The next phase of the City of Portland’s effort to raise transportation revenue is upon us.
This Thursday, February 19th, the Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) will kickoff a series of four open houses to garner feedback and inform Portlanders about how best to generate more funding to pay for road projects and transportation programs.
As BikePortland has reported for many years, local sources of funding for transportation are woefully outdated and ineffective. PBOT officials say after eight straight years of painful cuts, they are now in crisis mode and the time has come to ask us to pay more to make sure our transportation system remains usable. In years past, we could at least count on state and federal funding to help fill holes in local budgets. But with the failures of the Trump Administration and state lawmakers to do their jobs, even those sources of revenue are no longer certain.
As PBOT continues to develop the policy behind their favorite new revenue mechanisms, they want to take the temperature of us, the tax-paying public. Late last month I shared the initial assessment of costs and benefits associated with each of the city’s top revenue generating ideas. Now they want to workshop those with you in-person at Local Transportation Fund Open House events.
There will be one event in each district and they kick off this Thursday. Below are the dates, times, and locations of each open house.
District 4: Thursday, Feb. 19, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Rieke Elementary School Gym (1405 SW Vermont St.)
District 1: Feb. 23, 6:30 to 8:30 at Lent Elementary School Cafeteria (5105 SE 97th Ave.)
District 3: Feb. 25, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Atkinson Elementary School Cafeteria (5800 SE Division St.)
District 2: March 3, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School Cafeteria (4906 NE Sixth Ave.)
For more information on the PBOT funding crisis and open houses, as well as a funding survey that opens 2/19, check out the official website.
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Time to break out the PCEF money. It didnt take long, but it’s officially regarded as a slush fund by everyone in power now. Why nickel and dime us with fees and taxes when there is a big lump sum just waiting to be used to help all locals who rely on transportation (which is everyone)? I’d much rather it went into infrastructure repairs done by city employees and contractors earning a living wage than given to a Texas billionaire. Especially since our corporatist leadership (time to abandon the DSA handle since you’ve just passed up a chance to choose working people over a billionaire) is so eager to give money away without even a justification of how it meets PCEF values or without a written contract stating that the basketball team will stay in Portland for any amount of time.
“Councilor Eric Zimmerman says his understanding is that the “large local investment” referred to by the letter would be, in large part, made up of PCEF funds. All councilors, he says, were briefed that the investment would be made up largely of PCEF funds.Council President Jamie Dunphy had the same interpretation, saying that the council’s letter is referring to PCEF revenues, “plus city redirecting taxes from the sale of the Blazers back into the facility in capital expenses, investment from Prosper Portland, and ongoing operations expenses from user fees on tickets and parking” at Moda Center. (Dunphy says the chairs of the PCEF Committee, which makes funding recommendations to the council, “are supportive so far of how the process has been rolled out.”).”
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2026/02/16/entire-portland-city-council-urges-legislature-to-pass-moda-center-funding-bill/
The sooner we run “sports” teams out of town, the better off Portland will be. It’s criminal how much of our tax money goes to these teams and how little return we actually get. Oh boy, over priced tickets and concessions . . . “pass me the beer and pretzels Martha . . . Sorry Solar we can’t afford them with all the taxes we pay to support a professional sports team”
What taxes do you pay to support professional sports teams?
Portland has the Blazers, the Timbers and the Thorns and soon to be a WNBA team, the Portland Fire.
How much a year are you paying in taxes for them to play in our city?
Well they are talking about 600 million of tax money here. Arguably there will be more to show for it than the same amount that gets spent per year on salaries and benefits that arguably benefit the homeless somewhow.
I wouldn’t be a reader of this blog if I didn’t prefer the money spent on public transport, road upgrades or something even more useful
But PCEF money, which is our sales tax in all but name, should just go back to the people who pay it. What a moronic concept the entire thing was–zero accountability and total nepotism.
Just in-the-know people handing money to their dinner party guests’ campaigns and non-profits.
The NGOs made the argument in council that the elected council should not oversee the grants from PCEF but rather the unelected comiittee full of insiders should.
I’m conflicted about the Moda center. On one hand it does feel like the city is being threatened to do what a billionaire wants so they don’t have to spend any money. On the other hand, the Moda center does host concerts, tournaments and other shows. I would still like access to those things. Ultimately, you would need every city/state to come together and say to the team owners “you pay for it.” But that won’t happen. How to pay for it is a whole other part.
