Portland Transportation Recovery and Accountability Plan

You do not need to be an institution to demand accountability from one.

A defensible explanation for every transportation reduction can still leave people with a system that does not meet their needs. Portlanders should be able to see what can improve, who can act, and what happens next.

TRAP asks a practical question: what is the recovery plan?

Read and sign the petition

For another city: Get the starter kit: PDF and editable Word.

The request

TRAP means Transportation Recovery and Accountability Plan. I’m asking TriMet, Metro, the City of Portland, ODOT, and other regional transportation leaders to publish a coordinated plan that explains:

• What can improve now under existing authority and resources.
• What is constrained by funding, law, operations, or jurisdiction.
• Who owns each barrier and next action.
• What needs a decision from another institution.
• What work is underway and how improvements in access will be measured.

The request is for a public plan within 60 days of the first confirmed formal submission, with action beginning sooner where the problem and authority are already clear. That is the timetable I’m asking for, not a statutory deadline.

The plan should include a simple public view of progress: what changed, what remains blocked, why, and who is responsible for the next step.

Why it exists

People need to reach work, school, appointments, and one another. Funding and operating constraints are real. So is the obligation to explain how the region intends to improve transportation access under those constraints.

Residents should not have to design a replacement transportation system before they can ask its leaders to pursue a better outcome.

The work

I wrote and published the petition, developed the public request, and emailed several baker’s dozens’ worth of folks and organizations in the initial launch. That outreach crossed government and public agencies, neighborhood organizations, rider and worker advocates, labor, transportation and climate groups, business and civic organizations, higher education, state leadership, legislators, and policy organizations.

I also contacted local organizations and community accounts through Instagram, asking for sharing, useful routes, corrections, and local context.

The next phase is public testimony and written comments, agency and regional board meetings, council and committee processes, and relevant planning and listening sessions. I’m putting the question into the public record, examining the answers, and documenting who owns each next action.

The published materials are:

• The petition and its updates, which hold the formal request and the signature action.
• Why shouldn’t we reinvent the wheel?, the argument for examining systems against present conditions.
• This project page, which connects the argument, participation routes, and material developments.
• The Recovery Accountability Framework, a city-neutral starter kit for people adapting the method where they live.
• The Portland Porch, which connects this work to my other Portland maps and investigations.

The starter kit is available below. Additional research and public-facing outputs will be added here as they are ready for public use.

Follow the research

The public records I use for TRAP live in an evolving ArcGIS research collection. It includes City decisions, procurement and payment records, and work on questions that extend beyond transportation.

That collection now also houses Call Waiting, my research into Portland emergency response. Some older links still use the Portland Accountability name. They point into the same developing collection, rather than a separate finished service.

Browse the public records · Explore The Portland Porch

The Porch brings my Portland maps and research destinations together. TRAP’s petition, participation routes, updates, and reusable framework remain on this page. Coverage follows the questions I’m working on; it is not a promise of complete records or a fixed update schedule.

Portland residents: take part

Read the petition. If you support the request, sign it and share it with someone who depends on getting around this region.

Bring a specific access problem, a public source, a correction, or a question an institution should answer. You do not have to arrive with a finished solution.

I’m one individual human. You do not need to wait for me to assign the next step. Find people who care about this, decide what you can do together, and get started. This becomes community work when people start making plans with one another and carrying them out.

We may step on one another’s toes a little along the way. We can work through that with kindness and respect. Talk to one another, coordinate when your paths cross, and make room for people to contribute in their own ways.

Sign the petition · Share a question or source

Portland materials to share

If you want to print 100 flyers and hand them out, do it. Bring the explainer to a neighborhood meeting, share the graphics, or get a few people together to help the request reach more of Portland.

The one-page explainer is ready to print. The portrait and landscape graphics include the petition link and QR code.

Bring what you know. Use the authority you have.

Transportation workers, riders, planners, policy specialists, government staff, public-safety professionals, lawyers, technologists, journalists, researchers, and community advocates can each help make the record more useful. Privacy and civil-liberties expertise matters when an issue involves information about people.

Identify a constraint. Explain a feasible action. Correct a claim. Provide a public record. If you hold the authority to move something forward, name the decision and the next step.

Contribute expertise or an institutional response

Where it stands

Active in Portland. The petition is public and initial direct-email outreach is complete. The work continues through substantive responses, formal public participation, and an accurate account of what institutions say and do. The reusable framework shares the operating method while that work continues.

Updates

September 5, 2026: Initial email outreach was complete. The project moved to response, amplification, and public participation.

September 10, 2026: Published the Recovery Accountability Framework starter kit for adaptation in other cities.

Want to do this in your city? Take the framework.

I turned the operating method behind TRAP into a city-neutral starter kit. Use it for a public problem where you live, whether that problem involves transportation or another public service.

Choose a specific question, identify the institutions with authority to act, and put the request into the public record. Then track what was answered, what remains open, and who is responsible for the next step.

The kit includes:

• A kickoff sheet for defining the problem, public ask, authority map, and first deadline.
• Stakeholder categories, a bounded outreach plan, and starter emails and Instagram messages. The initial launch appears as a pilot example, not a target.
• Public-meeting preparation, written-comment guidance, three-minute testimony, and a 90-second backup.
• Outreach and response trackers, follow-up copy, public-update and media-pitch templates, and a 45-minute weekly maintenance model.

Read or share the PDF. Use the editable Word version to adapt the starting materials. Both contain the same framework.

Replace the local names, agencies, sources, dates, and request with your own. Check the relevant public body’s meeting rules and keep the distinction between what you know, what you are asking, and what remains unanswered.