Sunday Parkways, bike boulevards among “painful” PBOT budget cuts

Leaves in bike lane on Naito

With budget cuts to bike lane
cleaning, you might want to
carry a broom.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has unveiled a list of proposed cuts intended to slash their discretionary budget by $15-16 million. The unprecedented cuts — which amount to about 20% of $70 million in discretionary revenue — comes as PBOT grapples with how continue providing services while revenue sources have failed to keep pace with demands and commitments made in previous years are now coming due.

“When you’re cutting $15 million on an ongoing basis, you’re cutting into the muscle, that’s a fact.”
— Tom Miller, Director of PBOT

In a meeting on Tuesday, bureau director Tom Miller told us that, “The cuts are so big it’s truly bureau-wide” and that, after a decade of whittling down their budget to trim fat, these new cuts go into “the muscle of the organization.”

“What you’ll see here are some very painful cuts across the organization… If you self-identify as a motorist, or as a bicyclist, or as a transit user… Every mode, through the life-cycle of what we do to service that mode, you’ll see cuts across the realm.

When you’re cutting $15 million on an ongoing basis, you’re cutting into the muscle, that’s a fact.”

To decide how where and how deep to make the cuts, PBOT has worked with staff and with a Budget Advisory Committee made up of community stakeholders. In total, there are 63 “strategic reductions” in the proposed cuts. All of the bureau’s programs have been ranked and scored against four criteria: “Safety”, “Asset Management”, “Health/Livability”, and “Economic Vitality”.

As to how PBOT decided the proportion of cut a specific program would get, Miller said they used “professional judgment.”

The biggest reductions (and the ones that have garnered the most headlines) are to “street preservation” and re-paving projects. PBOT will completely suspend their large-scale re-paving projects on major arterials (saving $4.4 million a year) and they will reduce their pavement maintenance budget (which pays for things like crack-sealing) by $1 million (or 10% of the total).

While smooth streets are important for everyone, many of the cuts have an even more direct impact on bicycling and walking.

The Transportation Options Division (which promotes biking, walking and transit) will be slashed by $350,000 or about one-third of their total budget. Specifically, those cuts will include a reduction to the popular SmartTrips program from 25,000 to 19,000 households per year, a cut to Sunday Parkways events of $50,000 a year, reductions to the Safe Routes to School program budget (the service side, not the infrastructure side) and the elimination of several staff positions (one of which is already vacant and will not be filled).

Bridge Pedal 2007-16

All those cones aren’t cheap.

While none of those cuts will spell doom for these important programs, they will certainly have an impact. City Traffic Engineer Rob Burchfield told me on Tuesday that, while most of the money for Sunday Parkways comes from private sponsors and donors, the $50,000 cut may make it harder for PBOT to raise money for the events. “That may be a challenge, because without some skin in the game [investment from the City], those outside vendors are less likely to say, ‘we’ll give you our money’ if it looks like the City isn’t committed to it.”

Another place that will feel the pinch is PBOT’s Neighborhood Greenway program. This program — which has been building out a citywide network of low-stress, family-friendly bike boulevards at a pace of 15 miles per year — will see a cut of $100,000, which is 10% of its $1 million per year budget.

Other cuts include a $50,000 reduction to PBOT’s $500,000 a year, “Ped & Bike Safety” fund and a reduction of the street cleaning budget by $550,000. That large cut is broken down into four line items: cleaning streets in the Central Business District (34% reduction), the Transit Mall (13% reduction), arterial streets (22% reduction) and “Clean Bike and Pedestrian Areas” will see a 38% reduction.

Bike racks will also suffer a bit. A line item listed as “Structures – Structural Maintenance” will get a $175,000 cut. PBOT says that reduction will come by reducing bike rack maintenance and construction. Burchfield explains that this cut doesn’t mean they’ll install fewer racks, but that existing racks won’t get the attention they used to. As an example, Burchfield said, “If somebody calls us up and says, ‘The bolts are loose on a bike rack, can you come out and fix it?’, our response to that would be diminished.”

Another reduction that caught my eye was a 75% reduction in “Traffic Operations – Special Events.” As part of their budget cuts and restructuring, PBOT wants to change their policy of providing traffic services at parades and other community events. In the past, PBOT would subsidize many large events with barricades, signage and other traffic operations expenses. Now, according to Burchfield, “PBOT will move from a subsidy to a cost recovery model.”

