Riding the Yonna Valley Meadows all access route. (Photo: Dirty Freehub)
This article was written by Linda English, executive director of Dirty Freehub.
Dirty Freehub, a Bend-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting gravel cycling adventures, is launching a new statewide campaign to empower and inspire people with visible and non-visible disabilities to explore Oregon by gravel bike. With support from the Travel Oregon Competitive Grant Program and funding matched by donations from cyclists, Dirty Freehub will spotlight 6-8 influencers with disabilities who have embraced gravel cycling and are using Dirty Freehub’s resources to confidently navigate their rides.
The campaign addresses a critical need in the disability and cycling communities. “Gravel cycling offers freedom, connection, and adventure — and everyone deserves access to that,” says founder and Executive Director, Linda English (aka “Gravel Girl”). “We’ve built Ride Guides that help riders of all levels — and now we’re using that same platform to show people living with Parkinson’s, MS, diabetes, cancer, autism, PTSD, and more that they can find joy, community, and confidence on the gravel bike.”
Screenshot from printed version of All Access Ride Guide.
Each influencer’s story — whether living with heart disease or depression — will be shared across media channels, including the influencers’ own networks, relevant disability-focused organizations (like the Parkinson’s Association of Oregon), Dirty Freehub’s social platforms, and targeted Google AdWords. Through short videos, podcasts, blogs, and photography, these stories will show how Dirty Freehub’s Ride Guides — which include terrain descriptions, videos, environmental history, safety tips, and downloadable maps — help riders choose routes that meet their needs.
The campaign also highlights Dirty Freehub’s All Access Ride Guides, which are bike routes specially designed for adaptive and less experienced riders. These routes are easier, shorter, and less remote — perfect for individuals navigating health limitations. The campaign also includes two printed guidebooks, All Access Gravel Rides: Western Oregon and Eastern Oregon, funded previously by Travel Oregon.
“Confidence is the key,” says English. “Our Ride Guides provide the information people need to try something new, overcome fear, and enjoy the beauty of rural Oregon.”
Dirty Freehub’s work already reaches a wide audience, with over 20,000 social followers, 500 website visitors daily, and 14,000 miles of curated routes. Their platform teaches cyclists about local history, environmental science, trail safety, and community values — including how to respectfully engage with rural towns and spend locally. The result? Stronger local economies and more connected communities.
This campaign expands that impact. By directly inviting more diverse riders into the gravel cycling experience, Dirty Freehub is not only making the outdoors more inclusive, but also increasing overnight tourism in small towns like Baker City, Paisley, and Jordan Valley — places where every cyclist’s visit makes a difference.
(Note: I love amplifying great work of cycling groups. If you’d like to submit a guest article for consideration and receive free publicity, please email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com. – Jonathan)
Senator Mark Meek during his final remarks as a member of the Joint Committee on Transportation on June 20th.
Many members of the Oregon Republican party are thrilled that transportation funding legislation did not pass this session. And while they take credit for it, the reason a bill didn’t pass was because of Democrats.
Or to be more precise, a Democrat. One named Mark Meek, a senator who represents District 20 which includes parts of east Portland, Happy Valley, Oregon City and Gladstone.
Meek’s opposition to House Bill 2025 sealed its fate. The former pub owner and now real estate agent accrued a superpower this session by being the vote that decided whether or not Democrats held onto their supermajority. The party needed all 18 of their members in the 30-person Senate to pass the bill. When Senate President Rob Wagner couldn’t get one other Republican “yes” to offset Meek’s “no,” the game was over.
So why was Meek so opposed to the bill? I can’t get into his head and I haven’t talked to him directly, but I have tracked down several recent comments about the bill made in committee which help shed light on his perspective.
Meek’s district.
Before I get into this, it’s worth noting that Meek comes from a very purple district that was held by a Republican for 12 years before he won the seat. It’s almost split in half by Democrats and Republicans. In 2022, even after the district was redrawn for a stronger Democratic advantage, Meek eked out a victory by garnering 50.4% of the vote compared to his challenger’s 49.6% — a difference of just 503 votes out of 62,131 votes cast.
So when it comes to issues like taxes and transportation, you can see why Meek needs to play it very safe.
That didn’t stop him from supporting the bill when it first came to the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment (JCTR) on June 9th.
Meek, then a member of the committee, opened his remarks by thanking Senator Bruce Starr, a Republican, for his work on the bill. (Despite Republican claims that the process was not bipartisan; Starr, Boshart Davis, and other members of the Republican party were at the table as Democrats tried to include their ideas into a final package.)
“I will vote and support the introduction of this bill,” Meek said to his fellow committee members. But his support was conditioned on, “knowing a lot of work has to be done.”
Already June 9th, it was just 20 days before the end of session and while Meek acknowledged it was a “short period of time,” he felt the bill was important enough to get done.
Meek’s concern about the rushed timeframe and the delay in getting the bill out was shared widely among lawmakers and advocates from across the political spectrum and will go down in history as one of the primary errors of Democratic party leadership. Over two months passed from when Democrats first revealed an official funding framework in April to when HB 2025 became public around June 9th. In that interim period, impatience grew so much that members of the Democrat and Republican parties bothunveiled bills of their own (that would later become amendments to the official bill).
Getting back to Meek, he was sanguine about the bill’s prospects on June 9th.
“I would call this the, you know, the foundation, the starting point,” he said at that first committee meeting. “Let’s let’s have some really good conversations, and let’s keep our options open, because I think Oregonians are looking for us to to really pass an appropriate transportation package that will both be responsible, palatable and effective with our transportation system right now, on all levels. I’m just hoping that we all keep an open mind, and we’re all able to really listen to each other and collaborate and come to what I would say is a proper solution for all of us.”
I hope to someday ask Meek what exactly his “proper solution for all of us” would be; but for now let’s see what else he said about it during the session.
One day later, on June 10th, there was another committee hearing on the bill. This was where we get the first hint that Meek might be frustrated at the rushed timeline for the bill. At one point he asked, “How much revenue is this bill generating in general?” To which he was told by someone from the Legislative Fiscal Office that those numbers were still being crunched and would not be available for two more days.
I’m not sure if or how much this answer bothered Meek, but other members of the committee were reasonably annoyed that a bill was having public hearings before basic financial details were worked out.
“I am surprised that we’re not getting any dollar amounts until Thursday, which is after most of the public hearings,” said House Rep and committee Vice-Chair Shelly Boshart Davis that Tuesday. “I think that’s a bit irresponsible for the public to weigh in when we don’t know what kind of revenue is being raised.”
(Dem lawmakers say the reason the number crunching took so long this year is because lawmakers were wrestling with an extremely challenging set of cost tables as part of their revamp of the Highway Cost Allocation Study (HCAS), an annual report that calculates what different types of vehicles pay to use the roads.)
The next we heard from Meek was one week later. By that time, the fiscal analysis had been completed, but lawmakers’ heads were spinning as they tried to keep track of 18 different amendments that had been filed.
