The City of Portland has passed an ambitious new transportation program that, if all goes according to plan, would invest $50 million per year on sidewalks, improved shoulder pathways, and pothole repairs citywide — with a specific emphasis on southwest and east Portland. It’s one of the most significant pieces of policy passed by council since they convened for the first time in January and a major win for the two councilors who spearheaded it.
The Sidewalk Improvement and Paving Program (SIPP) first came to light back in March and was created by District 1 City Councilor Loretta Smith and District 4 Councilor Mitch Green (since then it’s gained support and is also sponsored by D4 councilors Olivia Clark and Eric Zimmerman). Smith and Green found common cause in a desire to correct the historic lack of sidewalk coverage in east and west Portland.
There’s no funding plan yet; but Councilor Green (an economist by training) is working on a bonding plan that will come before the Finance Committee shortly. He says debt financing should be sufficient to raise $200 million over four or five years. The use of funds secured through the sale of city bonds means the program could be implemented without raising taxes and without impacting the current transportation bureau budget.
While what passed yesterday is just a resolution, and doesn’t carry the legal authority of an ordinance, once a finance plan is in place, this program will have a major impact on how the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) builds out the city’s sidewalk network. And thanks to a successful amendment proposed by Councilor Clark, the program will also permit PBOT to build “alternative pathways” when full sidewalks are not feasible. These pathways give PBOT the ability to address sidewalk gaps by finding creative design solutions that are easier and/or cheaper to build than raised concrete sidewalks with curbs and all the related stormwater features they require. These pathways (which would be used by bicycle riders as well in many cases) are likely to be similar to the “alternative walkway” PBOT built on NE 60th Avenue in the Cully neighborhood in 2021.
Whether or not SIPP projects could happen in Cully, which is in District 2, and whether or not PBOT will be limited to building projects only in districts 1 and 4, was a major point of debate in Wednesday’s meeting.
Surprisingly, District 1 Councilor Candace Avalos proposed an amendment to remove districts from the policy language entirely. Avalos felt like creating programs that target specific districts might set a bad precedent. “I’m trying to prevent us from making this precedent where we’re going to turn this into some kind of turf war,” Avalos said. She believes PBOT should use its existing data and equity toolkit to determine which parts of Portland need sidewalks the most — instead of having politicians dictate where investments go.
Councilor Green disagreed strongly.
“I think if you strike the terms ‘District 1’ and ‘District 4’, it renders the point of this resolution largely moot and we just fall back on the broader transportation planning framework that we already have.” “How long should southwest Portland wait for sidewalks? Is it 50 years? Is it 100 years? Is it longer?,” Green asked rhetorically in a passionate defense of the program.
“I think we were elected to fight for our districts, and I’m doing that right now,” Green continued. “I’m not going to go back to my district and talk to the immigrant community in southwest Portland and tell them I did not fight for them.”
PBOT Director Millicent Williams was on hand to clarify how they would interpret the program. Asked by Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney whether the resolution would prohibit PBOT from using SIPP to build projects in districts 2 and 3, Williams said no. In the end, the Avalos amendment failed as councilors realized that, while the resolution prioritizes districts 1 and 4, other districts could receive investments as well.
Another element of this new program that was clarified on Wednesday was what resolutions sponsors mean when they say “pavement.” “Just for the record, ‘pavement maintenance deficiencies’ [in the resolution language] is a euphemism for potholes,” Councilor Clark said.
When it came time to cast a final vote, one of the resolution’s chief architects, Councilor Loretta Smith said, “We are writing our past wrongs and making sure that everyone in the city of Portland has an opportunity not just to survive, but they have an opportunity to safe streets and sidewalks.” In a statement yesterday, Smith said its passage was, “a watershed moment.” And her colleague Councilor Green added, “I think today is going to mark a turning point in the history of this city where we say we are no longer going to accept neighborhoods in our city to be ignored.”
District 3 Councilor Steve Novick was the lone “no” vote. “I think asking PBOT to spend time planning,= to do things we have no money to do is putting the cart before the horse and I’m not prepared to say that I prioritize $200 million for sidewalks before we have addressed the pavement maintenance deficit,” he said.
From here, Councilor Green and his staff will work on the funding plan that will soon be on the agenda of the Finance Committee. That plan will be an ordinance and, if it’s passed, will give the SIPP the funding and legal backing it needs to be something much more than just another plan. Smith said in a statement that PBOT would begin planning and implementation immediately and said the community can expect major developments in SIPP by this summer. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.
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Funding sidewalks via debt financing? What?
It’s long been how most public infrastructure is funded, including sewers, water lines, buildings, streets, public parks, public housing, and so on. Y’all borrow money (municipal bonds) and pay it back over a long period, usually 30 years, with future income. It’s a bit like a Ponzi scheme, your mortgage, or social security.
So, generally only a problem if we have declining population and/or income?
I think we should be avoiding bonds when possible, given these trends.
It’s based on how Portland pays back its bonds, which mostly seems to be through property taxes. Since Oregon doesn’t pay direct sales taxes, population change is largely irrelevant (5 or even 10 years is hardly a trend). As Portland property values rise, so will its ability to borrow. Of course, due to inflation, the real value will keep declining as the nominal value rises, but from city councilor’s point of view who’s going to be running again in 2026, $50 million is the same value as it was 40 or 100 years ago, it looks good with voters, and most voters are easily fooled (as are most politicians, alas).
