— This post was written by Strong Towns PDX.
Portland has long been a leader in encouraging more density and better land use through repealing parking minimums, allowing plexes on most single-family zoned lots, and adopting single-stair reforms. All of these reforms allow for more units on the same land, which allows Portland to welcome more neighbors at all wages, ages, and stages of life.
The proposed Transportation Utility Fee (TUF) of $12 per month for single-family lots, and $8.50 per month for apartment dwellers means apartment dwellers will pay 600% more on a per-acre basis than homeowners on R10-zoned lots (93% of the parcels in Northwest Heights and 81% of the parcels in Arnold Creek), and 300% compared to those on R5-zoned lots (99% of the parcels in Sabin and 97% of the parcels in Alameda), which becomes apparent when examining the fee on a per-acre basis (see chart below).
Considering apartment dwellers are also more likely to ride transit, walk, and ride a bike to meet their daily needs, leading to even less road maintenance costs, the current TUF proposal is even more regressive than has been acknowledged.
The Quick Fix
We propose scaling the Residential component (70%) of the $46 million in TUF funds based on acreage of the parcel that the dwelling occupies (see orange bars). This “Use-Based Fee” incentivizes living in an apartment or plex. This is supported by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), as street maintenance also scales based on the size of parcels (see: Transportation Utility Fees).
We estimate to obtain a revenue-neutral $32.2 million, the City could charge:
- $2/month per-door fee, regardless of parcel size
- $0.20/month per 100 square-feet of parcel size
For example:
- An apartment dweller in a 20 unit building on a 5,000 sqft lot would pay $2.50/mo ($2 base fee + ($0.20 * (5000 / 100)) / 20 units), rather than $8.50/mo.
- A household on a 5,000 sqft lot would pay $12/mo, the same as under the proposed TUF.
- A household on a 10,000 sqft lot would pay $22/mo ($2 base fee + ($0.20 * (10,000 / 100))), which better approximates the additional cost of serving larger lots.
A Use-Based TUF is much less regressive on a per-acre basis, costing both apartment dwellers and homeowners on smaller lots less than the proposed fee schedule . Larger lots, while paying somewhat more, still pay less on a per-acre basis.
Contact City Council
If you want a fairer Transportation Utility Fee for Portlanders, email your City Council via the Strong Towns PDX website.
Thanks for reading.
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How would this increase the cost and complexity of administering the fee in the first place? Would trying to make it ‘more fair’ for single family homeowners burn a bunch of a political capital and sour people on the idea of a TUF? I understand the argument but this strikes me as a “perfect as the enemy of good” situation.
Well there is still the (initial) complexity of the City figuring out how many doors (ie addresses) an apartment complex or multifamily has. The current residential tax the City has is based on Water meter use, so regardless there is going to be a cost to figure out how to tax the individual doors in either scenario. But once City figures out the # of doors, the proposed unit / square footage cost should be pretty simple.
Then there would be the issue of an ADU paying the same rate at the the main house…
So a ~million dollar single household condo/plex unit in bougie inner Portland* would pay less than a small outer E PDX house# that has a very low assessed value?
* For example: https://www.redfin.com/OR/Portland/116-SE-28th-Ave-97214/home/143049915
# large lots due to legacy county planning
That bougie location is one usually better served with transit and is more bikeable/walkable, and has the density to reduce the average per-resident cost of transport infrastructure, vs the small houses on large lots in transit-poor neighborhoods where it’s dangerous to walk or bike, so everyone drives. Low density sprawl is expensive to build and maintain. Making the bougies pay more on principle doesn’t change that math.
So not only does this small outer E PDX home suffer through more car centric pollution, noise, reliance and maintenance of a rapidly depreciating vehicle asset, difficulty walking and biking through no fault of their own and then they also get to pay more to help subsidize the rich bougie inner resident’s bike and public transportation infrastructure? Is this even pretending to be equitable? You do know what a “regressive tax” means, right?
While I agree that East Portland needs investments in sidewalks, we need to be honest: this TUF does not provide that. At best it prevents PBOT staff from being laid off. It will not build a single foot of sidewalks.
