Portland Mayor Keith Wilson released his city budget proposal today, announcing a mix of staffing changes, fee increases and cuts aimed at blunting the force of an estimated $93 million general fund shortfall.
Calling it a “back to basics” approach, Wilson’s proposal for how to balance the city’s $8.54 billion budget includes some relief for the transportation bureau. As BikePortland reported, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) prepped for bleak cuts to address impacts of an estimated $38 million budget shortfall. The agency braced for widespread layoffs and cuts to programs and services like street sweeping, traffic signal repairs, striping crosswalks, Sunday Parkways, Vision Zero, the street plaza program, and more.
The mayor’s budget seeks to slice $15.4 million from PBOT. This means the agency will see some cuts, but the most dire warnings will not come to pass.
To boost transportation revenue, Wilson’s proposal seeks to raise parking and rideshare fees, reinstate a leaf cleanup fee, and finance the city’s legal commitment to ADA curb ramp construction.
When it comes to new parking revenue, the mayor’s plan is to raise an additional $6.8 million via what he characterized as, “modest increases in parking fees in line with peer cities.” $5.5 million of that will be generated through a 25% increase in hourly parking meter rates in each district. Hourly event parking meter rates would also go up. To raise another $350,000 per year, the cost to park in the Providence Park district would increase from $5 to $7 per hour and Moda Center area parking would increase from $3 to $5 per hour. Event parking district hours would also be extended from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, which Wilson says would generate another $1 million per year.
An increase in the fees charged to rideshare customers is also in Wilson’s plan. Currently, folks who use Uber or Lyft pay an extra 65-cents per ride, with an additional surcharge for airport trips and for trips that start or end outside Portland city limits. Wilson wants to double that fee to $1.30 and use the $5.1 million in estimated new revenue to invest in pothole repairs and street cleaning activities such as graffiti removal, and towing derelict RVs (PBOT has said they’d be forced to reduce derelict RV removal 75% — from 550 to 140 RVs annually — without new revenue).
Wilson will stave off the elimination of all street sweeping services by moving $3.1 million from the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) to PBOT. Those funds will allow for the hire of nine new permanent sweeping positions. Because the sweeping would be funded by BES, the locations chosen for sweeping must drain to surface water or groundwater sources.
The mayor’s budget creates additional funding for PBOT by saving them money in the short-term through a refinance of the City’s legal obligation to build and replace ADA curb ramps citywide. The plan is to work with the City Attorney’s Office and the Public Works Service Area on a new bond issuance. Those bonds will create near-term revenue for PBOT above and beyond the interest it will cost to pay them back.
When it comes to cuts, PBOT will be impacted by the citywide “enterprise efficiencies” cuts — these are staffing cuts on positions like communications and equity compliance that are currently duplicated across several bureaus that will be consolidated into the Public Works Service Area. This could be a significant loss if the media loses the ability to get timely, accurate, detailed information about PBOT. I’ve relied on PBOT communications staff for years and they are a crucial part of my work. If I’m forced instead to speak with a generalist without intimate knowledge of transportation policy or the day-to-day workings of the bureau, the community could suffer.
Wilson’s plan will also reduce $113,000 from PBOT’s share of the city’s general fund (all bureaus were asked to cut 8%, and since PBOT gets very little from the general fund, their share is small). Those cuts were expected and will include: a $44,000 reduction in PBOT’s central city street cleaning budget (a reduction to anti-icing efforts); $46,622 from a program that paves gravel streets; and $11,082 from Sunday Parkways. PBOT says the Sunday Parkways reductions, “Would reduce safety programming for these events such as barricades, traffic control and parking signage, and traffic flagging.”
PBOT will also see its allocation from the Recreational Cannabis Tax reduced by $277,664. That’s fortunately only about one-third of what PBOT expected, but it’s still funding that will directly hit Vision Zero-related projects like intersection daylighting and other safety projects.