In his remarks at the June 17th committee meeting, Meek’s tone had changed. “At the risk of being critical, I’m going to be critical,” is how he kicked off an exchange with JCTR Co-Chair Sen. Chris Gorsek:
Meek:
“I don’t see how anybody can expect us to vote on this tomorrow or the day after based on everything that was presented,” Meek said, “and the time we have to digest this and even to amend it or correct it and make sure it is accomplishing what we are looking at.
I am frustrated to the highest level, and you can expect a no vote out of me right now.”
Gorsek:
“You know that in times like this, there are going to be problems getting information from LRO [Legislative Revenue Office] and LFO [Legislative Fiscal Office]. This is not an unusual circumstance, and things are still coming together. That’s not our choice, but it is what’s been happening, and so we’ve been delayed, and we have presented what we have at the present time. But I hope you won’t rush to judgment on this and that you will give it a chance, because there’s still a lot more information to come out.”
Meek:
“Co-Chair Gorsek, can you understand the exercise that we’re going through? We’re scheduled for an informational meeting on this and we barely get it an hour ago or so. We are all very busy at this time. And then we look for numbers. We’re supposed to be digesting numbers. We asked for numbers last week. We finally got them on Thursday or early Friday.
Co-Chairs Gorsek and McLain, I don’t I don’t blame you, but we started this exercise June 9th, and trying to rush this not a good practice.”
Gorsek:
“And let me say I totally understand what you’re saying. We too have been very frustrated with how slow the information has been coming to us and and I don’t blame you a bit for being frustrated. We’re frustrated as well, but I hear what you’re saying.”
Three days after this exchange where Meek expressed his intent to vote against the bill, he was removed from the committee.
On June 20th, Meek was seated on the dais of the committee as a non-voting member and he got one last chance to speak his mind.
Meek stated that his opposition was to the process, which he felt was rushed. When he began to share a personal experience to flesh this out, I perked up. He then spent several minutes recounting a story about being a small business owner in the 1990s and how he tried to redevelop a theater in southeast Portland into a tavern venue called the Mt. Tabor Pub.
“It took me months to go through the process,” Meek recalled. He explained how he had to get buy-in from neighborhood associations, then get city permits, and deal with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) to get a new license. Through it all, he encountered obstacles. “They wanted me to put in a fire suppression system. I didn’t have money for a fire suppression system, so I figured out a way to navigate and overcome that issue… Then I had trouble running my coolers… and I had to get a rotor hammer and cut four-inch concrete in half to get the glycol system to operate and provide beer down to the servers,” he continued.
It was “hurdle after hurdle after hurdle” and “misstep after misstep after misstep,” Meek shared. But he persevered. “I got it opened, only to be a failed business,” Meek said.
The relevance of this comparison was somewhat lost on me, but Meek said he’s seen a similar “misstep after misstep” with how the process behind HB 2025 had gone.
“The [bill] language is incorrect; we’re attending to technical fixes; we have information coming to us late; our committee was scheduled for 2:30 and we start until 4:00 or so,” Meek said, listing some of his frustrations.
And then we got to the heart of his opposition:
“I have to just fully state that this package is fundamentally flawed for many reasons. One of the reasons is that it’s not affordable to Oregonians. We are facing dire, and I do have to say dire, economic times. We’re dealing with inflation. Can’t afford to feed your families because milk’s high. The cost of eggs are high. Families are really, really struggling…
The world has changed over the last two, three years, and yet we’re going to look at this new tax solution? I am the first to stand up here and tell you right now that I’m ready to vote on a tax increase this year to help make ODOT whole, to do the work that ODOT needs and our Oregonians want to see in filling potholes, fixing bridges, all of the rest. But this is not the solution at this time.
I agree there’s some great programming in this bill, but I just can’t support it. And what I’m frustrated by is that, my lesson I learned in my life is to take a step back from that mistake I made, and it’s never too late to do the right thing.
We have very little time. I’m happy to work the next 48 hours, 72 hours straight, to get together and figure out a best way to resolve this issue for Oregonians. But that is not the case. I was removed from this committee, so I’m going to be a ‘no’. I will be a ‘no’ on the Senate floor of this is the version that comes across…
I really, really want to support this body doing a proper solution to help Oregonians, and I just can’t support this bill.”
And that was that. Not only did Meek remain a ‘no,’ but six days later he went rogue. He spread disinformation about the bill on social media, saying it would start a tolling program when that was easily disprovable information.
Did Dems ruin their chances at persuading him by booting him off the committee? Was his “no” vote a case of sour grapes? Was Meek simply unable to support such a large tax package as a purple district senator?
Only Meek knows how he came to his decision. And as the dust settles on this historic debacle, he likely knows how consequential it was to the future of transportation in Oregon.
OPB’s Think Out Loud radio show is set to have Meek as a guest Tuesday, July 1st. Listen here.
The tolling untruth spread from a former Oregon House member on June 23rd, was amplified through conservative online media, and was then repeated by a current Oregon Senator on June 27th.
In their quest to derail a transportation bill, lawmakers who opposed House Bill 2025 misled voters and colleagues by spreading falsehoods that backed up their ideological positions.
Senate Democrat Mark Meek and House Republican Shelly Boshart Davis have used their positions of influence to spread untruths. These falsehoods were read by tens of thousands of Oregonians, several lawmakers, and they poisoned the well of an already tense debate about how best to fund Oregon’s transportation system.
Senator Meek, a Democrat who represents Gladstone, Happy Valley, and Oregon City, posted on social media Thursday that HB 2025 would bring tolling to I-205 and “the rest of the Portland region.” The post included a photo of a serious-faced Meek holding open a binder with a printed copy of the bill with some highlighted text. “Tolling is back,” Meek warned. And to make it seem like a nefarious plot he heroically uncovered, Meek told his followers, “It’s buried deep… but we found it.”
The post struck me as odd because HB 2025 did not include tolling — and Meek should have known because he was a member of the committee where it was discussed.
There are numerous ways to prove the bill was toll-free.
In legislative bills, only boldfaced text is new language. None of the passages Meek highlighted, and none of the mentions of tolls in the bill, are boldfaced. The passages Meek pointed to were from the existing transportation bill passed in 2017. When lawmakers author a new bill, they often copy/paste large passages of the existing law because it’s still valid and/or the new language needs to reference it. And finally, none of the official analysis of the bill on the Oregon Legislative Information Service (OLIS) website mentions tolling.
Perhaps the biggest piece of evidence that the tolling claim is untrue is that it was never (as far as I can tell) amplified by Rep. Boshart Davis. As a major critic of tolls and a vice-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment where HB 2025 was debated, if the bill included tolls, Boshart Davis would have talked about it at every opportunity. She never mentioned tolls on social media, or in statements, and uttered not one word about them during months of committee meetings.
Despite it being a falsehood, Meek’s social media post was widely circulated. On X (Formerly Twitter), his post was reposted by local sports reporter Dwight Jaynes (14,200 followers), Oregon House Rep. Ed Diehl (7,000 followers) and the official account of the Oregon Republican Party (12,000 followers), among others.