So the Mayor, the socialists, the entire city council plus the Governor and every business group in the city wants to keep the team and refurbish a 30 year old building that the city was given for 1 dollar is a real problem for you.
OK.
Who do you think will do the repairs and get the local money if not local workers in a 300 million dollar repair?
Do you think the billionaire will be getting out his hammer?
It is hard to even address this level of discourse.
I’m addressing a way to solve the transportation woes that afflict the whole city. You’re desperate to give 100s of millions of money to a billionaire with no guarantee the team will stay in Portland. If we did it your way and the council’s (and all those other people you correctly mentioned) way then Poof, lots of public money gone so the Blazers can play about 41 home games a year for who knows how long until they move to greener pastures. If it was profitable to redo the Moda Center, the Texas billionaire would do it on his own to keep all the profits.. He knows it’s not profitable so why should we do it for him??. Wake up!
The sane method for using public funds is to repair the city infrastructure using city and union labor (we have no idea who would be brought in to do the Moda upgrade) for its citizens on bike, foot and board to enjoy.
As for your comment on socialists who agree with you, well, they must be the politburo type.
More bread and circuses, comrades. Anything for the modern oligarchs to distract the proletariat from seeing their city collapse.
That’s pretty rich considering the taxpayers ponied up over $34.5 million dollars to build it. Oh what a great deal in your mind that we paid $34,500,001 for it.
Enough with the subsidizing of the rich.
Just remember “pro” sports teams suck the life (money) out of cities.
Actually a billionaire named Paul Allen paid for the Moda center, the city put in about 10% at the time and now the Moda center belongs to all the residents of Portland.
There are 150 non sporting events a year at the arena that thousands of residents here go to and enjoy.
Do hate music and entertainment as much as sports?
You are free to stay home.
The arena Makes money for the city and thus all the people who live here.
Buildings need maintenance and upgrades a few times a century.
There are plenty of other places to see musicians and entertain oneself. Is paying excessively for admission and a beer the way we find community? I am not yet that cynical. A bloated colosseum under the premise of luring rich benefactors while the roads crumble…Priorities…
And while people are being further rationed medical care.
If you support a 0.6 billion dollar taxpayer gift to a billionaire who funded Trump and the MAGA movement, you have given up your right to claim to resolutely oppose the MAGA oligarchy. And the same would apply to any “socialist” on city council who votes for this redistribution to the fascist billionaire class.
Do you understand that the city of Portland and thus ALL the people who live here OWN the Moda center, not a billionaire?
The Socialists on the city council are bright enough to realize that Buildings the public owns need repairs and updating.
There are 200 events a year at the Moda center, about 300,000 regular people enjoy Music and other events at the arena.
The redistribution you are talking about means that Walmart and other large corporations are paying to upgrade a building that 600,000 residents of Portland own and a good percentage of those folks go to and enjoy the events at the building that WE own.
I don’t think you understand the facts, Comrade.
1. Glad you recognize that the Moda Center will keep trucking along just fine without the basketball team there. There are indeed a lot of events that happen there of far more cultural relevance and popularity.
2. The Moda Center DOESN’T NEED an upgrade. It’s just something a billionaire wants for free.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2026/02/18/architects-and-nba-insiders-tell-us-what-we-would-get-with-a-moda-center-facelift/
I had thought the DSA could be the group that would break the binary hold the Ds and Rs have on state politics. This seemed one of the few places where the DSA would be able to form it’s own party and be a legitimate alternative to what our current options are.
However, if the DSA representatives who are in a place of power are so eager to redistribute (fancy word for “take”) money taken from the poor and middle class to the billionare class than I think they need to rename themselves to what they truly believe.
“Spend money on the needs of the people? No!! Give money to Texas billionare!”
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” George Orwell wrote that in Animal Farm and the DSA Councilors have proved it right.
The entire Council’s stance on this is very dissapointing.
Do you have a link to them supporting this? Genuinely interested and concerned.
Just the WW article about it. Green apparently tried to backtrack saying he didn’t realize it meant PCEF money before he signed the letter of support, but Dunphy says “no”, it was apparent thats what the funds referred to. The apparently all signed it though. I can’t find a copy of the letter, but i’ve never felt this betrayed by the council in all their bad decisions over the years to look through the records to try to find documentation.
Pretty clearly states the DSA councilors are on board with using PCEF funds which I (and others) consider a regressive sales tax for the Moda Center at the behest of a billionaire.
