If you care about Portland’s troubling transportation budget situation, the first-ever meeting of City Council’s new Transportation & Infrastructure Committee offered good news and bad news. We heard serious funding warnings, got some hope that they’ll be taken seriously, and heard what key councilors want to prioritize going forward.
Let’s start with the bad news: the Portland Bureau of Transportation has a $38 million deficit (this is separate from the city’s $100 million deficit) and it comes on the heels of six years of significant cuts. After listening to presentations from PBOT Director Millicent Williams and Deputy City Administrator for Public Works Priya Dhanapal on Monday, T & I Committee Chair Olivia Clark offered this blunt assessment: “I think it would be irresponsible — if not even criminal — of us to not address these issues because they concern our health and safety every single day of every person who lives in Portland.”
“Thinking about the very real consequences of that under-investment is what keeps me up at night,”
– Millicent Williams, PBOT director
“It would be irresponsible — if not even criminal — of us to not address these issues.”
– Olivia Clark, city councilor and committee chair
If PBOT is forced to cut $38 million from its budget the impact would be profound. Director Williams told the five members of the T & I Committee that, “We will never be able to return to proactively maintaining roadways, bridges, signals, street lights and sidewalks — much less meet the policy goals that you, the council, set for us.” “Thinking about the very real consequences of that under-investment is what keeps me up at night,” Williams continued. “Assets failing, safety compromised, livability diminished, public trust destroyed.”
PBOT is reeling in large part because the city’s General Fund starves the bureau’s budget of valuable discretionary dollars. Nearly three-fourths of PBOT’s $600 million annual budget (about $415 million) is tied up as grants (or other set-aside obligations) and must be spent on specific projects. Currently less than 1% of the General Fund flows to the Public Works service area despite the agencies within it (PBOT, Water, and Environmental Services) being responsible for 90% of the city’s built assets. Dwindling revenue from fuel sales and parking meters has also contributed to the funding deficit.
And past political decisions have come due: About 30 years ago, City Council established the Utility License Fee (ULF), a fee paid by companies that place infrastructure in the public right-of-way. 28% of that fee was supposed to flow to the transportation bureau. But year-after-year the ULF was carved into for the General Fund and used as a City Council piggy bank. “That funding source, which would account to about $30 million a year,” Director Williams said at Monday’s meeting, “has decreased to zero.”
Ideological and illegal funding actions by the Trump Administration have added to anxiety around PBOT’s budget. Williams told councilors that an estimated $115 million in grant funds are, “in suspense right now as we continue to understand what will be happening at the federal level.”
Despite all that doom-and-gloom, the fact that a candid and in-depth conversation about the budget is happening at all is reason for optimism. The T & I Committee is a component of Portland’s brand new form of government that never existed in the past. It gives councilors an opportunity to get educated by staff (and by the public) and discuss issues outside of regular City Council meetings.
Former City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, writing in her “Street Wonk” newsletter this week, shared that the committees, “represent a radical departure from how policy has historically been developed at City Hall.” Here’s more from Eudaly on how the new committees differ from the old process:
“In the past, commissioners worked behind the scenes, relying on city attorneys for guidance and engaging in shuttle diplomacy between offices. Unless there was significant public outreach—which often wasn’t the case—the public had little opportunity to weigh in before a nearly finalized proposal came before council for a first reading. Because those meetings could be lengthy and contentious, councilors had limited ability to genuinely deliberate or meaningfully address concerns raised by their colleagues or the public. Amendments could be proposed and passed, but the process didn’t always yield the best possible outcome.”
At Monday’s meeting, Bureau of Fleets and Facilities Director Maty Sauter echoed Eudaly’s sentiments. During her presentation about why the city faces such a challenge when it comes to asset management and the $13 billion maintenance backlog, Sauter said, “I think it’s also important to acknowledge the institutional element of this. [The bureaus and their assets] were also managed by basically five separate CEOs. Some of them really didn’t really have a background in infrastructure before they were making decisions about what to do with their funding. And so I think there’s a sense on on the part of City Administrator [Michael] Jordan that charter reform is the right moment — this is the time when we can start thinking about how we do things comprehensively.”
So while we face a historic funding cliff, we also face a historic opportunity to do something about it. That work will begin in the T & I Committee.
At the outset of Monday’s meeting they were given a chance to share their top priorities. District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo said addressing dangerous corridors like Cesar E Chavez Boulevard and 82nd Avenue is her top priority. Morillo also said she wants to make sure that, “Our infrastructure across the city is physically changed… to slow our streets down.” Part of her vision is also to, “think about closing more neighborhood streets, making them more pedestrian friendly.” Morillo said her vision for transportation includes having more kids feeling safe enough to play outside. She also mentioned her “big dreams for Sandy Boulevard” that include a rapid transit line or a bike lane on the diagonal thoroughfare that’s been teed up for big changes next year.