Overall, Mayor Wilson has prioritized PBOT and saved the agency from significant cuts. That might be because he sees transportation as a key element in his push for a green economy. At his State of the City event Friday, Wilson was asked a question about job development and he responded by saying he believes Portlanders should, “leave the cars at home.” Here’s an excerpt:
“We should be the greenest city in the nation and using those jobs as that catalyst to move us forward. I really think that green leadership is the way we move our city forward. We are a car-centric focus; we have to focus on a multimodal transportation system. So we need to unlock that potential. We need to focus on streetcars, which is that elemental approach to transportation-oriented villages, and then it has to be anchored with high speed rail. And we have to change how we lead our society, leave the cars at home, take that income and invest it in our communities, for the health of our community.”
One open question is whether state lawmakers will come to the rescue and pass a transportation funding package (Wilson’s budget counts on the state passing a funding plan and sending $11 million to PBOT). Any increase in the gas tax would automatically flow to the City of Portland. “This package adds revenue in anticipation of a state gas tax increase,” reads one line of the budget. But there’s no additional explanation of what would happen if or when that increase doesn’t come to pass.
From here, the budget will be debated among the 12 city councilors and the public will have opportunities to weigh in. City Council will ultimately adopt the final budget in mid-June. Stay tuned for more updates, as the budget will be a major focus of council for the next 4-6 weeks. For more coverage of today’s news, see this OPB story.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Nah, let’s tax everyone.
Impose a citywide car parking permit program, ban all parking on arterial and collector streets outside of the central business district (to raise the value of remaining parking spaces and to provide better bus routes and/or buffered bike lanes), tax the transit of cell phone signals in the public right-of-way, and a $20 bike frame tag fee for all bicycles paid by the owner (to tax chop shop operators).
No, that only targets drivers. Everyone using the transortation network (including mass transit) should have skin in the game.
How about an evil “Big Brother Movement Tax”? 10-cents per mile of movement of your cell phone GPS unit – the more you move, the more you pay – the city could double the tax for attempts to evade the tax or for the use of burner phones and dark-web phones. They could even tax visitors and non-residents like they do in New Hampshire. Probably illegal but that’s never stopped governments from trying.
Like an Arts Tax on steroids??!??!?
Anyone making above $1000 🙂
Nah, let’s encourage less destructive and deadly ways of getting around.
1,000% this.
I have two questions that I’d love to see city leaders answer, ideally on a monthly basis:
Notice how the statement from the mayor was just emphasizing a mode of transit that is as fast as walking and another that is pure fantasy, but never once mentioned cleaning up what we currently have? Imagine city council asking for harsh enforcement of insane driving, for jail time if caught driving on a bike path, zero tolerance of anti-social behavior on busses and trains, immediate removal of camps on sidewalks and adhacent to MUPs, etc.
They won’t, so for many residents, the list of things for number 1 above is short, and number 2 is very long.
You can do that and still tax everyone.
What is the over under on when the mayor and council are begging for a sales tax to plug the deficit because there is nobody left to pay their income based taxes?
Honestly I would love to see some expansion to the areas where we do charge for parking, right now I don’t think hawthorne or division in inner SE, for example, have paid parking. I’ve also lived in cities where people who lived in a specific neighborhood were able to buy a neighborhood zone parking permit, and everyone who didn’t have that permit had a 30 min or 1 hr parking time cap for street parking.
We have that here as well; a neighborhood has the ability to impose such a district if they feel the need.
It’s a lot more complicated than that. We tried in 2013 or so to create a parking district in the Gateway area – there was even support for it by most neighbors (over 50%) in the new district – but it got blocked by certain land owners and by the city itself.
I don’t know if the policy has changed, or what the story with the Gateway project is, but I’m aware of a couple that were implemented in inner SE, so I know it’s possible. One thing is they have to be in areas zoned for residential to use the particular mechanism I’m aware of.
Lessons learned in Portland aren’t all bad, though Portland’s ratio of good vs bad decision-making is still questionable. Oh Goody! More politicians to give a skeptic viewpoint. So glad that Wheeler is gone.
Well, we got Wheeler 2.0 with Wilson.
