May/June 2024 - 10

U.S. Rep. Early Blumenauer (center),
accepts the APTA Congressional
Legacy Award for his commitment
to advancing public transportation
throughout his career.
Photo: APTA
Rep. Blumenauer
led a movement of
connection and choice
Rep. Earl
Blumenauer's
time in public
service has
been spent
advocating
for causes that
give people
more choices
in how they
live, move
and connect
within their
communities.
BY MISCHA
WANE KL
I BMAN ,
E DI TOR IN
CHIE F
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3) has been a champion
of sustainable, equitable infrastructure and mobility during
his more than 50-year career in public service.
He is credited with jump starting the modern streetcar
movement, advocating for active transportation infrastructure,
particularly bike lanes, and delivering policy wins,
including the Inflation Reduction Act, which included significant
climate and energy investments and creating the
Small Starts funding mechanism under the Federal Transit
Administration's Capital Investment Grants Program.
These efforts support his quest to create livable communities
- places where residents are safe, healthy and
economically secure - and where the federal government
works with stakeholders at the state and local level and
with individuals to create value people need for their lives.
" I think our work on livable communities is a way to
bridge that gap, to bring people together to solve problems
rather than create new ones, " said Rep. Blumenauer. " It's so
important to bring people together not divide them. There's
a lot of power in that concept and we've seen it work. "
One of the areas where this concept has worked is in
Portland, Ore., the congressman's hometown, and where
he spent his early years in elected office in the Oregon
State Legislature and Multnomah County Commission
working on several issues, including efforts to move past
a car-centric approach to urban planning.
At the American Public Transportation Association's
(APTA) Mobility Conference held in Portland this past
10 Mass Transit | MAY/JUNE 2024
April, Rep. Blumenauer said he felt he
was " chasing the ghost of Robert Moses, "
who was commissioned by the city in
the 1940s and developed a public works
plan rooted in freeway construction.
" If we had taken the terrible path of
implementing Robert Moses' vision,
we would have had one in 10 people in
Portland live immediately adjacent to a
freeway or having been moved to make
way for it and that [would have] had
devastating consequences, " explained
Rep. Blumenauer.
While the plan Moses developed
for Portland was deemed too expensive
to implement, his vision influenced
freeway construction in the region,
including that of Interstate 5 in
the 1960s, which divided the Albina
neighborhood - a then-thriving Black
community. Rep. Blumenauer called the
construction of the interstate " culturally
devastating in terms of economic
impacts " to the neighborhood.
The U.S. Department of Transportation
recently awarded a $450 million
Fiscal Year 2023 Reconnecting
Communities and Neighborhoods
Grant to the Oregon Department of
Transportation for the I-5 Rose Quarter
Improvement Project, which is part of a
regional effort to reconnect the Albina
neighborhood.
" [The grant was] made to be able
to restore, to heal those scars on our
community and set up a model for what
we can do elsewhere, " explained Rep.
Blumenauer at APTA's Mobility Con
May/June 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May/June 2024