District 4 Councilor Mitch Green said having sound infrastructure is, “the foundation of the value of the regional economy,” and added that he wants to focus on financing and funding as the “big lynchpin” of his vision. Green said he will prioritize bringing more complete infrastructure to parts of the city like east Portland (District 1) and southwest and also mentioned the value of investing in 15-minute cities and mixed-use density like what local planning advocates refer to as, “four floors and corner stores.” “This is an opportunity for us to think about the west and east parts of the city as having a common cause,” he said.
District 3 Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane said she wants to work toward, “decreasing traffic violence” and mentioned streets like Cesar Chavez, SE Division, 82nd, Powell and Sandy. Koyama Lane called out her interest in pushing for increased visibility around intersections in the form of “daylighting” — a treatment where parking next to the corner is prohibited. She also mentioned the need for safer routes to school, how her family is a regular participant in their school’s bike bus and that safe streets are also essential for older Portlanders. “There’s that slogan from Portlandia that this is a place ‘where young people go to retire.’ We also want Portland to be a place where people can stay and retire, and can age here, and can do that safely and with dignity,” she said.
Committee Chair Olivia Clark was busy taking notes throughout the meeting and said she’s putting together a work plan based on what she’s heard so far. Clark will also be listening at the next T & I meeting set for February 24th where a deep-dive on PBOT is planned and there will be considerable time set aside for public comment.
The T & I Committee meets the second and fourth Monday of each month from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Learn more on the committee website.
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It is time to properly fund PBOT, we all pay for water, electricity, gas and other utilities. Streets are utilities too. Streets are liabilities, not assets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pRnUHxUbhY&t=1473s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pRnUHxUbhY&t=82s where the speaking starts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4JD3fuY84&t=760s <== Eugene OR
Since many people are starting to get at their limit at the onerous amount of taxes we Portlanders have to pay, what Bureau’s budget do you suggest raiding to pay for the maintenance that PBOT has utterly failed to do all these years?
I would suggest the Office of Civic Life. It could go away entirely and we would barely notice.
They are more transparent with the public using this process, and shameless provacateurs like Farley go in and wreak havoc and disrupt with propaganda filming.
Who is “Farley”? Literally no mention of that name in the article.
He’s a shameless provocateur who disruptively films propaganda, apparently.
Well said, sir!
When I was an advocate in East Portland (2009-2015) I always thought the way the city (and Oregon) allocated funds was utter nonsense, but even more so when I moved out-of-state and discovered how other jurisdictions do it. There shouldn’t be certain taxes allocated to certain expenditures – for example gas taxes for roadway projects only – but instead that all forms of revenue ought to be pooled together to deal with whatever the community priorities are at the time and to allow for changing priorities.
PBOT got into its funding hole because a long litany of city councils (and Portland voters) kept siphoning off any transportation funding they could legally lay their sticky fingers on. Instead, they ought to have figured out their real priorities and used whatever funds needed to fix them, including the Arts Tax – fixing potholes, housing, parks maintenance, whatever.
“General Fund Overhead” – lovely term – it usually refers to paying off debt, but also retirement pensions, employee benefits, lawsuits, lots of wonderful stuff they would just as soon not let you know what it is. Since it’s the biggest and fastest rising cost, it’s another way of saying that they’ve fully lost control over their expenditures.
Very likely an ever-increasing portion of PCEF funding will be needed to subsidize PBOT.
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My apologies David, I didn’t mean to one letter your comment.
I work in a Public Works up here and I was shocked when JM reported that “Currently less than 1% of the General Fund flows to the Public Works service area despite the agencies within it (PBOT, Water, and Environmental Services) being responsible for 90% of the city’s built assets.”
To someone in leadership they should know that Portland’s Department of Public Works IS essentially the city of Portland. They do all the things that provide the citizens the ability to live in the city.
Reading the responses of the councilors I was disappointed, but not surprised that providing the means to let DPW do its basic work was not any of thier visions. It was more projects and improvements rather than ensuring funding gets to the people actually doing the work of the city. I understand that has been lacking for decades and truly it’s not going to get better by additional funding sources. Looking for and trying to obtain that is just going to waste time and bring the point of maintenance no return even closer. The money is there, the city brings in quite a bit and it just needs the will of the people to influence the councilors to allocate the money that is already flowing in to things (such as DPW) that are important for the long term well being of the city as a whole.
