— By BikeLoud PDX Board Chair Aaron Kuehn and Oregon Walks Executive Director Zachary Lauritzen
Fixing Our Streets, the measure to renew Portland’s gas tax (Measure 26-245), will be on the ballot this May. As the leaders of BikeLoud PDX and Oregon Walks, we are voting YES and encourage you to do so as well.
We know that our current car-centric transportation system is unsafe, harmful to our climate, unpleasant to use and live near, and is financially unsustainable. We believe these funds, by improving multimodal routes, will be part of the solution that our community needs. Both our organizations have frustrations with a number of decisions made by the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and we suspect many of you do as well. We have a long way to go to prioritize walkers, bikers, and transit users. And yet, we believe starving PBOT of these funds will only sacrifice some of the best programs they offer.
For the past eight years, this 10-cent per gallon tax funded over $150 million in basic infrastructure improvements for Portlanders to bike, walk, and roll throughout the city, and this renewal will continue to fund multimodal improvements. Some of the main priorities include investing in Neighborhood Greenways with diverters and smoother pavement, Safe Routes To School, and safety improvements to our dangerous busy streets. Plus, PBOT will fill potholes, something every traveler can appreciate.
In the face of PBOT’s budget gap, Measure 26-245 renews the same 10-cent tax we’ve paid since 2016. While maintenance needs continue to grow, the gas tax provides important funding to pursue our goals for multimodal infrastructure. A few dollars a month in local taxes will help maintain streets and make them safer.
This measure is bigger than any one political leader or any one person. You may disagree with any number of decisions made by PBOT leadership over the past months and years. Still, we need to give our future city leadership—especially the soon-to-be-elected 12 member City Council—critical safety and maintenance resources.
That’s why we are voting YES on Measure 26-245, the Fixing our Streets ballot measure.
Active transit advocacy groups IMO should support gas taxes – also – because driving motor vehicles inflicts greater damage to our roads, threatens lives, and takes up a disproportionate amount of public space. Driving and fueling vehicles should be taxed to reflect the costs it imposes on the planet and human lives. Driving is heavily subsidized and motorists don’t pay anywhere near their fair share. This is important and was missing from this otherwise great piece.
What will replace gas vehicles in your world? Viable public transit? We don’t have that in Portland. How do we pay for it? Another tax?
I agree with raising gas taxes primarily for the reason of externalized costs that you mentioned. However, I am not convinced that driving is otherwise subsidized, and I have no idea what represents the “fair share” of a typical driver. Streets are things we all benefit from in a myriad of different ways, and I can’t even begin to imagine a framework that captures and allocates those benefits in a way that would generally be regarded as “fair”.
As for damage to roads, a bus with 5 passengers (like the kind I see many times daily as I am out and about) does far more damage than those 5 passengers would do getting around by other means (some would drive, some would walk, some would bike, some would not travel at all). That may also be true for a bus with 10, or possibly even 20 passengers.
I have never seen a data-based argument that buses do less damage to the street than the alternative. I did show in a previous post that, even accepting TriMet’s rather forward claims about their “renewable diesel” (which may be partially derived from beef tallow), my car, with only one occupant, emits less CO2 per-passenger than a TriMet bus.
It’s too bad there isn’t a more equitable distributions of FOS funding. Where as SW and outer east Portland probably pay more in FOS taxes, it seems as though too much of this funding is applied for the inner city where active transportation is already present. The bulk of the funding goes to repairing pavement and not enough going to active transportation projects where it is needed most. Some sidewalks please! https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets/fixing-our-streets-projects
I’m all in favor of FOS, but don’t know that I’ll vote for it this time around because there is little accountability for where these funds are being spent. Most projects in east Portland have some FOS funding, be that $1.00, or $100.00, we don’t know. Even if the COP spends all this FOS money in the areas with the most need, IMO they would allocate most of their discretionary funds to pet projects in the inner city. I’ve seen it before and it will continue unless we demand more accountability.
