Councilor Olivia Clark launches push for new transportation revenue

For Portland City Councilor Olivia Clark, it’s all about the potholes.

Today, Clark will become the latest Portland politician to put their face on an effort to boost transportation spending when the City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee discusses the Alternative Transportation Funding Report for the first time. With roads in disrepair and a bleak city budget, Clark is doing this not because the timing is right, but because she feels there is no other choice.

“I am nervous,” Clark shared in an interview with me in City Hall last week. “It’s not a great environment for talking about money at all. I’m nervous about asking for anything… Is this the right time? I don’t know. But we, we just have to have this conversation.”

One of Clark’s first moves as Chair of the T & I Committee was to order the Portland Bureau of Transportation to create a report on new ways to raise revenue. The result is a 42-page conversation starter that lays out the case about the need for more funding and puts forward four recommendations for where to find it.

The top four recommendations in the report are: a transportation utility fee, a street damage restoration fee, a retail delivery fee and a third-party food delivery fee (see more about each of them below). The report includes a detailed breakdown on the pros and cons of each of those approaches, along with insights on 20 other fees that could be part of the mix.

Clark ordered this report with the expectation that the legislature would pass an adequate funding package. What ended up making it through a brutal legislative process was what Clark called a “humble little package.” And now even that package is going to be referred and voters will be able to choose whether or not they want to pay more for transportation. “I’ll just be honest with you, it’ll go down,” Clark shared with me on Thursday. “So it was sort of prescient that we now have this report.”

Clark, who brings over two decades of executive-level experience at TriMet to the table, believes doing nothing is not an option and she understands that PBOT is in dire straits as their entire funding model has been turned upside-down. With the Trump Administration playing politics and the Oregon Legislature incapable of securing even a modest funding package, she understands that no one is coming to PBOT’s rescue. “We’re not getting any help from the federal government,” she said. “And we have so many other crises — but if we don’t do something about the potholes and the streets, it’s going to cost us so much more in the future.”

Below is a brief description (taken from the report) of the four funding mechanisms that show the most promise via PBOT’s initial analysis:

Transportation utility fee:

Who pays: Utility billpayers

A Transportation Utility Fee (sometimes called a “TUF” or “Street Fee”) is a fee for maintenance and improvement of the transportation system paid for by a broad base of users, typically collected using existing public utility billing systems. This broad collection base allows for substantial revenue generation at relatively low cost for rate payers. Implementation is low-cost because of the ability to use existing billing systems and leverage existing low-income discount programs. Fees are not tied to fossil fuel consumption or driving single-occupancy vehicles and thus do not create cross-incentives for City revenue and policy goals. The premise of the Transportation Utility Fee is that the transportation system is a utility, like the electric or water system, that benefits everybody and should be supported to some extent by everybody; even a person who never leaves their residence benefits from the goods and services that travel on the transportation system. A Transportation Utility Fee provides stable, robust support for the transportation system that does not shift with user behavior changes. This fee can be partially connected to system use through trip generation by use. For example, rates for single family and multi-family residences, and businesses can be calculated based on estimated trips generated by property type for residential properties, and property type and size for non-residential properties.

Street damage restoration fee:

Who pays: Utilities that cut into the public streets

Transportation maintenance experts have identified that when streets are cut open for utility work, the “trenching” damages the integrity of the street and accelerates deterioration. Cutting into a street, even when the cut is patched, can shorten its life by up to 65%, meaning the city needs to repair it about 10 years sooner than expected. A Street Damage Restoration Fee (SDRF) can ensure that when utilities cut into streets to reach water, sewer, gas, or telecom lines, they share in the cost of the wear and tear that work creates. The existence of this fee also incentivizes utilities to better coordinate cuts with scheduled street work in order to avoid duplicative work, minimize disruption to the transportation system, and avoid incurring the fees. Portland already charges a fee in the Utility Street Opening permit process, but it is intended to pay for staff time to process the permit, not to address the future maintenance costs resulting from the cut.

Third-party food delivery fee:

Who pays: Consumers who use third party food delivery apps

The growth of third-party app-based food delivery has dramatically increased vehicle trips on city streets, particularly in high-demand commercial and residential districts. These services generate thousands of short, high-frequency trips every day, contributing to congestion, double-parking, emissions, curbside conflicts, wear and tear on roads. A small per-order fee on prepared food deliveries would generate meaningful new revenue and

Retail delivery fee:

Who pays: Consumers receiving retail goods delivered to Portland addresses

As e-commerce and home delivery have grown, so too have the number of delivery trucks and vans traveling on Portland’s streets each day. These trips contribute to congestion, emissions, and street wear, while placing increasing demands on curb space. Several cities are exploring potential delivery fees, but no city has yet implemented them. Two states – Colorado and Minnesota – have implemented fees on delivery of retail purchases. A Retail Delivery Fee would ensure that customers who choose delivery share in the cost of maintaining and improving the transportation system that supports these services. The fee would apply to most retail goods delivered to a Portland address. A small, pertransaction amount would appear at point of sale and be remitted to the City by qualified retailers. Exemptions could also be considered for specific goods and to reduce administrative burdens of collection for businesses below certain revenue thresholds. Revenue from a Retail Delivery Fee could support a broad array of investments that address the growing impacts of delivery and e-commerce activity. Stakeholder engagement with residents and businesses will be critical to understanding the opportunities and challenges of this fee.

PBOT staff say today’s T & I committee meeting is just the first of many steps. From here, there will be public open houses and surveys and a lot more conversations.

I asked Councilor Clark how she’d react to Portlanders who reject the idea of more new fees and taxes outright. How would she convince them to get on board? “All I can do is show them the numbers and show them the facts,” she said. “And if you don’t want to believe it, fine, live with the potholes.”

Clark kept coming back to potholes throughout our interview. When a PBOT staffer who sat in said new taxes and fees are necessary to “stabilize revenue,” Clark injercted: “That’s not what it is for me. What it is for me is filling the potholes, you know, and fixing the streets… I start with damn potholes. It’s killing me.” When I pressed her on how she’d respond to a person who opposes paying more, she said. “I would say, personally, I’m sick of potholes. How about you? I mean, are you tired of this? Are you tired of having to get your car realigned, or you’re falling on your nose on your bike when you go into a pothole? It’s not safe.”

In 2008 former Portland Mayor Sam Adams attempted to pass a street fee that crashed-and-burned when public sentiment turned and gas station lobbyists rose up. In 2014 Councilor Steve Novick infamously attempted again, only to blame his eventual election loss on the effort. Portland has been more successful since 2016 when the first of three local gas tax measures were passed by voters by comfortable margins. Clark will hope those recent successes carry this new initiative forward.

And unlike Novick (who has since won re-election to council and will undoubtedly have some interesting perspectives on this latest revenue attempt), who has said it was worth losing votes to push the idea of funding forward, Clark made it clear to me that she will drop this effort it proves unpopular.

“If there’s not public support, I’m not going to do anything that the public doesn’t want to do. I’m going to scream about potholes until I’m blue in the face. But if the support to do this isn’t there, then I’m not going to, you know, commit Harakiri.”

“My whole message when getting elected was that I want this form of government to work. That’s why I’m here… This is what the public expects us to do is to take care of what we have, take care of the streets. And if they don’t make the connection, then so be it. You know, I’m not going to push where there’s no support.”

— Alternative Transportation Funding Report (PBOT)

— Watch the 12/15 Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting here.