My heartfelt best wishes to Priya Dhanapal who is in charge of PW and I hope she can get the council to properly fund her department.
Maybe then we could end the stupid “we’re subsidizing you” BS that swirls around bike lanes and streets in general.
I disagree about funds dedicated by voters — if you want to turn PCEF into a general funding stream, that’s fine, but get voters to approve it. Some us actually take climate change seriously.
Oh Watts – that is rich! Your comment made my day. Thank you!
But is the PCEF doing anything to combat climate change and is it actually making it worse? Handing out “free” air conditioners and spending over $1 million to remodel a newspaper’s offices doesn’t seem like it.
***inverter heatpump*** ≠ laughably antiquated air-conditioner
At some point, I’d like to see an analysis of how effective it’s measures have been.
At some point? How many hundreds of millions do we need to spend before doing that?
Ideally, this would be an ongoing process, so those issuing the grants can get a better sense of what’s working and what’s not, and make any course corrections that are needed.
The city should adopt a Motor Vehicle Rental Tax like the County has, and dedicate the funds to PBOT. It generates about $35 million per year, and largely falls on tourists and business travelers. I don’t want to soak those groups super hard, but I think it’d be the most straightforward way to put PBOT on surer footing. Short of that, the ULF should be 100% restricted to PBOT use for the foreseeable future.
This. When I visit other cities, I pay high fees and taxes for almost everything. So why isn’t Portland doing the same when tourists visit Our Fair City? We have no sales tax so that makes a visit cheaper to begin with. Let’s charge tourists for using the airport, roads, paths, transit, etc.
For the record, we do charge a transient occupancy tax. Airport fees are limited by the Federal government and can only be used for airport improvements.
How would you distinguish between tourists and native Portlanders?
You already charge folks for using transit and the airport, not to mention hotels, the zoo, and bike share. And the PCEF is an indirect 1% sales tax on stuff bought from huge corporations, including food from Amazon (Whole Foods) and Kroger (Fred Meyer & Quality Foods.)
Why not just bypass this all and charge folks for using their cell phones? Or maybe impose an existence tax?
Or maybe not spend so much money that needs taxes?
Why not charge tax for every slippery slope argument folks leave in comments?
As stated before, no sales tax in Oregon. So there needs to be somewhere the funding comes from.
Yes, do more with less. Press for efficiencies where possible, but also see where more funding can be generated specific to fixing transit backlog.
You can cut tax expenses down down down, but that does not fix the maintenance shortfall we have.
*Except PCEF and the bike tax.
I suppose those are technically a taxes.
The bike tax, while regressive, seems a pittance comparatively. $15 from a sale of a new bike. 15$ can be a lot depending on context, but this charge is only applied to the sale of new bikes – which if you are budget conscious, you can avoid by buying used.
And a 1% surcharge of sales from businesses that earn more than 1 billion nationally or more than 500,000 in Portland alone – while generating a lot more than the bike tax, is well under what “sales tax” folks pay in other states
All true. The bike tax is just stupid, costing most of what it raises just to collect it.
I also left out pot tax, alcohol tax, gasoline tax, cigarette tax, and other product-specific taxes on the sale of certain items.
I have no problem with the PCEF tax (I voted for it, after all, and encouraged others to do so as well), but I have strong objections to diverting the revenue to PBOT for routine maintenance, which is in direct contravention of the restrictions voters placed on how the funds were to be used.
I feel duped, and I know I’m not the only one. I’m not sure what that means for future tax initiatives.
“I’m not sure what that means for future tax initiatives.”
I’m pretty sure it means Portlanders will keep voting for future tax initiatives and then be continually surprised when they become a slush fund to be spent however the political bosses wish.
The interesting part is how that “however” never seems to be essential services.
You mean like the Arts Tax?
Hahah. Fair point!
Portlanders are the ones where the City and County are taking money out of our pockets and saying they need even more when we have no more money to give.
Tourism is way down in Portland. It hasn’t rebounded here post pandemic like in other cities. Do we want to make it less likely people will visit?
Seems like the simple act of cleaning up downtown might, just might, start getting people back to Portland. But when you get the constant pictures and videos of all the Wilson-villes it doesn’t exactly give a “come on and visit us” vibe.
Hmmm. I had to pay that tax when I last rented a U-haul to move from one portland neighborhood to another. It would be nice to exempt truck rentals and carshare (I don’t know if that’s included or not) if they make it any higher.
Nice article, thank you.
I suppose it’s beyond the realm of political possibility for the City Council to ask the voters to approve a charter amendment that lockboxes the entire Utility License Fee for road maintenance and safety improvements? If 28% would be worth $30 million a year, the full amount would generate over $100 million to go after the maintenance backlog.