My specific dispute with Wheeler was the SW Corridor MAX extension to Tigard (debacle) and the I-5 Rose Quarter so-called “improvement” (fiasco). City Hall, ODOT, Metro and Tri-Met were putting lives in harm’s way with these unconscionable highway expansions. Gains in public transit were exaggerated with the MAX extension as was development potential facing 45 mph heavy traffic there and with the Rose Quarter I-5 proposal.
I won’t be surprised if Wilson turns out to be equally incompetent or worse, but I’ll need specific info on what goes wrong during his term. PBOT, BDS, Parks Bureau are known to be either or both incompetent and/or corrupt.
Hales 2.0: now with more unrealistic optimism!
Wheeler gets the most optimistic failure award.
I’d say baseball stadium location is a mistake.
My gut instinct tells me the ipact is understated.
Don’t forget the mess planned for North Park Blocks.
Elevated concrete bikeway to a dangerous 3-way stoplight.
Whose big idea was that? Simplest bikeway eastbound ignored.
Bikes down Lovejoy ramp, hang a right, rebuild for bikeway.
Nah, we wanna ewevated bikeyway wheee!
What else in the works Wilson has a clue what
to do. What else Wilson to do?
They are starting to — N Mississippi Ave and N Vancouver / Williams will start doing so this year: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/parking/boise-parking/n-ne-parking
“Event parking district hours would also be extended from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, which Wilson says would generate another $1 million per year.”
Finally! Events often go over the allotted time- either giving away free parking or setting people up to be ticketed or stress about making it back to their vehicles.
“One question is whether state lawmakers pass a transportation funding package. Any increase in the gas tax would flow to Portland. This package adds revenue to a state gas tax increase, says the budget with no explanation of what would happen if that increase didn’t come to pass.
Editing is a life for me.
Sorry, but I’m not at all happy with PBOT these days. The Rose Quarter I-5 racist Red-lining of Black people where menacing traffic will leave them dead. The MAX extension SW Corridor to Tigard debacle, the Columbia River I-5 Bridge replacement fiasco. ODOT Department of Highway robbery chumps, truckers and fossil fuel polluters want the world to end.
That’s some Grade A hyperbole, nicely done
Hyperbole – exaggerations I hear you, but worsened traffic targets those daring to safely walk in crosswalks, residents who catch streetcar and bus. The crosswalk nearest the on-ramp to I-5 northbound can NEVER be made safe. The southbound I-5 exit must NOT be relocated south at Wheeler Way, where a “hairpin turn” west is sure to become interminable pile-up collisions. I try to make my sentence structure brief. Hyperbole is an unfair criticism of my viewpoint. Who’s pulling your strings, RkShox? Whatever.
Sorry, but I’m not at all happy with PBOT these days. The Rose Quarter I-5 so-called “improvement” where menacing traffic will leave most intimidated at all crosswalks. The MAX extension SW Corridor to Tigard was such a “debacle” worst light rail engineering I’ve ever seen. It’s inexcusable.
Then there’s the I-5 Columbia River Bridge replacement “fiasco”. ODOT Department of Highway robbery chumps, truckers and fossil fuel polluters want the world to end, not for them and theirs, but for others. Okay maybe that last line could be Grade A hyperbole.
Extending parking meters to 10 PM (generally, not just in event districts, if I’m reading the budget correctly) makes sense… but I’m wondering why in a budget crunch they are sticking with free parking in some meter districts, on some days of the week?
For example: in the Northwest meter district there’s no need to pay on Sundays, and in the Central Eastside meter district no need to pay Saturdays or Sundays.
I’m not sure about NW specifically, but I know in many places that’s done as a way to increase commercial activity on an otherwise slow day. It may be a bit of an archaic holdover from days-of-yore, but it’s likely businesses would object to removing that policy without good reason.
Definitely archaic. Sunday is not a slow business day in NW
Are Sundays really a slow day for NW? That’d surprise me – it’s very shops and food oriented and I definitely do more of that on Sundays than random weekdays.