So, tell me Commissioner Mapps, how are you going to spend this and other funding sources to get my vote?
Not to speak for Mapps (he can speak for himself), but my sense is that FOS is a general program that will be used anywhere in the city. See a pothole in your neighborhood? Call the hotline or report it online, and a crew will eventually show up to fill the pothole.*
*Except in most of SW Portland where the city says 75% of the streets are “privately maintained.”
https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/04/24/portland-officials-neglected-street-paving-for-decades-now-your-tires-pay-the-price/
What sort of accountability are you looking for? I invite you to sit in on one of the Fixing Our Streets Oversight Committee meetings if you’d like to help keep the city accountable for how these funds are spent. I can assure you that for FOS I & II, the funds have been spent in the way the voters were told they would be spent. For the vast majority, PBOT has done a good job doing it on their own. Occasionally we have helped steer them when a prioritization decision needed to be made, and at least once we vetoed a proposed replacement project they brought us, leading them to find another project that we felt better fit the spirit of the measure. If you’d like to see how FOS II funds have been spent so far, this is a good overview: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets/oversight/documents/fixing-our-streets-2-spending-dashboard-end/download
Thanks, Claire. I had no idea there’s a committee of citizens holding PBOT accountable for how they use the FOS funds. Thank you for your service.
I think “holding accountable” may be overstating it, but any level of independent input is beneficial.
I think accountability is a good point. After all, the current situation with deferred maintenance is the result of bad decisions a decade ago. And as we all speak, pbot is paving in Ladd’s addition while division between 39th and 50th remains a kidney endangering pothole festival.
As far as I know, all Ladd’s paving activity is related to sewer/stormwater work that are tearing up the streets.
I agree with your position here: We need the ten-cent gas tax just to fix the darned potholes in the bike lanes.
And yes – we are all disappointed about PBOT’s poor stewardship of our cycling infrastructure. Let’s continue to hold their feet to the fire AND give them the resources to make the improvements we need.
Do I want safer roads, less traffic deaths and protected bike lanes throughout the city? Absolutely.
But I’m a definite NO on the gas tax.
Why?
1) I’m just sick and tired of local government officials (like Mapps) saying unless you pass the tax “it’s gonna be so bad” and we won’t be able to provide basic services. That’s BS. Portland city government spends SO MUCH on inane projects and positions in their never ending obsession with spending for ideological pursuits instead of providing the basic essential services a municipality is supposed to provide its residents. There is plenty of money. It just needs to be spent in the right places.
2). This is now another tax that “others will pay”. Look at what that did…it brought us the very problematic bevy of taxes that are now pushing taxpayers out of Multnomah County ( PCEF, Homeless, Preschool and Metro Housing Bond). All the EV drivers (mostly white collar, college educated and high earners) are of course ‘gonna support this as they want their potholes filled and they can act like they are somehow fighting climate change by raising gas prices.. Meanwhile the working class blue collar folks (who make this city and region work) are going to continue to take it in the shorts for the renewal of this “temporary” gas tax.
Yeah, I’m a no on 26-245.
Angus, will you say more about which programs should be cut and how much that would save? I ask in all seriousness bc I often hear this refrain but it isn’t paired with specifics. For example, what if we cut the entire plaza activation team at PBOT? How much would that save and what programs do we lose? Or what if we cut the entire Office of Civic Life? How much would that save and what programs would we lose? I’m open to the idea that dollars are being misspent, but rarely do I see examples with actual numbers so a discussion about the pros and cons can occur. I’m curious how you (or others who may want to chime in) think about this.
I’m not a COP budget expert and shouldn’t be as that is what we have city leaders for. However it certainly seems that that Office of City Life could be eliminated and no one would miss it. Do we really need city sponsored Canabis Empowerment Days?