And maybe do the same with a street fee if they ask the voters to approve one?
I also like Will’s idea about a city-based Motor Vehicle Rental Tax that is dedicated exclusively to road maintenance.
If Council wanted that outcome, they could allocate the funding directly, no need for a charter amendment. That wouldn’t bind future Councils, but that would be a problem for the next lot.
Of course they won’t do that, because that’s just shuffling the problem around. They would still need to pay for other stuff somehow.
The point of a charter amendment is to bind future city councils, so the problem doesn’t recur. Politicians are always ready to rob maintenance first. because they can pay for other stuff that’s more immediate. As deferred maintenance piles up, their successors just keep kicking the can down the road.
I agree; trying to find spending cuts to fill even $50 million in extra money for road maintenance would be a huge challenge. But if the Council can do it, maybe they should ask voters at that point to lockbox future ULF revenue.
Why not lockbox the other things they’re currently spending money on? Infrastructure is critical, of course, but so are other things the city does.
The ULF is a revenue stream; it’s not special money, just dollars to allocate during budget time. I think it’s better for the mayor and Council to have the flexibility to write the budget as they see fit given the needs of the moment.
Besides, as we’re seeing with PCEF, those voter-approved lockboxes aren’t very strong.
I don’t know that it’s an unreasonable ask regarding the ULF, but it would turn the $100 million deficit into a $200 million one. On the other hand, PBOT would be flush.
One aspect of this system has been noted by a few people I’ve talked to: bureaus no longer need to sit and carry water for their commissioner boss and their mistakes, or defend the great way the commissioner came up with to spend bureau funds on things not really bureau-related.
And reverse course if the boss changes next election,
Williams didn’t cheerlead or cover for a commissioner; she stated facts flatly: we’re broke, you need to fix it; let me know what we are to prioritize.
Way better than having to figure out a way to cover your boss’ ass on a bike lane, eh Ms. Williams?
Hopefully it’s worth the extra tens of millions per year that we are paying for our new form of city government.
PBOT is hardly “broke”. Broke means zero money, that is not PBOT.
What PBOT or any bureau, or even us citizens with limited funds, is to prioritize wants vs must haves. Maintenance is a must have, in my opinion. Shinny new projects are wants.
They need to sit down and decide what’s important to this City Council? Finally taking a stand and saying maintenance has priority? Or stick with the status quo?
It’s not just PBOT anymore. They are a part of Portland’s Public Works now and are competing with those other essential departments within PW for funds. Its up to the Director (Priya Dhanapal) to allocate overall funds throughout PW. I’d start with her office and let her know where you feel the funds can go to be of the best use. Otherwise keep badgering the Councilors who don’t really do anything anymore.
I hope that the current juncture can be a time where we critically examine Oregon’s entire tax regime.
Its not working that well and people are leaving. Its not working well for roadways being maintained in Portland but it doesnt stop there.
It doesnt encourage economic growth as so, so many upper middle class to upper class people choose to relocate out of the state.
And the system isn’t progressive. The income tax’s highest bracket kicks in so low; someone scraping by at 20,000 a year having to pay a huge portion of their income in tax, bigger than if you make twice as much.
Also I am discovering now, we have the lowest threshold for the estate tax out of ALL FIFTY states. Out of all 50. A house and a savings account is enough to trigger an Estate tax return and payment.
The Daily Mail l just published an article saying we were a “frightening place to die” and recommending older people to live elsewhere. But even owning a house in Oregon and living elsewhere, Oregon attaches all your assets in its calculation.
The Estate tax threshold, like the income tax brackets, have remained in place for years and common sense adjustment is actively opposed by Oregon democrats/activists who are blind to the consequences of such an arbitrary and punitive system.
Tiffany Koyama Lane says she wants people to be able to retire with dignity. Older people want to make it easy on their kids. Why should a middle class person’s bereaving kids have to pay someone to file an Estate tax return?–its ludicrous. Why should that older person living on social security have to come up with thousands in cash to pay Oregon and a tax preparer every year? I’d start there rather than “traffic violence”
The scare tactic used by advocates for the wealthiest is shameful. Here’s the reality of how the estate tax works. The tax is calculated on the value over 1 million after all deductions, credits etc. This isn’t a tax on the middle class.
(unless they own a house).
A married couple can use a bypass trust which doubles their estate exemption. A $2 million dollar net worth is somewhere in the top 2-5% of US households.
If someone owns a house worth over $1 million, they easily have the means to pay a 10% estate tax. Sell the house, fork over $100,000, keep the other $900,000 in the estate. Easy. More likely, they have enough money in the bank in addition to the house to pay the tax.