For Central Eastside, I could see it since it’s more industry oriented
We only started charging for Sunday parking downtown in June 2009 if you want to read folks complaining about the change from over 15 years ago: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2009/08/portlands_new_sunday_parking_n.html
The fact that CEID meters are off on Saturday suggests that demand is a major factor, since the primary goal there is likely to manage weekday commuter parking. The other reason I suspect for less enforcement on Sunday is simply that there are fewer parking enforcement officers working on Sunday, so PBOT focuses their limited resources on the times and locations with the highest need.
It’s also worth noting that parking fines don’t directly go back into parking enforcement, but rather the general fund, and only after the state takes a sizable cut. Hourly parking FEES on the other hand do go directly to PBOT, so it’s a good call for the City to raise those fees when appropriate.
I assume Sundays are free parking because God. Some places added Saturdays because God.
I wonder how much bite the extended parking enforcement will take out of the extended meter hours.
There is certainly more fruit to be had by shaking the parking tree–maccoinnich mentions two that there is longstanding evidence to support in extending metering to 10pm weekdays and introducing it on Sundays–but raising rates arbitrarily to generate new revenue is most decidedly not a best practice in parking management. It is not so much a question of whether this will have unintended consequences, but how many, and how severe.
One of the most important contributions of the late Don Shoup was demonstrating that pricing parking based on observed demand is a fantastic way to supercharge economic growth in a neighborhood. I worry that by taking the opposite approach and pricing for revenue’s sake may have the opposite effect. Where higher prices are warranted, they are fantastic at pushing people to take transit or active transportation if they don’t want to pay the fee; where they are not warranted, they are just as likely to push people to other neighborhoods. And on top of that, it perpetuates PBOT’s dependency on parking revenue as a general fund source, complicating efforts to remove parking spaces for things like street plazas or bike infrastructure, and generally increasing public distrust of parking fees.
Especially in the context of downtown, which is doing better than most people think but still in the midst of a delicate recovery from COVID, I hope the city rethinks this. There are any number of opportunities to raise revenues that better align with management and economic goals. Especially as downtown becomes less of a “CBD” and more of a “central everything district,” we need to be looking at the creation of a Parking Benefit District downtown. Among other things, a Benefit District would create avenues for the city to sell permits to employees and residents to generate revenue from the scores of underused parking, creating valuable incentives to attract new residents. It would also provide avenues to better fight the “two-front war” of simultaneously collaborating with and competing with private operators. And we simply MUST implement demand-based pricing in Portland, based both on time-of-day and location, especially if we want to keep up with “peer cities.”
I can think of 37 ways off the top of my head that the city could potentially increase revenues while simultaneously improving management and travel behavior. An arbitrary, 25% citywide hike in meter rates is not one of them.
Don Shoup’s Three Tenets of Parking:
1 – Charge the right prices for on-street parking. The right prices are the lowest prices that will leave one or two open spaces on each block, so there will be no parking shortages. Prices will balance the demand and supply for on-street spaces.
2. – Spend the parking revenue to improve public services on the metered streets. Because everybody will see their meter money at work, the new public services can make parking meters politically popular.
3 – Remove off-street parking requirements. Developers and businesses can then decide how many parking spaces to provide for their customers.
Regarding #1 – and how it applies to PDX and comments in this thread – San Francisco ( and maybe other municipalities) use flexible pricing on metered parking. The price adjusts based on demand , which is determined by time of day, day of the week, events, etc. in order to achieve the goal stated in #1.
I heard the 25% increase was based on a survey that showed that none of the parking districts have yet even reached the level where they are impacting parking behavior. Once you get to the baseline where the price is actually affecting behavior, then you can raise or lower it as needed to managed demand to match supply.
Parking is incredibly cheap in Portland, and it does need to be higher across the board before we start really applying these Shoup principles.
On top of charging for street parking, Portland needs a tax that increases over time on any surface level parking lot in the CEID or downtown that is ~10 spaces.