Senator Mark Meek. (Photo: State of Oregon)
Senator Meek likely didn’t come up with this idea himself, and given how it spread it seems more like a disinformation campaign than an innocent mistake. The tolling untruth sprung to life three days before Meek’s post when Julie Parrish shared it on X (formerly Twitter). Parrish is a former Republican lawmaker who served in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2011 to 2018. That legislative experience didn’t prevent her from posting the false claim that HB 2025 “implements freeway tolls on I-205 and I-5.” Her post has 21,300 views so far and despite it being clearly untrue, she’s doubled-down on the claim, has not deleted her post, and has not issued a correction (so far no one who spread this untruth has deleted or corrected their post(s)).
Parrish’s post was seen by Jeff Eager who writes Oregon Roundup, a website and newsletter that covers, “Oregon’s dysfunctional state government and the politics that create it.” One day later, on June 24th, Eager amplified Parrish’s post in a story about the bill (under a section titled, “The Tolling Bill”) and boasted that he was the first person to report the news.
Parrish’s post was also picked up by another conservative-aligned outlet called Oregon Citizen. An Instagram video on that account claiming that “buried in [HB] 2025 is language to implement tolls on I-5 and I-205” has been viewed over 20,000 times and has been liked by over 1,000 people. The video was cross-posted by PDX Real, one of the largest outlets in Oregon’s burgeoning, online, conservative-aligned media ecosystem. (PDX Real is playing all sides on this issue. They posted Oregon Citizen’s video to their account, then two days later left a comment on Sen. Meek’s post saying it is “not accurate” and that he should issue a correction. Meanwhile, the video remains on PDX Real’s page without a correction. On Friday, in a comment on a video I made, PDX Real attempted to excuse Meek’s post as a simple mistake.)
I can safely estimate this false claim about tolling in HB 2025 was seen by nearly 100,000 online accounts. It was widespread enough to be noticed by at least one mainstream media outlet, the Governor of Oregon, and the chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment.
Unfortunately when Oregon Public Broadcast covered Meek’s post, they never pointed out that it was untrue. They merely said it was a claim made by Meek and that “Democrats rushed to refute the claim.” This treatment makes the casual reader think both sides simply have a difference of opinion — when in reality one side is spreading false information.
At the outset of the final HB 2025 committee hearing on Friday, one week after Meek had been removed from the committee by Senate President Rob Wagner, Co-Chair Khanh Pham addressed Meek’s post. Unfortunately she called it a “rumor,” never mentioned Meek or anyone else in the disinformation campaign by name, and she didn’t explain how it might have impacted discourse around the bill. A letter from Governor Tina Kotek read by committee Co-Chair Susan McLain refuted the tolling claim, but lacked the clarity and directness the issue deserves.
This is just one example of how disinformation impacts Oregon’s transportation politics.
House Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis at a transportation bill listening session in June 2024. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
On Friday, after the session ended, we saw another example. This time it was from Rep. Boshart Davis, a leader in the Republican party and key voice against HB 2025 who’s also vice-chair Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment.
In an official statement about the bill, Boshart Davis said its passage would have led to “Economic harm across sectors.” To prove her case she shared four data points pulled from an unnamed report. The bill, she claimed, would have led to: 16,392 fewer jobs, a $2.5 billion decrease in Oregon’s GDP, a $1.7 billion personal income decline, and a $4.2 billion drop in business sales.
That is a damning critique of HB 2025; but it’s not true.
The numbers come from a report by Common Sense Institute of Oregon (CSI), a nonprofit think tank with many ties to conservative politicians and causes. Oregon House Republican Leader Christine Drazan was a founding board member. However, even with the partisan leanings of its source, I’m willing to give the report the benefit of the doubt because some of its authors are serious economists (including Oregon’s former state economist, Mark McMullen).
CSI crunched the numbers of the two versions of HB 2025 that were adopted out of committee last week: the initial $14.6 billion version (HB 2025 A) and the trimmed down, $11.6 billion version (HB 2025 B). Boshart Davis chose to use numbers from the larger, outdated version of the bill. She also chose to use numbers from just one side of the economic impact equation: the tax revenue side.
Yes, as Republicans made quite clear, HB 2025 included numerous new taxes. But it also included a considerable amount of new spending. In their report, CSI analyzed impacts of both the tax revenue and spending elements of the bill to come up with an “on net” impact. According to CSI, HB 2025 A would have led to: 5,094 new jobs, a $1.1 billion GDP increase, a $635 million increase in personal income, and a $1.8 boost to business sales.
By using just one side of the data, Boshart Davis misrepresented the impacts of the bill in a way that aligns with the idealogical position of her and her followers. Similar to the impact of the tolling untruth spread by Meek, Boshart Davis’ choice to share misleading data shows how high-profile voices and their allies in ideologically-aligned media outlets can put their thumbs on the scale and foment anger, fear, and opposition — it’s a formula that’s been perfected by the national Republican party.
Then, after peppering the debate with false information amplified in friendly media bubbles where facts matter less than clicks and influence, these leaders of the opposition then pointed to all the Oregonians who agree with them. “Just since this amendment was posted yesterday,” Boshart Davis said in the final committee hearing on HB 2025 held Friday, “Over 4,000 people have submitted testimony. Of that, 70% are opposed.” “ODOT wants to add tolls to their open ended funding… The tolling proposal… is simply absurd,” wrote Oregonian Dean Suhr in one of many written pieces of testimony that referred to the non-existent tolling plan.
And speaking from Senate floor Friday morning, Senator Meek said, “From the correspondence I’ve received from around the state of Oregon and my community — both in letters, emails, phone calls, and social media posts, I’m doing the right thing for Oregonians.”
10 days post-surgery and I’m still just slogging along. The silver lining of my leg not feeling super good is that I don’t really go anywhere or do much, so I had a lot of time last week to follow the transportation bill shenanigans. I’m really hoping I make good progress this week and feel good enough to be at Bike Happy Hour on Wednesday. In fact, I’m committing to that right now: I’ll see you in the plaza on Wednesday! We’ll unveil our new banners and pass out our new, 20th anniversary commemorative stickers!
Here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past seven days…
Still public, for now: The jaw-dropping attempt by Republicans to sell of millions of acres of public lands — including many choice Oregon cycling routes — to private developers is off the table. (Politico)
Socialism and car culture: There are many amazing takeaways from Zohran Mamdani’s epic win over Andrew Cuomo in the NYC mayoral primary, but perhaps none more interesting than how car ownership factored in. (Jalopnik)
Touring, then take cover: Imagine being on an adventure bike tour with your dog when suddenly you are forced to dodge missile strikes. That’s what happened to a Chilean man who was cycling through Iran. (Times of Israel)
Tough times ahead: Industry experts say the next several years will be very rocky in the U.S. bicycle business due to continued uncertainty around tariffs and weak market demand. (Financial Times)
Not our problem: In this op-ed, a bicycle industry leader says massive online retailers like Amazon need to take more responsibility for selling cheap, low-quality e-bikes that leave customers holding the bag. (Bicycle Retailer)]
Don’t cut buses: With the disappointment in Salem, this article hit a little too close to home. It explains why cutting bus service is such a bad idea. (Metro)
Everyone gets a woonerf: Can’t believe Washington beat us to the nation’s first “woonerf law” that will make shared-street conditions easier to implement. (Streetsblog USA)
Freedom to move: Dutch kids are the happiest says a new UNICEF report because they have so much freedom of movement. But how is it possible for them to be able to walk and bike everywhere without a parent? Because they have so few cars mucking their lives up. (CNN)
Urbanist icon gets his due: Portlander Iain Mackenzie got a profile in a local paper for many reasons, but also, “for breezy [social media] updates on an ever-changing saga of zoning plans, zoning plans, cute out-on-the-town queer content, insider shade, and zoning plans.” (PortlandMercury)
Get used to seeing a lot more of this. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The 2025 legislative session has come to an end and lawmakers have failed to pass any transportation legislation.