The new policy would require large events with paying participants — like Bridge Pedal, the Portland Triathlon, the Portland Marathon and so on — to pay for the City’s traffic operations help. The idea, says PBOT, is that these type of events can simply pass on the costs to their participants. An exception to this rule will be made for small, community parades and events that require services of $2,500 or less.

Many of the budget cuts are small reductions that shift PBOT’s policy for general maintenance and improvements to the transportation system from being proactive to being reactive. In other words attention and responsiveness to routine maintenance of bridges, signal timing, paving markings, street cleaning and so on would have longer intervals or would only be done if a hazard or a safety issue was reported.

One line item that should raise eyebrows of walking (and accessibility) advocates is over $1.4 million in cuts to PBOT’s various sidewalk programs. The largest cut would slash $1 million from PBOT’s budget for constructing ADA accessible sidewalk ramps. Sidewalks take another hit of $457,000 with PBOT cutting their sidewalk inspections and repairs budgets by 43% and 46% respectively.

In the end, Miller acknowledges that the elephant in the room is the dire need for a new revenue source. “At the end of the day, we need new money, new revenue,” he said. While he has lots of ideas on where new revenue could come from (his favorite is more innovative parking fees), Miller has been directed by Mayor Sam Adams to not consider any new revenue ideas at this time.

But Miller isn’t letting this budget crisis go without seizing it as an opportunity to revamp how PBOT does business. He says the process they’re undergoing is “more transparent and more intensive” than the agency has had in the past and he’s using it to develop a template for how the bureau provides services in the future (more on that to come).

The size, scope, and context of what’s going on here is a big deal. I hope everyone pays attention and stays tuned. For more details on the list of proposed cuts, delve into the PDFs below (the first is a list of the cuts and programs, the second is an explanation of the cuts):

PBOT FY 12-13 Proposed Cuts Summary – DRAFT
PBOT Program Rankings and Potential Cuts – DRAFT

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Andrew N
Andrew N
12 years ago

Hopefully soon the conversation will turn to sources of new funding, specifically the merits and demerits of implementing a VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) tax.

davemess
davemess
12 years ago
Reply to  Andrew N

Or increasing the gas tax. Seems like OR is right near the middle on gas taxes.

Steve
Steve
12 years ago
Reply to  Andrew N

Good suggestions! Or a personal property tax on cars; or increase parking fees virtually all parking in this city is either very cheap or free; or…

sorebore
sorebore
12 years ago
Reply to  Steve

…even more good suggestions.

Elliot
Elliot
12 years ago

Jonathan, any chance you could update this story with a few examples of cuts proposed at PBOT for line items other than bike/ped? I understand that the cuts are happening across the board, but I’m curious to see they compare.

Also, you tweeted a day or two ago that a ten cent/hour increase in parking meter fees would raise $10 million annually. Did that number come from PBOT? That could fill more than two-thirds of the funding gap. I’d have no problem paying $1.70/hour instead of $1.60/hour when parking downtown if I knew it would save cuts to these important programs.

Adams Carroll (News Intern)
Reply to  Elliot

Elliot,

You can see a list of all the cuts in those PDFs I supplied at the end of the post.

But others that caught my eye are:
– $219,000 reduction in pavement marking maintenance (crosswalks/turn arrows)
– $150,000 in streetcar service reductions (off-peak hours)
– $537,000 in “electrical maintenance” which would be targeted to various traffic signal stuff.

As for the parking rate increase… you must keep in mind that new revenue ideas have just as much to do with what is political feasible as what actually works.

that being said, it’s clear that Tom Miller is pushing the discussion of parking pricing and so that makes me think that idea has some legs.

matt picio
12 years ago

How much money would the city save if they turned off the street sensors (and thus stopped maintaining them) and went back to timed signals? How much if they disabled all the pedestrian buttons, and let “walk” show up on each cycle of the light? “Smart” signals require a decent amount of maintenance.

are
12 years ago
Reply to  matt picio

in theory at least you would push some hidden costs onto the public. increased waiting times with cars idling, congestion, maybe even an uptick in injuries as motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians develop a less compliant attitude toward signals that are not serving their immediate “needs.”

