Commissioner Mingus Mapps and leaders of the Portland Bureau of Transportation can breathe a sigh of relief this morning as their 10-cent per gallon gas tax was approved by voters last night.
Known as Fixing Our Streets, the program will now pump an estimated $70.5 million into city coffers over the next four years. While its success was never seriously in doubt, there was mild consternation given the extremely sour mood of some voters and a popular narrative that Portlanders are feeling overburdened with local taxes.
The passage of the gas tax, combined with the largesse from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, Mapps and his bureau are in a much better place than they were just one year ago when he and Mayor Ted Wheeler sparred over a parking rate increase and Mapps desperately floated an $8 per household fee to shore up the transportation budget.
Last night’s election results show Measure 26-245 with just over 70% support. This is the third time Portland’s local gas tax has won the favor of voters. In 2016 it squeaked by with just 51.3% of the vote (thanks in part to organized opposition from gasoline retailers) and in 2020 nearly 77% voted to increase the price of their fuel to help PBOT pay for road projects and maintenance.
PBOT toyed with increasing the tax to 15-cents per gallon, and making the tax permanent, but those options didn’t poll well so the agency opted for caution and stuck with the same formula as 2020. The revenue will be evenly split between three categories: paving on on busy and local streets; traffic safety infrastructure on school routes, busy streets, and neighborhood greenways; and something PBOT calls, “community street services” which includes responding to pothole repair requests, fixing streetlights and signals, and so on.
PBOT rank-and-file should feel better about last night’s election too. A recent slide shown by one of PBOT’s financial experts at a meeting of their budget advisory committee earlier this month said the Fixing Our Streets revenue will help the bureau pay for 45 positions over the next four years.
And despite what Commissioner Mapps told a private meeting of union members in February, some of the money will indeed be spent on “bike lanes that drive everyone crazy.”