems thinking (when our systems are totally dysfunctional), and several related issues around why fixing our broken streets and associated traffic culture is so challenging in America.

We're back!

Eva Frazier joined me (BikePortland founder and editor Jonathan Maus) for our 40th episode of "In the Shed," the show where we chat about whatever comes to mind. In this episode we touched on a bunch of good stuff:

• The Reign of Taco Ride
• The wonder of Portland's neighborhood greenway network
• Why runners and cyclists should get together
• The Portland Biking Renaissance (and why Mayor Wilson should embrace it)
• Our impressions of MADE Bike Show
• Week Without Driving
• How many city councilors can we get to participate in Sunday Parkways?
• NW diverter update
• Eva's Cargo Bike Picnic and general Bike Summer amazingness
• Portland Botanical Garden coming along river near University of Portland
• Progress on North Portland Greenway

And more!

Thanks for listening. And thanks to all BikePortland financial supporters and monthly subscribers. Please become a paid subscriber of BikePortland today so we can keep making cool things for you to read, watch, and listen to.

In this episode I share 16 short interviews with folks I bumped into at the MADE Bike Show on Friday, August 22nd. The show runs through this weekend, so you should totally go check it out if you're hearing this any time before August 25th!

Sit back and enjoy fun chats with:

• Mike Smith, co-founder of No. 22 Bicycle Co
• Natalie Peet, bikepacking racer repping Slow Southern Steel
• Gary Fisher, MTB icon
• Dave Bonilla, Portlander and @daverave64 on Instagram
• Molly Lofton and Megan Dean, Moondust Apparel
• Mark DiNucci, Portland framebuilding legend
• Brad Davis, Nomad Cycles PDX
• Oscar McBain, UC Davis Campus Bike Shop GM
• Wendy Downs, Inside Line Equipment
• John the Johnster, cool Portlander who I follow on Instagram
• Dylan Wiggins, Right Hook Finishes
• Brad Wilson, Wilde Bikes
• Dave Levy, Ti Cycles
• Brian Tucker, Yellow Bird Thread Works
• Brenda Martin, another cool Portlander!

It's all anyone in the local bike and transportation scene has been talking about for the past two weeks — a plan hatched by an opaque city office to remove diverters on two neighborhood greenways in northwest Portland under the guise of making it easier for police to patrol the area.

In this episode, BikePortland founder, publisher, and editor Jonathan Maus welcomes community advocate and former host of the the Sprocket Podcast, Joan Petit, into the Shed to hash it all out.

Links:

- BikePortland coverage so far

- City Administrator Michael Jordan's Memo (PDF)

- Central Precinct Commander argument for the plan

- The historic 8/12 Bike Advisory Committee meeting

- Portland Solutions org chart

#portlandoregon #goodgovernance #portland #advocacy #urbanplanning #politics #policing #streetdesign