Why does it seem every “solution” in Portland includes more taxes…..does nobody in this Democratic stronghold listen to Governor Kotek?
https://portlandmetrochamber.com/resources/governor-kotek-unveils-central-city-task-force-recommendations/
Or maybe don’t charge people to park because they choose to risk life and limb going downtown and supporting the failing businesses. I won’t go downtown to shop because it’s too much of a hassle. And the smell.
Isn’t the smell an indication that we’ve hit the big city? SF and NYC are notorious for smelly streets.
So Wilson is raising taxes but calling them “fees”. More taxes are not what down on its luck Portland needs right now. We need to learn to prioritize basic essential municipal services and live within our means.
There is a difference, actually, and he’s using the terms correctly. Fees are avoidable. Don’t ride TNCs if you don’t want to pay that fee. Don’t do Leaf Day if you don’t want to pay that fee. Don’t park downtown on the street if you don’t want to pay that fee. Taxes are universal on an entire category, like property taxes on all property owners (and obviously part of that is passed on to tenants), or business taxes on all businesses. But within those categories, other than low-income exemptions or whatever, they are not voluntarily avoidable the way fees are.
Not sure the ability to avoid the tax/fee is the test here. Seems more simple that if the fee funds the administration of a service at cost, then it is appropriately a fee. If the fee generates funds in excess of the cost to administer the service and/or is increased with the intention to fund shortfalls elsewhere in the budget (ding ding ding, Portland), then it is no longer a fee and is a tax. The obfuscation is of course due to the need for taxes to be approved by the legislature or voters and they have more leniency on fees.
Let’s be honest Mr. Wilson:
FEES = TAXES
TAXES= FEES
Yep.
If PBOT is short of money to maintain service for drivers, drivers need to pay more. Call it whatever you want.
PBOT is also short of money to maintain services for cyclists. Should we also pay more?
It’s not either/or.
I’m also a driver.
And cycling infrastructure benefits everyone who uses the road, not just cyclists, so I have no problem paying for it with gas tax and parking fees.
It sounds like you think it is either/or — only drivers should pay.
Good roads benefit people who ride bikes, take the bus, or use any services that benefit from roads, like shop in stores, eat in restaurants, or, really, almost anything.
Roads are a universal good, and there is no reason that only drivers should pay for them. Both/and.
Should people who only walk also pay a sidewalk use fee?? This is not a serious argument, Watts. Cars/driving cars causes congestion, wear/tear and danger on roadways that would take hundreds of bikes to equal. We already pay a new bike tax and property taxes. Maybe when we reach 50% of the mode share, then we can talk about a “use tax.” Hopefully in the form of paid, secure bike parking around town.
Sure it is. I see roads as a public good, most comparable to schools. We all pay for schools, even those who never have kids, on the principle that our society is better off if everyone is educated (though I’m starting to question Oregon’s commitment to that goal). Likewise, everyone is better off when the road network works well, and I referenced some of the reasons above.
We all know roads are expensive, and we need a revenue stream to fund their maintenance. One fat stream of money we’ve historically tapped is a sales tax on gasoline, which has the added bonus of being “thematic” (certainly more than using marijuana taxes for schools as we did prior to M110… or maybe not?), and kind of serves as an indirect user fee which has some political salience.
Most of the road damage is done by heavy vehicles (i.e. trucks and buses), and we have a whole separate system of assessing them based on their weight that pays for a significant minority of Oregon’s road funding (if I remember correctly).
As the gas tax fades (as I hope it will do quickly), we need a new revenue stream to replace it, and unfortunately, there aren’t many good candidates. Because I see roads as a public good, I am pretty agnostic about what that new revenue stream is, though if I could pick, it would be a carbon tax (mostly because we need one). We could tax vehicle miles driven, but the collection schemes floated so far are intrusive (which is why I favor a national system that would make using simple odometer readings feasible). The fact that a VMT tax is thematic is a political advantage, but I don’t necessarily see it as a moral one.
In short, since I believe a good road network benefits everyone, even those who do not drive, it should be paid for by everyone.