Peter Koonce
Peter Koonce
12 years ago
Reply to  matt picio

“Smart signals” help blind pedestrians locate the intersection so they can cross safely.
This concept would also raise transit costs as buses are stopped waiting for the cross street. TriMet is a partner, so there’s consideration to their needs in addition to everyone elses.
One of the other elements related to signals that we hear quite a bit about is the delay for people on bikes and the impact that has on compliance at signals.

NW Biker
NW Biker
12 years ago

There’s an article on the KGW site about the reduction in street paving, but no mention of the other cuts outlined here. The KGW comments section (what I call the “free floating hostility” section) is full of complaints about how much attention bike-related projects get at the expense of everyone else. I’m very happy to see a more comprehensive report here (and expected nothing less!).

Chris I
Chris I
12 years ago
Reply to  NW Biker

You can’t expect the “readers” over at KGW to read more than a few lines into any story.

NW Biker
NW Biker
12 years ago
Reply to  Chris I

They were too busy griping about cyclists. I don’t comment there often, but I couldn’t let this one pass. KGW’s reporting focused only on street paving, which I understand is important, but a sentence or two about that being only one of many transportation related cuts could have prevented a lot of nonsense.

matt picio
12 years ago
Reply to  NW Biker

KGW isn’t interested in preventing nonsense – the perceived divide is good for ratings.

sorebore
sorebore
12 years ago
Reply to  NW Biker

“free floating hostility” section… awesome.

Dolan Halbrook
Dolan Halbrook
12 years ago
Reply to  sorebore

That’s what I thought the comments section of the Oregonian was..

Chris I
Chris I
12 years ago

We don’t just need a parking increase, we need a totally new parking system. We need meters with variable pricing, similar to San Francisco’s system, and it needs to be expanded to more areas. These systems increase revenue, and reduce traffic, as people will no longer be hunting for spots (estimated to cause 30% of congestion in cities).

If only we had hired someone competent to run the parking division…

Andrew Seger
Andrew Seger
12 years ago
Reply to  Chris I

General market based pricing too. The fact that half of this budget cut could be eliminated if they just tolled the sellwood bridge is pretty scandalous. You don’t even need toll booths these days: the 520 crossing of Lake Washington in seattle uses cameras and technology in place of people chucking money in a toll.

sorebore
sorebore
12 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Seger

Hear,hear!

cold worker
cold worker
12 years ago

Business districts throughout the city need to be metered. Hawthorne, Belmont, Mississippi, Alberta, etc. Meters….

jon
jon
12 years ago
Reply to  cold worker

I’m not opposed but do so only if there is strong demand and these neighborhoods can truely warrant the paid-street parking. Institute meters to handle a legit parking problem, not for a political motive or for making money. Lets not milk these neighborhoods to death with excessive meter rates and drive commerce to suburban free parking strip malls because they are REALLY unbicycle and unpedestrian friendly.

middle of the road guy
middle of the road guy
12 years ago
Reply to  jon

NIMBY

downtown can make the same argument.

sorebore
sorebore
12 years ago
Reply to  jon

I have a feeling those who drive primarily are headed to malls anyway.

was carless
was carless
12 years ago
Reply to  cold worker

Right. Downtown should be $5/hour, and the major retail districts outside of downtown should be between $1-$2/hour.

jon
jon
12 years ago
Reply to  was carless

Sure if you can find a way to make Washington Square, Bridgeport Village, Lloyd Center and Clackamas Town Center also charge that rate for their now free parking.

rwright
rwright
12 years ago
Reply to  jon

Washington Square, Bridgeport Village, Lloyd Center and Clackamas Town Center are private property. Even if they were to – suicidally – charge parking fees, the revenue would go to the owners.

are
12 years ago
Reply to  jon

it would be difficult for a downtown mall to charge much for parking, because the traffic will just go elsewhere (to the burbs). but it might be possible to do a validated system, where you pay to park in the garage unless you get your parking stub validated at one of the stores served by the garage, and then only for two hours at a time. this might actually become necessary if onstreet parking becomes noticeably more expensive, as motorists will be looking to the garages as an escape from the meters.

sorebore
sorebore
12 years ago
Reply to  was carless

Good thought, but business owners would more than likely push back, don’t you think? If I happen to drive downtown I always hit the max limit on the meter, then share my unused time by putting the receipt back in the slot for others. I hate driving downtown.

daisy
daisy
12 years ago
Reply to  cold worker

Does this actually work? At least on Mississippi and Williams, I think meters on the street would just push even more traffic a block or two east and west.