After years of work, a statewide listening tour, dozens of committee meetings and public hearings, Democrats who led the process failed to bring a bill over the finish line. It’s a massive political defeat of historic proportions that comes with consequences likely to be felt in every corner of the state.
After the main transportation bill died, a last ditch effort to pass a plan-B bill, House Bill 3402-3 (the “-3” refers to the amendment that was adopted by committee) was slated for a vote on the House floor late Friday night, but Democrats needed help from Republicans to clear time-sensitive procedural hurdles and they didn’t get it.
Democrats — despite having a supermajority in the House, Senate and holding the Governor’s office — were unable to keep all their Senators in line and ultimately lost the game to the minority party.
House Bill 2025-28; an $11.6 billion package that would have saved transit systems, given the Oregon Department of Transportation a boost to maintenance and operations, funded highway expansion megaprojects, and invested in major safety projects, died earlier in the day on Friday because Democratic Senator Mark Meek wouldn’t vote for it. Meek had shared frustration about the rushed timeline of the bill for weeks and — while he was open to some tax increases — wasn’t comfortable with the size of the bill. Before the final committee vote he shared disinformation on social media, telling his followers that the bill included tolling when in fact that is blatantly false.
The bill passed committee 8-4 and there were smiles as it had some bipartisan momentum (thanks to a “yes” vote from Republican House Rep. Kevin Mannix) heading to the House floor. It was likely going to pass the House, but it was the Senate that doomed Democrats.
Democrats hold 18 of the 30 seats in the Senate and they needed every one of those votes to hold onto the three-fifths majority required to pass a tax bill. Senator Meek, a Democrat, remained a very stubborn “no” and Senate President Rob Wagner failed to persuade a single Republican to take Meek’s place in the “aye” column.
With HB 2025-28 dead, lawmakers scrambled to fill a placeholder bill, HB 3402-3, with bare bones legislation that would be an interim measure to keep ODOT afloat and prevent massive layoffs at the agency. The bill was heard in the House Rules Committee Friday evening where lawmakers heard massive, diverse, nearly unanimous opposition — from city and county leaders, unions, advocacy groups, and individual Oregonians.
The only two voices in support of the bill came from Governor Tina Kotek — who said in her committee testimony she would lay off 600-700 ODOT workers on Monday morning if the bill didn’t pass (about 14% of their total workforce) — and from ODOT leadership, who said it was vital to keep the lights on and perform a basic level of service until more money could be found.
“I know it is disappointing when you get to this point in session and such a big bill with so much work is not going to move forward,” Kotek said in her testimony. “The path forward today is to ensure that ODOT-provided essential services continue… It will solve an immediate need, but it’s not going to solve all our problems… But nonetheless, we have to move forward.”
HB 3402-3 would have raised around $2 billion over 10 years (less than half the amount of the 2017 transportation bill and $10 billion less than HB 2025) via a three-cent gas tax increase and increases to vehicle title and registration fees. Beyond this relatively tiny revenue bump, opposition to the bill was fierce because the bill stipulated that all new revenue would go to ODOT. That provision was a huge slap in the face to counties and cities who have traditionally received 30% and 20% of State Highway Fund revenue respectively (with ODOT keeping 50%).
HB 3402-3 had no funding for transit, and no funding for key programs Oregonians are clamoring for like the Great Streets program, Safe Routes to School, Community Paths, and so on. It also had no set-aside funding for key highway expansion megaprojects that many lawmakers voted for in 2017 like the I-5 Rose Quarter, I-205 widening, and Abernethy Bridge widening.
Despite this opposition, HB 3402-3 passed the Rules Committee 4-3 on a party-line vote.
It headed to the House floor and was in the queue for a vote late last night, but time ran out because Republicans refused to help the Democrats suspend some procedural rules to get it over the finish line. (For an excellent breakdown of how this process played out, check this Bluesky thread from Oregon Capitol Chronicle reporter Julia Shumway.)
With nothing to show for years of work and negotiations, it remains to be seen what the fallout will be from this immense debacle. Governor Kotek threatened to layoff 600-700 ODOT workers on Monday morning. That would be a catastrophic blow to those families, to the agency and to Oregonians who rely on the state to keep the transportation system in good shape. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, representing a City of Portland budget that was counting on $11 million from the transportation bill, said he would be forced to lay off up to 60 Portland Bureau of Transportation staffers.
Republicans and their allies in the online punditry ecosystem are gleeful to see these bills die. The House Republican Caucus released a statement saying the tax increases would have, “funded a progressive left agenda that would harm Oregonians.” “Forcing families to pay one of the largest tax hikes in history when they can barely get by was a cruel policy from the start,” added House Republican Leader Christine Drazan.
From here, I’m not sure what the likelihood is of lawmakers saving transportation funding in an interim or emergency session. If they do make an attempt, Democrats will need to to get their own party fully in line. One thing made clear Friday is that Republicans would rather see ODOT burn to the ground than give them any new funding.
While some lawmakers map out next steps (and others sit back and start vacation), advocates and city leaders now find themselves in a distressing moment of uncertainty. Transit advocates and agency leaders might be the ones feeling most left out in the cold. Without an increase in transportation funding, TriMet has said they would cut 27% of transit service — which could be up to 45 of their 79 bus lines — starting in 2027.
There’s a lot more I want to share about all this, but that’s the basics of what happened yesterday and where we stand this morning. Stay tuned for more coverage.
Move over House Bill 2025, there’s a new transportation bill in town. As it appears the Democrats big transportation bill is dead in the water, there’s a scramble to stuff transportation policy into a separate bill in order to come away with at least something this session.
HB 3402 is a classic “gut and stuff” — meaning it was filed as a placeholder just in case lawmakers needed it. And boy do they ever as I’ve confirmed that HB 2025 doesn’t have the votes in the Senate to pass.
So what’s in HB 3402? Here’s what I know so far:
Performance audits on the State Highway Fund and ODOT capital projects once every two years.
Changes how the ODOT Director is appointed (by the Governor, instead of the Oregon Transportation Commission). This is a relatively useless clause that has been rightfully identified as an “accountability charade” by City Observatory.
The bill beefs up and clarifies the roster of an ODOT accountability advisory committee.
It gives the Joint Committee on Transportation legal authority to “review of scope, schedule changes, and budget updates of major projects (those exceeding $250 million) on a quarterly basis, as well as of city or county projects of less than $25 million with a requested cost increase of at least 10 percent and projects exceeding $25 million where the requested increase is at least five percent.” This seems to me like a way to take some authority away from the Oregon Transportation Commission and give it to legislators.
