On Wednesday, local transportation activist Chris Smith kicked off his campaign with a press conference in front of Skidmore Fountain, with MAX trains running past him. I had to miss it, since I was at a press pre-briefing for the fake disaster that’s going to befall our city in two and a half weeks, but thanks to the wonder of the internet, here’s the YouTube clip of his speech:

You can read the transcript over at his website, and an interview with him by Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org.

Almost as if timed by a magical transit-loving deity, two reports have dropped this week that should bolster Smith’s early campaign days. As I wrote in the paper this week, Smith will be a hit among the urbanist, pro-density, alternative transportation crowd, but will probably be Public Enemy No. 1 among the pro-sprawl, pro-car, more freeways set. Like the followers of Jim Karlock, Randall O’Toole, and libertarian think tank Cato Institute, which published a paper last July called “Debunking Portland,” written by O’Toole, criticizing Portland’s planning, public transportation, and Urban Growth Boundary.

A week ago, however, a group called Congress for the New Urbanism released its own report, called “Debunking Cato: Why Planning in Portland Works Better Than the Analysis of Its Chief Neo-Libertarian Critic,” disproving each of O’Toole’s arguments. It’s an enlightening, easy-to-follow read that clocks in at about 13 pages, and shows that Portland’s enormously popular planning and transportation policies (that’s part of why you moved here, right?) have put the city in a position far more preferable than average urban areas.

The second report that should benefit Smith is the Portland Department of Transportation’s annual bike count (pdf). Unsurprisingly, the count showed big gains in bicycle ridership. The highlights:

Bicycle use in Portland showed a double‐digit increase for the third straight year.

• Bicycles represent 18% of all vehicles on the Hawthorne Bridge and 11% of vehicles on the four bicycle‐friendly Willamette River bridges.

• Bicycle traffic in Portland has more than doubled since 2001.

• Helmet use has risen steadily since the 1990’s, with 76% of recorded cyclists wearing helmets in 2007, up from 63% in 1997.

• Women represented 31% of all cyclists, up from 26% in 1997.

• While bicycle counts in March are approximately half those of the summer, they are still higher than the summer counts recorded in 2000.

For all of the “debunking,” the numbers are pretty clear—more people are riding their bikes, more people are taking public transportation (including light rail and streetcar), and more people are moving to Portland for its sustainable ideals. If it were otherwise, someone like Chris Smith wouldn’t stand a chance in the election.