Where is the state transportation package?
With just three full weeks left in the legislative session, panic is setting in among advocacy groups and lawmakers alike as Democratic party leaders continue to negotiate behind closed doors on a long-awaited transportation funding package.
Instead of sitting on their hands, a notable group of Democrats — including Portland Senator Khanh Pham and Joint Committee on Transportation Co-Chair Chris Gorsek — attended a press conference on the Capitol steps in Salem this morning to unveil their vision for the package. It includes $665 million more than the $1.9 billion investment framework released by party leaders back in April.
This new proposal is from a group of Democrats that are decidedly more progressive than party leaders when it comes to transportation policy. Their vision, which they call the SMART (Safe, Modern, Affordable & Accountable, Reliable Transportation) Framework is based on a memo sent back in April to members of the Joint Committee on Transportation by House Representative Mark Gamba, a Democrat who represents Milwaukie.
Gamba and Pham are members of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment, a new version of the Joint Committee on Transportation (JCT) formed to oversee the new bill. They are both freeway expansion skeptics and have been solid voices for major transportation reform for years. Joining them in support of the SMART Framework are: Senators Gorsek, Floyd Prozanski, Lisa Reynolds, Courtney Neron Misslin, Jeff Golden, and Kathleen Taylor; and Representatives Rob Nosse, Thuy Tran, Willy Chotzen, Travis Nelson, Farrah Chaichi, Sarah Finger McDonald, Tom Andersen, and Lisa Fragala.
Their SMART Framework looks to raise about $2.5 billion and marks a very strong contrast to the austere proposal shared by a conservative wing of Republicans in early May. Pham, Gamba, and the proposal’s other supporters say the time is now for Oregon to increase funding for transit and ensure robust services statewide — while also making streets safer around schools, investing in ODOT’s urban highways that continue to plague cities with their unsafe designs, and invest more in bikeways, rail, and electric vehicle rebates for bikes and cars.
Joining lawmakers at this morning’s event were representatives from AARP, a school board, a transit worker’s union, and a transit agency.
Democrats enjoy a slim supermajority in Salem, but are reportedly working with a select group of Republicans to hammer out a bill. When they released an update on their package late last month, some transportation and environmental advocacy groups panned the plan’s provisions — which include a cap-and-trade scheme that would fund freeway expansions — as “cap and pave.”
Compared to the Joint Committee’s framework released in April, the SMART Framework includes: a higher gas tax increase; a 2% sales tax on new car purchases and 1% on used cars, instead of a 1% user fee (with sales taxes not being tied to the Highway Trust Fund, thus allowing lawmakers more flexibility in how the revenue could be spent); and a larger increase to the payroll tax that funds transit which would result in no cuts in service. Another difference from the JCT’s framework is something I hinted at back in April: a different approach to the bike tax. Democratic party leaders want to increase Oregon’s existing bike tax from $15 to $24.50; the SMART Framework would instead establish a new, Bicycle Privilege Tax of 0.8%. This progressive approach would replace the regressive, flat-fee structure of the current tax.
These revenue sources would allow the SMART Framework to raise $39 million more per biennium for off-highway bike and walking paths than the JCT’s initial framework, fund Gamba’s $6 million e-bike rebate plan, and more.
The provisions in SMART respond to the type of investments advocacy groups have called for in order to focus more of ODOT’s spending on safe streets, maintenance, and non-driving modes; instead of the traditional focus on freeway and highway megaprojects.
“The SMART Framework is accountable to the Oregonians who have spoken up by preventing cuts to transit service, fully funding our Safe Routes program to get kids to school safely, and by providing the resources necessary for cities and counties across the state to fix their local streets,” said Sen. Pham in a statement.
And Rep. Gamba added that now is not a time for transportation austerity. “We have underfunded our transportation system for decades now, and that continuing to do that will result in bridge closures and highway deaths,” he said. “Kicking the can further down the road will make it even that much more painful to recover. We have an opportunity to do the responsible thing and make our streets safer in the process.”
Whether or not Democratic party leaders heed this advice is hard to tell. But once they do release a bill, they won’t have much time to haggle over it and there are bound to be compromises to get something passed before the end of session on June 29th.
Download the SMART Framework one-pager for more details:
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It seems very strange to increase the sales tax on bicycles to fund a rebate program for people to buy bicycles…
I hear you Bjorn, but don’t think that’s what is going on here. The bicycle tax wouldn’t fund the e-bike rebate program. The bike tax funds the Oregon Community Paths program, which builds off-highway biking and walking paths.
Those dollars are completely fungible, so that separation is a bit of a fiction.
If the bicycle tax is dedicated to the Community Paths Program by law, then it would not be “fungible” at all. It would be a dedicated funding source.
Perhaps reading this will clarify the situation for you:
https://www.wweek.com/news/2025/05/27/portland-city-council-hits-the-links-to-find-spare-change/
In short if the legal dedication is in the city charter or state constitution, then you are right. If they’re not, you’re wrong.
Huh? That’s not how it works Watts. Very often sources of revenue are dedicated to specific programs and projects. Or am I missing something about your comment?
“That’s not how it works Watts.”
That is exactly how it works. If I want to spend a million dollars on bike rebates, I need to get that money from somewhere. I might create a tax on car tires that will raise a million dollars, and I might say I’m doing it to fund the rebates, but the two are only tied in some rhetorical sense.
I can adjust my tax or my rebate program independently. If I want to spend more money on the police, I could reduce the amount I am spending on bike rebates, and my budget is still balanced. Suddenly, my tire tax is now helping pay for the police.
Money in has to equal money out, and there are very few rules (our constitutional restriction on spending gas tax funds being one of them) that limit how I slosh money around internally.
It’s kind of like I have a $20 bill in my wallet that is dedicated to bike parts, but if I spend it on beer, I can replace it later with a different $20 bill later, or forgo the bike parts this week.
If the state government adjusts taxes to raise revenue by a specific amount and says it’s for a particular purpose and then subsequently spends approximately the same amount on the stated purpose, it seems fair to describe the situation as the tax adjustment “funding” the expenditure, as Jonathan did, despite the fact that the actual funds were commingled. If the revenue generation mechanism and the spending get much out alignment, you might have a point, but specifying a mechanism for funding a given expenditure is a legit governing move (one that I, in general, think we should expect of our government).
