This coming Monday Portland Mayor Keith Wilson will unveil his proposed budget. It will be watched very closely by transportation advocates because without a lifeline, key services and programs from the Portland Bureau of Transportation face existential threats.
At a meeting of City Council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on April 21st, we got a glimpse at the gut-wrenching extent of the cuts PBOT has prepped for. The agency needs to reduce $38 million from an already barebones budget — that’s nearly half of the total amount of flexible revenue they have each year. PBOT says that level of cuts would lead to 69 employees losing their jobs and significant cuts to popular programs.
Some of what many would consider essential services — like street sweeping, leaf pickup, striping crosswalks, and replacing traffic signals that get knocked down by drivers — would be completely eliminated.
“The transportation system is at a breaking point,” said PBOT Director Millicent Williams at City Council last month. If more revenue is not identified Williams said, “What we’ll be able to do is maintain minimal operability where possible.” She then repeated for emphasis, “Minimal operability where possible.”
This year’s cuts come after six years of reductions. “We’re not cutting to the bone. We’re cutting into the bone,” Williams said. And Jody Yates, PBOT’s head of operations and maintenance appeared to almost tear up at the meeting as she said, “It’s hard to actually talk about [the cuts] out loud, because they’re so significant.”
If there’s hope, it lies in the Mayor’s budget proposal and on City Council members’ creativity and willingness to do things differently and /or raise fees and taxes. We’ve heard very little so far about the former and just a bit about the latter.
What’s at stake
Below are just some of the notable cuts PBOT is preparing to make:
- $5.3 million from project planning and engineering programs
- Elimination of half of the funds ($50 million) currently used as local match for project grants. This means a halt to planned investments in projects like Outer Division, Outer Stark, Cully, 148th, 92nd, SE Foster, and Cesar Chavez.
- Elimination of the Street Plaza program. As I reported recently, this means even plazas where local businesses come up with funding, PBOT would not permit them due to lack of staff support.
- Elimination transportation wallet services in parking districts. The wallet is a successful program where PBOT gives deep discounts on bike/scooter share and transit if folks opt out of parking permits. PBOT then uses revenue from increases in parking permits to pay for biking and walking projects in those districts. This cut means they would no longer do those projects, which would make it even more difficult to pass parking rate increases.
- Portland would suspend its automated enforcement camera program. Existing cameras would remain, but there would be no new ones.
- 823-SAFE, a phone and email response service where traffic safety issues are addressed, would be severely reduced. Response time would be more than four months.
- If a signal gets knocked-down by a driver or other cause (happens more than you think!), it would be replaced with a stop sign unless the location was on a designated High Crash Network street.
- Elimination of striping bike boxes, crosswalks, and stop bars. Head of PBOT Maintenance Jody Yates told Council: “The striping of bike boxes will just continue to deteriorate and eventually will wear itself away with traffic.”
- All street sweeping would be eliminated.
- If a city-owned stairway gets cracked or damaged, it would be closed permanently instead of repaired.
- A $677,000 cut from Cannabis Tax revenue would reduce PBOT’s work on Vision Zero-related programs like intersection daylighting next to schools and spot safety improvements on High Crash Network streets.
- A cut of $113,000 in PBOT’s share of the General Fund would cut into Sunday Parkways.
After hearing all this, T&I Committee Chair Councilor Olivia Clark said, “This is the most depressing presentation I’ve had since I’ve been here.”
New revenue sources?
When discussion turned toward possible new revenue sources, it was clear nothing would come easy. Director Williams mentioned a possible increase in utility license fees given to PBOT, possible parking fee increases, and maybe even a partial bailout from the Oregon Legislature if a statewide funding package is passed this session. But all those things remain uncertain.
“I do have optimism about where we’ll go, but it’s tough for us to be able to, in this moment, speak specifically,” Williams said.
Williams also said PBOT is ready to have “potentially really tough conversations” about new revenue sources and that they have the data and information to back them up. Beyond having receipts to prove that Portland should price transportation a bit higher, another ray of hope exists in the recent findings of the annual Portland Insights Survey. When asked about the most important city services, streets and transportation came in second (with 67% rating it highest) — behind only affordable housing and homeless services (72%) and ahead of community safety (62%).