The current TUF fee is regressive in that East Portland residents who live in apartments end up subsidizing other parts of the city that live on larger lots. This proposal simply ensures those residents who live in apartments shouldn’t pay more than those single-family residents on a per-acre basis. Inner city residents living on large lots would 300% less the East Portlander living in an apartment complex on a per-acre basis. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
We need a system that shifts more of the burden of taxes onto land, rather than people’s incomes. This “Quick Fix” to the TUF is a simple method of ensuring those who live in smaller dwellings, who tend to drive less and therefore “consume” less of the transportation system, are treated fairly.
Low-income residents would still be exempt from paying a fee or will pay a discounted rate, as is the case with water bills.
We need a system that taxes the living f**** out of upper income people like you and me so that we no longer use our economic privilege to dominate local government (and screw over low income people).
My argument is that the subsidy would really work the other way, on a per-resident basis. Non-car options work better in dense areas because the per-capita cost is less. It doesn’t make sense to build as many options in sprawl, so we end up with cars as the only option. Fewer residents, same road costs. Why charge less?
I have no numbers to back up this argument, fwiw.
Tax poor families* who cannot afford to live in bougie oh-so-well-resourced inner-PDX for the sin of living in transportation, food, healthcare, childcare and education deserts?
*often multi-generational/multi-family immigrants living in a single shitty substandard household with an amoral **** of a landlord
It’s hilarious to see an urbanist™ defend a policy that purports to be less regressive with an implicitly classist argument against progressiveness. Making the bougies pay more can help fund the transportation and housing needed to help reverse sprawl.
Private developers (rich people) have utterly failed to build even a fraction of the needed housing for the non-rich in PDX (developers/the rich love scarcity). So instead of kissing scarcity-loving real-estate gazillionaire ass (Strongtowns/Portland:NW/BikeLoudPDX) let’s tax the rich (including many NIMBY millionaires in inner PDX) and leverage that funding 6:1 via bonding to build billions in no-profit social housing.
I’m not sure where you get the idea that we’re not in favor of taxing rich people. This does exactly that!
In fact, if you have multiple families living in the same home then the cost would be split amongst the multiple households. Households living together in R5 zoning would pay the same under the current and “Quick Fix” proposal.
Most wealthy homeowners don’t live with other folks, so they end up pay full freight.
Social housing is great! I’m totally all in favor. This “Quick Fix” proposal would make it cheaper for those living in social housing apartments compared to the proposal by PBOT.
Do you really not understand that multi-generational low-income households tend to have a single lease with at most one or two people on it? Will you even understand the distinction after I make it obvious?
Nonsense. Urbanists support social housing for upwardly mobile college-educated young people and the middling class while I support social housing that explicitly targets people who cannot in any way afford market housing (see social democracies everywhere for examples).
No doubt, we need more housing in high-amenity neighborhoods. The “Quick Fix” proposed is to make it so folks who are living in apartments can save money, regardless of where they live.
I don’t think it’s fair that an apartment renter in East Portland will end up paying 600% more on a per-acre basis than a wealthy R-10 Irvington homeowner, despite that East Portland resident being more likely to need to own a car. The whole reason that renter has to live so far away is because that Irvington homeowner is sitting on the property paying artificially low property taxes, forcing everyone farther away!
We shouldn’t subsidize those who are forcing all of us to live so far away from one another.
Once we get past whatever housing backlog we have, there will be much less incentive to build new high density housing because we won’t need that much unless the city and country start to grow again (both are currently shrinking). And in 10 years when the baby boomers really start to die en masse (sorry boomers, but demographics don’t play), there will be a loosening of the housing constriction we are currently living with. Millennials will start inheriting houses and more housing stock will suddenly become available.
I am not at all sure that the future of housing is the same as it used to be. 20 years ago, housing in Portland seemed like a safe bet. It no longer seems that way to me.
I want a fee that’s based on usage (mileage) and estimated wear due to vehicle (GVW, number of axles, type of tires), though like everyone else I guess I’m resigned to the impracticality of it. It’s too bad because it seems like the people who cause the most damage to the streets should be most responsible to pay for them. Feels pretty regressive to pay $12/month when my usage does practically no wear to the roads. I get it, I use them and it costs money to build them etc., and I’m willing to pay my fair share. But can we start by having the people who really profit from them put up the bulk of the cost? I wouldn’t ask my water bill to be the same as my neighbor if I use twice as much water as them..