Yes, that’s what I meant by tying the two in a rhetorical sense. It helps you tell a budget narrative. But if the use of funds for other purposes isn’t restricted by the charter or constitution, then it’s only a narrative.
See the WW article I linked to above, or consider the state’s use of marijuana taxes. They were originally dedicated to schools, the M110 redirected them to drug treatment (which is a much better story). We just started paying for schools with other money, and everything shuffled around. The only thing that would have changed if M110 had instead been paid for with income tax was the story we told about the budget.
And maybe the actual dollars spent on M110 did come from the income tax — there’s really no way to know because it’s all coming from the same budgetary pot.
Hi Watts,
If the government sets up an earmark and then changes it later (which is how I would describe both your M110 example and the Green/Morillo proposal to loot the golf fund) that is a change in policy, but, to my mind, it does not mean that prior to the policy change there was no connection between the revenue generation and the earmarked services. Sure, the connection is ‘merely rhetorical’, but the same description applies to lots of things the government does. There’s a difference between acknowledging that a negotiator may go back on a deal and writing off the whole idea of dealmaking as unworkable.
I hope the council does not redirect funds that are (in the political narrative) intended for some purpose to other purposes when the budget is tight. I think this applies to PCEF, the golf fund, the Prosper Portland bribery fund, etc. M110 was maybe a different beast, since the redirection was done by ballot initiative, but I think the council will harm the city’s ability to raise revenue if they are deemed to not honor the intent (merely rhetorical and not codified but widely understood in the political narrative) of specific revenue generation mechanisms. Voters will become less likely to approve revenue generation in the future, and that may hurt progressive projects in the long run.
About Bicycle Excise Tax
The Oregon Bicycle Excise tax was established by the Legislature in 2017. The Bicycle Excise Tax is a flat tax of $15, to be collected at the point of sale. Revenue from the bicycle excise tax goes into the Connect Oregon Fund to provide grants for bicycle and pedestrian transportation projects.
https://www.oregon.gov/dor/programs/businesses/Pages/Bicycle-excise-tax.aspx
Not completely fungible, but not exactly going into anything specific either. Grants are where the NGO higher ups make their money.
“Not completely fungible”
What stops the legislature from spending Connect Oregon funds on other things? See PCEF.
I’m not a fan of absolutes, but if there aren’t checks and balances than I agree that it is completely fungible.
And yes, PCEF is a slush fund.
I read in the Oregonian yesterday that PCEF will start paying the fees for people to remove trees from their property. Talk about nuts!
Its so strange, I could have sworn healthy trees helped to mitigate the ongoing climate crisis.
““We heard you. Permit fees have been a burden for many,” City Forester Jenn Cairo said in a statement. “With this new funding, we can remove those costs”
Nothing like just admitting that the fee structure’s sole point is to raise money and not actually regulate tree health. The icing on the cake of cynicism is that they are not actually removing those costs, they are just raiding another fund to pay for it.
I’m curious if those who wrote impassioned treatises that funds aren’t fungible will respond.
A progressive tax would be a huge improvement over the current regressive MAGA-style flat tax. In fact, I would be very much be amused if “urbanists” started complaining about having to pay a 0.8% on their $8,000 bougie electric urban arrows. The icing on the cake would be if some of that luxury bike tax were plowed back into a rebate for more working class bikes/e-bikes (don’t care which).
My only complaint is that tax is obviously not progressive enough:
How about:
0% – up $1500
0.4% -1501-2000
3% – 2001-2000
6-9% – 3001+
Even better would be to just give low-income people funds to buy free bikes funded via luxury bike purchases…but we live in ‘murrica.
Is there anything you don’t complain about?
Hope you have zero dollars saved, otherwise you are hoarding wealth and therefore a capitalist.
Weird (and complainy) response to soren’s thoughtful comment.
Though some people with savings are capitalists, not all are. Ideology matters to those without an equivocation bent.
It sounds like your identity is “not capitalist”, despite participating in and drawing sustenance from a capitalist system.
Which is fine by me. You are not a capitalist.
These terms are totally squirrely anyway. Most people who call themselves socialists (not necessarily you) really mean “capitalist with a bigger social safety net than we have in the US.”
By that definition, I too am a socialist, though it’s not a declared part of my identity.
“capitalist with a bigger social safety net than we have in the US.”
Also, those in the US who have a personal safety net supported by family wealth have a tendency to believe themselves socialists.
I don’t understand (the point of) this comment.
Are you suggesting that people with robust personal safety nets don’t or can’t recognize/believe that social safety nets should also be robust?
Hi Paul,
I’m saying the wealthy have robust personal safety nets.
I’m agreeing with Watts in that most who consider themselves socialists do so because of that safety net.
I extended it out a bit further suggesting the trust fund folk amongst us look forward to wealth regardless of what they do so don’t understand the value of money.
Since they don’t understand the value of money (since they’ll always have plenty) they have a tendency to suggest everyone else share the money they worked hard for and are then mystified when no one else thinks that’s a great idea.
Your use of “most” might be a stretch. In my experience, millenials and gen z are the most vocal about identifying as socialist, and they tend to have very little, if any, personal safety net, which is why they see legitimate reasons for a robust social safety net and spurn the simplistic conservative narratives that have dominated our society for so long.
“I have a robust safety net and therefore want no one else to have a robust safety net” is exactly the kind of FYIGM thinking that has made this such a sh*thole nation.
You are correct, Watts; I do not identify as an ideological capitalist despite the fact I must participate in our capitalism to merely survive. If I had to call myself anything, I’d say I’m a socialist.
I call myself a capitalist (when I call myself anything in this department, which is rare) despite a strong sense that my personal political beliefs are not so different than yours.
Have you joined in with certain other contributors in believing anything you don’t like is somehow “MAGA”?
I’m not sure this plan would increase the tax. What is the cost of the average bicycle sold in Oregon? The SMART Framework plan’s tax doesn’t go up until a bike’s price reaches nearly $2,000 (0.8% of $2,000 = $16). I would not be surprised if the amount of revenue generated under this plan actually goes down, at least until tariffs kick in and boost prices. Anyway, I buy used bikes, which dodges the tax.