Increases the statewide gas tax by three whole cents (LOL) — from 40 cents per gallon to 43 cents per gallon.
Increases annual fee for registration of passenger vehicles from $43 to $64.
Increases vehicle title fee from $77 to $168.
All revenue from the above gas tax and fee increases, an estimated $2.3 billion, will flow directly to ODOT.
That last provision is huge, because it means cities and counties would be totally zeroed out in new state funding. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has wasted no time in expressing his opposition to it: “After more than a year outlining the tremendous need at the local level, House Bill 3402-3 threatens to sideline local authority and transit priorities at a time when collaboration is most needed,” he wrote in a statement at 2:00 pm today.
Here’s more from Wilson:
“Portland operates Oregon’s second-largest transportation system, which supports millions of people and goods moving in and out of the state. This bill puts that system at risk. It jeopardizes dozens of essential city infrastructure jobs and our ability to perform basic safety functions like filling potholes and implementing traffic safety improvements.
We can’t afford a patchwork solution. Legislators, please don’t leave Salem without addressing crumbling city transportation systems. We’re calling on our state partners to lean into our shared commitment to building a resilient and future-ready transportation network for all Oregonians.”
The City of Portland’s budget for the Portland Bureau of Transportation is counting on $11 million from the state. That funding was expected to come from the state via a new transportation bill — and this one won’t do it.
Beyond not including the 50/30/20 funding formula that counties and cities rely on, HB 3402-3 includes none of the safe streets or transit funding that was in HB 2025. As far as I know, the 0.1% payroll tax that funds transit (via the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund) which went into effect in 2018, doesn’t have a sunset date. It was proposed to go up to 0.3% in HB 2025. Transit agencies across Oregon have made it clear that without an increase, they would make significant service cuts.
In a post on Bluesky today, The Street Trust urged their followers to oppose the bill. The group’s executive director Sarah Iannarone wrote that, “After a year of consensus building, lawmakers are about to pass HB 3402, a last-minute bill that keeps the lights on at ODOT and turns them off for everyone else.”
Here’s more from Iannarone and The Street Trust:
“This is not a transportation package. It is a desperate procedural maneuver that prioritizes a single agency’s short term needs over the public good – jeopardizing safety, mobility access, and equity. It does nothing to address the rising traffic violence on our streets, the erosion of critical transit lifelines, or the lack of safe infrastructure for people walking, biking, rolling, and relying on public transportation.”
Also notable about HB 3402-3 is that it includes no dedicated funding for key highway megaprojects that remain unfinished like the I-5 Rose Quarter, Abernethy Bridge, I-205 widening, and so on. These projects were funded in HB 2017 and there has been very strong political will to complete them. While this new bill doesn’t include set-aside funding for them, since all new revenue would go to ODOT, the agency could decide to spend it on them. However, it appears that since the bill gives the JCT oversight of ODOT project spending, that decision could be more political than the agency is used to.
ODOT supports HB 3402-3. In a letter sent today to members of the House Committee on Rules, ODOT Director Kris Strickler said the bill is an “interim step to maintain some level of ODOT’s operations and maintenance functions for the 2025-27 biennium.”
HB 3402-3 is scheduled for a public hearing in the House Committee on Rules at 3:45 pm today. That committee includes two of the loudest voices who opposed HB 2025 — its Vice-Chair Rep. Christine Drazan and Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis. (Note: I’m hearing it will be moved to Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment.)
UPDATE, 8:05 pm: HB 3402-3 has passed the House Rules Committee with a party-line vote of 4-3 and will now move to the House floor for a vote. The bill would raise $2.0 billion from a mix of a three-cent gas tax increase and registration and title fee increases.
UPDATE, 6/28 at 9:00 am: The legislative session has adjourned and 3402-3 did not pass. It did not receive a vote on the House floor.
The State Capitol in 2009. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Oregon Public Broadcasting is reporting that House Bill 2025 is dead:
“According to four sources within the Legislature, Democrats acknowledged Friday morning they do not have the votes to pass House Bill 2025. The sweeping bill would have hiked an array of taxes and fees in order to generate billions for much-needed road projects.”
It’s stunning news for the $11.6 billion transportation package that passed out of committee Thursday night. Momentum seemed to pick up when one Republican member of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment, House Rep. Kevin Mannix, voted yes on the bill. But if OPB has it right, all that might pass this session is a paltry, three-cent gas tax increase that Democrats have attached to a separate bill (HB 3402-3).
HB 2025 was supposed to get voted on by the House and Senate today. But it’s 1:50 pm and the vote in the House still hasn’t happened. The House is in recess and is slated to re-convene at 2:15 pm today. I asked one source if the bill was really dead and they messaged back, “Currently using the defibrillator.”
Sources say the bill had enough votes in the House, but not in the Senate. The bill needed just one Senate Republican to support the bill, and it wasn’t going to happen.
In the meantime, check out this video about how one lawmaker who opposes HB 2025 — Democratic Senator Mark Meek — poisoned the debate by spreading blatant falsehoods on social media. This is a good illustration of how many oppositional voices to this bill are not using their platforms to discuss alternative policy positions, but instead are stooping to fear-mongering and bad faith arguments to foment anger at the people and process behind the bill.
UPDATE: Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has released a statement about HB 3402-3, the bill Democrats have stuffed with transportation policy as an alternative to HB 2025. I’m still learning what the bill does, but Wilson doesn’t like it. Here’s his statement:
“After more than a year outlining the tremendous need at the local level, House Bill 3402-3 threatens to sideline local authority and transit priorities at a time when collaboration is most needed.
Portland operates Oregon’s second-largest transportation system, which supports millions of people and goods moving in and out of the state. This bill puts that system at risk. It jeopardizes dozens of essential city infrastructure jobs and our ability to perform basic safety functions like filling potholes and implementing traffic safety improvements.
We can’t afford a patchwork solution. Legislators, please don’t leave Salem without addressing crumbling city transportation systems. We’re calling on our state partners to lean into our shared commitment to building a resilient and future-ready transportation network for all Oregonians.”
The Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment during its final meeting Thursday.
House Bill 2025 has passed out of committee for the final time and will get a vote on the House floor Friday. The $11.6 billion package of transportation funding underwent considerable changes since it passed out of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment last week. Authors of the bill lowered the overall revenue of the bill by about $3 billion by reducing the gas tax provision and eliminating a new vehicle “transfer tax.”
Those changes helped persuade one Republican on the JCTR to vote in favor of the bill. In remarks at the committee meeting this afternoon, Senator Kevin Mannix said, “Where are we going to go if we don’t move forward with this legislation? The easy thing is to say, ‘Well, we’ll just sit back. I mean, I’m a Republican, I’ll just let the Democrats carry the water.’ But wait a minute, I’ve had an opportunity to participate in this process… and I know it would be easy enough to sit here and say no, but I’ve decided that I need to say yes so that we can move forward.”
The bill was voted out of committee 8-4, with “no” votes coming from Senators Bruce Starr and Suzanne Weber, as well as House Representatives Jeff Helfrich and Shelly Boshart Davis.