That’s fine if that’s the policy we want; just don’t say it doesn’t impact the middle class, because it does.
It also means that if someone wants to inherit the house (or business or farm or whatever, rather than sell it for cash), they’ve got to come up with $100K in a hurry, which some could do but many could not. That effectively makes it easier for the wealthy to keep property in the family than those without a lot of spare cash in the bank.
Again, maybe this is a desirable policy, but I suspect not everyone would agree.
So the heirs have just lost a home to pay the government its share?
What if the house has been with one family and it’s appreciated that much over decades?
Where is the family or heirs to go after selling their home?
A death tax is a strange thing. Like the government only sees it’s citizens as checkbooks even after death.
I’ve sometimes thought inheritance should be limited to say $100,000 and 100% of the rest completely taxed.
We have way too many people who should learn the meaning of earning their own money.
At what level should the government take my ancestors money? City? County? State? Federal? What have any of them done to deserve all that largess and what would it be put towards?
I agree in theory with you that there are too many trust fund/silver spoon weaklings shaping policy at all levels of government and society and they should know what work is. Personally I fervently support mandatory military service or mandatory hard labor American Corp work in everyone’s late teens.
Taxation is paying protection to the mob by any other name.
Less tax money means less grift for the aforementioned trust fund folk.
Would you include college tuition assistance, for example, which, depending on circumstance, can well exceed your $100K limit?
While not strictly inheritance, a fully paid college education is a pretty significant boost for those lucky enough to get it.
Not how the tax works. The low threshold is $1 million so your estate is only taxed for amounts over. If your estate is that or under you don’t owe anything. If it’s over $1 million you are taxed incrementally for amounts over $1 million.
Thank you for sharing facts and pushing against this goofy fear mongering estate tax argument
*citation needed
Who opposes indexing tax brackets? I’ve been bothered by bracket creep in the Oregon tax system for decades, but I’ve never noticed any legislative proposals to fix it, let alone anyone rising in opposition to the idea.
Interesting and exhaustive discussion about taxes.
Few support special function levies, for which Sam’s beloved ARTS TAX is the favorite whipping child. Funding arts may have been THE THING back when, not a major problem now. On a personal level, they keep trying to levy my Social Security, which is ganz verboten; I have repeatedly sent them tax returns, which seem not to slow them down at all.
Because Oregon has high income tax without sales tax, we have opportunity to experiment with a scheme last bruited in the Nixon administration—the misnamed “negative income” tax.
It really only replaces a progressive tax with a biased tax, the bias being one substantial exemption for everyone, with a fixed rate thereafter. It works like this:
Everyone would have, say, a $10k exemption. If one makes only $6k annually, that person would receive half of $10k – $6k from the government, resulting in a tax-free income of $8k. A person making $30k would pay a fixed rate on $30k – $10k = $20k. There would be only two parameters: the bias point ($10k in the example); the fixed rate (a 20% rate in the example would result in a tax bill of $4k).
At the low end it would reduce abject poverty (think street people), at the same time incentivizing working for income. The more one works the higher one’s income.
At the high end it would fairly tax high earning assortativly mated couples (think lawyers), who would be required to file joint returns.
The aggressive social engineering that began in the Clinton administration has contributed mightily to increasing disparity of income.
A biased income tax might provide a start on reversing that.
This Daily Mail?? Ha.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
I’d love to see some innovative taxation of businesses that are driving up traffic, including reckless driving and illegal stopping. Amazon, Uber, Lyft, food delivery services, etc. Anyone who has ridden or walked the streets of Portland for a few decades has probably observed the difference caused by the encroachment of “businesses” that have a huge public health toll in terms of air quality, traffic safety, etc. If they were paying more fairly for the streets they depend on to make their profits, we’d all be better off. Maybe our city or county or state electeds can figure out how to make that happen.
One Amazon truck replaces a lot of car trips, ride services like Lyft and Uber allow some people to get rid of personal vehicles. You really want to raise the cost of Food by raising taxes of food delivery?
Yes.
Cool, explain why using more gasoline and having more cars on the road is a good idea.
Food delivery services save energy and reduce traffic.
Raise taxes on that seems a really good idea.
Do you have any evidence that uber eats and doordash are reducing the amount of gasoline consumed or the number of cars on the road? I really doubt they are. What they are doing is giving the desperate underclass a way to monetize their cars in a crappy service job that requires them to buy gas while the are exploited by pencil-necked tech bros. Rais[ing] taxes on that seems [like] a really good idea.
Gas prices need to go up. Having a bunch of working class folks whose bottom line suffers when gas is more expensive will not make it easier to get prices up.