As we discussed earlier, $50 million per year isn’t very much, far from the hundreds of millions when this was first proposed, particularly in SW Portland, but I suppose “it’s better than nothing”, sort of. At least now they are discussing cheaper alternatives to Portland’s platinum sidewalk standards to make their limited dollars go further.
Perhaps a complete sidewalks network is part of reversing these trends.
I highly doubt that. Most of the people leaving Portland are probably moving to places that are car-hell like Texas, Phoenix, or Boise because the cost of living is so much lower in those places. Contrary to urbanist dogma, most regular people aren’t clamoring to live in walkable neighborhoods. For most people, that isn’t even a consideration.
Making housing cheaper and rents lower should be priority number 1.
I think it’s coolest to do both. I don’t want to live around “regular” people if all they want to do is speed around in their trucks and go to the gym and the mall.
If they’re not “clamoring to live in walkable neighborhoods” why are houses so expensive in walkable neighborhoods?
It can simultaneously be true that “most people aren’t clamoring to live in close in walkable neighborhoods” and “housing in those neighborhoods is more expensive” because there isn’t that much housing in walkable areas (especially the single family housing that is super desirable, judging by its price, but which urbanists hate) compared to less walkable areas. If 10% of our housing is super walkable, and 15% of people are clamoring to live there, prices will rise.
Those are utterly invented numbers, of course, and I don’t know if people are or are not clamoring to live in walkable neighborhoods, or even what that really means, but you see the point.
This is great news for SW, where sidewalks are desperately needed. I’ll be happy with those alternate sidewalks as well. There is a new stretch of this alternative design on the southern end of Boones Ferry, just before the city line and the New Seasons. The pavement and concrete curbs went in about two weeks ago, and pedestrians are already using the new space.
It should be “righting our past wrongs,” as in correcting them.
The new SWIM project on Boones Ferry narrowed the car lanes to add a pedestrian path that is not multi-use designated and forces bicycles onto the road and created a pinch point for bikes in both directions.
Boones Ferry from Terwilliger to Lake Oswego is very overgrown on both shoulders.
Having bike or multi-use lanes on the uphill sections like a truck lane might be a start to reduce car interactions for a lower initial cost working toward the master plan.
They did; that was why SW got no sidewalks – despite PBOT’s own study showing equity-target areas HAD sidewalks and crosswalks; the issue was stroads, speeding, and residents feeling that racist drivers would not stop for people of color crossing streets.
As noted, nothing stops sidewalk-less areas in 2 and 3 getting them, but the focus is on 1 and 4.
And kudos for allowing alternate xolutions where 12′ ROW with curbs etc are not possible… although I will assume all the city attorneys who argued against making ‘desire paths’ are fuming now.
I will be fuming if the ‘alternative’ to sidewalks remains the PBOT SW standard of unpaved 6′ shoulder “where possible” I ws nearly hit on one of those this morning.
SW is also the most difficult/expensive area to build. The picture at the top shows this well. The cost per mile of sidewalk in SW could easily be 10x that of outer east Portland.
I hope the focus of this plan is on providing space for people walking and not just building sidewalks. There are numerous roads in SW that look exactly like the picture at the top but has so little traffic. It’d be financially prohibitive to add sidewalks to those roads because of the terrain, but something like advisory shoulders or maybe even de-stripping would be such a huge improvement.
PBOT has been more focused on “protected shoulders” and that’s really all that will fit in portions of southwest. There’s regrettably no meat to the bones of this council resolution because they don’t even seem to understand how difficult it is to design sidewalks on any of the roads in the hills. That’s why you see floating ramps out there with no sidewalk attached to it (well that and PBOT likes to count those for their lawsuit settlement even though they’re completely useless.)
PBOT is not doing ‘protected shoulders’ in SW; they have explicitly declared they’ll try to get 6′ of paved shoulder, NO separation from traffic – but no promises. They insist protecting the pedestrian may endanger a driver, so no protective structures.
PBOT does understand how hard it is to get sidewalks in SW, but rather than figuring out how, or safe alternatives, they decided on a policy of ‘no’ and to kick the can forward and merely require a ROW dedication for “future” work.
My favorite orphan ramp is on SW Patton, where the 200′ sidewalk they required a homeowner to put in with the ramp goes up the dead-end street with 5 houses, and not the busy Patton side. Former favorite was on the corner of BHH and SW Vermont, which had 15′ of mud between it and the newly-built sidewalk and apartment complex for 5 years… but I saw formwork going in the other week, so perhaps someone was finally embarrassed enough to get it connected.
I meant city council doesn’t understand the design limitations of Southwest. SW Terwilliger is going to get a proper protected shoulder that connects to the Marquam Nature Park Trailhead as part of a larger BES project in the neighborhood, so yeah they are implementing protected shoulders in southwest.