Starr and Davis were the most vocal opposition and framed their concerns primarily around the tax increases in the bill and what they felt was a lack of bipartisanship throughout the negotiations.
Sen. Pham holding up a chart that shows Oregon as the state that pays the lowest in transportation-related taxes of all seven western states.
While Starr and Davis said Oregonians couldn’t afford to pay for safe routes and reliable transit, JCTR Co-Chair Senator Khanh Pham said she supports the bill because a dysfunctional and disinvested transportation is unaffordable. “One in three, or one in four Oregonians can’t afford a car, or maybe their household depends on one car and can’t afford a second car,” Pham said in her closing remarks. “They depend on reliable bus service and they can’t afford to be late. That is more expensive. That is costly when you’re late for work and you lose your job. Those, those are the the expenses that I worry about when it comes to impacts on Oregon families.”
Sen. Pham, who represents a part of southeast Portland, presided over the JCTR for the first time and was clearly thrilled to play that role. At one point during her remarks she held up a chart to counter narratives that Oregonians should not pay more for using roads. Using data from the Legislative Revenue Office, Pham pointed out that Oregonians currently pay the lowest amount in annual transportation-related taxes among all seven western states. And if HB 2025 passes, Oregon would move up to 6th.
Just hours before the meeting, Senator Mark Meek, a former member of the JCTR and Democrat who opposes the bill, posted an update on his Instagram page saying HB 2025 would impose a new tolling program on I-205. Meek’s assertion is completely false and it led to committee co-chairs and Governor Tina Kotek having to make remarks to debunk the rumor at the outset of the meeting.
From here, the bill, known formally as HB 2025-A28, will move to the House Floor for a vote on Friday. Given the recent changes to the bill and the relatively calm comments from lawmakers in committee today, I have a strong hunch the bill will have the votes it needs to pass.
What level of responsibility does the City of Portland have to implement a key safety policy — even if they don’t have capacity to address every location that needs it?
That’s one question lawyers sought to answer when they claimed, in a 2020 lawsuit, that the Portland Bureau of Transportation was negligent in the death of Elijah Coe in May 2019. Coe was riding his motorcycle eastbound on East Burnside Street approaching SE 17th as the driver of a car drove up 17th and began to try and turn left (westbound) onto Burnside.
According to the suit, because PBOT didn’t prevent other car users from parking all the way up to the corners at the Burnside and 17th intersection, the driver and Coe were unable to see each other. When the driver entered the intersection, Coe veered suddenly to miss them and was killed in a head-on collision with a driver coming the opposite direction.
Oregon law (ORS 811.550) states that parking is not allowed within 20-feet of crosswalks at an intersection. Portland City Code (16.20.130) also specifies a 50-foot parking buffer at intersections and a prohibition of vehicles over six feet high. Armed with those laws, activists spent years urging PBOT to enforce them. The issue is especially important for vulnerable road users because they can be very hard to see by cross-traffic when tucked behind parked cars.
In part due to the 2020 lawsuit and pressure from advocates, PBOT began to hasten their implementation of intersection daylighting. In 2021, the city announced 350 intersections would get the treatment. But three years later, they hadn’t made the progress they promised. PBOT made another announcement earlier this year about their intention to spend $200,000 on vision clearance work.
Meanwhile, the 2020 lawsuit was dismissed by a Multnomah County Court judge in 2022. Lawyers for the city leaned on the concept of discretionary immunity, a legal concept backed up by state law (Oregon Tort Claims Act, ORS 30.265(6)(c)) which says cities are largely immune from liability for policy decisions that involve the exercise of judgment on behalf of the agency or authority in question.
In the case of intersection daylighting, the city’s attorneys said PBOT was correctly following their adopted policies when it comes to parking setbacks at intersections. Specifically, PBOT lawyers cited three sources of policy: the Comprehensive Plan, which PBOT used to allow parking up to the crosswalk; the PedPDX pedestrian master plan that called for removing parking at the corner of E Burnside and 17th during the next capital improvement or paving project; and the city’s complaint-based system for addressing road safety-related concerns.
Put another way, City of Portland attorneys convinced the trial court that PBOT managers made appropriate judgment calls and should be granted immunity from negligence because, given their limited capacity, they had to use discretion on where they implemented the policy.
But lawyers for Elijah Coe appealed the dismissal and the Oregon Court of Appeals decided in their favor in a judgement released Wednesday.
In a 10-page judgment issued by the Oregon Court of Appeals yesterday, they say the city’s defense focused solely on parking setback policy in proving their immunity — when the court feels there were other factors in the crash that revealed negligence. Here’s an excerpt from the judgment:
“… parking management is only one means by which the city could have addressed sight distance issues at the intersection or exercised reasonable care on which her negligence allegations are premised. Because sight distance depends on various factors, including the allotted speed limit and street design, other means of addressing inadequate sight distances include decreasing the speed limit, installing a traffic signal, eliminating permissive right and left turns, and providing advance warning signage. It follows that, even if the city were to establish that it was entitled to discretionary immunity as to decisions to allow or remove parking at the intersection under those two policies, those decisions would not provide a complete affirmative defense to any one of plaintiff’s alleged specifications of negligence.”
The city’s argument also rested on the fact that PBOT Engineering Supervisor Carl Snyder said their complaint-based system hadn’t reported a parking or visibility-related safety concern at this intersection. However, the court referenced testimony from Snyder where he described a complaint filed with PBOT by the nearby Childroots daycare and preschool in 2010. In that complaint, Childroots said SE 17th at Burnside was too narrow and PBOT responded by removing some parking on 17th.
“From that evidence,” the court wrote in its judgment. “The city had notice and knowledge of broader visibility concerns at the intersection—indeed, of the precise sight distance issue at the south side of the intersection where Whitfield turned left onto East Burnside in front of Coe in this case.”
Based on those findings, the Court of Appeals ruled that the city is not entitled to discretionary immunity.
Now the case can move forward to trial.
One of the lawyers representing the plaintiff is Scott Kocher of Forum Law Group (also a BikePortland advertiser). “The appeals court gave our case a green light to go to trial because it ruled the city has no immunity for allowing parking in sight triangles,” Kocher explain in a message to BikePortland today.
“If the city continues with its lip service approach of fixing only a handful of locations it can be sued and will have to pay.”
Riders getting loud n’ lit in 2024. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
I’m loving all the Bike Summer ride reports. Y’all look like you’re having an amazing time. I’m doing really well with my second knee surgery and recovery is happening faster than my first one. In a few weeks I’ll be out on my bike again, capturing all of your beauty and bike rides. I can’t wait!
As for this weekend, swipe or scroll down a bit to see which events and rides made the cut for the guide:
Saturday, June 28th
Inner Child Ride – 2:00 pm at Colonel Summers Park (SE) If you’re tired of adulting and holding it together while the world falls apart, come out and find your inner child on this ride that promises lots of play. Remember that parachute game in preschool? Bring your stuffed animals, favorite toys, nostalgic snacks, bubble makers, and get ready to make new friends! More info here.