No let’s suspend gas taxes because gas is now “too expensive.” That’s basically just shooting yourself in the foot and later asking why you can’t walk..
Anything that is based on mileage or weight would have to come from the state. Honestly I think that car registration fees should be based on the size, weight, and powertrain of vehicles.
Size = how much road capacity is used. In rush hour traffic, you can fit ~2 small hatchbacks in the space of 1 F150.
Weight = wear and tear on the roads
Powertrain = pollution & externalities
Mileage is tricky because people commute to and from Washington.
I agree that we need a Weight-Mile tax! However, the city can’t issue that kind of fee, only the county can.
However, I’m sure we can all agree that the land we consume *does* impact our transportation system. If you and I live in an apartment complex, we use land very efficiently, lowering the costs of the transportation system for everyone else. However, if you and I live on 10,000 SF lots, we substantially raise the cost of maintaining the transportation system.
This proposed “Quick Fix” enshrines that those who are living more efficiently aren’t forced to subsidize those who live on much larger lots.
I disagree that efficient use of the land somehow equates to efficient use of the surrounding transportation infrastructure. Yes there is more road surrounding a large lot, but if there is less traffic that road, then it will need less frequent maintenance as well. Anyway, property owners are already responsible for maintenance of rights-of-way on their properties, specifically sidewalks. I’m still unconvinced that TUF is at all reasonable, and the city should find a way to leverage an actual user fee.
It’s not impractical, it’s unpopular. Most drivers literally refuse to pay their fair share based on the amount of actual use and wear and tear they’re personally responsible for. They have been conditioned to expect their driving to be subsidized, and any attempt to toll it or create a mileage & weight based tax will be swiftly met with a voter referendum.
The transportation utility fee is a continuation and increase in subsidized driving.
I would encourage you to check out the work of Lars Doucet, particularly Land is a Big Deal: https://landisabigdeal.com/ .
Much of our subsidy of driving comes from not properly pricing the value of land, creating an enormous subsidy for the inner suburbs. This impacts every aspect of municipal finances, not just the transportation system!
I agree there’s a problem here, but I don’t understand scaling by acreage. Why that? Seems like it is conflating density with how intensively someone uses our transportation system.
Absolutely. This “fix” is almost as ridiculous as assessing a flat transportation fee.
It should be usage based.
I would encourage both of you to check out for this list of where the least emissions per capita are in the US. Pretty much the whole Northeast has less per-capita emissions than Oregon.
That is because emissions per capita scales inversely to density (e.g. dwelling units/acre). More dense land use leads to fewer emissions because you end up driving less. The intensity of land use has direct effects on our transportation system.
This “Quick Fix” acknowledges this fact, rather than ignore it.
This is a transportation utility fee, not an emissions per unit GDP fee.
I’ll add “carbon tax” as my contribution to the the long list of policies that readers want that this fee is not.
I would argue these are two sides to the same coin!
If you live in a single-family home, you are impacting the transportation system by forcing everything to be farther apart (not to mention on the environment). If you live in an apartment, you make a positive impact on the transportation system less by consuming less land, and are more likely to take transit, walk, or bike.
This proposed “Quick Fix” enshrines that those who are living more efficiently aren’t forced to subsidize those who live on much larger lots.
Thank you for the article, I love StrongTowns.
Here’s the catch, and I repeat it over, and over, and over, but it never really sinks in. I’ll take another shot:
Much of Portland west of the Willamette lacks the basic infrastructure that is supposed to come with paying city taxes: a stormwater system, buses, sidewalks, bike lanes. The areas west of the Tualatin Mts don’t have those amenities, despite having been annexed from Multnomah County to Portland over the course of the 20th century.
These residences have been paying city taxes for 40, 50, 60, 70 years — and longer — including the Big Pipe bond, yet the the City of Portland has neglected to bring basic infrastructure up to city standards. And this policy of turning a blind eye gives residents little choice but to drive cars. That’s Portland policy.
As an example of the missing infrastructure, here’s a photo of the intersection of Shattuck Rd and Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy — I guess pedestrians are supposed to walk in the ditch?