Totally agree. Another tool–in addition to the alternative pathways PBOT has at its disposal–is using some of the funds to seed private dollar investment by subsidizing LIDs. I sure hope they at least explore this idea. If we can get landowners to cover the bulk of the cost by streamlining the permitting, organizing the funding, and throwing a little subsidy in, they could really stretch the dollars.
Whats worse is since there is no curbs on those streets, PBOT refuses to do any sweeping on those streets and so the shoulders get overgrown all the way up to the fog line leaving no space at all to walk.
When you really get down to it, the problem isn’t really a lack of paved sidewalks as much as it’s of too many drivers driving too fast and dangerously. I’ve argued this before and I’ll argue it again, but the city could make its limited funds go a lot further if they would deter people from driving – take away travel lanes, promote congestion, remove on-street parking on important streets and charge astronomical rates for parking permits everywhere else, add diverters everywhere, car parking chicanes where possible, reduce posted speed limits, pay for more enforcement, charge for loading zones, and so on.
The way the city’s been divided–Loretta Smith and Jaimie Dunphy are gonna get an earful if they explicitly adopt that in District 1. They show up to neighborhood meetings–unlike Candace Avalos who doesn’t seem as keen on being strictly a D1 advocate.
Your post is in direct violation of Urbanist Parking Free Market principles and is being being reported to the PRN and PNW.
No, it is a failure of PBOT to take complaints about pedestrian safety seriously; do you actually think some magical way to change species-wide behavior costs LESS than pedestrian safety work, including politically? Also, most of that list is non-sequitur; many SW streets we’re talking about only HAVE 2 travel lanes, have no parking on them, can’t be diverted, some have bumps or tables already, and are 25mph (though 20 would be nice).
The issue is that PBOT has declared that in many areas in Portland, but specifically in SW, the shoulder is our sidewalk… and then has done absolutely nothing to make that work. As mentioned in comments above, NO maintenance to keep 6′ shoulder clear of brush and debris, NO protection from cars where terrain narrows that space, NO removal of trees that block shoulder – and in the stretch I was on, it is a year-round 8″-deep and 50-yard-long mud pit due to runoff, and walking in the street along a blind curve is often the only way to go. Not to mention the ded tree that fell last week completely across the shoulder. And this is on a major street that leads to a prime entrance of a significant park!
Want PBOT money to go further? Force them to spend that money to clear our “sidewalks” and MAINTAIN them for a start. Put in barriers between peds/cars where needed as detrmined by users, not an AASHTO manual. And put in sidewalks where they make the most sense. No-one is advocating concrete walkways on every inch of street except people setting up strawmen.
COTW
It sounds like Councilor Green, in spite of being an economist, thinks the city can sell bonds, but that paying them back doesn’t have a tax or budgetary impact.
Novick seems to be the only one trying to look at the big picture. We’re hearing about huge budget deficits, but Novick, alone, questions spending time and money on new or expanded programs. He voted no. Good for him.
Councilor Green is far, far left. So his economics professorial stance likely isn’t as conventional as you might think. Theres alot of interesting turns that the discipline takes to fit into the Marxist/Socialist dogma.
I’m warming to him though, while I don’t like apparent support of PSU vandals, I like him saying PCEF should be used for core infrastructure maintenance rather than go to unacountable non-profits for vague climate goals (office rebuilds for homeless non-profits save the climate–how?).
That’s neither marxist nor neo-liberal, its just practical, the city is taxed to the hilt.
Can you (or the commissioner for that matter) explain how funding pouring concrete with PCEF money is in any way beneficial to the environment? Supporting replacing asphalt and concrete with climate money is directly against the intention of that fund. PBOT NEEDS TO FUND THEIR OWN PROJECTS AND IF THEY CAN’T THEY SHOULDN’T PROMISE THEM TO THE PUBLIC.
PBOT could vastly reduce the city’s carbon footprint in urban roadway and sidewalk construction by using stone curbs like many East Coast still do, plus flagstones, stone blocks and brick pavers on beds of sand and crushed gravel, like they do in much of Europe.
I’ll give it a shot. Neglecting the concrete causes chunks to fall out, causing people to say “wtf Portland!” for the billionth and last time.
This along with more and more people hitting the 125k mark because of Tarriff inflation means they leave to Clark Co, Happy Valley, Estacada (despite the chance of their house burning down), Silverton and Yamhill to pursue their dreams of drinking 135 dollars in wine tasting pours and only having 3 miles to drive home.
As a result, everyone in Portland Metro drives EVERYWHERE! and don’t use Max which becomes derelict, with trains every half hour and we hit 95 percent “drive alone” modal share.
I have lived in Portland metro for the better part of 13 years and have never owned a car. Just about every inch of Portland metro is accessible by Max, bus, bike, or walking. So what we should be focused on is improving those facilities for folks with limited mobility so they too can consider dumping their vehicles.
I have very strong feelings about people who drive everywhere that are negative. I have straight up heard some jerk say that anyone who uses public transportation is a loser. I’ve been called homophobic slurs for confronting people who drive unsafely. This county is a mess and it’s because of the quality of people.
More overt ableism as you seem to have no idea how badly these two sentences contradict each other…..
“Just about every inch of Portland metro is accessible by Max, bus, bike, or walking. So what we should be focused on is improving those facilities for folks with limited mobility so they too can consider dumping their vehicles.”