With a national sales tax on everything already in effect, we’re going to do this now?
Unlike many of my fellow Oregonians, I’m happy to see people from other states here, but if you want to pay sales taxes, there are plenty of states in any direction you care to go where they will be happy to charge you one.
Every other state/jurisdiction with a sales tax is typically 5% or more, so as long as Oregon adopts a lower sales tax than that, we would still be at a competitive advantage while actually being able to fund more government services.
Only if they drop the income tax rates and property tax rates. You have to look at the entire tax burden. .
I’ll never vote a sales tax unless there’s an equal reduction in income tax.
If drivers want people on bikes to get out of the way, they should pay for separated bike infrastructure. We’re still failing to address decades of deferred increases to the gas tax, subsidizing car overuse by over half of the per-mile cost. Until drivers pay for what they get (or get only what they pay for), everything will continue to get worse.
Taxing bikes and pretending we have a “user pays” model is silly relative to how heavily we continue to subsidize cars.
We basically do have a users-pay model of road funding, even though roads benefit everyone in our society, including people who don’t drive.
Roads disproportionately benefit people who drive. Moving goods would be much more efficient, cleaner, and safer if it were done on rails. And heavy freight disproportionately destroys roads.
If we actually cared about benefit to everyone in society, we’d cut all the automaker infrastructure welfare and shift it to rail.
“Roads disproportionately benefit people who drive.”
Do they? Does a driver get more benefit from roads than a bus passenger or a bike rider? If so, why?
And, as you touched on, we all benefit from good and services delivered by roads, perhaps those unable to leave their houses most of all.
We all benefit from the larger society that is held together by roads.
Whether rails would be better is beside the point, but my feeble mind is unable to see how that could work.
Roads for moving goods and people around certainly benefit everyone, but we have more road capacity than we need to realize those benefits. We have so much road capacity, and so few alternatives that most people simply cannot get around without buying, maintaining, and driving their own vehicle.
For those who don’t meet the financial barrier to afford that, opportunities are missed, and the economy suffers for it. “Roads” in general are good, but they only benefit everyone equally when everyone has the same level of access.
Yesterday I walked along a street near my house. I saw other people walking, biking, and driving, as well as two buses carrying passengers along it.
It’s unclear to me why those in cars had more access than I did, or the other people I saw there. It is true that taking the bus is in many ways an inferior experience to the other modes, but it is also true that my crappy econobox offers an inferior experience to my friend’s wife’s Mercedes with its blessed heated seats.
Except for a few odd cases, we all have equal access to the roads, certainly more than we do to, say, schools (restricted by age) or even libraries (which require going to a sometimes distant place rather than, in the case of streets, just stepping out of my home). And, except for a few online services, neither of those can be accessed without first using city streets.
Well yeah,of course they do. You could remove 75%+ of the roads in Portland and transit users and freight wouldn’t be impacted at all. Most roads exist for the sole benefit of motorists.
Its only in the last 60 years of human society that we’ve become dependent on cars.
Here is a map that shows how rail works.
http://transitmap.net/portland-1943/#jp-carousel-5124
CC_rider. Fantastic points. Imagine looking at cities for over 7000 years, where compactness/density, pedestrian plazas, mixed use development, organic growth based on people’s need were all thrown out the window for one new individualistic mode of transport.
We’re living in a historical blip. Cities like Paris and Barcelona are dramatically re-allocating space to people just as that space was dramatically allocated to cars in the 50s.
European cities have narrow streets because in the “old days” this would help thwart armies invading cities. Remember movies with men lined up shoulder to shoulder in very wide formations? The narrow streets would break up those formations.
I urge you to examine that assumption, do a bit of research and reread what I wrote above a little closer.
This is patently false. The risk of invasion is not a historically relevant aspect of roadway width, how the roads are used in every day life are. Medieval roads were narrow because it’s cheaper to have a narrow road and most traffic was on foot.
There are specific cases where military motivations have impacted roadway width – Haussmann specifically created modern Paris with wide boulevards to allow the army to clear up Paris Commune style revolutions – but that says nothing about why Paris had narrow streets to begin with, and the need for internal order is probably more relevant in most city’s history than the threat of outside invasion.
Nevertheless, “facilitation of movements of invading armies” could be an additional reason to oppose ODOT’s freeway widening project.
And, following the same reasoning, bicyclists and pedestrians.
Well, no. If they solely supported pedestrians and cyclists, they could be tiny paved paths for a fraction of the cost. Don’t be silly, the roads exist for cars.
Sorry, I didn’t mean solely bicyclists and pedestrians, I meant bicyclist and pedestrians and cars. There are not many, if any, streets in Portland that are closed to all modes except cars. Urban highways, for example, are closed to non motorized vehicles, but used by transit.
Why do most roads exist? To benefit cars. Period. They wouldn’t exist if not for cars, ergo that is the reason they were built. The fact that (with great resistance) other modes are allowed to use them is besides the point. Crows use the road to drop nuts on to break the shells, and utilities are often buried under them, those are just side effects.
Language can be fuzzy, but when someone says
“Most roads exist for the sole benefit of motorists.”
I think this should be read as “but for motorists, we wouldn’t have all these roads”. Which is obviously true. CC_Rider can correct me if I misunderstood.
Rome begs to differ.
Pedestrians use sidewalks because we had to create separate spaces to try and keep them safe from motorists.
PBOT isn’t repaving roads for the benefit of cyclists. Cyclist benefit is ancillary at best and cyclists are given the gutter of the road when they are given dedicated space.
This is patently false. Pompeii had sidewalks. There were no motorists there, ever.
Following that same reasoning, they also exist for the benefit of bicyclists and pedestrians.
I’m aware of the trolley based history of inner Portland, but I did not know (and probably still don’t) that freight was also distributed throughout the city by rail, or that there were no cars here in Portland’s early history.
Claiming Portland of the 1920s as an example of a city based on rail is the same as claiming that today we are a city solely reliant on buses.
Hi Watts: Looking foward to seeing you ride your bike across the Ross Island Bridge at rush hour.
And that’s just ONE small example of a road that exists for the sole benefit of motorists. There are many others – too many to list here.
You are disingenuous, as usual.
