Megan Ramey - Hood River County Transportation Board

I am running for Transportation District Board for 3 reasons; Resiliency, equity, and (if I’m being honest) for selfish reasons. First, a strong transit network is the backbone of “comprehensive transportation resilience”, a phrase coined by Dr. Judith Wang, professor of civil engineering at the Institute for Transport Studies. Resiliency to me is adaptiveness to climate change and extreme events, imperviousness to fluctuating gas prices, transportation rich households (versus car poor), community connectedness and the gross domestic health of a city.

Second, equity. Recent reports show the average cost of car ownership (car payments, gas, insurance, maintenance) at a whopping $1000 per month. Affordable housing holistically includes the cost of housing and transportation costs, because where you live determines your commute to work. Considering how unaffordable housing is near our jobs, the Gorge needs viable first-class alternatives to vehicle ownership so all residents and income levels can reduce their cost of living and time spent getting to work, school or errands. To me, an equitable community is one where a single mother working 2 jobs can sleep at night without worrying how she’s going to fill up her gas tank in the morning or how her kids will get to school, because she can take the bus for $30 per year, spend less than 1 hour commuting, and her kids can walk, bike or bus to school.

Third are my selfish reasons. I want a first-class transit system in the Gorge because my family is car-light, and public transit plays a major role in how we travel. Having the option to put our bikes on the CAT bus to go to Portland, The Dalles or Parkdale; or, take the bus to Trimet where we hitch a short light rail ride to the airport is a huge quality of life improvement. The journey is part of the family adventure. We love talking to the bus driver or fellow passengers, reading, or looking at photos of our trip. I want more people to be able to have that experience.

2) What is your background/profession, and where do you live?

I live in The Heights of Hood River where my husband, daughter and I get around by foot, bike, and transit. I am a serial entrepreneur who currently loves manual labor, learning skilled trades and house remodeling, but in former lives, I coordinated a sustainability roundtable for Boston’s major employers and building owners, started an organic convenience store, and founded Bikabout.com, a travel site inspiring 2-wheeled tourism in North America’s best biking cities, towns and trails.

Living in different transportation universes like the paper mill capital Wisconsin Rapids, bike paradise Madison, car-dependent Atlanta and transit rich Boston and London, have each profoundly shaped how I envision cities taking care of their residents. I earned my mobility advocacy chops in Boston, serving on the board of LivableStreets, Boston Bikes Advisory Group and Cambridge Bike Committee. After moving to Hood River in 2016, I co-organized Streets Alive open streets event and became the token transportation nerd on the City Planning Commission. I also proudly represent the 4 counties of Hood River, Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas as the Active Transportation Rep-at large for ODOT Region 1 Area Commission on Transportation.

3) What will your top priorities be if voters select you to serve on the board?

My 3 priorities will be 1) bus shelters, 2) safe crossings to bus stops and 3) making transit and multimodal mobility a forethought in the mind’s of city, county and state leaders.

4) What changes do you think the district needs to make?

The district has made incredible progress in just 2 years and I’m blown away by how well developed the Gorge network and bus riding experience is. They are temperature controlled and comfortable, with free wifi. CAT has real-time bus tracking information to let you know if you just missed a bus or it’s only a few moments away, to ease the anxiety. Everything about the experience that they could internally control has happened, and happened quickly.

However, the first and last mile is a critical determinant of a bus rider’s experience in an equitable transit model. How far was the walk to the stop, and did you have to cross any scary streets or intersections? Was there a place to lock your bike at the stop or station, or did the bus have racks to bring your bike? Did the stop have shelter from the sun, rain and snow and a place to sit with an updated bus route map and schedule? These amenities like bus shelters require partnerships with street managers like the City and County of Hood River and Oregon Department of Transportation. Community engagement around the best use of public right of way is also invaluable to getting support for bus shelters and stops. To steal a quote from Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, “20 people riding a bus should earn 20 times the street space.” Put a different way, which is a more economical, efficient, and fair use of a curbside space (parking spot): a vehicle transporting 20 people, or a vehicle transporting 1 person per hour? In other words, people riding the bus are no less deserving of that public space than single-occupant car drivers. So having a safe, comfortable place to wait for the bus should be a right, and is the measure of an equitable city.