Clearly every inch of the Portland Metro is not accessible or else it wouldn’t need to be improved for folks with limited mobility. Maybe we just have different ideas of what limited mobility is?
Is any of the PCEF money going to anything actually beneficial to the environment?
Citation please.
Green strikes me as somewhat of a Sewer Socialist. He is too oriented towards “free”-market solutions for my tastes but he genuinely seems to be interested in repairing the damage to Portland’s basic infrastructure caused by establishment-liberal neglect.
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS428
Agreed–thanks for the new term I learned.
Yes because commissioner Novick understands that we cannot currently maintain what we have so blindly committing millions of dollars to new sidewalk that will go unmaintained is fiscally irresponsible and just another case of this new Council not understanding what goes into delivering CIP in Portland. I was hoping by now they would have learned, but apparently political agendas and easy wins are the only priority for this council currently.
Selling bonds that are repaid via property taxes has a relatively small impact on the city budget. For the most part, properties in Portland are unaffected by compression from the M5 1.5% RMV cap (RMV = real market value), so adding additional tax burden there doesn’t risk reducing revenue to other programs funded by property taxes. However, since some properties are affected by compression, adding additional bonds will reduce the total amount any local option levy takes in (bonds get preferential treatment, so any local option levy loses revenue first before a bond). This budget cycle has featured a lot of dialogue about Parks and Rec having a huge gap to fill, and they get a lot of funding from the current 60¢ levy (that is set to be doubled next year I think?). So we can’t just sell bonds ad infinitum to fill budget holes, but I think Councilor Green is generally correct that the City of Portland has been overly conservative in bonding for infrastructure projects.
In terms of tax impact, Multnomah County has ~$100B of assessed value. If 3/4th of that is in the City of Portland (probably conservative), raising $50M/year would require 66¢ per $1,000 of AV – a 2.8% increase (based on the $23.48 reported in Mult Co in 2023-24 in that same report). I think that’s a small impact personally but you are welcome to feel otherwise, and depending on the state of other bonds/levies, there’s a strong chance adding this bond would result in no actual change in property tax rate (especially if the PPS school bond doesn’t pass).
A local option levy would require voter approval, no? What are the odds a local option levy on everyone would be approved with language to prioritize specific districts?
Yes, a levy would require voter approval. I think a city levy to build sidewalks would stand a good chance of passing, as long as the need was clearly articulated and the projects clearly identified (obviously not a guarantee).
“took some economics classes in college” does not make one an economist.
If that same standard applied to my own transcript then I’d be an astronomer, a geologist and a French New Wave filmmaker.
We need to stop pretending that Mitch knows what he’s doing. Prior to winning the Ranked Choice Sweepstakes he was a desk jockey for BPA
“took some economics classes in college” he has a PhD in economics, he didn’t just “take some classes”. And as a desk jockey he “worked on issues associated with long-term resource planning and cost evaluation, revenue and load forecasting, rates and finance scenario analysis, and power market fundamentals. Presently, I work on quantitative and credit risk analysis problems related to commercial transactions. ”
So, your know, economics.
Having a PhD doesn’t translate to real world experience. If he’s never before held a position as an economist, then guess what? Mitch is not an economist.
Besides, I know completely incompetent people who’ve earned PhDs entirely online from degree mills like Capella, etc. It’s not the “I’m a smart guy you better listen to me” achievement that you (and Sarah Iannaone) seem to think it is.
Furthermore, utility markets have nothing to do with running a city. Mitch has proven that he has no idea what he’s doing by introducing stuff like the sidewalk plan, stuff with $200M price tags, which we’re in the middle of one of the harshest budget crises Portland has ever experienced.
I doubt anyone in this comment section has ever lived through such a funding gap and dealt with the fallout from cutting basic services. Y’all think everything is going to be hunky dory, distracted just like Mitch by the Next Big Shiny Idea while the city crumbles.
Do your job, Mitch. And that goes for everyone else on council, too.
You started by saying “he took some economics classes”. Which is true, but I dunno getting a PhD is more than just taking some classes. Also his title at the BPA was “Energy Economist”, what are you talking about?
Just because you know people with PhDs that are “worthless” doesn’t mean Green’s is. I would say working in energy markets is positive evidence that his PhD is worth something.
Tons of great city councilors come in with no direct governing experience. If he does a bad job, then he’ll face the voters in his district again in a few years.
Saying the budget crisis is reason we can’t issue a bond to pay for infrastructure doesn’t really make sense. The whole point of a bond is that it’s money allocated from resources not currently in the budget.
I see no evidence that this bond that translates to the equivalent of a 2.5% property tax raise will somehow make things worse for the city. On the contrary, if the city can find a way to keep spending higher during a transitionary budget period, it may be better off in the long term (both by stimulating demand and by retaining more staff).
I get it, you don’t like his politics. That’s fine. No need to engage in all of the least genuine criticisms.
lol, studying film is far different than making one. But dare i say a new wave film could be made about Portland–“Man Bites Cop”?
But its a good point–pedigrees are severely lacking in Portland politics. I would like to see some Yale, Dartmouth, UC, Amherst types in our government–those people have high IQs! It might add something to the mix.