9watts
9watts
12 years ago

“the dire need for a new revenue source”
I suppose that is how our leaders would look at this problem. Just like how they look at the energy problem: “the dire need for a new energy source.”

When are we going to wake up and re-discover that demand side solutions are orders of magnitude cheaper and quicker?
We don’t need more revenue; we need to reduce subsidies to the automobile. The expensive stuff is all related to the automobile. We know this. Bike and Pedestrian infrastructure is/are peanuts. The money spent *advertising for & studying* the CRC is an order of magnitude larger than these cuts! Eight years of these cuts = the money that has been spent hyping the CRC. Ha.

Let’s pause for a second and look ahead five or ten years: gasoline costs $7/gallon; sea level rise is now much more visible; weather patterns include more frequent and more violent storms; agricultural production is severely disrupted. It is dawning on us that we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing. The car and the money we spend as a society on infrastructure that serves only cars and trucks (parking garages, freeways, four lane roads, CRC, etc.) both are starting to seem anachronistic. Spending priorities are beginning to shift in ways we today can hardly imagine. There is far less money (from gas taxes as well as other familiar revenue streams), and no prospect of raising the sums that our further decayed transportation infrastructure requires. Remember, it is built using oil and things that require oil (gasoline, asphalt, concrete, steel, trucks, etc).

Why not suck it up in 2012, PBOT, and start planning for the future when human powered modes will once again dominate our transport patterns? Why pretend that all this (admittedly fictionalized account above) does not concern us here in the US? That we are somehow different, above the fray?

It’s over, folks.
Let’s get on with the real work of re-building our infrastructure in ways that will be useful to us after all the cheap oil and equilibrated atmosphere are gone.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  9watts

User fees need to be switched over to per mile ASAP.

The switch to concrete needs to be hammered home as DOTs are still enamored of asphalt even as its costs at installation are exceeding concrete to say nothing of the maintenance costs.

Unfortunately we forget a simple historical fact here: Roads have always been built for commerce 1st. There might be design considerations for moving large military vehicles, ad-hoc airstrips or mass evacuation but roads are primarily demanded and justified by the multiplication of efficient commercial activity which contributes to “The Greater Good”.

This does not mean that common law through out the ages has not protected the rights of all of the public to use a publicly funded road but simply that the majority interest in any road or transportation project is commercial.
Profit: it’s all about profit$$

To solve roads first we must solve freight.
It seems that despite the every increasing cost of petroleum that trucking freight is a growth industry. While more intercity freight tonnage moves by rail than truck it also seems that an overwhelming majority (>75%) of the economic impact is through trucking.
Rail is much cheaper and much more efficient by every standard other than reliability. It seems that businesses are unwilling to use rail transport because you can never be certain when your product will get there; the fair bet is “LATE”.

So the real solution to our road problems is to fix the rail system in the USA.

And by fix I mean completely overhaul.

And by completely overhaul I mean our rail system needs to move cargo fast. Orders of magnitude faster than our 1800’s system is capable of even conceiving.
A fully grade separated, computer switched and driven system where every standardized freight “packet” shoots along high speed rails to a depot that switches it to the next link in its journey to be deposited at a local pick up yard where smaller wheeled vehicles can move smaller tonnages.

Lazy Spinner
Lazy Spinner
12 years ago
Reply to  9watts

You forgot to mention marauding bands of Chinese pirates pillaging the West Coast! It sounds like you get quite aroused reading Kunstler.

jon
jon
12 years ago

PBOT could save $8 million (50% of this deficit) if they cut their money going to the unnecessary Sellwood Bridge which benefits only Clackamas County. If you live in Multnomah County/Portland you have 9 other bridges to the north to choose from. Clackamas County should build their own bridge across the river (but they are too cheap to do so).

Wayne Myer
12 years ago

Maybe we should clean our own bike lanes. Seriously. The bike lanes on Oleson in Beaverton are a disaster, and dangerously so. I’m about ready to load up my trailer with rake, broom, and shovel and just clean up that crap myself.

And really, why not? We cyclists are in a unique position to actually *be able* to clean the routes we use. I’m sure the Entitlement Mindset will be happy to come out and announce how we cyclists are OWED clean bike lanes, but we can take this into our own hands and prove that we are THE solution, not just part of the solution.

