On Monday February 24, the newly elected City Council’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure heard a presentation on the state of the city’s transportation system (and its finances) and then a litany of public testimony on the problems on city streets.

The scale of the city’ s transportation problem is alarming.  Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) staff testified that the 50 percent of all of the city’s streets are either in “very poor” or “poor” condition.  And without more funding for repairs, city streets will get worse.  PBOT staff said that it would cost upwards of $600 million per year to bring the city’s streets into a state of good repair—an amount that is roughly equal to the agency’s current annual budget.  And meanwhile, the city’s transportation revenues are in jeopardy; some recent revenue was one-time federal grants, and other revenues, tied to gas taxes and user fees are growing slowly or declining. 

In addition, dozens of Portland residents testified about other problems around the city underscoring glaring needs for improving streets, sidewalks, crosswalk, bike lanes and transit, and especially making things safer.  While Portland, like many cities, adopted a “Vision Zero” goal of eliminating traffic deaths a decade ago, traffic crashes–and fatalities–have actually increased.  And, as City Councillor Mitch Green noted, transportation is the major source of greenhouse gases, so creating a transportation system that lessens car dependence is central to meeting our climate goals.

Given the poor and dangerous condition of city streets it’s little wonder that the city’s lobbyist, Sam Chase, told the committee that Portland’s three top priorities in the coming legislative session are “Operations and Maintenance, Operations and Maintenance, and Operations and Maintenance.”  That would be nice if it were true. But in reality, the city’s tacit and explicit support for two multi-billion dollar highway projects in Portland (the Interstate Bridge Replacement and the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening, are effectively the city’s “ask” for the 2025 Legislature—and likely for the decade to come.  

Let’s step back and look at the entire transportation system in Portland.  While bureaucrats divide it up into separate city, county, regional, state and federal funding pots and policies, that’s not the way citizens, businesses and people encounter or use the system.  As the PBOT budget makes implies, the transportation system is all of a piece, with interwoven and inseparable strands of federal, state and local funding. Consumers, citizens and travelers move seamlessly between federally subsidized freeways and buses, buses driven by drivers paid by regional taxes, on city streets financed in part by local gas taxes, and on county roads and bridges.  So the City Council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee should be looking at the whole picture and asking what’s being prioritized in Portland. 

Far and away, the biggest chuck of capital is going into just two billion-dollar-a mile highway expansion projects.  These  two freeway mega-projects, largely with the city of Portland, are the Interstate Bridge Project and the Rose Quarter freeway widening  are respectively seven and a half billion dollars and $2 billion.  A key reason Portland lacks the funds to fix dire problems on city streets is because, essentially, the city is supporting those projects.   In effect, those projects become the city’s “ask” in Salem. And so while we face a climate crisis, when we have dire safety, while we need to be spending more on operation and maintenance, essentially what Legislature is going to do is say, “Hey, we’re giving Portland all this money for the Rose Quarter and the IBR.”

Profligacy for freeways, penury for city streets

PBOT is being creative to try to solve the operation and maintenance problem. PBOT Chief of Staff Shoshanna Cohen testified that the city’s bridge team, faced with a massive backlog of weight-restricted bridges, was scrambling to use limited funds in targeted, creative ways, to assure traffic can continue to flow.  While the City of Portland is improvising to stretch every dollar, the Oregon Department of Transportation has spent more than $300 million on planners and consultants for the two mega-projects within the City of Portland (the Rose Quarter and the I-5 Bridge project)–neither of which has yet spent a dime on construction.  And ODOT has completely rejected any efforts to “right-size” these massive projects that involve rebuilding and widening highways.

The 2025 Legislature’s deliberation over a “transportation package” will likely frame the city’s ability to maintain and invest in its transportation system over the next decade or more, at a time when roads are deteriorating, traffic deaths are rising, and the climate crisis worsens.  There is a real opportunity cost to “going along” with these bloated, billion-dollar-a-mile freeway expansion projects.  

In the State Legislature in Salem, the cost of finishing these projects over the next decade will be counted as state aid for Portland.  That’s alarming for several reasons.  The cost of the project’s is already high ($1.9 billion for the Rose Quarter and $7.5 billion for the IBR.). But its going to go higher–both projects are updating their cost estimates which will add more billions.  At the same time, it’s apparent that a hoped-for federal bonanza won’t be forthcoming.  The new administration in Washington has signaled its hostility to transit projects, and repairing the damage highways have done to historically Black neighborhoods.  They are not only not likely to provide more funds for either of these projects, there’s a good chance they’ll claw back some of the federal funding that was announced, but not obligated, by the Biden administration.  What that means as a practical matter, is that higher costs for these projects will have to be paid by Oregon, and as a political matter, state funds spent on these projects will be seen as money for Portland.  And yet at Monday’s hearing, not one person testified argued for a priority for any of these freeway projects.

Now is the time city leaders should be stepping back and asking whether continuing down this path will do anything to address the concerns Portlanders have about their transportation system.  Failing to do so is likely to foreclose the opportunity to do anything different for years to come.