By the way, the bike tax is complete performative BS, and raises little revenue. It should be repealed. And property taxes do not fund roads in Oregon.
#1 contributor to road wear – Freight.
This is because, once a vehicle exceeds the roadway’s designed fatigue strength, the damage caused goes up as the 4th power of the weight increase.
#2 contributor to road wear – Weather
Ice & snow are only part of it, simple temperature fluctuation causes damage to roadways.
#3 contributor to road wear – studded tires and chains
everything else beyond that is a small fraction of it.
Question: Do you buy exclusively locally produced goods?
Very likely not – therefore no matter how you get around you are helping create the demand for the single biggest destroyer of roadways.
Dumping it all on car drivers only creates/exacerbates the US VS. THEM mentality that gets in the way of a road system that actually works for all of us.
There is no getting around the fact that the vast majority of road wear is not paid for by those that cause it, and will never be (if you manage to get past the freight lobby to get them to pay, all you’ll do is move the cost to the goods we purchase*). And good luck getting God/Gaia/Mother Nature to pay for their share.
I say all this as someone who has not driven a car in over 30 years and not owned one in 37 years.
Wouldn’t that have the desirable effect of encouraging puchase of goods that travel less?
Possibly – though the law of unintended consequences means that there will be likely be undesireable knock on effects. At a guess higher cost of food since we don’t produce all the food we need locally. That would impact low SES folks more than others.
That’s why I only buy local avocados.
Sorry, for some reason this goes through my head at the mention of avocados.
Well, that’s a blast from the past.
This needs to be yelled from rooftops.
I haven’t driven a car in 30 years, but I benefit for a well connected, *WELL MAINTAINED* road network.
We need to decouple funding of this public good from use fees.
I feel like the state really needs to be charging a sales tax on RV’s that is fully dedicated to the eventual cost of removing those RV’s when they become junk. As far as I can tell unlike passenger vehicles the lifecycle of an RV basically always ends with it being worth less than the cost of disposal resulting in a lot of dumped vehicles.
How about instead of yet another tax we hold people responsible for not depositing their trashed RV’s on our streets?
Please explain how holding homeless drug addicts “responsible” for their RVs works, exactly, and how it helps with the $15.4 million being cut from PBOT.
Maybe they cold tax the Sprinter RV’s that have become so popular
Portland is the hospice care center for all RVs just before they die (most often from immolation, tragically).
Here’s the end of way too many RV’s in Portland. This one was allowed to be parked in a “NO RV PARKING ZONE” for months before it erupted in flames. Notice the burnt sign in the upper right corner.
btw – I’m not arguing that the RVs aren’t a problem. But expecting the occupants to be “responsible” for them obviously isn’t a workable solution. Unfortunately, like all crime, litter, and vandalism, it’s a problem that ultimately falls on taxpayers.
We could get the previous owners to pay, or maybe prepay for disposal when you buy the vehicle.
They very well should be responsible for them. The houseless should not be allowed to escape the bonds of society and law and happily expect the rest to literally pick up after them or breath in their pollution (burning RVs and refuse is very toxic).
Crime, litter and vandalism shouldn’t fall on the taxpayers. It should fall on the heads of the ones doing those things. I just don’t understand this laissez faire attitude that treats these problems like they are committed by two year olds who don’t know better.
Should? But they don’t and you can’t make them. Not without a lot of effort and taxpayer cash. The vandals and literbugs and people who commit what you call crime may not care to take responsibility for the unsightly and possibly toxic mess their irresponsibility leaves behind. So some mechanism needs to be in place to keep our neighborhood nicer than a trash heap. If not sharing the burden among responsible taxpayers then what would you propose? I quite like the idea of collecting the expected cost of its eventual disposal as part of the purchase price. Prices should reflect the actual costs, including a recognition of the value extracted from public commons of air, trees, water, public health, for a product’s manufacture and use.
Yes, you can make them, but I fully understand you have no desire to. I also understand that it is much easier to blame the inanimate object and not the person using it since the belief that anyone should be expected to do whatever they want whenever they want is too ingrained among a certain social strata.