How about getting rid of the $50/hour Black Male Achievement Analysts? Is that a core city function? Does every bureau and sub-bureau need a $>$100,000/year work from home Equity Inclusion officer? I personally think the ROI for those positions is very low. What are your ideas for cutting costs and getting back to adequate provision of core city services (like filling potholes & sweeping of city streets and bike lanes!)?
https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/portlandor/jobs/newprint/4238876
Angus, thanks for the reply. The thing is, I don’t know. That said, I also wasn’t the person who said the city spends “SO MUCH on inane projects and positions.” That sounded like a strong claim that would be based in a list of examples. I’m genuinely curious if folks have done that analysis of Portland’s budget to identify projects and positions that should be cut and presented it as a list: “We should cut A-Z, that would save $X, and here is a list of services that would no longer be available.” Then we could have a discussion on the merits. Instead, I see claims that there is waste without evidence.
I’ll add, I have no doubt there are projects and positions that are a waste! But I also think that’s the case at Pepsi, John Deere, Adidas, and any other large bureaucratic organization. It comes with the territory and the goal should be to reduce it as much as possible without throwing out the baby with the bath water.
All that said, I share your frustration that it feels like there is lots of money (various revenue streams plus it’s a time of economic prosperity) yet no one seems to have enough resources to do what needs to be done: PHB and Metro don’t have dollars to build affordable housing, PBOT doesn’t have money to maintain roads, lots of folks don’t have money for mental health and drug intervention/supports, etc etc. That’s truly concerning bc we are in a time of economic prosperity!
One of the reasons I’m not a fan of the new FoS ballot measure is because I want to see what happens to privileged tax-avoiders when their precious roadways crumble into cage-destroying infrastructure. FAFO!
We pay way too many taxes in Portland/Multnomah/Metro as it is. NO is a very good option despite what it might be used for. Let the politicians use our existing tax money better. It’s what I have to do when I don’t get a raise and prices go up. Why shouldn’t they?
“Read my lips…”
C’mon, in the magical land called Europe taxes are at a national level, want to escape them? Your gonna have to change countries.
Here, people can, and are, just gonna move 10 miles. Enough. Save Portland, no new taxes.
Or maybe, like me, they’ll just decide they’ve had enough of the whole state, with its “progressive” income tax whose rich person bracket starts at 20,000 per annum.
The city council can vote to reapportion or reballot any of the vast number of taxes that have been instituted in the last ten years.
How about a 21% Value-Added Tax (sales tax) citywide like they do in most of Europe? I bet that would go down well. Not.
If I got single payer healthcare and retirement that would be palatable to me.
The 33% cut in the percentage of revenue going to “safety” (a euphemism for traffic safety and active transportation projects) should make this proposal a HARD NO for anyone who claims to support active transportation and traffic safety improvements.
Eh, it’s more complicated than that. It’s true that the pot explicitly labeled “safety” is smaller, but the other two pots also benefit active transportation. Repaving some of our neighborhood greenways definitely needs to happen. Other streets that get repaved benefit from striping improvements. A lot of the community street services benefit active transportation too: safer intersections, lighting, ped/bike retrofits, etc.
When the Portland City Auditor examined PBOT’s use of Fix our Street revenue they repeatedly found that PBOT was violating the intent of the ballot measure by refusing to transparently account for how much funding went to “safety”. Given PBOT’s unethical and unaccountable behavior when it comes to FoS budgeting, your comment comes across as gaslighting.
That audit was in reference to FOS I, which separated projects into two pots: safety and maintenance. The problem is that a lot of projects are both safety and maintenance projects, and accounting for what proportion should be considered safety vs maintenance is not an easy proposition. PBOT explicitly addressed this in FOS II by moving away from the safety/maintenance split and instead developing a project list and pots of money for specific types of improvements.
It also seems like you’re saying that in FOS I not enough money went to safety, but if anything I think more went to safety in the sense that paving projects sometimes ended up including safety upgrades when they were restriped.
