It’s Time To Make Moves

WORDS BY | DONOVAN M. SMITH

Portland is on the move, Irene Marion’s goal? To make sure Black Portlanders are not just along for the ride, but actually helping to steer the vehicle. For the past year-and-a-half, Marion has been serving as the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) Equity & Inclusion Manager to help direct the Bureau towards better addressing the needs of communities who’ve traditionally been overlooked and silenced by local government. The Bureau oversees about $13 billion in infrastructure management alone, with millions more being funneled into maintaining, upgrading and adding infrastructure in response to the not-so-secret population boom happening in the Rose City.

Marion, a northeast Portland native, says that as the City builds, it must account for historical wounds it has contributed to inflicting and forge more pathways towards truly equitable transportation. Last year, she was a key voice as the Bureau was forming their citywide pedestrian plan, PedPDX, and was instrumental in deepening its understanding of safety from Black perspectives. What emerged was Walking While Black, the Bureau’s report on four culturally-specific organizations leading focus groups on their constituents’ pedestrian experience. The report is now being used to guide other transportation projects PBOT is undertaking. be built along one of the lifelines in historic Albina, she helped to mitigate concerns that ultimately resulted in project relocation more in alignment with the goals of those communities.

We sat down with Marion to discuss her role at the Bureau, the future of transportation and its implications for Black Portlanders.

F: What’s surprised you about the way transportation functions since working for your Bureau?

Irene Marion: We’ve had a lot of policy priorities as a community and our historic standing Black organizations have to be focused in the right way, especially in the places where we feel the most crisis. When you look at a household budget, transportation is usually among the highest costs. Whether you own a vehicle, bike, use public transportation or traveling on foot, there’s an expense associated with the way we have to move ourselves and our families.

F: What was the impact of the “Walking While Black” report, which informs the City’s master pedestrian plan?

IM: It has definitely been a pivotal body of work for us. The Bureau was doing a lot of cool things to do outreach on the project to get community input on for the pedestrian master plan, but they had a moment where they just realized their data was showing them

they hadn’t done the right type of outreach to Black Portlanders or that folks weren’t responding based on the type of outreach they had been doing. One of the first things I notice coming into this role was that, as an agency we didn’t have any deep, or really any relationships within the Black Community. There were no Black organizations engaging with us on a regular basis, there were no Black people on our public advisory boards and Black people weren’t even calling us to complain about potholes. So I jumped on the opportunity to connect and create a space where we could center Black voices and spaces, and partner with Black organizations to really hear from folks. In the space, I heard a lot of things that didn’t surprise me but being able to document these in a formal focus group setting, and generating a report that is then actionable for our teams; this has become important for us to do.

F: What direct infrastructure came out of the concerns that were raised during that report?

IM:Lighting was a huge theme from the pedestrian plan in general, but especially in East Portland in those really large arterial streets.

F: Can you talk a little bit more about why data collection is important for government equity work?

IM: From an equity perspective, we’re really trying to hone in on how we can use data to better inform our approaches. It’s not just what shows up in the numbers or the surveys, its focus groups [and] different ways that we‘re hearing from people that help us to understand how they’re living their lives so that we can better respond to their needs.

some of what those differences were, and how your Bureau responded to them?

IM:T h e n e i g h b o r h o o d a s s o c i a t i o n s , b u s i n e s s associations, bike advocates and others were really interested in where the bikeway infrastructure went because of how it served their needs. When we looked at the map and the other institutions on 7th ave., it included; Albina Head Start, Irvington Park, King Elementary School, Beatrice Marrow-Cannaday apartments — all spaces where a lot of Black Portlanders grew up [in and still live]. After careful deliberation, we moved the bikeway to 9th but will still address the safety concerns everyone has on 7th.

F: The Rose Lane project is going to create transit only lanes for buses. What impacts may it have for Black and Brown communities?

IM: We’re experiencing an unprecedented amount of congestion. The Rose Lanes is important to that because we already know that people of color disproportionately ride transit compared to other riders. What folks will start to see is smaller, red painted areas that move buses out of the congestion. This means less travel time for commuters.

F: We’re in a Census year now -- can you speak to its’ importance

for investment in Black and Brown communities and transportation?

IM: Census data is the primary data that we’re responding to. PBOT has an equity matrix -- that data is not up to date, and our teams use the Census tool to understand who is living where, what languages they’re speaking, the average household income, etc… and that information helps inform our outreach strategy.

F: Bureaucracy is large and overwhelming. How are you staying sane and culturally focused when you need to? And what’s your message to folks who may be apathetic about the whole thing?

IM: There are other equity managers in the City of Portland I stay really closely connected with and that’s kind of my venting and healing space. We’ve made racial equity commitments at the City and PBOT and it’s my job to make sure that everybody knows that it’s their job to do that work. I can write it into their work plans and hold them accountable which helps clarify what it should look like. I’m lucky that we’ve got really great teams that are doing it in ways that I can trust.

Want to learn more about the Portland Bureau of Transportation, how to join a committee or focus group, or just report a pothole that’s been terrorizing your neighborhood? Give them a call at 503-823-5185. To hear more from Irene Marion, email her at Irene.marion@portland.oregon.gov.

“From an equity perspective, we’re really trying to hone in on how we can use data to better inform our approaches.”