Go-Getter for Transportation

Portland Mayor Goldschmidt: builder of a system that works

"I know they say the American will never give up his car or his right to drive it when and where he pleases, but if that's so, the city is dead." So said Neil Goldschmidt shortly after he became mayor of Portland, Ore., in 1972. He then proceeded to kill plans for an inner city freeway, arguing that it would unnecessarily displace 600 families and destroy an old city neighborhood. Next he beat down opposition from Portland merchants to a multimilliondollar, 22-block-long downtown mall, in which all vehicles would be banned except buses. After two years, the mall seems to be helping downtown business. Lately, Goldschmidt, 39, has been pushing for construction of a $60 million, ten-mile light-rail system to link downtown Portland with its most populous suburb of Gresham. The result of Goldschmidt's efforts may be one of the country's most effective urban transportation systems.

Last week Jimmy Carter tapped Goldschmidt as his Secretary of Transportation. He is considered a liberal, progressive Democrat, and his nomination is bound to be popular with the nation's big-city mayors, if only because he will give them a sympathetic ear in Washington, which has often seemed deaf to pleas for help with public transportation. Several years ago, Goldschmidt himself exclaimed in exasperation: "We're tired of going to Washington and hearing them say, 'We're all for comprehensive transit help, but, gee, there's just not enough time before adjournment'!"

The son of an accountant, Goldschmidt is a fifth-generation Oregonian who married his high school sweetheart, Margaret; they have two children, Joshua, 9, and Rebecca, 7. A basketball star in high school and president of the student body at the University of Oregon ('63), he earned his law degree at Berkeley ('67). While Goldschmidt was working as a Legal Aid lawyer in Portland, Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and the young lawyer suddenly felt called to politics. He was elected to the Portland city managers council in 1970, and twoyears later was was swept into the mayor's office with the help of an army of activist young people.

As mayor he showed solid ad ministrative skills and, above all, that he was a team player-- both attributes that Jimmy Carter has come to value, especially for a department whose previous senior manager were considered slipshod. Goldschmidt will have an added advantage: the chairman of the key House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation is a fellow Oregonian, Democrat Robert Duncan of Portland. This may give Goldschmidt an opportunity to make good on his belief that "by investing in public transportation, we can begin to put our money where our mouth has been."

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