Submitted by PDOT employee on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 5:53am.
I think you all are missing the point for a few reasons:
1. Of course PDOT and Sam knew that costs were going up. We've been cutting PDOT's budget for the past six years or something. But we got updated numbers from ODOT about gas tax revenue at the beginning of this week that we then had to adjust the cuts we already were making in the upcoming budget year. $800,000 we thought turned into $2.7M.
2. You don't seem to want to acknowledge that federal and state transportation policies create different pots of money for different things. Four major sources: contractual (we do work for ODOT or TriMet or PDC-- capital projects), SDCs (State says it must be used for capacity building for vehicles, pedestrians or bicycles), and General Transportation Revenue (gas tax, parking and 40% of traffic & moving violation revenue).
GTR is our only source of maintenance funds (though Sam has gotten us general fund dollars in the past three years). This is the source of funds that are shrinking faster than we had anticipated back in November when we submitted our budget--though the rest are shrinking too.
3. Gas taxes are just that--taxes. They are NOT user fees. Their point is to generate General revenue. And the vast vast vast majority of that revenue goes to supporting motor vehicles.
4. We do tax for alternative modes of transportation. TriMet's payroll tax. But I agree we need to look at other forms of revenue generation. The long term solution is more like a carbon tax, not a bike tax. I know that some of you don't believe in global warming, but I hope we don't have to have that argument here.
5. Terry you're wrong about Safe, Sound & Green discounts. Those are for businesses, not individuals. A great great majority of people, with a car or not, pay the same amount.
6. I don't know why I bother writing all this. You people are not open to hearing contrarian views backed up with logic and data.
I think you all are missing
I think you all are missing the point for a few reasons:
1. Of course PDOT and Sam knew that costs were going up. We've been cutting PDOT's budget for the past six years or something. But we got updated numbers from ODOT about gas tax revenue at the beginning of this week that we then had to adjust the cuts we already were making in the upcoming budget year. $800,000 we thought turned into $2.7M.
PBJ has a good article about the issue.
2. You don't seem to want to acknowledge that federal and state transportation policies create different pots of money for different things. Four major sources: contractual (we do work for ODOT or TriMet or PDC-- capital projects), SDCs (State says it must be used for capacity building for vehicles, pedestrians or bicycles), and General Transportation Revenue (gas tax, parking and 40% of traffic & moving violation revenue).
GTR is our only source of maintenance funds (though Sam has gotten us general fund dollars in the past three years). This is the source of funds that are shrinking faster than we had anticipated back in November when we submitted our budget--though the rest are shrinking too.
3. Gas taxes are just that--taxes. They are NOT user fees. Their point is to generate General revenue. And the vast vast vast majority of that revenue goes to supporting motor vehicles.
4. We do tax for alternative modes of transportation. TriMet's payroll tax. But I agree we need to look at other forms of revenue generation. The long term solution is more like a carbon tax, not a bike tax. I know that some of you don't believe in global warming, but I hope we don't have to have that argument here.
5. Terry you're wrong about Safe, Sound & Green discounts. Those are for businesses, not individuals. A great great majority of people, with a car or not, pay the same amount.
6. I don't know why I bother writing all this. You people are not open to hearing contrarian views backed up with logic and data.