I’ve done it, even once or twice before they consolidated the walkways onto the north side (it used to be less than half as wide as it is today).
Wouldn’t recommend it, though.
Buses (though not TriMet), trucks, and motorcycles make regular use of that bridge, in addition to cars. I sometimes see pedestrians there as well. So not even an example of a road (or bridge) that exists only for cars at all.
If you look at old maps of Portland, you’ll find pretty extensive freight rail distribution systems, particularly in the central east side and the modern Pearl. There’s also examples of trolley companies doing some freight distribution as well (Pacific Electric in LA comes to mind, but I’ve also seen pictures of freight being delivered on PRL&P tracks here locally).
By 1920, motor vehicles would have been significant parts of a local goods distribution network (displacing horse-based modes), but I’m sure if you had the numbers on how each good sold in Portland arrived at its final destination, rail would be the bulk of the journey, and it would be fair to say that the distribution system was essentially built on rail transport. But that has less to do with Portland and more to do with the lack of other options for shipping goods any appreciable distance.
I think it’s fair to say that “the modern roadway network is for cars” – as the bulk of the cost associated with roads (paving, repaving, traffic control, widening, etc.) is primarily in service of the car.
This sounds plausible, but we’re not talking about nationwide freight logistics, we’re talking about whether we could have a rail network in lieu of a road network. I’m trying to get my head wrapped around train-based ambulances and fire vehicles, train-based shipments to bakeries, and so on. I just can’t comprehend that.
We have a partial user pays model for road funding, but I’d hesitate to say it’s “basically a users pay model”. At the national level, the Highway Trust fund has been bailed out more than once, and at the state level ODOT gets a significant amount of revenue from registration fees (which do not neatly map on to road use), and some revenue from the general fund and lottery funds.
In Oregon, the lottery mostly pays for safety campaigns around seatbelt use, and isn’t a significant dollar amount in any case. The national highway trust fund has been bailed out, and that may happen again, but still the vast bulk of the dollars being spent in Oregon are paid for by vehicle owners, either in the form of gas taxes, registration fees, meter fees, or freight assessments.
It may be “partial” but I’ll bet it’s over 90%.
More importantly (to me, at least) is that I no longer think this is an interesting question, because I’ve concluded that there is no compelling reason why roads should be paid for by user fees. Yes, the money needs to come from somewhere, and gas taxes and vehicle fees are a good way of raising that money, but I’m not sure I see a rationale for tying one to the other, because roads are much closer to a universal benefit than many of the things we pay for from the general fund.
I think the bill would be a lot more appealing without the inclusion of any new type of sales tax. Oregon voters are especially wary of letting the camel’s nose into the tent regarding sales tax, as any seemingly small sales tax put in place now will be difficult to prevent growing larger in the future.
Instead of a tax on the entire vehicle, I’d like to see a push for a tax on tires specifically, as this seems like an ideal way to offset the loss of money brought in from gas taxes caused by EVs. It also fairly targets the vehicles that put the most wear and tear on our infrastructure – heavy and high mileage vehicles have to replace tires more often and therefore pay their fair share. And you can apply this tire tax to bicycles too if necessary.
Hi Tom — You don’t by chance own a tire shop in Vancouver, do you?
But I’m so tired of being taxed..
.. sorry couldn’t help it.
I’m not tired at all. Tax me and tax other people like me and redistribute to low-income people — especially to those who do not live in the USA* and need it the most.
*I do realize that this is ‘murrica and that having empathy for “those people” is about an unamerican as ossau-iraty cheese made by mondragon worker-owners.
He’s not tired, he’s tired. See?
That’s a pretty circular pun.
It feels like there’s a pretty big hole in it.
You don’t have to wait to be taxed, right now you can send all your income to numerous reputable organizations that will redistribute your money to those in need.
GO GO GO!!!
I most especially recommend the Watts Foundation. And yes, they accept cash.
To the best of my knowledge, there is only one deeply flawed org that enables ultra-low-cost no-strings-attached transfers to very low-income people. That alone says something about how the so-called “west” views redistribution.
It’s darkly comical that so many ‘murricans view redistribution as unimaginable and wrong. I live in a dying-empire* full of toddlers that never learned how to share.
*maybe civilization works better here
So here is a lesson on tire wear. These examples of my own vehicles. My 2012 Ford Focus (3000 lbs.) burned through the original tires in 24,000 miles. My 1997 Legacy GT (3000 lbs.) had to replace the summer tires after 35,000 miles. My 5500 lbs. F150 gets about 55,000 miles out of the AT tires I run. The tiires on the two cars were considered Extreme Summer Tires. These are a softer tires which is better for fast cornering. The Michelin Pilot Sports that came on the Focus are very sticky and expensive. If I had replaced them with the same tires it would have cost me more than the tires for my pickup.
Most tires (not all) will have a milage warranty. They also have a load rating. The milage warranty is the same across all load rating.
If there was a tire tax, then you’d probably opt for more durable tires on your lighter vehicles. Given the same model of tire, they should wear out slower on lighter vehicles because physics.
You mean the way the gasoline tax has encouraged people to drive smaller and more efficient vehicles?
When gas prices get high enough, people do trend towards smaller vehicles. Look what happened in the 1970’s. Gas taxes today just aren’t high enough to have that effect.
Endless taxation of a needed resource (like it or not, gasoline is a necessary resource in the here and now) without providing an alternate in the form of safe and even moderately timely public transportation is not a tax, but a punishment that hurts those who can’t afford it.
We already have what is by most accounts a superior alternative — EVs. I would happily support a much higher tax on gas and diesel — we need to stop using it and electrify transportation ASAP.
As always I respect your optimism. The grid we have now though is all it’s going to be and I don’t foresee it getting any better or stronger. Another hot summer is almost here, what are the odds of rolling black outs and subsequent heat related fatalities happening as the wealthy try their best to keep their various electronic devices, bikes and cars going?
Are you seriously holding that a robust electrical grid is impractical but petroleum extraction, refining, and distribution is easy? Gas taxes need to go way up. If the climate damage associated with petroleum fuels was reflected in costs borne by the end user, I think a lot of things would become electrified pretty quickly. And we would figure how to generate and distribute the necessary electricity just like we erected gas stations where needed to power all our ICE applications. Or built railways to haul coal around before that.