For your own health though, if you see a burning RV or other vehicle you should be aware that it is very toxic. Also, human feces are considered a biohazard so again for your health I would be careful.
As far as how I would handle the houseless problem to keep your neighborhood nicer than a trash heap? It centers around a slight modification of the depression era Civilian Conservation Corp.
https://www.history.com/articles/civilian-conservation-corps
Very doable and beneficial to those doing the work and society at large. I know it won’t happen in California, Oregon or Washington as there is no incentive from any of those governments to actually help the houseless.
How will we suffer, exactly?
If it’s a choice between hiring street sweepers (so we can ride in safer bike lanes) and hiring communications people (who can tell you why the bike lanes aren’t being swept), I will choose the street sweepers every time!
Portland entities are awash with communications people who do nothing but talk. I want to see more delivery of actual services.
Hear that. It’s just unbelievable how trashy our “leaders” have let our city become. Then they wonder why nobody wants to wade through the filth and the graffiti to shop downtown. Just take a walk down our city welcome mat, the waterfront. Every single lamp post is broken and covered in spray paint. Bums are out yelling at families in the middle of the day. Portland just does not care any more.
Well they care about the homeless,,,don’t think this is open to all residents. Would be nice though.
https://www.portland.gov/homelessness-impact-reduction/city-laundry-program
Or… hear me out… instead of fining law-abiding citizens MAYBE start fining the law breakers. Install cameras in the 26 tunnel inbound and ticket every car that illegally crosses the double lines. But no, it would be silly for Portland to fine law breakers when there are so many more people doing the right thing.
The 26 tunnel is ODOT’s responsibility. So that would be on the state to ticket those nefarious double-line crossers.
Is that true? Can city police not write tickets for infractions on state roads inside the city limits?
I’m no budget expert but in the proposed budget it looks like PBOT’s budget is up 16% overall, while the Active Transportation and Safety line item is down 30%, putting it equal with… Parking Garages. Hope there’s better news sprinkled someplace else.
So just for fun I checked parking rates in Denver Colorado. It’s about two bucks an hour so I guess Denver is not considered a peer city. If I had to guess he’s pretty much only referring to California or Seattle.
Really cracks me up is to this day there is still a lack of bike lanes in downtown Portland. So if you wanted to give up your car for real in downtown, you would still pretty much be sushi on a lot of streets but if you want to drive your car you’re gonna get taxed like crazy on parking.
Like a good oligarch, Wilson is there.
No you wouldn’t. People ride downtown all day every day and this isn’t happening.
That’s totally cool. Let’s get some grade schoolers down there to test your theory of “it’s just fine”. What’s the going acceptable death and injury rate for “it’s just fine”?
When was the last pedestrian/cyclist hit in downtown?
I remember when the TriMet driver killed someone in a crosswalk.
Not sure if there was one since then.
EDIT – oh, maybe 2012 or so someone was killed in the bike lane on Madison at 3rd – someone right hooked her.
Interesting that both incidents happened when the VRU was using infrastructure designed for them.
“lack of bike lanes in downtown Portland”
They’re not needed in most places due to low speeds (Broadway and Naito are major exceptions, and they both have bike lanes).
Overall, downtown is a safe and relatively pleasant place to ride.
I ride downtown all the time. Riding downtown is easy, largely because it has the slowest traffic in Portland and bikes travel at pretty much the same speed as cars.
It is easier and feels safer to ride a bike downtown with the slow vehicle speeds and one-way streets even without dedicated bike lanes than on the narrow unswept gutters that pass for bike lanes on streets outside downtown. That said, I’d like riding downtown better if PBoT could fix a few of the potholes I have flipped over.
What’s the going rate of acceptable rate of injury and death of kids for “feels”?
Crossing 5th on Columbia there’s one that will take out a 700cx28mm Conti Gatorskin (right lane)
Then just before 3rd there’s one in the left lane that can wreck a 28mm Gatorskin.