26″ or Die Day One – 6:30 pm at Something Cycles (E Burnside) Join a fun, flat-bar and knobby-tire crew on an urban assault ride. You’ll be hoppin’ curbs, balancing on ledges, or whatever other fun diversions you can find. More info here.
Loud n Lit – 8:30 pm at Irving Park (NE) The baddest, loudest, craziest ride of Bike Summer is back for another roll. Join the pre-party at Irving Park and enjoy DJs connected to massive mobile sound systems. Light up your bike and your outfit and enjoy the illuminated flair of others as you ride and dance the night away. More info here.
Sunday, June 29th
PDX Gold – 9:00 am at Brooklyn Park (SE) You wanna’ climb? Then do this 55-mile, 7,000-feet elevation gain route that’s been vetted by really neat dudes and comes with safety (and pain) in numbers, some mechanical support, an aid station, and even an after-party. And it’s totally free (but donations to local nonprofits encouraged!). More info here.
Birding By Bike – 10:00 am at Farragut Park (N) Grab your binoculars and get ready to pedal to some bird-spotting spots with fellow lovers of winged creatures. More info here.
Red R Criterium – All Day on Swan Island (N) A multi-lap road race around a short loop in an industrial park with two tight corners and one sweeping one before the finish. It’s a perfect course to challenge your skills and get your thrills. If you’re crit-curious, this is the race for you. More info here.
Rocky Point Trail Maintenance – 8:30 am to 1:30 pm (Scappoose) Don’t you hate riding singletrack and you look down and your shins are stinging red and bloody? Weeds can do that. Now you can get your revenge by whacking them off the trail. Join NW Trail Alliance for this work party and do some good for your local trail network. More info here.
Bike Swap – 11:00 am to 2:00 pm at Migration Brewing (NE) It’s a bike swap, but the vendors are bike shops and local bike companies. You don’t want to miss the cool parts and bikes these folks will bring out of their basements to offer at really good prices. Vendors so far include Metropolis Cycles, Cyclepath Bike Shop, Portland Design Works, Anson’s Bike Buddies (Hood River), Joe Bike, Ruckus Composites, Shovel Research, and more. More info here.
Sunday Parkways Northeast – 11:00 am to 4:00 pm in Cully area (NE) It’s that time again. Time for you and your friends and family to grab bikes and take to the streets for a festival of freedom from cars that connects our communities and neighborhoods. Expect great activities at parks along the way, food vendors, and more. More info here.
— Did I miss your event? Please let me know by filling out our contact form, or just email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com.
ODOT staff are on the edge of their seats. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Democrats in Salem have made their final play in a desperate attempt to curry support for their transportation funding plan. With just a few days left in the legislative session, the latest move to find support for House Bill 2025 includes major changes and one final stop in committee before what will be an all-out sprint to the finish line.
The bill, known as HB 2025-A28 will get its final public hearing and committee vote later this afternoon.
As I reported yesterday, the version of HB 2025 that was adopted by the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment (JCTR) six days ago, known as HB 2025-A, has been amended. Documents posted to the legislative website Wednesday afternoon reveal a new bill with a smaller tax footprint that omits several provisions that spurred opposition among moderate Republicans and even some Democrats.
The authors of the bill need to do three things in very short order to fulfill their top priority of the session: pass the bill out of committee, get three-fifths majority on the House floor, and make sure that the language of the bill doesn’t spur a ballot referral.
To Democratic leadership, this means the bill needs to be less of an easy target to lawmakers and voters who think it takes too much out of their wallets. Their latest changes to the bill shrink it by $3 billion. According to OPB, the state would take in about $11.6 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years with the newly amended version of HB 2025, instead of $14.6 billion in the bill passed last week.
Democrats have also caved on their plan to raise the gas tax and index it to inflation. The original bill would have raised the per gallon gas tax by 15 cents in the coming three years, followed by an automatic increase pegged to annual inflation rates. In committee hearings, Republicans strongly opposed indexing the gas tax to inflation because they feel it would abdicate their power.
The newly amended bill scraps the indexing plan and would simply raise the gas tax by 12 cents starting next year.
Another way the Democrats have scaled back the bill is to give up on a new “transfer tax” that would have been levied on the retail price of used and new vehicles at a rate of 1% and 2% respectively.
To make up for that revenue loss, the new plan is to increase the dealer vehicle privilege tax and general vehicle use tax. That tax is currently 0.5% and applies only to new cars. It was boosted to 1% in the current version of the bill. The latest proposal is to increase it to 2.25% and apply it to used cars for the first time.
Money raised from the privilege tax would be distributed to these projects and programs:
38% to the Great Streets Fund, which invests in urban state highways to make them more humane, main streets.
38% to the Anchor Project Fund, the new name for what lawmakers say is “unfinished business” from the previous transportation package that mandated completion of key megaprojects like the I-5 Rose Quarter, Abernethy Bridge, I-205 widening, and so on.
10% to the Zero Emission Incentive Fund, which gives out rebates for purchasing electric cars (but not electric bikes because once again the legislature has failed to create equity between cars and bikes in that program).
8% to the Connect Oregon Fund, which invests in non-highway infrastructure like airports, marine terminals, rail, and some biking and walking projects.
6% to the Railroad Fund which can be spend on passenger rail maintenance and operations.
Money raised from the use tax would be spent as follows:
Up to $5 million to the Wildlife-Vehicle Collision Fund
Up to $25 million to the Safe Routes to School Fund
Anything left over would be distributed via the 50/30/20 formula to the state, counties, and cities respectively.
Another hot-button issue with the version of the bill was the volume and size of increases to dozens of vehicle-related fees such as ones folks pay at the DMV for titles, registrations, new license plates, and so on. The new bill slashes those increases by significant amounts.
One final change I’m still trying to fully understand is how the new bill handles the bicycle tax. HB 2025-A kept the $15 tax on new bicycle intact. HB 2025-A28 appears to fold the bike tax into the general vehicle use tax, meaning it will now be a more progressive, percentage-based tax of 1% of the purchase price of a new bicycle. (Note: I’m still trying to find clarity on this provision and will update this post when I figure it out.)
Those are the big differences with the newly amended bill. It will get a public hearing and final vote in the JCTR today at 3:30 pm. From there, it should move onto a floor vote. According to OPB, the extremely tight timeline means Democrats need some procedural help from Republicans to get it over the finish line. I’ve heard some Democratic support for other bills this session authored by Republicans have created the opportunity for this to happen, but there are no guarantees.
Stay tuned. This bill could pass or fail. It’s anyone’s guess at this point.
As Democrats in Salem scramble to pick up the pieces of the transportation bill in the final few days of the legislative session, I feel like it’s worth looking more closely at what’s in the bill they’re trying to pass.
With headlines devoted to the drama of the process and Republican opposition, some folks might forget what’s at stake with the actual policy that hangs in the balance.
But first, let’s recap where things stand: House Bill 2025-Apassed the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment (JCTR) on Friday with a party-line vote of 7-5. It was due for a floor vote Monday, but instead, Democrats pulled the bill and referred it back to committee. Lawmakers likely did this for two reasons: either they were afraid the bill didn’t have enough votes to pass, or they worried it would be referred to voters, something one group is already vowing to do. Sources say authors of the bill are currently revising some elements of the package to make sure the vote will go their way. Those changes should be made public any day now. Once they’re out, the floor vote would happen quickly. Since Democrats have a super-majority they need to pass tax increases, as long as they get their party in line (and Republicans don’t pull procedural shenanigans), the bill will pass.
