ODOT”s big lie about transportation spending. ODOT’s claim that Oregon spends less on roads than neighboring states was a key talking point in trying to sell a higher transportation tax in the 2025 Legislature.
Based on ODOT”s data, legislators repeatedly claimed that Oregon spends less on roads than other Western states.
The trouble is it’s not true. The biggest source of the apparent difference is state sales taxes on cars–which Oregon doesn’t have. Other states do charge sales taxes on car sales, but this money goes to general funds, not to road construction and repair.
Independent national comparisons prepared by the widely respected Brookings Institution, using Census Bureau data from all 50 states shows Oregon spends almost the same on roads as neighboring states, about $630 per capita in 2021.
ODOT’s numbers are a bogus and deceptive sales technique, not an objective analysis. There’s no evidence Oregon spends significantly less on roads that neighboring states.
Must Read
Going in Circles. Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns writes about an elaborate and expensive interchange project in Baxter Minnesota that encapsulates all of the zany and perverse logic of highway investment. It features six roundabouts to connect to major highways with an associated big box and national retail chain shopping area.
This is the highway department’s way of remediating (but also ultimately exacerbating) the damage the highway construction did decades ago when it sucked the stores (and much of the life) out of the downtowns of both Baxter and nearby Brainerd. As Marohn explains the bizarre logic:
. . . reducing congestion isn’t the priority here. The goal is to preserve — at ridiculous expense — access to strip retail along a high-speed highway corridor. MnDOT wants to move cars quickly through Baxter. Baxter’s (largely national franchise) retailers want the drivers of those cars to stop and shop. The resulting compromise satisfies no one, costs a fortune, and looks plainly ridiculous to anyone not steeped in the cult of traffic modeling. This is a project designed by engineers with too much funding, too few ideas, and no clear guidance on prioritization.
There’s nothing wrong with roundabouts, but as the illustration shows, this version is really just an alternative reality for creating an even more automobile-dominated environment. Like the diverging diamond highway interchange in Natick, MA, this is project that purports to make things better, but only does so for cars.
Krugman on density, getting there and being there. Paul Krugman notes that the latest Census data show that for the first time since such records have been kept, Atlanta is experiencing new domestic out-migration. For a city founded on seemingly unending growth, this may mark the end of an epoch. Krugman speculates that the reasons have much to do with sprawl and traffic. For a long time, Atlanta could grow, simply by expanding outward. But this kind of growth comes at a cost. Everything is more spread out, and given any highway network, becomes harder to reach. Denser cities don’t have this problem, and even if cars travel more slowly, this is more than offset by having more regular destinations close at hand. Krugman writes:
New York’s high population density makes its traffic less terrible than you might expect for a city that size, for a couple of reasons. One is that a dense population supports public transit, and not just trains: Buses can run more frequently, which makes them much more attractive to commuters. The other is that slow driving speeds don’t matter as much when you don’t have to drive very far to get someplace useful or interesting. According to the TomTom traffic index, the average speed of traffic in Atlanta is still more than twice what it is in New York. But given New York’s high density, the places you want to go are generally much closer there than they are in Atlanta.
Too much of our planning is dominated by trying to facilitate car travel, too little attention is given to making sure that we have some place interesting to be. It appears sprawling Atlanta may be reaping the harvest of its auto-centric development strategy.
Oregon clamps down on local land use planning. For a century, state governments have deferred to local governments in seemingly all matters related to zoning. The net effect has been to give municipalities effective veto power over housing, especially denser and more affordable forms of housing. Gradually, some states have been chipping away at the delegation of the sweeping devolution of housing policy to the local level. Sightline Institute’s Michael Andersen describes new laws just signed by Governor Tina Kotek which potentially give the state the authority to override local governments and directly approve certain housing.  HB 2258, which passed both houses of the legislature by a strong, bi-partisan majority, is a potentially radical change. As Anderson explains,
House Bill 2258 gives the state the power to override local zoning and allow any type of housing on standard urban lots.
The new law lets the state preemptively give zoning and building permit approval to any variety of housing project, from a backyard cottage to a skyscraper, on any vacant lot that allows residential development, that is inside a state approved urban growth boundary, is a lot of 1,500 to 20,000 square feet, and meets certain slope and environmental limitations. Much work needs to be done to establish the regulations that will govern the use of this new state power, but as Anderson argues, the availability of an alternative state permitting process creates opportunities and incentives for innovative housing development. Since 1973, when Oregon first enacted comprehensive statewide land use planning guidelines, Oregon has been re-balancing the division of authority between state and local government; this step continues that evolution.
Editor’s Note: An apology: Last week’s Week Observed contained a repeated error, using the term “NIMBY” instead of the term “YIMBY.” An corrected version of the post follows below. Thanks to sharp-eyed readers bringing this to our attention. YIMBY, YIMBY, YIMBY . . . .  We apologize for the error and the confusion it caused.
What’s the next political move for YIMBYs? CORRECTED! The “Yes in my backyard” (YIMBY) movement has had extraordinary success in changing the policy discussions of housing, and especially state and local land use policy. Two leading voices of the movement, Chris Elmendorf and  David Schleicher, have an essay exploring what the movement needs to do to broaden and deepen its progress. They argue that YIMBYs need to spend more time talking about the quality of life in great urban spaces–to help built the case for density among density skeptical groups, and that YIMBY’s need to think about more explicit, formal and permanent political organization, especially at the local level.
For example, they argue that YIMBY advocates must move beyond just affordability and more housing to better places and an improved quality of life to assure long term political success:
Making cities into broadly appealing places is essential to building support for more production of dense housing. If non-urbanites come to see big cities as culturally alien, they may sour on policies that would grow cities or make the suburbs more city-like.
In a world that often seems dominated by policy paralysis and political polarization, the YIMBY movement has made significant strides among both blue and red constituencies. YIMBY’s next act may be more consequential for them, and also for the broader polity.
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