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2026/02/16/entire-portland-city-council-urges-legislature-to-pass-moda-center-funding-bill/
Supporting the use of the people’s money to bribe a Trump donor/supporter and billionaire while peacocking around at ICE protests is the epitome of hypocrisy. .
DSA councilors: Marxist-Leninist on outside but soft gooshy lib on the inside.
Yes, unfortunately. It’s very discouraging! Instead of DSA they should call themselves Democratic Corporatists of America and adopt an appropriate mascot such as the oil barrel to let everyone know their morals.
Fair point. But it doesn’t have any effect on PBOT’s budget.
The state can’t get itself together enough to increase actual transportation revenue. City counsel has definitely been advocating at the state for more transportation dollars. The state legislature finally did pass something and it’s going to get crushed at the ballot box. So, this complaint about funding the Moda Center is completely separate from funding local transportation.
If those funds don’t go to the Moda Center, they are 100% not going to get directed to local transportation revenue because of the legal way that cities are funded through tax dollars for transportation.
“If those funds don’t go to the Moda Center, they are 100% not going to get directed to local transportation revenue because of the legal way that cities are funded through tax dollars for transportation.“
There a no reason PCEF money should be going to the Moda Center. If it can go to the Moda center though, why can’t it go to local transportation? I’m honestly curious. Council opened the funding Pandora’s box in their urge to give money to a billionaire and that box isn’t closing.
Thanks for pointing that out. I was clumsy in how I said that. PCEF funds can go to transportation projects. But, the dedicated transportation funds that are needed for maintaining and operating the system really need dedicated transportation funds that have been traditionally funded by the gas tax. There isn’t good money out there for taking care of what we have outside of the dedicated transportation funds. There are funding opportunities like PCEF that builds new stuff or funds specific programs.
The reason that the system is so messed up from my perspective is that the gas tax is broken. Cars are way more fuel efficient or use no gas at all. So, there’s less revenue coming in. This is combined with drastic inflation for transportation costs like roadway maintenance, signal maintenance, construction projects, and so on.
So everything is getting much more expensive while revenue is going down. There are logical ways to fund transportation like taxes based on miles driven, increasing registration fees especially for electric vehicles, or tolling roads. However, even when there’s been political will to try these things, the public shoots it all down pretty dramatically. We’re seeing that right now with the new transportation law being referred to the ballot with blistering speed. I tried to find the actual number, but some years ago there was a statewide referendum on repealing a transportation revenue package. It got less than 20% yes votes in that election. We’ve seen the same thing when there were public hearings about tolling. People simply didn’t show up to defend tolling to near the degree that people showed up to oppose them.
So, finding a path to sustainable transportation funds for Portland has been elusive for the 30 years I’ve lived here. We always find a way to say no which has led to a lot of cans being kicked down the road. But, we’re at a point where we’re losing our cans.
You do realize that PBOT has received significant amounts of PCEF revenue and, frankly, should receive more because transportation is one of the largest sources of CO2e emissions in the metro region.
I do realize that. I do think that more money should go to PBOT from PCEF. PCEF is sitting on insane amounts of revenue.
They gave PBOT $112,000,000 in grants for the 2023-28 time period. Those funds are dedicated to building new active transportation facilities, running the e-bike rebate program, and other equity programs. They do not cover general operations.
When PCEF funds do come in, they are for specific programs. PBOT needs general revenue for things like maintenance and operations. Those are the really hard dollars to come by. Those dollars come from dedicated transportation revenue like what city council is talking about now.
So, even if there were more money coming to PBOT from PCEF, PBOT would still need substantial amounts of new revenue to take care of the overall system.
Having the city transportation agency boost funding for city transit routes is a perfect example of how PCEF could fund decarbonization of transportation. Likewise, having PCEF boost funding for the build-out and maintenance of bike/ped infrastructure is another very valid use. Can you imagine what could be done in this city if we leverage something like 0.6 billion* on bike infrastructure over the next decade?
*number derived from failed 2030 Bike Pan
Another open house from the Portland Bureau of Transportation about raising more revenue, this time in the name of a “funding crisis.” In Portland, where working families are already stretched thin, we need to ask some hard questions before reaching for higher taxes again.
If we care about equity, affordability, and keeping communities intact, we cannot ignore the cumulative impact of constant new levies on renters, small businesses, and low income residents. Progressive policy should protect vulnerable people first. I don’t see that in Portland. It should mean demanding transparency, prioritizing essential services, cutting waste, and ensuring existing dollars are spent effectively before asking the public for more.