Who’s with me? Want to put together a bike lane cleanup crew? I’m pretty easy to find.

Editz
Editz
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

Isn’t that what prison work crews are for?

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  Editz

Also there has been broad attempts to make a HUMAN POWERED bike lane sweeper.
I am not the first but in the past some of us fleshed out some solutions and issues on this forum thread: http://bikeportland.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3149 .
I am in the process of updating the HPV sweeper concept based on some other angles, newer tech and broader design constraints to actually achieve the stated goal.

Ultimately; HPV, electric or gas powered, whatever gets the job done cheapest and most effectively will be the implemented solution.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

Mechanical ready made solution: Madvac CN100.
Watch the video, this thing rocks. It is sized for bike lanes and MUPs.
If the NWTA can scrape together funds for a machine why not us?

Looks like a new one sells for around $65-$75,000 but I found a 2007 used in LA for $26,500.

Wayne Myer
12 years ago
Reply to  q`Tzal

That is really slick. If we can get PBOT on board to let us run it, put me down for a significant contribution. Get another 25 or 30 similar contributors, with another, say, 50 minor contributors to help defray operating and maintenance costs, plus volunteers to run it, and we have ourselves a solution for clean bike lanes.

So, how about Portland cyclists? Are you willing to pony up some time and money for your bike lanes or are (most of) you just going to whine about how we need to tax everyone else?

Lenny Anderson
Hank Sheppard
12 years ago

So PBOT will still staff their in house “Capacity Advocacy Group” aka “Portland Freight Committee?” Its members have plenty of dough to hire their own staff and not feed at the public trough.

Kevin Wagoner
12 years ago

I like Wayne’s idea.

J_R
J_R
12 years ago

The big problem with the mismatch between revenue and expenditure is not from fuel efficiency of cars (that has not actually changed much in 30 years), but in the absence of willingness to actually increase the gas tax by the amount of inflation or specifically the construction cost index.

The federal gas tax has been stuck at 18.4 cents pre gallon since 1993. The Oregon tax has been raised by only 6 cents per gallon (from 24 cents to 30 cents) during that same 17 year period. General inflation has almost doubled and highway construction costs (including steel and cement) have gone up even more.

If our elected representatives had had the guts to raise the tax by a penny per gallon per year, we wouldn’t have to be making these cuts, we’d have a better-maintained system, and all of us would have made slightly smarter choices on the mileage we demanded for our cars.

A gas tax is actually a pretty good method of generating revenue and encouraging good behavior, using non-auto modes and more efficient autos). A higher gas tax penalizes the gas-guzzlers in addition to generating needed revenue.

Jeffrey Bernards
12 years ago
Reply to  J_R

Thank you J_R, a higher gas tax could also pay the federal forest property taxes to help support rural Oregon. The forest acts as a carbon sink and drivers should pay to use it for that. Those trees have more value un-cut than cut, Climate Change is real people. Americans only understand price and gas prices tend to get their attention.

Wayne Myer
12 years ago

I see a lot of comments about wanting someone else to pay for the infrastructure they want. Yes, we all know the arguments about the economics of bicycles, but even given that, doesn’t it seem a little disingenuous?

I don’t see anyone (except maybe q`Tzal and me) advocating for putting in our own money and sweat to improve the things *we cyclists* use. Everybody wants to go to the party; nobody wants to bring the beer or stay to clean up.

Andrew Seger
Andrew Seger
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

If Portland wants to pass a general levy as part of the proposed revenue increase I’m fine with that too. I voted for WashCo’s levy when I lived there and would love to here as well. Market pricing reflects the true cost of driving instead of socializing the costs on the rest of us. Much like WalMart(and other big box stores!) get away with paying employees little and shifting the burden of healthcare onto the public, we all already pay for other people driving with our terrible roads, terrible air, and terrible health.

Wayne Myer
12 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Seger

Pretty easy talk. I understand the sentiment, but it is analogous to Warren Bufffett’s talk of how millionaires need to be taxed more. You’ll put up more cash, provided everyone else agrees to put up more cash?

Andrew Seger
Andrew Seger
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

Er we’re paying for public infrastructure right? Taxes are how we pay for such things. While your idea has merit for a streetsweepers the unions would never go for it. Remember ’96 when the unions didn’t want citizens helping build a barrier to prevent flooding downtown? Plus the liabilty concerns from the city government. I appreciate the sentiment but you’re idea wont actually go anywhere. There are some downsides to living in such a politically left city, and one of those is the power of government unions.