Hi Micah,
Yes, that is what I am saying and I say that because a robust grid does not now exist and there are zero indications anyone in government (in Portland and the greater PNW specifically) or the utilities themselves are budgeting or preparing to upgrade the current system.
I’m just going to drop some of the bigger events that made the news in the last little bit….
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/12/soaring-data-center-electricity-demand-could-trigger-northwest-blackouts-industry-insiders-say.html
https://www.wweek.com/news/2025/05/07/city-council-rejects-pge-plan-to-run-new-transmission-lines-in-forest-park/
https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/heat-related-death-list-multnomah-coos-klamath-jackson-washington-county-07122024/
https://www.oregonlive.com/weather/2024/01/portland-power-outages-77000-homes-without-electricity-as-new-storm-looms.html
https://wfca.com/wildfire-articles/power-lines-and-wildfires/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/2-power-substations-attacked-washington-state-7k-lost/story?id=95812232
The grid is old, weak, vulnerable and being given over to tech corporate interests while not being upgraded.
That the climate crisis is caused or exacerbated by fossil fuels does not magically mean that electricity will be there to save the day as the trends are looking like it will not be.
Like it or not, fossil fuels are transportable and storable in ways electricity is not (at least not yet).
Also, as far as the end user paying for the costs of ICE use, I (and all of us I’m guessing) are paying for it. I feel it in my lungs, on my skin and it burns my eyes at times. I realize people want to remove that from daily life, but as I’m using the resource I understand I’ll suffer the ill effects of it.
With electricity, the end user is physically removed from the coal plants that pollute only the immediate vicinity, hydro power that kills the natural fish and the laughable wind power that slaughters migratory birds while not really reaching a point of being carbon neutral and let’s not discuss what to do with them when they’ve reached the end of their lifecycle.
So hang on, it’s going to be an interesting ride as we as a society desperately try to upgrade to EVs that can’t supported by the current grid. The time of change is happening now and the grid is staying the same.
Laughable wind power that is 10% of US energy and 12% of Europe….. Domestic cats kill far more birds than windmills.
Talking points right out of Trumps mouth but you get all sad when someone refers to you as MAGA.
Citation on that 10% wind power please and I didn’t know domestic cats were killing so many geese, hawks and eagles. I won’t be able to look at my kitty the same way now.
Since you and Soren have taken to calling anyone you disagree with MAGA, it’s kind of taken the sting out of that phrase.
> 10%: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country
This is really difficult to look up.
Fair enough and thank you.
I don’t know where it went, but I posted a citation showing that the 10% number is largely correct. Google it, it’s easy to find.
Hi Jake9, thanks for the reply!
You point out many challenges faced by our electricity distribution system. And yes, fossil fuels present advantages to electricity for many applications. But the impediments to upgrading the electric grid are political, and I expect they will be surmounted when the need to do so is big enough. Electricity demand is growing in lots of areas, not just for transportation, so we will have to deal with the distribution system at some point. I don’t think society will just fall apart because we can’t get it together to put up some transmission lines. We should pressure our decision makers to tax fossil energy to provide economic incentives to reduce emissions and use cleaner technology for HVAC, transportation, manufacturing, chemistry, etc. We have already emitted way too much carbon.
“We should pressure our decision makers to tax fossil energy to provide economic incentives to reduce emissions and use cleaner technology for HVAC, transportation, manufacturing, chemistry, etc. “
You did and you won. You got the PCEF fund. It’s not doing any of those things. More money is not the answer since it will just go to some something else besides crisis mitigation.
“But the impediments to upgrading the electric grid are political“
So what’s stopping dark blue Oregon, Washington and SoCal from doing the desperately needed upgrades? The evil republicans? The MAGAs?
Tell me what is the problem if you can. It’s been one party blue rule for decades so why hasn’t it been done?
The people in power now have been in power for decades. Kotek is a perfect example of this, if she hasn’t cared or tried while a representative or as Governor, when will she?
You say it’s political (and I agree), but it is also budgetary. The upgrade will cost a lot and take a long time and it’s probably already too late to start to get it done before it collapses. Of course, that will make the rebuild easier, but kind of a bummer for people experiencing the collapse.
It might sound like I’m anti-electrification, but I’m not. I agree the world you’re describing sounds great and I think EVs are a healthy mix, but I’m not blind to the overall problem that the grid hasn’t been replaced and there is no evidence it will be.
Portland and Salem will keep voting in the same people who will continue to maintain the status quo because that’s what they’ve done.
As I said, hang on because it’s going to be a wild ride.
PCEF tax is not an energy tax to my understanding. I just bought gas for < $4/gal. It should be much more expensive. If it was, even more people would start driving EVs. I think your view of the grid is pretty pessimistic. Last night I charged my car and my phone simultaneously — no problem! My electrical service is pretty reliable, and I’m pretty sure if it started failing a lot, some corrective actions would be taken. If I did not have good electrical service, all those loathsome dark blue politicians would start hearing from me and my neighbors a lot.
I’m not one who will spend much energy defending the mainstream dems and their electeds, but they (democratic government officials) have actually done quite a bit of work to facilitate grid modernization. The current federal (republican) regime is, of course, doing its best to destroy this progress (and everything else that is worthwhile about our country). Your focus on democrats is curious to me. It’s not like the grid is in great shape in red states (Texas??).
Texas generates about 13x is much energy from wind as Oregon does, and about 10x the solar power. They also have a huge amount of battery storage so they can use their solar in the evenings. Their actual grid infrastructure is probably worse than ours, but it’s not like they’re doing everything wrong.
Agreed. My comment was in response to Jake9’s contention that the west coast states have poor electrical grids because democrats have controlled the state governments recently. Pointing out red state examples of aging power grids is a lazy rejoinder that shows that democratic control of state governments is not the biggest issue with the power grid. Texas’s success with ‘alternative’ energy sources illustrates that wind and solar are viable without a woke state bureaucracy.
“Agreed. My comment was in response to Jake9’s contention that the west coast states have poor electrical grids because democrats have controlled the state governments recently.”