Our esteemed Mr. Kocher should join the fray! EDIT: I think Wheeler went to Stanford–THAT was a bust.
There’s something very funny about throwing Amherst into the mix here. If you were seeking an economist with a Marxian or heterodox background, Amherst was like the place to do that in the US for 30 years and still retains a rich leftist intellectual tradition (in economics specifically). Based on the general vibe of your comment, I presume you didn’t know this. I personally would love someone who studied under Richard Wolff to analyze and contribute to Portland’s future.
Ah yes, let’s just use a measure designed by eugenicists to determine fitness for the Portland City Council. What a novel idea (/s if that wasn’t obvious).
I don’t understand your criticism of IQ. Is it that you don’t believe there is a measurable difference in intelligence between people? Or is it that you think the IQ tests themselves are flawed and do not accurately measure that difference? Or is it that the whole concept of measuring intelligence is distasteful so that while we can do it, we just shouldn’t?
I don’t have a strong position on this myself (except to say that intelligence seems important for a lot of things in the modern world), so I’m interested in hearing your perspective.
Blumdrew is absolutely correct that IQ tests were developed by eugenicists and have been closely linked to eugenics.
The Flynn effect shows how IQ tests have increased over time almost certainly due to increased educational attainment (see attached). There is also a large literature showing increased IQ over time in individuals likely due to increasing levels of education. This alone should invalidate any belief that IQ tests serve as a meaningful test of general intelligence.
Much stronger evidence comes from a seminal study, with a cohort of 100,000, that demonstrated that IQ tests do not accurately represent human cognitive capability:
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0896-6273%2812%2900584-3
So, yes, IQ tests are deeply-flawed and continue to be used by racists creeps to create a pseudo-scientic framework for their profoundly irrational hate.
This is not in dispute. What I do dispute is whether that has any bearing on the question of whether intelligence can be measured.
The Flynn effect could also be accounted for by better levels of nutrition and health. I don’t think there’s any consensus about why test scores are improving.
If IQ were totally bogus, I would expect there to be no correlation between how someone performs on the tests and how smart they are in other ways. Since this lack of correlation would be easily noticed by people researching the field (why do the dolts ace our tests, while the geniuses keep failing them?), I suspect that measured IQ and intelligence are at least somewhat related.
I know people who are very smart, and some that are less so. I have no idea if any of those people have ever taken an intelligence test, or how they’ve performed, but I feel quite confident that the people who I evaluate as smart would do better on most intellectual tests than people who are less so. If I’m right, then there’s some there there.
The paper you linked to seems to argue that there are multiple, independent systems that produce different kinds of intelligence (but I only read the summary). If that’s the case, and if those systems are truly independent, that would suggest that people have multiple IQs, each of which could be could be evaluated separately.
Which directly disputes the idea that there is a general intelligence “g” which is — you know — the entire basis of IQ testing.
Ok, I think I understand your position; there isn’t one singular “g”, but there might be a couple of them, independent and uncorrelated. That certainly sounds plausible.
IQ just doesn’t really measure that difference. I also think intelligence is not a well-defined concept. Is an auto mechanic intelligent? They certainly can fix a car better than me, but have probably spent less time doing analytics and finance. How society weights those skills is somewhat arbitrary, and often skills which utilize some physicality are less prestigious than those which are purely mental.
I guess this is mostly to say that I feel that any quantitative measure of intelligence will be biased in some way which benefits people who fit into the box of “intelligence that is economically useful in our current system”. Obviously, that’s not wholly bad or wrong, but and those quantitative measures may be useful predictors of workers who are economically useful in our current system, but I wouldn’t use it as a measure of intelligence per se. But broadly speaking, measures which reduce complex human experiences into a single thing can be problematic, and IQ certainly is.
Depends on the mechanic, but obviously mechanical intelligence is a thing. Whether that person knows about finance or not is a completely different question than whether they’re smart or not. A more interesting question would be is the person who is a great mechanic also smart in other ways, or is mechanical intelligence completely uncorrelated to, say, the ability to learn math or critique a political argument?
In general, just like any means of evaluating a skill or cognitive trait, for example, when intelligence is measured, it’s rarely done with one test, particularly when you want to find out something meaningful about the subject (e.g., for a rehab therapist to use for further goals).
Right, it is a broad normative comparison, so in that sense it’s useful, but only narrowly so. Otherwise, we tend to use various batteries, evals that target specific skills along the lines of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences (e.g., spatial, intrapersonal etc).
I submitted online written testimony on this (and prior committee versions) requesting that Council insist that the funding mechanism pay for the entire project, not the PBOT portion of it, in order to not create an unfunded mandate to BES and Water.
Since there is an online written testimony option for ever committee and council agenda item, but there only seems to be recognition of in person testimony, do councilors even know that written testimony was submitted? The written testimony doesn’t show up as an attachment to the agenda, so who would know to look or ask?
No funding plan, no implementation plan, just idealized ideas from a City Council that does not seem to understand how the City delivers CIP.
