82nd Ave Town Hall

Hey, what if you got a group of people together ..
That all had a vested interest in seeing 82nd Ave be the Avenue of Roses it was Meant to Be ..

And what if you had money, and elected representatives, and planners and decision makers, and ponies and rainbows and ..

Ok well we did have most of these things (xc the ponies and rainbows), as well as new people who were drawn to the event on November 6.  Some actual ideas I heard from actual citizens, points of light, points of
pavement:
* 82nd Ave is an 'orphan highway' - owned by the state, but most of it within the city.  As a result, lack of investment from any government -- which is why it looks the way it does - take a comparison trip down 122nd Ave sometime (city owned) - nicely paved, bike lanes, wheelchair accessible, bus shelters.
* How about a bike tax (a few people expressed this idea) - let them help pay for the roadways they use (um, they probably don't use 82nd Ave, but what if you instituted a bike tax with the promise of bike lanes?)  Maybe an 82nd Ave tax - on each each vehicle sold, each McRib sold, each serving of Walla Walla onion rings at Burgerville?
* Public private partnerships, median plantings like over on Glisan (ok that was me, I thought I was signing in, as did other people, but then they rattled off our names as if we signed up to testify; so I did).  Others also were interested in incentivizing businesses to invest.
* Social dynamics - a professor talking about all the voices that were not in the room, the true melting pot of ethnicities that is Southeast Portland.  The public square - where can we build this?  One of the bike riders asked about 'pocket parks' and even has some potential ones mapped out (thank you Terry Dublinski!)
* One pothole.  The investors of 'Cartlandia' (a real place) decried the mismatch between city planning rules (the food cart area) and the state highway that is 82nd Ave (follows street rules).  As a result of this lack of coherence in the jurisdictional universe, there is a 'gap' (as she called it, a pothole big enough to eat a bit of your car should you attempt to traverse it).  help please!
* An actual government lobbyist spoke about the transportation bill that is likely to be presented to the legislator.  Showing us that these things really are decided before they are decided.

What is exciting is not the official positions, official money - what is truly exciting about this was hearing from citizens who care about the shape of their community.  I hope we have more of these town halls, and I invite you to invite 10 of your neighbors next time.  I promise nothing bad will happen to you if you don't, but isn't this how change happens!