I am not making a moral judgement on whether red or blue states have a better electrical grid. I am concerned with Oregon and Washington because I have lived in Portland for 12 years, Washington for 7, hope to return to the Portland area and then retire.
I don’t care about the Texas grid. I won’t be living or visiting there. I do care about the grid here which is why I am focused on it and the way the current party who has been in charge for a long time hasn’t maintained it well or upgraded it. This is not about cheap digs on those silly Dems, if I had the misfortune to live in Texas I would be addressing that their grid is not doing well and the silly Repubs haven’t maintained it.
Just because I would like the government to do its duty to its citizens does not mean I hate the Dems. They are just the ones who are not doing anything about it.
It is okay to expect the Dems to do more for the citizens without being a frothing MAGA.
By pointing out that red states also have trouble upgrading the gird I was implying that the the party in control of the state government might not be the main factor holding things up. Texas is kind of a special case, since I think they do run their own power grid (??). Most states, including OR and WA, which are the ones that are relevant to me also, don’t. I don’t know a whole bunch about the politics of the power grid, and I’m sure states play a big role in shaping things, but there are lots of parties that have an interest in what gets built and who pays for it. So I don’t know exactly what the problems are, but my instinct says you were on the money when you suggested that finding a way to pay for a new power grid was the problem.
Fair enough on the PCEF, it’s not a punitive stick to wean people away from ICEs. It is however supposed to be mitigating the climate crisis and if in your eyes it is then I can’t debate with you on it.
As far as the grid, I’m honestly happy for you that yours is holding up and providing what you and your neighbors want.
From your link:
“the grid we have today does not have the attributes necessary to meet the demands of the 21st century and beyond. We are working with public and private partners to develop the concepts, tools, and technologies needed to measure, analyze, predict, protect, and control the grid of the future.”
Exactly what I have been saying. I certainly hope they can figure it out soon because the way that’s worded it doesn’t sound like they have a plan.
Hey Jake9! Thanks, as always, for the interesting discussion.
I think we agree on much, including most factual information about the current state of affairs. I agree with you that the power grid has big problems. I think where we differ is in the inference that this state of affairs means we should keep on with our large per capita consumption of petroleum, coal, and natural gas.
Do you experience a lot of power outages? I’m just going off the experience of myself and my acquaintances, but they all have sufficient (not perfect) service. Of course, that could go south pretty fast.
I certainly do not think PCEF has solved climate change, but I think that’s a ridiculous expectation of PCEF. I have criticisms of PCEF but generally support it.
What I am proposing (the “punitive stick”) is more or less a carbon tax, which is not a new idea. It has attracted support from conservatives (including republicans) at times, although it seems to be out of fashion right now. I think increasing the cost of fossil energy and/or emissions will lead to the most efficient reductions since market forces will find the places where it’s easiest to replace the taxed fuels with untaxed ones like wind-generated electricity.
Hi Micah,
Always a pleasure to have a respectful conversation with another person. It’s much appreciated and I agree with you that we agree on far more than we disagree.
Good point, Watts. We need to vastly increase the gasoline tax so that people notice the amount of gas they are burning.
I’m all for it. The higher the better.
That’s pretty funny Watts.
I am pretty sure you don’t need this explained, but I’ll do it anyway for posterity. My main point was that Jim (nice first name btw) Calhoon’s lesson, which I interpreted as showing that vehicle weight doesn’t contribute to tire wear, was fundamentally flawed because he was comparing completely different types of tires.
You did not read the last part of my statement about load ratings and milage warranty. When a manufacture develops a tire it will be designed with a life span based on milage. When that tire goes into production it has to be made in several different load ratings to account for the varying weight of the vehicles it could be mounted on. Most passenger cars run on load range B where 3/4 and 1 ton trucks run on load range E (10 ply for the older generation). The only difference between the load range B and E is in the sidewall construction not the tread. My point with my examples is to show that a softer compound tread like a summer performance tire will wear out faster than a harder compound tire.
In all of your examples, my take away was that even soft compound tires last so long that extracting meaningful tax revenue from them would mean that the taxes would have to be very high.
If that was the case (tire taxes high enough to significantly alter the cost to consumers), I would then be concerned that some drivers would forgo/delay replacing worn tires even longer than they normally do, leading to reduced traction and during the wet season. That would impact vulnerable road users the most, I would assume.
That would depend on how the tax is applied. If it was a fixed tax (so much per tire). It could make some people think about paying more for a tire with a higher milage warranty to increase the time between paying the tax. If the tax is variable based on price or size I do not have a clear picture of how it could affect tire buying habits. The tax would have to be less the the sales tax of neighboring states. Otherwise most of Portland Metro would flock to Vancouver to buy tires. Or they could buy them online from say TireRack and have them installed by a local shop. You are correct in the fact that some people will run there tires past the safe tread depth. I think a good number of people do this now. I blame the larger size rim diameter. When I started driving most cars ran 13″ or 14″ rims and trucks ran 14″ to 16″. Now see rim sizes run from 17″ to 22″. As a rule of thumb the larger the rim diameter the price goes up. I think the auto manufactures are in a race to see who can put largest wheel on a factory vehicle. Chevrolet’s Silverado EV comes on 24″ rims. It will cost owners 2k+ for a set of new tires.(Sorry for my rant on rim sizes)
Since we (maybe just me) has gone down this rabbit hole I will give one more thing to ponder. Most of the less expensive tires are found in the 40 to 45K milage warranty range. This means that at an average of 15k miles driven per years means you will be putting on a new set every 3 years. So if a tax per tire was added people with lower incomes could be taxed more often.
Also consider that tires are already quite expensive. How much would a tax have to be to fundamentally change any cost-drive behavior associated with tire purchases?
All bike taxes should be waved until Trump tariffs that affect bikes are removed and clearly not coming back.
https://www.bikeradar.com/news/trumps-tariffs-will-be-devastating-for-us-bike-industry
https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/bike-industry-update-on-tariffs-2025
Oregon has some of the best transit in the country and yet numbers are down. Ask a moms with kids if they want to use transit or drive? By and large, if they are being honest, most will say drive because it’s safer.
Tax the cars. Oregon won’t actually fund transit…but it will have more money..,
Oh god – really? I ride Trimet all the time and it’s just okay. If it’s the best in the country, then the rest of the country truly has terrible transit.