This is just another mechanism for PBOT to try and lump infrastructure improvements outside the scope of projects on rate payer bureaus. It’s time for the city auditor to give the public real dollars and cents as to how much money that is intended for stormwater, sewer, and water infrastructure is going to improving PBOT facilities unnecessarily. It’s wasteful, and on the order of millions of dollars. PBOT needs to fund their own infrastructure improvements and let the rate payer bureaus focus on preventing sinkholes and property damage, while replacing infrastructure when necessary. We don’t need to be putting back Cadillacs for PBOT when a Prius would suffice.
The new City Councilors (except maybe Novick) don’t seem to understand Economics 101. They seem to think issuing bonds has zero cost. Somebody has to pay for the money….and it will be taxpayers.
Yes, at the median municipal bond yield, currently around 5.4% (assumes Portland retains aaa rating), once fully funded the interest costs will be almost $11MM per year. If they punt the bonds out 20 years, the total cost of these sidewalks will be $416MM ($216M in interest and the $200MM par value paid back to holders at maturity, though they will probably just refinance the bonds with new ones because what are the odds Portland is sitting on $200MM in cash in 20 years). So, yes, this will add $11MM to Portland’s current debt service obligations.
The only positive to Mitch’s plan is that municipal bonds are typically triple tax exempt, so in a place like Portland, that could put the tax-equivalent yield close to 9%, which is pretty attractive.
That’s not how municipal governments repay bonds. Principal is paid back each year just like a mortgage payment.
I’m not sure what your math means but it’s way off too. There isn’t a personal income tax in Portland either.
The Housing and Preschool taxes beg to differ.
To be fair, those aren’t levied by the City of Portland so the city couldn’t issue a bond on the revenue right?
Massive budget deficit, can’t fill potholes, can’t answer 911 calls but yeah let’s spend $200 million dollars that we don’t have. No wonder people that pay the bills are leaving Portland.
Sounds like Council is just telling PBOT to do its job. That map was PBOT’s map. They know where the deficiencies are. They have a plan telling them what to do. All they’re lacking is the funding to build the sidewalks called for in that plan (Ped PDX). What Council really needs to do is come up with the needed funding–which has been the issue for all time. Still and all, good to see Council focusing on this and elevating it.
Good on Councilor Avalos to try to deter the turf battles that could emerge in our new form of government. PBOT’s plan is clearly to invest in District 1 and 4 already, based on deficiencies. No need to get turfy…
This is good news!…While developing an implementation plan do keep an eye out on how Seattle was worked on its 2 big levy funded sidewalk / complete streets efforts from the last ~10 years for ideas and things to avoid.
It will be interesting to see how CoP leadership + PBoT will treat the ‘sanctity’ of on street parking when that same space in many cases would be the most cost effective place to build this new walking space…especially where garages, driveways and parking lots exist for storing personal vehicular property.
Also such a great map of Portland – showing places where the ‘County’ chose to not require sidewalks in its effort to help developers and develop urbanizing areas without infrastructure then common in cities. This then begins the price of annexation by cities, speaking as a former planner who had to implement annexations.
[A similar situation: the City of Vancouver is now in public discussions to annex very large portions of infrastructure poor / high traffic sections of Clark County – large enough areas that Vancouver would be the “Second Biggest” city in the state. But the budget cost and budget deficits will be very very high.
And sadly, after ~30 years the CoV still has not fully caught up with the ‘promised’ sidewalks for the 1996 annexation [when the city increased in size ~400%]…the new Waterfront development (infrastructure and tax holidays) ‘took’ much of the funding (REET and other) away from this effort for safer complete streets and past ‘promises kept’ for many years.
https://www.kgw.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/straight-talk/vancouver-annexation-plans-federal-impacts-uncertainty-interstate-bridge/283-1d4427ff-92c7-4428-8217-7b46c0d805ab
Question: When did the city start to require sidewalks? Can you cite the year and ordinance?
From the 2000 PBOT sidewalk report, the city didn’t require sidewalks either until much later. Most of the sidewalks were put in by developers trying to attract richer buyers, and the missing gaps of inner neighborhoods were put in the 1930s using federal WPA funds and “free” homeless labor.
CITY often put in sidewalks itself, for decades, starting with wooden ones in the 1800s. Developers didn’t put them in ‘to attract richer buyers;’ what hogwash. They were REQUIRED TO, by code, and it was a national thing. At least, until the Supreme Court decided making developers pay to help better the world was yucky, The WPA laborers were PAID, to prevent them from becoming homeless.
You should know better of all people; it was your job, no? Don’t make Lisa come out of retirement to school you!
Hey Todd, you know as well as I that much of Vancouver’s traditional grid neighborhoods, built “mostly” with sidewalks 70 years ago, have gaps that force one into the street. Vancouver like most cities worship growth hoping that it will enable them to fix problems, yet the more growth, the less problems get fixed. Vancouver’s idea of annexing is driven by dimwits. What differentiates Portland from every other city in the Metro area including Vancouver is that they cannot grow out, and are thus obsessed with growing “up”. In my opinion, neither “up” or “out” growth is going to fix the very real problems, which is why I was happy to see this article about funding “fixes”.