For the Flat earth people there is google and easy research that demonstrates that delivery services of all kinds reduces traffic and gas comsumption
Debating facts is so boring.
So, no, you don’t have any evidence.
Ergo, it’s not true.
Actually, it’s an interesting question for which I can’t find a ready answer. The case for Amazon is clearer, especially where they displace gasoline vehicle trips with electric ones, and deliver by the truckload rather than making individual trips for each item.
But the real question is whether Amazon et al pay the their “fair share” or not, something people seem to be taking sides (subtly) on without even the barest amount of information.
Oh, and food delivery was quite popular long before UberEats.
PS I would urge you not to respond to rude posts. Let’s apply some upward pressure on how we treat each other here!
I agree that it is an interesting question (Do delivery services increase or decrease gasoline and energy consumption?). I’m not sure a solid answer exists (either due to lack of data or difficulty precisely formulating the question). I think it is a different question than if it’s desirable to try to reduce emissions and energy consumption by fostering more sustainable consumption practices using delivery services. I think this question is more relevant to the tax debate you want to highlight. I don’t know how much Amazon pays now (or what would constitute a ‘fair’ amount). But I am happy they are using electric delivery vans, and I think their taxes should go up.
To which post would you urge me not to respond? The one in which BB calls me a flat earther? Have to admit I’m not adept at interpreting the emotional content of BP posts, despite my self conception as a strong communicator.
I think the precise question about energy consumption would be very hard to formulate, and, in a way, it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps a more practical question would be “how could we reduce the emissions related to food delivery services?”
I wasn’t necessarily urging you not to respond to any particular comment, but I noted that several ones I interpreted as rude were directed your way. I will say that you do a good job of ignoring and not escalating the rude bits, something I too strive to do.
The evidence is that they are profitable companies!
If delivery companies used MORE resources they would not be successful.
If people could drive and pick up food cheaper they would do it.
Amazon would not be the worlds biggest company if they lost money delivering products.
Does someone need to explain basic economics of scale to you?
You think we have big ships and large trucking fleets for fun?
Apparently, since I don’t see how profitability implies reduced gas consumption. I would be tempted to look for the opposite correlation (companies make money by stimulating activities that consume gas).
Citation needed. The only thing I could find resembling data on this topic is a projected 38% increase in delivery trips corresponding to an 11% increase in congestion. While in some cases, an Amazon truck may replace a car trip, in reality online shopping both induces demand (creating more trips where there may not have been any otherwise) and poorly distributes the delivery trips (even if you order a bunch of things online at once, they may come in different trucks/packages).
Assuming it would be on personal food delivery not on industrial food delivery to grocery stores, this would have no effect on the cost of food writ large
I won’t get into cut and paste but if you seriously want to debate that one car making 20 deliveries is worse than 20 cars on the road picking up things you just want to howl at the moon.
Induced demand in the inflation economy we are in is also just ignorant economics to explain the delivery economy.
So you won’t cite a source? Great, thanks for the helpful dialogue.
This isn’t even what I’m debating. I’m saying that you are being overly pessimistic about the sorts of trips these deliveries replace. On the take out delivery front: if I were to use door dash or whatever, I’d barely think about how far away the restaurant is. If I’m picking it up myself, that’s like my primary concern. I think it’s reasonable to expect that food delivery apps increase average trip length.
If an Amazon book delivery replaces a trip where I take the bus to Powells, that’s a loss. Obviously, it’s difficult to parse this out but you can’t just pretend that every Amazon delivery is somehow replacing a car trip. It plainly is not, especially in urban cores (where the overlapping issues of congestion and double parking are much stronger too)
A tax on businesses like this is simply another pass-through tax on consumers of goods and services from those businesses. A business owner isn’t going to absorb those costs on their own.
Maybe those company drivers should get booted and towed for infractions such as illegal parking. Cutting off the way a company can do business (those undelivered packages to customers would affect profitability) would hurt much more than a tax.
What is “fair”? How much does Amazon (for example) pay, and how much should they pay?
Would you credit Amazon for reduced impact of (gasoline powered) vehicles that stay at home because Amazon is out delivering in their electric vans?
For many years, activists were telling folks not to drive to the store, but to have their products delivered. Now that that’s happening (if through a slightly different mechanism than originally anticipated), do we dislike it?
I, for one, prefer coordinated delivery by electric van to random trips by random people going to random stores in random vehicles.
Portland is at the beginning of what will probably be a long-term shift toward more representative government. Part of that is a City Council that is hopefully more in tune with voters’ funding priorities.