Just go north and check out the new train lines and stations in Seattle. Makes one wonder what all the billions of dollars TriMet took of our tax dollars really did with it.
TriMet is very good for a Portland-sized economy, but really shines in a suburban context ironically. Milwaukee is about the size of Portland, and MCTS within Milwaukee proper is basically as good as TriMet is within Portland proper, but there is literally no suburban transit provider in 2/3rds of suburban Milwaukee, and getting anywhere outside the core urban areas is legitimately impossible. Here we have a world-class interurban light rail (Hillsboro to Portland at least) that is reasonably competitive with driving for at least some trips.
Here’s my ranking of Portland sized regions’ public transit I’ve personally ridden transit in:
1. Minneapolis/St. Paul
2. Portland
3. Cleveland
4. Milwaukee
5. Denver
6. Indianapolis
7. Columbus
8. Nashville
I might prefer Cleveland to Portland, or I would if the subway track conditions were better. GCRTA is really quite nice. I’m a Denver hater to my core, and that’s probably a pessimistic ranking based mostly on my Denver RTA experience riding in Boulder County specifically.
Obviously NYC, Chicago, SF, DC, and LA are way better than Portland for transit, but we do alright here at least. As long as you don’t buy the hype that Portland transit is somehow world class, I find it to be adequate to good.
Well it’s not really the “best in the country” if moms with kids are too afraid to use it because they don’t feel safe.
Chasing the “safe feeling” is to chase a wild goose. The easiest way to feel safe on transit is to take it, and realize that it IS safe.
Contrast that with the intrinsic Russian roulette you get every time you get behind the wheel and join the roads with others, and it’s obvious we’re not dealing with rational calculation when people say they’re too scared to use transit.
Wow that’s some gaslighting there…you’re discounting the lived experiences of those who have experienced things that don’t make them feel safe on Portland public transportation. If you want them to return telling them they’re wrong is not an effective approach.
Chasing the “safe feeling” is to chase a wild goose. The easiest way to feel safe on on a bike is to ride one, and realize that it IS safe.
Ah yes, the rationality of not knowing what intrinsic means or the actual odds of Russian Roulette to shame people into being locked in a metal tube with the most unhinged members of society. Where do I sign up.
Aquaticko,
Would you want to get on the MAX with this guy? Would you recommend parents with small children get on the MAX with this guy? This is current day Portland. Portland 2025.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKk4irjhqab/?igsh=Mzc3aXVxMnU0aHN4
No matter how safe any transit system is, there will always be people scared being in close proximity to random strangers and therefore scared of public transit (except when those people go to Disney Land)
Driving is objectively less safe than riding transit by any reasonable metric. People don’t ride transit because it’s slow, doesn’t go where they are going, or it’s not something their accustomed to
The nature of the danger might have an impact as well. Driving creates the illusion that we are in control, and the danger of a crash feels like divine intervention, whereas the danger on transit comes from other users, and we primates are very closely attuned to threats from other primates.
Why is the Progressives’ answer to every problem MORE TAXES? The embarrassing local implementation and wasteful and ineffective use of the panoply of recently enacted taxes (PCEF, Housing Bond, Homeless Tax, Preschool Tax) are prime examples of the poor governance and simplistic thinking we seem to repeatedly embrace in Portland (and therefore Oregon). It’s time to realize that more $ from taxpayers is not the answer.
Because we’ve collectively spent the last 50 years slashing taxes and lowering government capacity. You could argue that the impetus for at least some of those taxes and bonds is the fact that property tax revenues were permanently crippled by Measure 5 and 50 in the 1990s, but the impact of the retreat of the Federal Government in supporting housing, economic development, and other key aspects of urban policy shouldn’t be understated either.
Tax burdens are still historically low compared to even the early Regan years. Why is the reactionary take always that taxes are too high even when evidence points to the contrary?
Depends on where you’re at in the tax burden strata, no? What was the tax burden of the top 10% relative to GDP during Regan and now? What was the effective tax rate of the bottom 50% historically relative to now? Has there ever been a time where a greater proportion of the populace had a negative net tax contribution than now?
If you don’t pay the homeless tax, the preschool tax and own an old home or rent an old place, you’re not seeing the burden at all, you just blab about it. If you’re seeing a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there, a property tax bill 4x your neighbors, all on top of the income tax, the capital gains tax at the income tax rate, we’ll I guess I’m of the belief you’ve earned the right to bitch about it while surfing redfin looking to leave.
Why should it be relative to GDP? Surely the burden itself (tax payment relative to income and/or wealth) is the measure that matters. High income earners paid a top marginal rate of 50% until 1986, when it was cut to 38.5% before being cut to 28% in 1988 (source). This lasted until 1993, when it was raised back to 39.6%, and it’s been in the high 30s ever since. So high income earners pay less now than they did at least until 1986.
Generally higher than it was in the 1950-1980 period. Governments at all levels have added lots of fees to make up for lost revenue elsewhere which are disproportionately bad for people who earn less money. Our taxation system was much fairer when the progressive federal income tax made up a greater portion of revenue. We’ve actively chosen to shift the burden onto the middle class and poor while simultaneously cutting social programs in favor of military spending, and we keep doing it too. I think this is bad for our society.
Measuring net tax contribution is not simple, and it’s even less simple in a historical perspective. But according to this study of tax burden by income level prepared by DC in 2022, there are no major cities in the country where the lowest income level ($25k or less) have an effective tax rate less than 0%, despite some of those states having an income tax rebate type program (see page 14). $25k or less makes up about 15% of the US population (source). I don’t think I have the time or energy to answer this question in full, but suffice to say that I think there’s nothing wrong with social policy which lifts up those who cannot work to support themselves – which for the record, includes a huge number of people who have been left behind by the minuscule purchasing power of our minimum wage. Alternatively, you could look at these IRS reports but I couldn’t really make heads or tails of what to conclude.
I’m certainly guilty of blabbing, but I’m not sure why you think I am somehow incapable of understanding tax policy despite being a renter whose adjusted gross income puts them near the poverty line. We should have tax policy which benefits society at large, and society at large benefits from relatively low levels of income and wealth inequality. You can feel differently about this, that the rich should have gated fortresses while the poor beg at the door, but I’d prefer to live in a place where people actually have the ability to move up the social ladder, and where your zip code or parental income isn’t the strongest determinant for future success. If you think that only the already rich have the right to complain about things, the right to express their genuine political opinions, then I don’t know what to say to you.