I support the TUF, but gosh, it doesn’t seem fair to bring a graduated fee structure to an area the city has neglected for a century. These are already historically underserved communities, rubbing salt in their wounds might not be the best idea.
Such a good point, Lisa. The strongtowns’ argument is motivated by a desire to shift the tax burden to someone else. But the system ain’t fair to begin with. Some people pay more and get less, and other people pay less and get more. Reminds me of Larry David at the dry cleaner:
“Sometimes you get something, and sometimes you lose something.”
Can we all get behind an idea for revenue generation w/o debating it to death?
SW Portland is tough because it doesn’t have a lot of the kinds of infrastructure readers of Bike Portland like but it absolutely has a tremendous amount of infrastructure. It’s been a while since I looked at the specifics, but as an example, Hillsdale has one of the highest ratios of road pavement area to homes in the entire city. Since water and sewer follow the roads, it’s likely the same situation for those.
I get the complaints, though I don’t see how they’re “the” catch. There are myriad catches, which is why this is hard, but the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good.
This isn’t a fee about stormwater systems or buses, so why bring those up?
This is a fee about transportation, so I think expecting measurable outcomes city-wide re: sidewalks and bike lanes seems like a fair expectation to me. *All* of Portland should have sidewalks in the next 10 years. The eternal foot-dragging on this is maddening.
Also, please tell me how wrong I am that, of all those residences that have been paying city taxes for 40, 50, 60, 70 years, a majority of them chose the west side because they wanted to live out of “the city” and planned on relying on their cars to “get into town”. Since this is a transportation feed and not a stormwater system or bus fee, it seems not unreasonable to pay for that reliance, even if it’s an urban design that never should have been allowed in the first place.
Keviniano, I support the Transportation Utility Fee, and I think it should be simple. So, no, I don’t like the “quick fix” of this article. The TUF, as is, is good. Several commenters seem to want the TUF to be some sort of vice tax on driving, it’s not. The underlying principle of TUF is that roads are a utility that everyone uses, even it is only because the groceries they buy at the store are delivered by truck.
(I’m all for vice taxes on driving heavy cars, studded tires, etc — but this is a utility tax the purpose of which is to put PBOT on more stable funding. That’s it.)
That ain’t happening, nor does it need to happen.
My “catch” is political. Folks don’t like paying high taxes and fees when they aren’t receiving the services they are paying for.
Southwest does need a lot of help! That being said, should a SW resident living in an apartment pay 600% more on a per-acre basis than a resident living on a 10,000 SF lot?
This TUF will not build a single mile of sidewalk, it won’t even really pay for road upkeep. This is a tax/fee to ensure PBOT employees keep their jobs. We should make sure that those who make our transportation system less efficient by living on larger lots pay more into the basic salaries/wages to keep our employees.
The missing sidewalk conversation (frustratingly) is not on the table at this point.
Why is “per acre” the interesting value here? Since it’s intended to be a flat utility fee, capturing direct and indirect costs/benefits, “per person” seems much more appropriate.
I think you want to make this tax something it isn’t intended to be.
RJ, it’s bigger than that. SW doesn’t need help, the City of Portland needs help. A lot of help.
You are right, I agree, TUF won’t build sidewalks. And yes, density is critical to efficient use of energy. But TUF isn’t about building a denser city, it’s about keeping PBOT, and Portland, on its feet. Staunching the bleeding.
Did you see the landslide in my neighborhood? The west entrance to the city’s largest employer? (OHSU). This isn’t my neighborhood’s problem, it’s Portland’s problem.
This is on the nose and is why painting with a broad brush with tax policy works poorly even if it sounds good for a certain group of people. The fairness argument becomes even worse once you start to dig even a little bit.
There is a LOT of property in SW Portland that is undevelopable due to environmental overlays as a result of the many creeks and wetlands that are part of the topography. The same things that Urban Forestry likes to point out when touting the tree coverage of the west side, or natural habitat for the many animals still inside the city limits, happens because there is a lot of land, owned by people, where building structures is somewhere between expensive and impossible. This preservation of open space is balanced by charging slightly less for wastewater treatment due to the amount of water that doesn’t make it into the stormwater system based on the trees, wetlands, creeks, and open spaces available for on-site drainage to occur.