So what’s in the bill? Yes it’s a big tax increase. But Oregonians have been underpaying for their privilege to use the transportation system for too long and the bill has finally come due.
Here’s what we’d gain and lose (in terms of money in our pockets) with HB 2025-A:
10-Year Revenue Outlook
Over the next 10 years (the state budgets in two-year cycles called biennia), the bill’s fees and taxes would generate about $14.6 billion. Because the fees and taxes come into effect at different times and get progressively higher over time, here’s how the biannual revenue would play out:
2025-2027: $1.06 billion
2027-2029: $2.5 billion
2029-2031: $3.4 billion
2031-2033: $3.7 billion
2033-2025: $4.0 billion
Accountability
I personally don’t think the accountability measures go far and deep enough, but here’s what HB 2025-A would do:
Mandate performance audits every other year on capital projects and state highway fund spending.
The Governor would appoint ODOT director, instead of the Oregon Transportation Commission (this is a charade, as pointed out by City Observatory).
The bill beefs up the existing Continuous Improvement Advisory Committee membership, meeting requirements, and reporting responsibilities.
Mandates a review by the Joint Committee on Transportation of all major projects over $25 million on a quarterly basis. The committee would look at cost, scope, and schedule changes to make sure there’s no funny business going on.
The Legislative Policy and Research Office would do an audit of ODOT on whether and how the agency addressed recommendations from study conducted this year.
Where Revenue Would Come From
Weight Mile Taxes
The bill would simplify weight mile tax tables for heavy trucks, making it simpler for freight haulers to comply. It would also create a new weight mile table heavy electric vehicles that are over 26,000 pounds.
Gas Tax Increase
HB 2025-A would raise the gas tax by 10 cents, to 50 cents per gallon starting January 1, 2026. It would go up to 55 cents per gallon in 2028, and then starting 2029 it would be pegged to inflation.
Payroll Tax Increase for Transit
While the Republicans pushed a bill that would have zeroed out state spending on transit, HB 2025-A will increase transit spending via an increase in the payroll tax. Currently at 0.1%, the bill increases the tax to 0.3% by 2030. Revenue from this tax funds the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund, or STIF.
Vehicle Privilege Tax
The vehicle privilege tax is paid by car dealers (for the privilege of selling cars in Oregon). It’s currently 0.5% of the retail price of a car and would increase to 1%. Since this tax is not levied on road users, it’s not constitutionally bound to the State Highway Fund. Therefore, lawmakers would use 50% of revenue for passenger rail improvements and the remainder would go toward EV rebates and the Connect Oregon fund (a program that funds non-highway projects).
General Vehicle Fee Increases
HB 2025-A includes dozens of fee and tax increases to things like DMV-related services, new and used car titles, registrations, vehicle permits, and so on.
Transfer Tax
This is new tax that would be levied on the transfer of new and used vehicles with a gross weight of 26,000 pounds or less and that are sold for over $10,000. Tax rate is 2% of the sales price for new vehicles and 1% of the sales price for used vehicles.
Bicycle Tax
The $15 tax on new bicycles that went into effect in 2018 will remain in place. It amounts to about $1.2 million per year.
The bill will also require owners of delivery fleets to enroll electric fleet vehicles into the OreGo program. Then, starting in 2028, all plug-in electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and hybrid vehicles will be required to enroll.
The per-mile charge for the OreGo program will be pegged to a percentage of what the average cost of a price of gas is per gallon.
Where Revenue Would Go
Gas Tax
The gas tax increase would help fund five “anchor projects” to the tune of $125 million per year (which would still leave huge funding gaps). The top two priority projects are the I-5 Rose Quarter and Abernethy Bridge. Then the OTC would determine priority for funding of I-205 widening, Newberg-Dundee Bypass, and State Highway 22/Center St. Bridge retrofit.
Any remaining gas tax revenue would be distributed via the standard 50/30/20 formula to ODOT/counties/cities respectively.
Transfer Tax
$125 million per year from this tax would go to the Great Streets Fund, a fund that pays for ODOT urban highways to become city-owned main streets (like 82nd Avenue). $25 million would go to Safe Routes to Schools, and $5 million would be put into a new Wildlife-Vehicle Collision Fund.
An additional $125 million from this revenue source would go to paying for debt service on anchor projects (a.k.a. highway expansion megaprojects).
Miscellaneous (Yet Still Very Important!) Provisions
Highway Cost Allocation Study
The HCAS is a study that determines whether or not Oregon road users are paying their fair share. I profiled the issue last year because it’s something freight advocates have been complaining about for a long time. This bill would remedy the issue by calling on the legislature to act if the equity ration between heavy and light vehicles ever goes beyond 1.05%.
Freight Lane Widths
There was a lot of controversy around the initial language of this provision in the bill. Lawmakers changed that language a bit to clarify that 12-foot minimum lane widths would only apply to state highway freight routes that are outside the urban growth boundary.
More Funding for Light Rail Maintenance
Section 170 of the bill would stipulate that revenue that comes into the STIF (the state’s transit funding program) can be spent on light rail capital expenses related to maintenance of existing light rail infrastructure. Currently, these funds cannot be used for this purpose.
Better Highway Project Selection
When the Oregon Transportation Commission considers projects for the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), the bill would require them to weigh whether or not a project “reduces overall demand for motor vehicle travel on a highway,” and whether or not the local jurisdiction has made a good faith effort to maintain and preserve highways (as opposed to just building new ones).
Funding for Oregon Community Paths
The bill would deposit $2 million annually from a portion of the gas tax that’s collected from non-highway uses (like gas for lawnmowers, etc…) into the Multimodal Active Transportation Fund. This fund invests in off-street biking and walking paths and what’s known as the Oregon Community Paths program. The initial bill left this funding out and advocates pushed hard for this.
New ODOT Studies
Don’t sleep on studies! These can often provide a foundation for future policy. HB 2025-A directs ODOT to study allowing all entities (cities and transit agencies) that receive STIF funding to provide transit passes for people under 23 years old. Another study would look at the impact on travel demand for any project that expands driving capacity.
Commuter Rail Expansion
The bill would require ODOT to do a formal study of the expansion of TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) to Salem and Eugene. This heavy rail service currently runs north-south between Beaverton and Wilsonville.
No E-Bike Rebate This Session
Note that the e-bike rebate program, which I was hopeful would make the cut when it was included in an amendment last week, is no longer part of the bill.
So there you have it: the major highlights (or lowlights depending on your political persuasion) of the transportation bill as it stands right now. Like I said, there’s a lot at stake here and despite how terribly Democrats have fumbled the bag so far, there’s still a shred of possibility that a bill passes this week. I fully expect lawmakers will propose some changes in the next 24 hours, so stay tuned for that in the coming day or so. There should be some sort of committee meeting Thursday and it will likely include a public hearing. Buckle up!