Strong public infrastructure matters. But so do accountability, fairness, and economic stability for everyday Portlanders. We can stand for well funded transportation and responsible stewardship at the same time.
Agreed! There was some talk about accountability for PP&R before the last vote to raise more taxes to give them more money, but I have have not seen results or evidence of that. Lets close their little pet nursery by Mt Tabor project that is a big waste of money and then we’ll know we are heading in the right direction
Let’s get rid of those pesky trees and lawns in all of those parks, too! Too much work!
Inflation of construction costs are growing exponentially faster than inflation in the general economy. How can things get built or fixed in that environment with no additional revenue?
Transportation revenue has been in disarray nationally for at least a generation. The gas tax simply doesn’t work anymore. The state can’t figure out a way to fund the system. How can there be revenue to sustain a healthy transport system without having a funding mechanism that works?
The proposals have low income discounts that are legit. Does that matter in terms of gaining support?
What is PBOT doing that costs $30 million more than it should? It’s easy to point to expensive construction projects but those aren’t heavily funded with local dollars and the federal/state dollar that fund them come with expensive requirements. So, with that in mind, where does PBOT spend $30 million less without it hurting our city for the long term?
If PBOT had maintained everything like they were supposed to- you know their jobs, then they wouldn’t be in this “crisis” now.
PBOT has never had the funds to maintain everything. No city in America does or has. They could have done nothing but maintenance and would still be behind.
Really… I’m curious how you know that “no city in America does or has” had the funds to maintain everything. What is your source?
Regardless of what funds PBOT or didn’t have, they could have maintained more, much better than they have.
Provide some examples, maybe?
You can send a crew out every business day and do 10 miles of maintenance and you’d cover the City in a year. Pot holes cost around $250-$400 to fix.
PBOT had the funds.
PBOT had the crews.
PBOT, and our elected officials, CHOSE to NOT do it.
Do you have any documents to back up the claim that a crew can maintain 10 miles of road a day? That seems…disconnected from reality.
Ah yes, the Portland budgeting cycle:
1)Declare a “funding crisis.”
2)Assure everyone it’s about equity.
3)Raise taxes.
4)Wonder why the tax base is packing a U-Haul.
“We get the streets we pay for” is technically true — it’s just unclear why we’re paying luxury prices for used pavement.
At this point, the only thing in Portland that isn’t under construction is accountability
We get the streets we pay for.
No, we don’t.
For whatever it’s worth, I’m on the demand-responsive parking pricing and congestion pricing trains. It’s a win-win-win-win: PBOT gets the revenue it needs, congestion is alleviated, people are prompted onto more efficient modes, and the driving experience gets better for everyone. Extra points if universal weight-by-mile registration is adopted for people living in the city trying to register new cars.
Were you around for the public process related to tolls after the 2017 transportation bill passed? They went down in flames. I love congestion pricing. But there isn’t any evidence that Portlanders would stand up for it. Heck, we’re talking about $6-10 a quarter for transportation funds right now and folks here are talking about how unreasonable it is. Image what the conversation would look like if the conversation was about increasing costs by likely quite a bit more than that with congestion pricing? It would easily take a decade to formulate, pass, design, and implement. We’d also need better transit service (which is currently getting slashed due to the lack of current transportation revenue and the rebellion against new transportation revenue) and lots of other infrastructure changes that would need to be financed up front even if it can somehow get to yes with the public.
The things that we are talking about now are things that can be implemented starting this summer.
Congestion pricing is one of those funny things that’s unpopular until it’s actually implemented. But you’re right, a congestion pricing system would take a while to work out and build up the infrastructure for (though I’m not sure it would be a full decade–depends on the political will behind it), which is why I didn’t put that idea front and center in my comment. Dynamic parking would be much easier to incrementally build out and implement. Start with the existing infrastructure downtown. Send a quick fact-finding mission to San Francisco. Hire a consultant to build some software and develop a surveillance system to track usage trends. Use the information you already collect from Parking Kitty, SmartPark, and Parking Enforcement to help feed data into that system. Start adjusting prices every 3-6 months to target 60%-80% utilization. That is eminently doable in a very short time.
So they *Finally* got around to pay repaving SW Main? I seem to remember Main looking like the before picture for as long as I lived downtown. Maybe 15 years?