Charging people more for “owning” that land will encourage them to undermine those protections. It could be working harder to develop the land and using this fee as a mechanism to force the conversation or letting it go entirely which is one of the greatest threats to the tree canopy due to the ivy strangling so many trees throughout the city. The bottom line is charging a transportation fee for land that doesn’t generate any transportation network usage provides the incentives to change that and not understanding that “more density everywhere” may create a result that is bad for society will bring it about more quickly.
While I support the TUF, attempting to conflate lot size with intensity of transportation usage is overly simplistic. Once you add some nuance it could easily devolve into a horribly complex system that no one truly understands and is hard to approve let alone retain past the next election. It also won’t win any fans when the people paying the most in these fees have the least in terms of basic infrastructure like sidewalks (or even curbs to trigger street sweeping) or bike lanes/greenways. Given that this fee is not nearly enough to bridge the massive transportation funding gap perhaps the best course of action is working through the other ways to do so that are tied more tightly to actual usage instead of the existence of a dwelling.
There’s almost 18″ between the white line and the ditch – plenty of room for peds! – PBOT
Joking aside, the city will need to convince SW residents that this fee will actually help get them to those bus stops there on B-H Hwy… and not just get routed somewhere else like has been done for past century. I’m hearing “the TUF and SIPP will fix this!” in some quarters in the same tone that kids are promised a pony.
Hey there. “in some quarters,” LOL. Did you listen to the Labor and Workforce Development committee meeting on SIPP? It’s not that long, SIPP is up first, Priya Dhanapal and Millicent Williams are there — I’m curious what you think. I’m taking a victory lap, really basking in it, because Williams talked about “under-served areas of D1 and D4.” What a difference a few years and a new system of government make.
https://www.portland.gov/council/agenda/labor-and-workforce-development-committee/2026/1/29#toc-
thursday-january-29-2026-12-00-pm
SW transpo advocates are a pretty cleared-eyed bunch, so no, I haven’t heard anything about ponies or noticed wool in anybody’s eyes. Folks are working it.
“I support the TUF”
Why support a tax when you get very little in return? This kind of thinking (and voting) is driving taxpayers out of Portland.
Help me understand how this not just a property tax with extra steps.
One reason is that they are calling it a fee so they don’t have to have anyone but the council vote on it. Also, they will be able to fiddle with the amounts all they want later on as its just a fee.
We all know it’s a tax, but the Democratic Corporatists on the Council for some reason only care about the money potentially raised and not the ethics of it all.
The issue with property taxes is that they aren’t actually based on land value, it’s based on a magical “assessment” (which is super un-scientific process, btw!)
What this gets at is how efficiently we use our land. If you and I live next to one another in an apartment in the urban core, we aren’t forcing locations to be far apart from one another. In fact, in some cases, we probably allow businesses to flourish right below us! So our impact on the “transportation system” is minimal.
However, if you and I live on 10,000 SF parcels, we force everyone to be further apart. We should pay more because we are forcing more people and businesses to be farther apart.
Efficient land use is important for our overall solvency as a city, and to the cost-of living of residents. If there are lots of apartments available where you can live without a car, you’re saving tens of thousands of dollars a year, and you’re saving the city tens of thousands of dollars a year.
However, if it’s all single-family homes, and everyone ends up having to own a vehicle to meet basic needs, that means everyone pays up tens of thousands of dollars a year for car ownership, PLUS the city has to generate revenue (somehow) to maintain those roads and infrastructure.
This isn’t a property tax, this is a fee based on how efficient the land your living on is being used.
“This isn’t a property tax, this is a fee based on how efficient the land your living on is being used.”
And here I was thinking this was supposed to be as transportation utility fee.
For a per household or per individual tax, I would rather see a modest reduction based on income rather than a proxy for either income or transportation use. The introduction of even a minor level of complexity to calculating the tax will probably hurt public acceptance.
For any tax like this, the city has to commit to not sending people who don’t pay the tax to third party collection agencies. That is where the real harm can happen.