This is the PBOT party line but I think this automobile-centric organization can claim that a signal upgrade which largely benefits people driving is for “safety” even though it only provided a trivial benefit for active transportation (e.g. a new walk signal). Given PBOT’s resistance to accountability for how this revenue was spent, I think it’s very likely that a large percentage of PBOT’s safety spending primarily benefited drivers.
I prematurely hit enter so please respond to this comment:
This is the PBOT party line but I think this automobile-centric organization can claim that a signal upgrade which largely benefits people driving is for “safety” even though it only provided a trivial benefit for active transportation (e.g. a different walk signal). Given PBOT’s resistance to accountability for how FoS revenue has been spent, I think it’s very likely that a large percentage of PBOT’s “safety” spending has primarily benefited drivers.
The text of the 2020 ballot measure specifically allocated ~50% of revenue to safety projects:
https://multco-web7-psh-files-usw2.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/26-209.pdf
Based on the unethical and non-transparent behavior described in two city audits and based on PBOT’s failure to adequately remedy the failure described in the first audit, I can only assume that PBOT has not followed the spending split specifically delineated in the 2020 ballot measure.
Moreover, 2021 FoS spending strongly suggest that PBOT has no intention of spending anywhere near ~50% of revenue on “safety”:
Paving projects $1,100,149
Pavement maintenance on neighborhood streets $439,808
Crossing improvements $81,095
Heavy vehicles $811,118
Sidewalks and walkways $53,523
Safe Routes to School $27,058
Street lighting $42,863
Neighborhood Greenways $313
Small-scale safety $107
Potholes $1,765,613
Base repair $1,948,985
Gravel streets $1,773,217
Safer intersections $5,807
Speed reduction on cut-through routes $340,480
Neighborhood Greenway retrofits $95,986
Multimodal enhancements $-
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/fixing-our-streets/2021-fixing-our-streets-report
COTW
Engage in urban triage – support your stainless steel rats, pothole moles, and other forms of urban wildlife by voting “No” on FOS – and let the gravel pile up.
David,
You live in NC right? You weighing in with your opinions on local elections seems wrong to me. You haven’t lived in Portland for years and don’t experience the daily frustration with high taxes, low services and declining livability. I’m voting no on all taxes this election cycle. Until we cut off the easy taxpayer spigot it doesn’t seem like our elected officials will get the message we need to prioritize essential services. I’m sending a message. I hope other Portlanders will join me.
This. So much this. Voting no on every tax and bond measure this election season. It’s been downright insulting to see other programs squander the money and see absolutely no improvements from the millions collected. We need to learn to do more with less, not beg for more to do the required.
Because, gosh, the “experience the daily frustration with high taxes, low services and declining livability” is only limited to Portland, isn’t it? Certainly not in North Carolina or anywhere for that matter, particularly those communities where ex-Portlanders move to?
Gimme a break. I lived in Portland for 17 years, helped get over $400 million in active transportation projects for Portland funded, most of them for East Portland, and the first time Portland voted for FOS, I spoke in front of hundreds of people in support for it (I dare you to speak in front of 25 people let alone 250). But I agree with Curly, the FOS is losing its way, it’s no longer going towards what it was supposed to go towards, and Portland needs a radical rethink of its taxation and transportation circulation system.
Vote YES on anything that makes it more expensive to drive cars. Gas cars especially. The funds raised are just a bonus.
Absolutely !
I’m sure that low income family that has no other options but to drive will appreciate the higher costs.
This is a tough one for me. I’m leaning no.
Cars drive uncomfortably fast on the neighborhood collectors near me. The only respite is when the potholes get so big that the cars have to slow down to a crawl to navigate them. I find myself cheering on potholes because it ends up being the most effective Vision Zero intervention in my neighborhood.
I do feel the bumps while riding though. I’m OK getting chunky tires if that means slow cars. Maybe some tactical urbanists can go spray paint bad potholes to give other riders a heads-up.