Having said that I’ll be out there with a rake next time there are leaves on the ground.

wsbob
wsbob
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

“I see a lot of comments about wanting someone else to pay for the infrastructure they want. …” Wayne Myer

Infrastructure someone else…everyone else needs, but maybe haven’t quite realized they need. I think it will become an increasingly simple to realize fact that we need more people walking and biking to get around, simply to avoid exceeding the capability of our road system to handle motor vehicle use. Basic equipment required to maintain bike lanes and MUP’s is central to meeting that need.

In some ways, the numbers for roughly calculating road needs for possible increases in motor vehicle use are simple. In the Portland Metro area, is it possible and realistic to conceive of doubling or tripling widths and miles of thoroughfares and high speed highways to handle doubling and tripling of motor vehicle use? Some people may say…’Sure it is!…”, but I’m not so sure. In fact, as much as some people apparently would like such things to happen, I don’t think they will.

are
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

i have occasionally gone out with a broom to sweep up glass. i have found it a bit more difficult to organize a glass sweeping party. but i think it would make a good pedalpalooza ride.

j
j
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

my boyfriend and i were just discussing the idea of individuals and/or organizations/businesses being responsible for bike lane clean-up. like the “adopt a highway” idea, people could adopt bike lane segments and would be responsible for keeping them clear of debris, painting/highlighting divots (like grates), etc. people could pay to adopt a segment of road, with any “adoption fees” going toward further City bike improvements…

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  Wayne Myer

What I’d like to see is a way to utilize “sweat equity” of unemployed, underemployed and concerned to get government projects done.

If something is not getting done because the materials need to be purchase, fine.

If some projects are not getting done because they are high risk or highly skilled labor is required then we need to be looking for unemployed high skilled labor that might want to volunteer their time because they personally care about their community.

For me it all comes back to that quote “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

wsbob
wsbob
12 years ago

“…and they will reduce their pavement maintenance budget (which pays for things like crack-sealing) by $1 million (or 10% of the total). …” maus/bikeportland

Not sealing pavement cracks winds up costing more in the long run when water is allowed to seep into the cracks, eroding and otherwise busting up the pavement.

Just how important is smooth pavement to travel by bike? If pavement is allowed to get rougher, the idea for many people of even considering to try travel by bike, may get pushed further away.

People or cycling organizations uniting to raise funds for a bike lane specific pavement sweeper could possibly be a good gesture. Beaverton or Washington County may already have something like that, with the Farmington Rd curb separated bike lane to take care of.

Lazy Spinner
Lazy Spinner
12 years ago

How much does PBOT spend each year on big dollar consultants like Alta and those former BTA staffers? That seems like a load of cash to blow on people to create PR for Sunday Parkways, awareness of bicycles, and to draw up plans any decent traffic engineer with knowledge of federal roadway standards could do for much less. Bring it all in-house! Plus, how many expensive “tests” do we need of “innovative” bike infrastructure? Many dollars are spent to study what already exists overseas (well documented) or building 500 meters of experimental cycletrack on a street with historically low ridership and connected to nothing.

are
12 years ago
Reply to  Lazy Spinner

if you want MUTCD approval, you gotta do the testing, no matter what seemed to work in europe

Janis
Janis
12 years ago
Reply to  Lazy Spinner

Sunday Parkways is in-house except for the volunteer management. We do all our own PR and logistics.

spare_wheel
spare_wheel
12 years ago

The $4 million we are spending on a bike share sure does not sound like such a good deal now.

