Meeting with Police Chief Sizer

On Monday, I met with Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer to express our concerns about some recent police actions. Mark Ginsberg, a bike lawyer and chair of the Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee (PBAC), joined us, as did Portland Police Traffic Division Commander Marty Rowley and Lt. Mark Kruger.

The BTA’s main message to Chief Sizer was this: given that police resources are limited, we should focus those resources on those actions that best promote public safety. To make that message concrete, we brought up several examples of enforcement actions against bicyclists who were generally acting safely, and how those sorts of enforcements undercut police-bicyclist relations (three examples were ticketing fixed-gear bicyclists, ticketing bicyclists who leave bike lanes to turn, and the 50+ tickets given out at SE 23rd and Salmon earlier this year).

We also asked that the police make sure to take advantage of the collective knowledge in the community — people at the BTA, PBAC, and PDOT’s Traffic Safety Division — when they plan an enforcement action in a bicyclist-heavy location, and that they communicate with us so we can help determine whether the problem is best solved through engineering, education, or enforcement. We requested that enforcement decisions be based on objective data of where safety problems exist and what sorts of actions are dangerous, rather than mere perception of problems.

We also had several items to praise the police on — increased citations for drunk driving, solid work on pedestrian enforcement actions, and a willingness to work on a cyclist diversion class for first-time violators.

I think all of the people at the meeting agreed that some of the tensions around police enforcement could be reduced by having a variable fine schedule, so that bicyclists would not get the same $242 tickets for rolling through stop signs as 10-ton trucks. We thought such a change would be something we could all support. The BTA is looking into whether such a variable-fine schedule could be implemented by the 2007 Legislature.

We’re grateful that Chief Sizer listened carefully to our concerns, and that Cmdr. Rowley and Lt. Kruger once again took their time to meet with us. Thanks also go out to Mark Ginsberg, who has long been a leader in the biking community, especially on police relations. Continue to let us know what’s happening out there and what you think about it.