One place PBOT could see budget savings is in an effort by the Portland city administrator to consolidate core services among bureaus.
When asked about a specific fee (on Uber and Lyft trips) by Councilor Angelita Morillo, Williams said PBOT already levies over 400 fees and that she’d be willing to re-evaluate them, but, “the climate is not particularly ripe for people to see large-scale, broad, wide, sweeping increases.”
What comes next
Regardless of the political lift of increasing transportation-related fees, Williams sounded like it was an inevitability if Portland wants to keep up appearances with peer cities. “In places where you see infrastructure that we aspire to, there are significant fees charged across the board, and we look forward to potentially getting to that.”
Whether Mayor Wilson’s budget on Monday helps get PBOT closer to solvency remains to be seen. And keep in mind this is the very first city budget for our new form of government. While the Mayor will propose the budget, it will ultimately be the job of City Council to change and approve it. Mayor Wilson will only get to vote on the final budget it if a tie-breaker is needed.
Once the mayor’s budget is out on Monday, hearings and work sessions will begin within a few days. There will be Council Budget Committee work sessions the following week on May 14th and 15th from 2:00 to 5:00 pm. May will be full of budget meetings and opportunities for the public to testify. The council will make a final vote to adopt the budget on June 18th.
I hope PBOT staff and leadership rest well this weekend. Because things are likely to get very heated starting next week. Stay tuned and let me know what questions you have about all this so I can tailor my stories accordingly.
Thanks for reading.
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I wonder what their budget will be like for removing uh… shall we call them community-initiated traffic control infrastructure improvements?
Every dusk as daylight fades
The traffic elves begin their nightly raids
With planters and posts they redirect the flow
Then fight over which way the cars should go
Some build chicanes to slow the pace
Others want to be free to race
Some raise barriers, tall and proud
While others are torn down by an angry crowd
“oops, I accidentally spilled paint in the shape of a crosswalk. Too bad PBOT is too broke to clean it up! Guess we’ll just have to live with it.”
funny how on the “Streets are filled with graffiti, litter and failing assets” slide:
“If a signal gets knocked-down by a driver or other cause (happens more than you think!), it would be replaced with a stop sign unless the location was on a designated High Crash Network street.” This is me dreaming a world where if a driver knocks down a signal or other infrastructure, the driver/their insurance pays for replacement.
There’s a lot of posturing by PBOT in that budget, lots of smoke and mirrors. It’s not (yet) a very serious budget.
Rock bottom?
Not even close. The Portland Doom loop is just getting going. High earning taxpayers are fleeing, commercial building valuations have tanked (dramatically lowering tax payments) and we have a mayor, city council and County leadership (JVP) who just don’t get it. They are unwilling to cut taxes to stop the exodus, unwilling to prioritize basic city and county services, unwilling to stop funding their favorite ineffective nonprofits and unwilling to curtail the ideological based spending. It’s gonna get a lot worse….
If PBOT isn’t doing anything then no need for all the communication staff.
If PBOT isn’t hiring, then no need for DEI staff.
If PBOT isn’t doing maintenance, then can get rid of maintenance staff and sell off any equipment.
If PBOT is bare bones, then sell off the downtown buildings, fire middle managers, and have the staff work from home. Office space is a luxury anymore, not a necessity.
There’s many more that can be done. It sucks, but like the rest of us who have to tighten our belts and do without avocado toast every morning when times are tough, time for PBOT to do the same.
“city-owned stairway gets cracked or damaged, it would be closed”
Oh dear. That will make “Portland’s Little Red Book of Stairs “and “Portland Stair Walks” books obsolete. Perhaps switch their maintenance budget over to Tourism Board?
In the previous article the ridiculous posturing of the Rs was rightly lambasted by JM and many in the comments. So now that Portland (and the rest of Oregon) is looking at the transportation end result of long term Democrat control, where is the lamentation? Where are the plans for street protests, windows to break and libraries to desecrate? I know many ridiculed (rightly) the R plan to segue away from all but cars, but now that the Dems are essentially going to do the same thing and raise taxes and/or fees there does not seem to be the same level of mockery. Essentially it seems Oregon is caught between idiotic Rs and corrupt and/or incompetent Ds. Good luck to all of you!