I wonder if an exception to stormwater treatment requirements can be included. Without that: so much of this money is gonna go into new storm facilities and not the sidewalks themselves, especially in SW (see: SW Capitol Blvd). To really stretch this funding into actual sidewalks: either an exception to stormwater treatment for new impervious areas, or an allowed mitigative strategy needs to be granted.
I bet Councilor Green will come up w a creative way to deal with that. Great point.
Somebody’s got a crush.
yes I do. He’s smart and nice and rides bikes and heart seems to be in the right place. Crushing hard!
Same, honestly.
But I’m not sure why you are painting Zimmerman and Clark as late-comers to SIPP. This has been in the works for months, and I’ve been lobbying for something like it for about a year. Scratching my head. Clark and Zimmerman are very much a part of this.
Hi Lisa,
From my first story on this back in March, which was based on Willamette Week reporting, it was clear that councilors Green and Smith were spearheading this.
That’s not to say Zimmerman and Clark weren’t in the discussions, but when it comes to SIPP, I think it’s accurate to say it comes from Green and Smith.
Did you ask Zimmerman and Clark? The three D4 councilors get along and work together closely. They also stay in close touch with their constituents.
A year ago I remember saying to Don Baack that I didn’t want anyone representing D4 who wasn’t very familiar with the sidewalk/stormwater issue. And we got three great reps, each of whom have walked with us, toured facilities and read countless email/reports from us. I think it would surprise any SW advocate to see Zimmerman and Clark not getting proper credit for their efforts.
It’s a Federal issue, but with current administration a case can be made that damn Pinko DEI hippies made the rule, and we should be allowed to skirt it for sidewalks. Lemons and lemonade, people!
I’m not sure there is a creative solution. The new impermeable surfaces are going to increase stormwater runoff. It’s more of a political issue: can he get BES to sign off on the additional polluted water going into the storm drain system?
It’s not BES to sign off on, BES has a responsibility to pretreat as part of their ms4 permit. What is being suggested here is a terrible idea.
Not a great point at all. In fact, a very myopic point. Sensible transportation is as important to a healthy urban landscape as is clean urban waterways. In fact, one of the more significant benefits of active transportation is that it does not have the devastating impact upon urban waterways that car-centric transportation does. Too bad most active transportation activist do not recognize the connection between transportation and surface water quality.
Absolutely not. PBOT is the single largest contributor of stormwater in the city. The mitigation fee they pay is woefully low. They have a responsibility to pretreat their discharge to the river like everyone else. Why suggest something that affects the health of our waterways?
This is great but the City Council should also approve a $200 million bond for bike/mobility lanes.
Bike lanes?!? Absolute death traps according to the BikePortland peanut gallery. Nothing short of a fully isolated, padded, climate controlled bicycle tube will suffice.
protected, of course.
I view sidewalks as a critical “training ground” for future bicyclists. I have never seen a formal study, but it is very apparent from walking and biking 3-4 miles each way to work through residential neighborhoods for 50 years that small children who have a sidewalk in front of their homes get out on their trikes and scooters a lot more than those who have no sidewalk. Same holds true as they get a little older and want to wonder around. I view lack of sidewalks and the impact upon young children as every bit as much of an influence on our car-crazy culture as any of the many other reasons. What Portland is doing in funding sidewalks is great for pedestrians AND bicyclists.
Very good point. People without the ability to drive, including the yoots, should be able to feel like they can navigate their environment.
Neighborhoods were promised that if they voted Yes on annexation, the City would not only hook everyone up to sewers but also build sidewalks.
Well the home owners ended up footing the sewer bill, mine was over $8000 (10% of what I paid for my house) back in the mid-90s and nothing was done to put in the promised sidewalks.
It’s long overdue.
Portland does not care about anything but inner SE / NE / NW. Same as it ever was.
Do you have any evidence that they were promised sidewalks? I’ve seen this claimed many times but I’ve never seen any evidence that was actually a promise made to voters. There’s tons of evidence for the sewer build out which makes me suspicious of this sidewalk claim. You would think there’d be at least one news article or something about it.
Not to mention building out sidewalks was the responsibility of the property owners for at least 50 years before those annexations took place.
My understanding is that promise was a verbal one, made by a member of City Council at a public meeting. I don’t know how to validate or evaluate that promise, but clearly its value lies in its political value rather than its enforceability. As such, whether it actually happened or not is less important than whether people believe it did.
Did they when they voted or is that something everyone made up after the fact? That’s what important to me because if the promise was never made and it’s not why people voted for annexation it’s misplaced anger and a distraction.
Who knows, it was 50 years ago. What really matters is that people today think that people voted believing it.
Again, political salience is far more important than historical fact in this context. Can that fact/pseudo-fact/non-fact be used to extract gains today? If so, it’s useful, even if its veracity is questionable.
Not that it matters, but my personal view is that someone probably did say the words, but that they carried no official weight. And if it wasn’t widely reported at the time, it’s unlikely that most residents of E Portland knew that it had been said, so it would not have affected their vote.
Yes that is what matters. It’s a completely unhelpful nonsense talking point that is used to divide the city even more. There’s plenty of evidence of actual real things the city has failed to provide to East Portland. We don’t need to make things up.
It was a promise made to the neighborhoods at the neighborhood meetings. Unfortunately at the time we believed the City reps who lied to us that they would keep their word.
