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As BikePortland has reported for many years, local sources of funding for transportation are woefully outdated and ineffective.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.