I hope this means an end to the grab bag of bespoke, voter initiative taxes (like the Arts Tax, etc). When voters felt like the City wasn’t prioritizing correctly, they passed a new tax to do so.
That just hasn’t worked well! Now that bureaus’ funding is no longer tied to the political fortunes of their appointed Councillor, there’s an opportunity for more holistic thinking and horse trading across the entire budget.
For the good of all Portlanders, PBOT should rise to the top of that new system.
With an over $8 BILLION budget Portland has plenty of tax money. We just need to redirect it to core municipal services.
Bingo!
They need to go down a list. Here are the core jobs for the bureaus to do without fail. Here are the things that are aspirational and “nice to have”.
I bet if they stuck with the core jobs they’d have way more than enough money. Only after those are taken care of should discussions about “nice to have” happen.
For far too long, the City Council and Mayor have made “nice to have”s job 1, and maintenance and core functions were dead last.
I am 100% sure I have corrected you about the $8B figure before. So confident in fact, that I will just link my prior comment here.
If you don’t care to look, the actual budget is more like $4B with the other $4B being transfers and starting balance. Those aren’t funds that are spendable in the way a normal person would understand.
From the city’s own website:
Doesn’t matter how you (or the City) wants to manipulate it to make it sound better than it really is, but it’s the actual budget figure and that’s the money the City plans to spend. What many of us have already realized years ago is the City’s elected officials have a spending problem and don’t know how to properly prioritize the money in that budget. They want to pay for the shiny toys ahead of maintenance concerns. That’s the problem when they continue to come to us crying a river how there’s not enough money. It’s total BS
Solar, I’ll make this easy for you: I split my rent with my boyfriend. Let’s say it’s $2,000. I pay the $2000 to our landlord, and my boyfriend sends me his half ($1,000 – an intrahousehold transfer). Our household did not just spend $3,000 on rent.
At a minimum, the ~$2B dedicated to intracity transfers is not something that anyone would consider to be real money that is spent. It’s accounting. Most cities do not allocate that with a separate line item. I would encourage you to consult the actual budget numbers in this table on page 47.
If we care about the budget it as it relates to local tax burden, it makes way more sense to just talk about tax burden. Wasteful spending happens in all institutions, public and private, but oftentimes public institutions end up being more wasteful than they need to be in the wake of continued underfunding. We have no administrative capacity to do projects, so they get contracted out at a higher rate – stuff like that.
It’s time to investigate how much other cities spend per capita as compared to Portland. If you look you will find out we are an outlier. Portland is in dire need of a DOGE….not one led by an off kilter guy like Musk but a serious effort to promote efficiency and cut wasteful non-essential spending. Portland was flush with people and money for years….it’s not the case anymore and we need to get back to basics.
Citation needed. Don’t make me copy paste a debunking of the Milwaukee comparison.
If you take the time to follow the link to a prior comment I’ve made about this, you will find that comparison. Portland is not uniquely wasteful, and there is often no point in comparing different cities, since variation in services provided are extremely wide. Seattle has a way larger budget than Portland does, but half of it goes to running a public electric utility.
Portland is having a budget crisis for a lot of reasons, some of which has to do with mismanagement and poor planning. But it also operates within a state system for funding local governments that is very bad (i.e., the stupid Oregon property tax). Things like DOGE are just political cover for slashing budgets of programs that a political ideology doesn’t like in the name of “efficiency”. I’d prefer to not do that, and to instead make smart choices that set us up well for the future. This may mean increasing the budget in some places and decreasing it in others, but those are choices that ought to be done by our local elected legislative body (city council)
COTW. I’m always amazed at the apologists who say we need just need to pass another tax on the rich (who are leaving Portland anyway) to fund essential government services. It’s long past time to look in the mirror Portlanders. Our per capita spending is way out of line compared to similar sized cities who share the same political bent as Portland. Many point to Denver as being way more efficient and they’re right. Then the apologists come out and say Denver city and county are one and the same so it’s not an apples to apples comparison. Fine, let’s merge Portland & Multnomah County into one and the same, get rid of the redundancy and waste. It’s time for Portland to implement its own version of DOGE but I’m not hopeful even with the current expanded city council.