Obviously they would say anything to get their hands on the eventual property tax money. Part of the promise was that this property tax money would be spent to put in sidewalks. Well obviously it was never kept and was mostly spent downtown.
There were no recording as it was felt it was unnecessary at the time. Cell phones were just a pipe dream back then.
So not a single news paper article from the time about it. Just vague 40 year old memories. Seems pretty suspect considering how easy it is to find documentation of the sewer and stormwater promises.
Newspaper articles aren’t binding contracts. Only if we, the neighborhood, had gotten in writing would it have been valid as we later found out when the verbal promises were broken.
Remember, we were just country bumpkins being taken advantage of by the big city big talkers who were after the property tax money to spend on downtown for the Portland 1%s.
Why are we passing a 50 million dollar a year ‘nice to have’ program when we have a 100 million dollar a year budget deficit
Sidewalks aren’t really a “nice to have”. They’re a basic level of city infrastructure.
I’m going to assume that you are a homeowner who has been enjoying rent control of your property tax obligation. There would be no deficit if Portland and the State taxed their land at anywhere near fair value.
I’m going to assume you’re a person who’d rather see low income and elderly home owners on the street instead?
Compassion for your fellow humans isn’t tops on your list is it?
As for tax money, our elected officials would always run out and always beg for more. You are of course welcome to donate ALL your income to the local government to reduce the deficit. I’m sure all those people that support your ideals will do the same and that will solve the issue once and for all!
In Portland, 16.2% of homeowners earn less than $50k/year (source) – about 24,000 households. Meanwhile, 45.3% of renters earn less than $50k/year – about 65,000 households. Homeowners enjoy strict caps on property tax increases regardless of income level and (generally) pay a fixed mortgage. Someone with a $2k/month ($24k/year) mortgage on a $350k home and pays $5k/year on taxes. With the 3% assessed value cap and property tax rates remaining constant, their maximum cost increase is like $150 – something like 0.5%
The state rent raise cap for 2025 is 10% – that’s 20x higher, and only applies to buildings at least 10 years old. Displacement of low-income homeowners via the workings of the housing market is pretty strongly accounted for in Oregon state law. Meanwhile, there have been over 11,000 eviction filings in Multnomah County in the last 12 months with about 1,500 judgements of eviction. If you are actually concerned about how the low income and elderly end up on the streets, then our current tenant/landlord system bears a far larger burden than anything else.
When property taxes – the most important revenue stream from local governments – are artificially capped by the state constitution, it should be no shock that local governments have deficits and struggle to provide services. I would strongly prefer a system where we don’t need to constantly vote on bonds, levies, and other income tax measures and can instead rely on steady revenue from a property tax that reflects that market value of property. There would be concerns about displacing low income folks, especially seniors, but those should be alleviated through specific policy designed to help those folks – not through cutting taxes for anyone and everyone.
It would be useful to understand why these filings and judgements are happening. Are landlords evicting good tenants for arbitrary reasons? Are people not paying their rent (and if not, is it the landlord’s fault and should they have to take the financial hit)? Are tenants damaging the property or disturbing their neighbors?
Would there be more or fewer than 11,000 eviction filings if all rental housing were owned by the government or a non-profit (like REACH, which is evicting all its single-family tenants so they can sell the properties)? Would there be more or fewer properties available for rent if we got rid of private landlords?
I poked around that website and found this link:
https://www.evictedinoregon.com/data-tables
There’s a table titled “Reason for eviction as stated on termination notices…”
In 2024, 88% of eviction filings in Oregon listed non-payment as the reason. For Multnomah County, that number is 92%.
Staying in MultCo, 7% are listed as For-Cause and the remaining 1% is “Tenant Notice”. Those last two bins are pretty generic and I’m not sure what kind of conclusions we can draw from them.
Apparently I misspelled my own name and can’t change it from the edit screen.
“I would strongly prefer a system where we don’t need to constantly vote on bonds, levies, and other income tax measures and can instead rely on steady revenue from a property tax that reflects that market value of property.”
I’m still unclear on how a continually rising property tax helps anyone except the politicians who will have access to a rising pile of money to spend. If the market value (which until the property is actually converted to cash is pure speculation.) continues to rise and drives up property taxes, what happens to those who do not have the means to keep paying these endlessly rising rates? For example those on a fixed budget (as most of the working class without family money waiting in the wings are) regardless of whether they are in the workforce or retired.
“There would be concerns about displacing low income folks, especially seniors, but those should be alleviated through specific policy designed to help those folks –”
If a system needs cutouts and exemptions it’s not really a sign of a healthy system. If you acknowledge that a system is so broken as to need protections, perhaps its broken for the rest of the people who aren’t deemed needing protection as well?
“When property taxes – the most important revenue stream from local governments – are artificially capped by the state constitution, it should be no shock that local governments have deficits and struggle to provide services. “
IMO it is more of a shock that local governments have deficits and struggle to provide services since the rules are well established and known upfront for revenue absorption. If the government can’t run within it’s long-established parameters, then we might have to look at the idea that the revenue stream is not at fault, but rather the uses those funds are going to are not the optimum use of limited resources?