Don’t worry plenty of other streets downtown still look like that.
JM, I like the conversations boxes, very spiffy, makes it easier to see where one thread ends and another begins.
This state (the West coast generally) has an odd relationship with taxes.
It would be a miracle, but undoing Measure 5/50 (or hell, doing something useful with The Kicker) would be a nice start, but that’s on the legislature…
In terms of local concerns, does Portland need to right-size its road network? If we cut transit funding due to budget constraints, maybe it’s time to think about the total system we can actually maintain at its highest functionality and either pass the funding necessary to achieve that or simply reduce the size of that system…
It will be interesting to see what’s on the table.
No “right sizing” needed. Just need our elected politicians to order PBOT to do the maintenance on the streets we already have. I’m just talking filling in potholes, not repaving whole streets. Of course if PBOT filled potholes regularly they likely wouldn’t need to repave whole streets quite as often.
1 crew could cover 10 miles of streets a day and would do the whole City in a year. Add additional crews and it could be done even faster or they could do fewer miles a day.
In these tough budgetary times maybe they should assign at least one manager or supervisor to the crews to work a week filling in potholes just so they see how basic it is to fill potholes.
We need to stop believing PBOT when they cry they can’t do maintenance.
PBOT has the crews.
PBOT has the money.
We need our politicians to force PBOT to do maintenance. They could, but they choose not to.
Pothole patches are always temporary. Most of the “potholes” around town are actually cuts to access utilities that then get a really shitty patch job. Many pavement problems go deeper, even as far as the roadbed.
PBOT does have a pothole crew that roves around when the weather permits to patch potholes. 10 miles of streets a day? You should tag along with them for a day to see how unrealistic that is.
I’ve noticed the same thing, but not all utilities are equal. NW Natural and their contractors seem to do an OUTSTANDING job of patching cuts in the pavement. The telecomms guys seem to be the worst. And whoever leaves those round holes in the pavement (about six inches across) should be brought up on charges. A lot of those holes are NEVER filled at all!
“Most of the “potholes” around town are actually cuts to access utilities”
You know that for a fact?
As far as I can tell, neither NW Natural nor PGE provide public access to project schedules, so any verification would require multiple sources.
Anecdotally, my observations are similar to DW and Fred’s. I have noticed that many of the worst patches of road are on corridors with a combination of A) frequent utility access, and B) high truck traffic. SE Holgate is one such example.
Bonus segments for the “worst pavement quality” awards are on streets with hastily buried streetcar tracks. Many of these were simply coated in asphalt 60+ years ago, although PBOT is fairly proactive at addressing these (DT St Johns, for example).
Merely “filling in potholes” actually exacerbates pavement damage. Properly repairing streets requires a complete regrade of the sub-roadbed. Otherwise you’re simply giving cracks and water intrusion more leverage, leading to more frequent (and costly) projects to “repave whole streets”.
It’s the same reason painting over water damage merely worsens the effects over time.
I think that the utility license fee is a no-brainer. If one pays close attention to the pavement when walking and biking around – the worst spots are poorly-done utility patch jobs. I like incentivizing utilities to coordinate their work with other necessary cuts and street work.
I am somewhat torn on the transportation utility fee. On one hand, it is a tax of another name. It is less arduous than something like the arts tax, in that it can be collected using existing systems, and it does have genuine low-income exceptions. It’s also good in that it decouples PBOT’s revenue from the driving of fossil-fuel personal vehicles (gas tax & parking fees) and makes it so that it’s more obvious that non-drivers are paying for the transportation system.
There does need to be a clear plan from PBOT for how they are going to be more efficient with operations & maintenance dollars. One example is how they recently switched, as a matter of policy, from plastic wands that have to be replaced often to concrete curbs that will last a lot longer.
In addition, there has to be some kind of guarantee that any new stream of revenue goes straight to PBOT and can’t be raided to pay for cops’ overtime and diversity consultants.
Great comments – I’m down with all of them. I do wish we had a mindset in Portland that “everyone pitches in.” If you use the system – no matter how much or how little you make – you pay according to how much you can pay. No one gets a free ride. Yet Portlanders of every stripe seem to think they should pay nothing.
Haven’t yet read the comments and I’m sure someone has mentioned it (or will), but everyone should go thru the online open house and complete the survey, if you haven’t already. It is EXTREMELY informative and well done.
I don’t often get a chance to praise PBOT so I’m doing it now.