I broke down the comparison to Denver a few months ago in the comment linked above. There is a difference, but it’s not nearly as much as you are all crying about. Comparing cities in different states to each other is just never a good idea. There are different levels of supports state governments give, different legal responsibilities that cities have, and different historical structures/norms. Even within states, different cities provide different services. Per capita spending is way lower in Vancouver than Tacoma, but surely a huge part of that is the fact that Tacoma runs a public utility while Vancouver does not. Is that sign of waste? I don’t think so
A city-county consolidation is a good idea, though I would want to look into things further to see how the rural parts of the county would be affected. And it would probably live or die depending on how Gresham/Troutdale/Fairview are treated (consolidation vs. part of new county)
Every new apartment building generates a huge windfall in property tax revenue for the city and county over what existed prior to it. For example, the former goat blocks was generating about $1.2 million/year in taxes and in 2024 is now generating over $32 million in property taxes, or almost 30 times it’s prior amount. Now think about all the new development that has happened in the last ten years, not to mention the cost of systems development charges that developers pay the city for each new unit (about $10k per unit for just parks and transportation for units under 700 square feet). It wasn’t that long ago that the city had a $62 million budget surplus. I’d like to know where the money is going and why it isn’t going to transportation? https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2021/10/portland-sees-record-revenue-windfall-as-city-leaders-prep-for-fall-budget-fight.html
Doesn’t the State of Oregon require the City of Portland to publish a list of eligible transportation projects that can receive SDC funds?
Yes, isn’t that what the TSP (Transportation System Plan) project list is?
No, the SDC list a very sort subset of the TSP.
From the city site (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/permitting/tsdc):
TSDCs can only be used to fund specific projects from the TSDC project list. This list is updated every 10 years with input from the public. The most recent list was updated in 2017. It includes some projects from the city’s Transportation System Plan (TSP) and other adopted city plans.
On average, TSDCs cover about 30% of project costs, with the remainder coming from state and federal grants, the gas tax, or other sources.
TSDCs helped fund recent project such as:
New sidewalks along SE 136th AvenueMAX Light Rail and Portland Streetcar system improvementsBike and pedestrian safety improvements along NE Cully BoulevardThe new 50s Neighborhood Greenway, providing a safer connection for pedestrians and people biking between Northeast and Southeast streets in the 50s, such as 52nd AvenueSW Moody Avenue multimodal improvements
Project list links: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/permitting/documents/citywide-tsdc-project-list-january-2018/download
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/permitting/documents/citywide-tsdc-project-map-january-2018/download
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/permitting/documents/citywide-tsdc-project-list-modifications-december-2019/download
PBOT has spent all of its SDCs on projects in recent years, and collections have slowed down to a trickle, so there just aren’t any SDCs left and there won’t be until redevelopment picks up. SDCs can only be spent on capital projects, and while they’ve built many great things (including the Flanders Bridge and Blumenauer Bridge) they by law can’t be spent on basic operations and maintenance activities, only building new stuff or significantly upgrading old stuff, basically replacing entire assets. Very expensive projects, so the SDCs don’t really go very far.
JR, to answer your question, there is a separate Transportation SDC fund at PBOT, it’s usually “in surplus” (flush with cash) that’s sitting there until it’s ready to be used. In 2021, the last year that we have a full report, they used about $30 million in TSDC funds for various projects. The list of projects that are eligible is very limited and have to meet certain statewide criteria, then get selected by a city committee of VIPs (yeah, politics gets involved, lots of meetings, you know the drill) and published on a list. The last list was from 2017 but got “amended” (fudged) in 2018 – presumably they’ll start all over again as soon as they get around to it.
An eligible project can’t be built until certain things happen (not necessarily in this order): There’s enough money for the project; There’s enough matching funds for it; It’s designed and engineered already; Your local electeds want it done now rather than 5 years from now (political will); The funding for the related projects also got funded.
To use SE 136th sidewalks SDC project as a prime example, the project has consistently been on every SDC list since the program was created, but it only got built after the roadway and retaining walls got funded and implemented, and those projects were funded with some unexpected ODOT funding (136th is a city street) that came from the suddenly-cancelled CRC project, which got redirected to 136th by local state legislators after a cute 5-year-old white girl was run over while crossing 136th by an elderly woman who was driving in a perfectly legal manner – lots of controversial press and publicity.
This is the end-result of decades of relying upon federal funding for infrastructure. No one would manage their personal finances if they were always hoping for, and occasionally given, a gift of money. In fact, the fiasco that is our entire “freeway based” transportation system would not exist if it were not for federal funding.
That said, it does make sense that the federal government has a role in paying for what are essentially federal highways. Perhaps there’s a better way to manage than than have the feds give money to the state to do the work, but that’s not an obviously bad system.
I doubt there is much federal money in purely local projects, like repaving Hawthorne (though I know there are grants for specific classes of projects that we can apply for). It makes more sense that Portland foot the bill for that.
Portlanders are overtaxed now. Yet, Portlanders voted for that. It is time to consider not renewing some expiring tax and bond levies in Portland and also to cut many expenditures by the city and county to lower taxes and to use more of the remaining taxes for basics such as road maintenance.