jim
jim
12 years ago

I dont think more money is going to fix the problem. I think we need new people that are in charge of spending the money. I think they have plenty of money already. Also reform PERS

poisonpony
12 years ago

I am employed by the citizens of Portland at PBOT Maintenance Operations. We are the workers that build and maintain the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. I can tell you most of us take great pride in the fact that our work has helped make Portland one of the most bike and pedestrian friendly cites in the country, as well as never forget we serve the citizens of this Great City. I know we get a bad rap, but the majority of us do care about the job we do.
I can also tell you that clean and safe bike ways are a priority at Maint. Ops. We generally respond to a debris in bike lane call within hours. During leaf season, (Nov., Dec.), we remove approximately 1600 cubic yards of debris on average from bike lanes each week, (That is forty 40yrd drop boxes per week). Most people don’t understand that there are thousands of mile of roadway, and hundreds of miles of bike lanes in Portland, and it is a daunting task to keep it clean.
On Night Operations sweeping bike lanes is a regularly scheduled part of a shift. With the upcoming budget cuts that is about to change. We are told by management that sweeping bike lanes will be done on a complaint driven basis. The regularly scheduled sweeping will stop because of the cutting several positions in street cleaning.
One of the main reasons for the budget shortfall is the city counsel committing $8 million a year to the Sellwood Bridge, and $3.5 million a year to Clackamas light rail, (for 20yrs.) of the Gas Tax Revenue dollars which is the main source of PDOT’s funding.
These projects are needed, but I have to ask myself as a taxpayer why I am fronting the bill for projects that will primarily benefit Clackamas county residents, and their not paying a dime for them. No one asked me to vote to give away millions of dollars.
I think that a toll for the Sellwood bridge is the only fair way to pay for the bridge. We do need to raise the Gas Tax in order to raise more revenue, and encourage alternative transportation. We should create a Portland fee on the sale tires, studded tires and chains, and a per mile tax for commercial trucks and all non-self powered vehicles. (Electric, and hybrid vehicles pay little or nothing, but are destructive to the roads and environment in their creation, operation, and disposal).
Let your voice be heard. PBOT Budget Advisory Committee Meeting; Jan 10th and 17th at 3pm, Portland Bldg., Broadway Room.
Let Mayor Adams and the commissioners know bike ways matter to you. Call them, email them, go to counsel meeting. Fund Portland First!

jim
jim
12 years ago
Reply to  poisonpony

it wasn’t your sweeper that knocked down all those bollards on the lovejoy ramp was it? Just kidding. How do you clean those bike lanes when the bollards are in the way?

julie
julie
12 years ago

Thank you “PoisonPony” for this: I think that a toll for the Sellwood bridge is the only fair way to pay for the bridge. We do need to raise the Gas Tax in order to raise more revenue, and encourage alternative transportation. We should create a Portland fee on the sale tires, studded tires and chains, and a per mile tax for commercial trucks and all non-self powered vehicles. (Electric, and hybrid vehicles pay little or nothing, but are destructive to the roads and environment in their creation, operation, and disposal).

I don’t want the gas tax raised. Gas prices are already high and people continue to drive needlessly. Those of us who drive more responsibly on rare occasions shouldn’t have to suffer for it. However, VMT’s are a huge factor in cost of maintenance. Tolls should be placed on roads between certain hours for those who insist on living in Vancouver, Camas, Hillsboro, Gresham, etc. and working in Portland. If they are going to drive for the better part of an hour each way, every day, they should pay for it. Maybe this will cause them to change where they live, or work, or how they get there, to save money, and generally live a more responsible life on the planet we’re sharing. When TriMet buses and trains are less disgusting, more people will find it pleasant to ride. They should also provide more cost-effective ways to ride. Currently their “monthly pass” is not a way to save money, and therefore not an incentive to ride. The annual pass is ridiculously expensive.

9watts
9watts
12 years ago
Reply to  julie

“I don’t want the gas tax raised. Gas prices are already high and people continue to drive needlessly. Those of us who drive more responsibly on rare occasions shouldn’t have to suffer for it.”

I apologize for being so blunt, julie, but we don’t live in the world where we can still away with that kind of entitlement thinking. There is a standard joke in the field of consumption studies: ‘it is always the other people who consume irresponsibly.’ You are used to driving as little as you do and so think this is the proper/responsible amount. Besides, if you drive so rarely, what is a doubling or tripling of our puny gas tax going to do that you find so loathsome?

If/when we agree that we need to leave every drop of oil, lump of coal and cubic foot of natural gas in the ground–never burn it–we will realize that any amount is too much. Locking in some minimum per capita quota (of driving, flying, heating, etc.) is quickly becoming anachronistic.

spare_wheel
spare_wheel
12 years ago
Reply to  julie

“I don’t want the gas tax raised. Gas prices are already high and people continue to drive needlessly.”

A high gas tax is the fairest way to discourage needless driving (and the use of large and inefficient vehicles).

