The era of the City of Portland looking the other way when it comes to expired registration, missing license plates, and parking violations will soon come to an end. In recent weeks the transportation bureau has hired a fresh contingent of enforcement officers and they announced today these new ticket-writing troops will hit the streets July 8th.
Whatever people say about this move, they can’t say they weren’t warned. PBOT made it clear during budget talks back in February that the lack of enforcement of these violations was robbing the bureau of precious resources needed to maintain streets and perform other core services. According to PBOT estimates, of the one million registered vehicles in Portland, nearly half (460,000) have expired tags.
“Over the course of many, many years, PBOT has been quite altruistic and has taken on opportunities to be in service to community without necessarily charging,” PBOT Director Millicent Williams told city council members at a February meeting.
And the number of cars without license plates (both front and rear are required by law) and folks parking in places they shouldn’t has skyrocketed in recent years — a result of the combined shift in behavioral norms after Covid and PBOT’s laissez faire enforcement approach.
Now those days are over.
In a June 4th meeting with state legislators and local agency leaders, Williams was direct: “We are coming for you if you have not registered your vehicle. This is registration summer,” she said in a forceful tone, while adding that the new officers will also provide, “An additional set of trained eyes and ears are situations that arise on our streets.”
PBOT has received permission from council to hire 22 officers. In a statement today, the agency said recent hires are a, “large expansion of their parking enforcement operations.” Currently the bureau employs around 59 parking code enforcement officers. Once the hiring is complete they’ll have 81 on staff.
The more robust team of officers (who make between $42,00 and $79,000 per year) will allow PBOT to patrol all paid parking districts on a daily basis. They’ll be busy because the bureau estimates only about 50% of meter users are paying the required fees.
PBOT’s 2023-2024 budget listed a “strategic target” of 280,000 parking citations issued; that would be 125% more than the 124,00 citations they issued in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Specifically, the officers will be citing people for expired tags, missing plates, wrong-way parking, and drivers who park their cars in a way that blocks visibility at intersections. And yes, they’ll also be booting cars that have a tow order from Multnomah County Circuit Court. The citation fees range from $55 for parking the wrong way on a street, to $145 dollars for tags that are more than 90 days expired.
The result of this effort is expected to net the bureau an average of $3.8 million per year over the next five years and increase compliance rates by about 5% per year, bringing total compliance to 75% within that timeframe.
— Learn more via PBOT.