Look, I’m all for a fair tax system that funds public goods and gives people a shot at success—but this kind of over-the-top rhetoric is exactly why so many people are tuning out the far left. Saying we either support your vision or we want “gated fortresses while the poor beg at the door” isn’t just wrong, it’s lazy and divisive.
Here in Portland, we’ve seen what happens when idealism runs wild without any grounding in reality. Sky-high taxes, endless talk about “equity,” and yet somehow the streets are less safe, the schools are struggling, and working-class people can’t afford to live here. If that’s the model of low inequality we’re supposed to aspire to, count me out.
You’re also conflating inequality with injustice. Yes, there’s too much wealth at the top—but the solution isn’t to punish success or act like everyone who disagrees with your exact view is some kind of oligarch apologist. Upward mobility isn’t just about redistribution—it’s about competence in government, effective institutions, and creating real economic growth, not just chasing utopian slogans.
So no, disagreeing with you doesn’t mean someone wants a Dickens novel. It might just mean we’ve lived through enough poorly thought-out policy to know that slogans don’t solve structural problems.
I was responding to a comment implying that only people who pay the Mult Co PFA tax have a right to complain about it. I think that’s wrong on its face, everyone has a right to consider and discus taxation policy. And for what it’s worth, places with high income inequality (South Africa, Brazil, Los Angeles) do tend to have gated fortresses for the rich with Dickensian slums surrounding. It’s a natural result of income inequality in the long run, and I think we should have public policy and institutions to prevent that.
Citation needed. This bit from Watts in reply shows lower taxes at the Federal level for most income brackets since 1979. Sure, things are slightly different locally, but consider a wealthy family living in Irvington. If they make $500k/year, they pay 1.5% of that to the two bespoke taxes in Mult Co/Metro, which works out to $7,500. Let’s say they live at this random house. It’s assessed at $375k (despite being worth at least $886k), and they pay just under $10k in property taxes. If it were taxed at the same rate (relative to assessed value) of 2.5% on the amount it was actually worth, they would be paying $22k in property taxes. Even with recent changes to make the Portland area’s taxation structure slightly less regressive, most wealthy property owners pay less in total local taxes now than they otherwise would have absent Measure 5/50 in the 1990s – this family is saving some $5k. I think this is bad, but I think that the approach to the problem of “our local governments are broke because we neutered the property tax” of “a few top earner income taxes” is much worse than a better property tax system.
Most aggregate crime stats in the US are lower than they were in the 1990s.
How is this issue solved by lowering taxes on the wealthy?
Yes, because an unequal system that could be better for people is not just. I feel that we have a moral responsibility to have fair and just systems that do not create unnecessarily unequal outcomes. We create systems, and when we create unequal systems, we should change them.
I do not view progressive taxation policy as “punishing success”, I view it as a means of redistribution to the benefit of society at large. Equating “paying relatively more into a system that clearly benefits you” with “punishing success” is just as intellectually dishonest and lazy as me comparing Portland to South Africa for rhetorical flourish.
Evidently, I strongly agree with this. But to me, real economic growth requires interventionist economic policy, some of which should be a purposefully re-distributive taxation structure. I’m sure we disagree on that point, but these are not idle slogans that I read on DSA blog posts, they are things I have come by through lived experience and a lot of reading, research, and thought.
Right, like the tax-payer funded bailout of banks and automakers during the recession, or the neoliberal free trade agreements that shipped millions of union jobs to Mexico, Bangladesh, and China, or the continued erosion of civil liberties post 2001. In my opinion, most modern US government policy robs the poor to feed the rich (at least in relative terms), and we deserve to have government institutions that respond to the needs of the working class. I don’t think the solution to government ineptitude is slashing taxes, nor do I think that somehow the wealthy tax payers in Multnomah County are getting a raw deal. Given this, it should be obvious why I support relatively higher taxes – since I don’t think it’s true that everyone is overtaxed and I think most of our institutional ineptitude is at least partly a result of structural funding issues that are yet to be resolved.
Does it? Why? When I think of companies that have grown rapidly over the past decades, they’re ones where the government has generally been non-interventionist.
There are many realms that are not well funded where this argument could be true (we just don’t know), but there are also many areas where Oregon’s performance has fallen far short of the funding we’ve allocated (education and drug treatment are in the forefront of my mind, and there are plenty of examples on the federal level such as rural broadband).
Those examples make me wonder if the problem is really money. I’m having a hard time identifying any government institutions that I could say are really doing a bang-up job given the level of resources we’re allocating to them… maybe some of the science agencies before 2024? Maybe social security?
This is most pronounced for those lowest on the income scale.
Here’s the data for those who are interested:
https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average-federal-tax-rates-all-households
This is a particular political outlook (that I don’t share), but I’m not sure how you would refute it with “evidence.”
That’s an interesting and useful link. Thanks!
I wish that chart didn’t end in 2020 (the Covid era payments were definitely a one time thing that seriously impacted gross taxation rates), but that is very handy thanks.
Presumably by showing a chart like you did with different numbers where taxes now are much higher than they were in the past.
That, of course, presupposes taxes weren’t too high in the past. Whether taxes are too high or not is a political opinion, not a fact that can be demonstrated or proven.
Tolls. We need tolls. Tolls on state highways, tolls on bridges. Set them at the exact level needed to pay for necessary upgrades (or replacements in the case of bridges) and otherwise to the exact level to fully maintain the highway or bridge in perpetuity, and no more.
This could include congestion pricing, which can be balanced by reduced tolls (or no tolls) off of peak hours.
Electric vehicles don’t pay gas tax, so we’ll need tolls eventually anyway. Might as well do them now.
Smart move to engage the union. However, there are even larger Oregon state unions who want to pave roads with union labor. Until that mismatch gets ‘hammered’ out there won’t be much progress on smart transport. Anticipate OR Dems ramming through the same old transport package after paying out the Republican hold outs with freeway funding to Newberg.
Le sigh… same as it ever was…