to make bold decisions on how
we prioritize funding.
(Photos © J. Maus)
The Portland Bureau of Transportation made an historic announcement on Monday. In order to balance their budget, the agency needs to make $16 million in ongoing cuts. Not one-time cuts to patch a lean year, but ongoing and permanent into the foreseeable future.
This is a very big deal that is likely to fundamentally change how PBOT does business (read that sentence again). It’s also an opportunity to consider a complete restructuring of how the bureau goes about its business, where funding should be cut, and what expenditures should be prioritized.
For context on how large this cut is, $16 million is the total of all the cuts PBOT has made over the last decade. PBOT has been cutting budgets and staff (83 positions to be exact) since 2002; but according to one source who works at the bureau, these pending cuts are “an order of magnitude” greater than anything they’ve seen before.
“Filling these budget gaps will require that cuts be permanent and ongoing… that will fundamentally restructure the organization.”
— from a PBOT statement issued Monday
It’s also important to understand that the $16 million in cuts will come from just $100 million of PBOT’s budget; that’s the portion of their overall $280 million budget that is “discretionary” and doesn’t come from federal/state grants) — that’s a 16% cut, which is two times the size of the worst-case scenario Mayor Sam Adams recently told all bureaus to prep for.
How’d PBOT get in this dire position?
The Oregonian reports that it’s partly PBOT’s own fault due to financial mismanagement. However, PBOT says they’ve fallen victim to lower than expected state gas tax revenues, fewer cars being registered in Multnomah County, and ongoing obligations they made when revenue projections were rosier (like funding the Sellwood Bridge, Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail, Eastside Streetcar, sidewalks, neighborhood greenways and so on).
So what now?
If ever there was a time when PBOT and City Hall (Mayor Sam Adams oversees PBOT) needed to hear from the community about transportation priorities, now is the time.
It was no accident that PBOT included an email address — pbotbudget(at)portlandoregon(dot)gov — in their official statement yesterday to solicit citizen comments.
PBOT and its director, Tom Miller, will face intense media scrutiny and special interest lobbying in the days, weeks and months ahead. Without a loud voice from the community, PBOT and City Hall will likely fold to whatever narrative the media sets and whoever has the most powerful lobbyists and deepest pockets.
project on Rosa Parks showed,
we can get much more out
of our roads for relatively low cost
by re-allocating space to bikes.
One thing you can count on is that there will be attempts to characterize bike-related spending as being frivolous and unnecessary and groups like the Portland Business Alliance, the Oregon Trucking Associations, the Cascade Policy Institute, and others will make their priorities loud and clear.
This is not a moment for business as usual and band-aid fixes that simply kick the can down the road. Now is the time to not just stop the bleeding but to fully heal the patient and make them healthier than ever. Our system that relies on inadequate gas taxes to fund a transportation network that favors the most expensive modes is broken. We all know that.
We also know the type of city we want to live in; we’ve set ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for increasing non-auto trips; but are we ready to make the tough decisions required to make it a reality?
PBOT themselves say the cuts will, “fundamentally restructure the organization.”
ignore their stated goals?
(Image: Green Transportation Hierarchy,
Portland Bike Plan for 2030)
The big question is what will that organization look like on the other side? What expenditures will survive with the fewest cuts? (And yes, I’m assuming no PBOT program will be left completely unscathed). Will PBOT end up truly transformed into the transportation agency of the future, focusing on moving as many people in the most efficient, safe, and cost-effective ways possible? Or will they simply end up as a smaller version of what they are now — an agency bursting with ideas, potential and employee activism for healthier streets, but that remains shackled to the old status-quo?
The bad news is that 16% of PBOT’s discretionary budget must be axed. But the good news is that facing such a dire situation, the agency is likely to put everything — and every idea — on the table. This could mean shifting expenditures away from an existing priority on “modernization” and repaving of major arterials and putting more money into bikeways and neighborhood traffic calming; this could mean finding new revenue streams like higher parking citation fees or a general “street fee” as proposed by Mayor Adams a few years ago; it could mean major organizational restructuring of the bureau itself — or perhaps all of the above.
This isn’t about protecting the little pots of money for bike programs and projects; this about a fundamental — and much-needed — reform of PBOT.
The more PBOT and City Hall hear about transportation reform from the public, the more they’ll be able to speak publicly about new ideas (ideas that will seem radical to many people). I’d love to live in a world where bureaucrats and politicians just did the right thing simply because it was the right thing; but the reality is our leaders will only take bold action when they feel the public has their back.
That’s where you and I come in.
“This would be fantastic time to see how the Vision Zero concept of reducing crashes and fatalities will guide and inform budget decisions the bureau has to make.”
— Gerik Kransky, BTA
PBOT has already given us an email to share our feedback: pbotbudget(at)portlandoregon(dot)gov. I strongly urge everyone to use it and share your opinions about PBOT’s future and their current need for cutbacks.
For their part, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) has a man on the inside, Gerik Kransky, who sits on the City’s Budget Advisory Committee. This morning Kransky told me he will urge PBOT to make sure any cuts do not hit bicycling and walking disproportionately to other modes. He also said he’ll make sure PBOT lives up to its stated mode split goals and he’ll also urge them to make a commitment to safety.
“This would be fantastic time to see how the Vision Zero concept of reducing crashes and fatalities will guide and inform budget decisions the bureau has to make.”
With limited dollars, Kransky feels saving lives should take priority over road repaving and operational capacity improvements for freight. “If the bureau was committed to safety, they’d do things like invest in photo radar enforcement on ‘high crash corridors’ and traffic calming.”
Like PBOT, Kransky is also urging BTA members and non-members to email him at gerik(at)btaoregon(dot)org with ideas about how PBOT should approach these cuts. He’ll then take those ideas and share them with the City’s official Budget Advisory Committee.
Stay tuned. In addition to emailing PBOT and the BTA, there will be other opportunities to make your voice heard.