“When TriMet buses and trains are less disgusting, more people will find it pleasant to ride.”

Although metro area public transportation may seem disgusting hundreds of thousands depend on it. Some cannot “afford” to be as picky as you.

jim
jim
12 years ago
Reply to  julie

What would you suggest the trimet pass should cost? Should govt. subsidize your transportation costs?

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  jim

Free for everyone with a revoked driver’s license.

GlowBoy
GlowBoy
12 years ago

A tax on personal car that is strictly per-mile would be an environmental disaster. It would be insane to charge the owner of a 2500 pound Toyota Corolla (or a 3000 pound Toyota Prius) the same rate per mile as the owner of a 5800 pound Suburban (or a 7500 pound F-250 that isn’t being used for work).

That is one reason why gas taxes work: they hit the drivers of overweight, thirsty vehicles harder. A per-mile tax fails to do that. A weight-mile tax (which long-haul trucks already pay in Oregon) is the way to go.

Really though, the solution is technical simple (though politically difficult): raise the gas tax! And thereafter index it for inflation and for improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency so the revenue doesn’t crash as vehicles get cleaner.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
12 years ago
Reply to  GlowBoy

How does raising the gas tax account for the lost revenue when a 7,500 pound truck goes hybrid and later is replaced with a fully electric vehicle?

For example:
From a FedEx press release in 2011 they noted “The hybrid trucks improve fuel economy by 42 percent” since 2009. This is a 42% reduction in revenue (from FedEx) to repair roads that are getting punished just as bad as before the hybrid vehicles.
What if ALL local delivery trucks went to hybrids?
Same weight and amount of traffic destroying the roads just less money to repair it.

What happens when they go FULLY electric?
Best I can figure is we’ll have to have Big Brother in the all the vehicles tracking location, mileage and weight to determine who is most responsible for causing costly damage to our public roads.

Maybe we can get a driver’s license card reader that goes in to any car charger (by law of course) so that electricity that goes in to a car, rather than a house, is taxed at a different rate.

Then offer the public a discount if they allow the license plate to be replaced with a large plastic license plate with an giant RFID tag that can be treated like an E-Z Pass to track specific road damage and to facilitate traffic management.

poisonpony
12 years ago

To answer Jim. Cleaning around bollards is done by hand, broom and shovel. We clean corners, dog legs, walkways, and storm drains that way also. Many bike lanes have to be done that way. If you ride Terwilliger between Beaverton/Hillsdale Hwy and Barbur you will see it just got cleaned. 12 cubic yds of material (big dump truck full), mainly shoveled out by hand, (just one person, no one leaning on a shovel watching), and all the large sticks, branches and dead animals pulled out, so the sweeper can pick it up. That was in just one direction. Terwilliger is always labor intensive to clean. Our day crews also cut the brush back from bike lanes. With the cuts it will be difficult to have the time to do this type of hand labor, as these are the positions that are primarily being cut. If the sweeper can’t pick it up, it will stay there.
Jonathan has written some stories on how the Gas Tax Revenue will not be able to sustain road maintenance city, county, or state wide. There has been some good discussions on options on this blog.
One I heard from a friend, but I’m not sure I am in favor of is to have a transportation tax, (Hate that word), of $10 a month paid by everyone who works in the city limits and have that money only spent on road maintenance, traffic, bike, and pedestrian projects.
The person that pitched it to me had some good points. It would shut the people up that say bike riders don’t pay anything for all the bike lanes. People from Washington work here, drive on our roads, and if they don’t buy gas here, pay nothing to do so. Electric car owners would pay their share. People who ride buses to work would pay for the roads buses tear up. All good points.
City-Data.com say that there are 200,158 people that live and work in Portland, and 121,743 that come to Portland to work. At $10 a month for each that’s $3,210,000 a month, or $38,520,000 a year.
At $5 a month, that is still $19mil a year, and the 122,000 people who use our roads and don’t live here would pay their share.
If the money was for targeted use only, (like sewer and water bill dollars), that would mean good roads, bike boulevards, good lighting, (Which is $6 mil a year), and a sustainable program to fund the City’s core transportation infrastructure growth and maintenance. Then the GTR dollars could be spent on discretionary programs if the funds are available.
Like my dad taught me, pay your bills first. Then if there is something left over you can buy a train set and build a bridge. Or you could save for a rainy day!