We’re a bunch of volunteers and managed to come up with realistic costs within a few hours. All of this data is readily available through PortlandMaps.com
We already have systems to bill people with MUCH more complicated metrics. Land doesn’t change month by month like water use.
I believe you that it may not be complex to calculate. But, conceptually, it is complicated in how lot size is fairly correlated with transportation fees. A small taste of this is in these comments. It invites endless comparisons of who pays more and examples of unfair case by case discrepancies. If this were a larger fee, then it may be worth it. But if the difference in what people pay is already relatively small, it is not worth the complexity of how the public will perceive it and having to explain why this is better than other approaches.
Why does the luxury high-rise condo in the Pearl pay less than the dilapidated 6-plex?
Or the dilapidated single family house that enjoys 1/6 the utility of that 6-plex?
The apartment dwellers I know pay more than that on Starbucks every other day.
Seems really dumb to fight about this. PBOT is running out of $$ so how about we just get them a few dollars and not fight over pennies?
Its not really a fight, the Council has kind of demonstrated they care more about unethical billionares than transportation or even people/public powered transportation. I’m pretty sure that they’ll implement the fee without caring too much about the various discussions going on about it.
Its fun in an academic sense to discuss options and equitable ways to raise money, but in the end we’re getting a fee and most likely it’s going to be blunt and it will be raised in the future.
PDX electeds and many, if not most, urbanists will choose just about any other half-baked regressive mechanism than a genuinely progressive income tax-based mechanism.
Well, you’re not thinking about how PBOT really wants to run this show. Sure, it’s only $12/month now. But that will go up as soon as they reach another “fiscal crisis.”
We need to enshrine this pattern of placing the burden onto land *now* rather than 5-10 years down the road when that $12/month becomes $30/month due to inflation. PBOT’s own Fixing Our Streets projected projects list was halved due to inflation in less than 5 years. We should expect the same.
In that time, we should also work to push more of our taxes onto land, more broadly, to start to bend the inflation curve.
Good point; while we’re at it let’s fight inflation by making sure there’s no pandemics, forever wars or any other global economic shocks.
I find it interesting that the city is trying to charge a transportation fee based on residency rather than on trip generation. If trips were the focus, I dare say businesses, schools, shopping centers, grocery stores, government agencies (including PBOT) and hotels would be charged using businesses’ SEC codes, capturing some of the city’s many visitors and outside employees who would be charged the same as most residents.
Besides most apartment buildings being on corner lots, i.e. fronting two or more streets, they also have a lot of individual users. I don’t know if this is so great
Ideally, this TUF would be based on trips generated by the land use. In reality, some renters and condo owners create more trips than some single-family property owners. We can’t be perfect. I think the current proposal is good enough for getting close to fair. Maybe the city proposal could adjust it a dollar at most per month, but given that transit, bike, and walk also use the transportation system and the city is investing a lot in developing and maintaining those systems, the current proposal seems plenty fair.
If we are going to penalize large lot owners then we should allow upzoning by right.
Car free families must be exempt from this stupid new tax. We dont cause any of the wear and tear on the roads that car drivers do but we are paying the same amount as a family with 4 cars. Motorists do all the damage they should be the ones paying and it should be based on the number of cars registered to each household or apartment, not square footage of the property.
Acreage is the wrong metric. It measures land, not transportation use—no connection to miles driven, congestion, or road wear. Using it as a proxy risks overcorrecting based on assumptions rather than actual behavior.
This drifts from the purpose of the fee. A transportation utility fee should reflect system use, or at least approximate it simply and transparently. Acreage pushes it further away from that goal.
Not every fee needs to be progressive. Gas taxes aren’t, and they’re widely accepted because they roughly track usage. Trying to force progressivity through weak proxies dilutes the purpose of the fee.
Keep it simple—or make it real. If Portland wants a straightforward funding tool, a flat per-person or per-household fee is clearer and more honest. If it wants true fairness, that points toward mileage-based charging at the state level—not layering speculative land-use proxies into a city bill.
Use the right tool for land use goals. If the objective is to shape density, do that through zoning or property tax policy—not indirectly through a transportation fee.
Portland’s real problem isn’t the math on this TUF—it’s the fantasy that more taxes will magically fix the doom loop. This guest opinion missed the memo.