Updated: Join the conversation about transportation funding: be part of the solution.

I'd like to know what percentage of the gas tax is given to the city of Portland to maintain the thousands of miles of local roads? I understand that when I ride my bike, I don't pay gas tax, but I've also heard that gas taxes don't pay for local roads - only state routes and interstates. That leave a lot of car infrastructure being paid by property taxes, and not car drivers. I'd be happy to pay my fair share for 5 feet of road where I cause very little wear and tear and zero polution if the car drivers paid for all road construction, maintenance, police and ambulance service associated with car accidents and paid to offset the health costs associated with tailpipe emissions through gas taxes. And when I drive my car , I'd be glad to pay a higher gas tax to cover all those expenses.

I'd rather pay for auto-related municipal expenses at the pump than through my property taxes, and I'll pay a bike license fee to cover the cost of bike lanes.

Lastly, my residential street has lots of cracks and uneven pavement, but it keeps cars from speeding too fast and keeps my street livable - I'd rather not spend money to repave, then have to spend more money to add speed humps. I'm OK going slow when I drive if the streets are not in the best shape. I'd rather drive slow than pay more taxes.

Yes I agree. Tolls should pay for roads on a per trip basis and we should divert the gas tax to pay for related foreign entanglements and oil subsidies. That would be much more equitable. But I don't think most drivers would be willing to pay the real cost of gasoline at the pump.

How recently did you move up from California? How about you move back.

First off, let me just say that Sam (and his whole team) agree that road maintenance needs to be a priority. Whether you drive, bike, take transit, or just stay at home all day and get things delivered to you, you are using the roads, and the quality of those roads directly impacts your quality of life.

We actually do a lot of contracting out of work at PDOT. By law, any project over $125,000 must be put out to bid. PDOT can put in a bid for that work, too, but the lowest bid will win the contract. Especially now that asphalt has gotten as expensive as it has (70% cost inflation since the gas tax was last raised), a majority of our non-maintenance projects are done by outside contractors.

As for funds from other sources, there is a long-held practice in Portland that transportation projects are paid for by user fees (like the gas tax and parking meters), as opposed to from the city's general fund. That means that no BDS fees, property taxes, or income taxes go to funding transportation.

While city council is usually reluctant to pay for transportation, Sam was able to secure $11 million from the city's general fund surplus to fund critical safety improvements, a high portion of those in East Portland (which is the most dangerous part of town in terms of traffic/pedestrian fatalities).

Because maintenance is not very sexy, it rarely gets funding from the state or federal government. Instead, the state and feds like to fund capital improvement projects. Much/most of the time, the required "local match" for federal funds is actually paid for by adjacent property owners.

We are not able to take any of that money from the feds, state, or adjacent property owners that is earmarked for specific projects and re-allocate it to maintenance. It would be great if we could, though!

Mr Chaplowski - Thanks for the reply. I appreciate that even though I am rough on your group.

I agree, a lot of the non-sexy projects, like sewers/roads, don't get funded for preventative maintenance. However, if a FedEx/UPS truck can't get a round easily a lot of potential businesses won't come here.

Out of curiousity when PDOT puts in a competitive bid, is it weighed equally against outsiders? If so, I find it hard to believe PDOT would win anything.

On funding, I find it hard to believe we are restrained by long-held practices since CoP has tried to be groudn-breaking on other topics like Iraq and biofuels.

The bids are based solely on the cost; there is no weighting one way or another to promote or temper contracting out.

A lot of our work (especially if its a big project) does in fact get contracted out.

I'll try to find some figures to give you an idea as how much of our work gets contracted and post it up soon.

As for long-standing policies, I don't know what to say- I'd like to see PDOT get more funding from the city where ever we can get it... but I admit I am biased.

Any revenue we take from the General Fund, though, would mean some combination of cuts in Fire, Police, Parks, etc.

I hate to do it, but I'm now looking for a job that will allow me to drive to work . This has huge implications for the long-term livability of the area.
JK: Yes it does. More people with cars will lift the standard of living for everyone! This is a good thing.

The reason, as you are finding, is that a car gives you more choices because it can get you to a wider variety of jobs in a given commute time. That allow you to choose a higher paying job and, on average, the higher pay will make up for the car expenses. A number of low income advocacy groups are now helping low income people get cars to improve their lives!

This simple concept appears to be beyond the understanding of Portland's planners.

Thanks
JK

By everyone do you mean everyone? Or do you mean everyone who is able and willing to drive? I don't see how more cars on the road improves the quality of life of a 14-year-old. Nor do I see how it improves the life of a blind person, a disabled person, nor a senior citizen otherwise unable to drive. Nor a person who can't afford insurance nor a person with a revoked driver's license. More cars on the road certainly is certainly to the detriment of those killed or maimed by automobiles.

You are also neglecting the other side of the equation which mean more cars on the road also means more workers competing for the same jobs, driving the wages down and commute distances up. Since more cars only helps those with cars, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The end result is more traffic going further and longer commute times, which certainly doesn't increase overall productivity.

Safer bike routes and better public transportation options would also serve to improve the standard of living of "everyone" but in a much more equitable, sustainable, and healthy fashion.

David Dean, I think you may want to think out your response a little.

So you think "driving" doesn't help out the life of a blind person, a disabled person, or a senior citizen. Please stand out in front of Good Sam and notice how all three of these categories conveniently use a taxi; the social services cars, vans; the relatives/friends vehicles; and sometimes the patients themselves drive themselves, like myself.

Waiting 20-30 minutes or more for bus or trolley service; somehow getting onto transit service without hospital staff assistance, taking a trip three-four times longer than by vehicle with maybe two or four transfers without any assistance; arriving 25 blocks from your destination because of lack of nearby transit service-this is the reality for many. Many don't have to be in these categories to have these complications.

Not everyone is 25, having massive amount of time for public transit, having a job that only entails going from the house to one job site and carrying only a purse or billfold, and a life style that is without children needs, or grandparent needs, or friend needs that creates only one or two trips per day.

I also don't see how you can say the same for "the 14 year olds" after using a similar analogy as above where student life is only going from school to home.

Lee,

My statement was in response to JK who said, "More people with cars would lift the standard of living for everyone." This of course is demonstratively false. If car transportation is the best mode for you, by all means, keep using it. But car transportation isn't for everyone. I'm not saying public transit should replace the automobile, but it certainly serves a purpose for a lot of people. Surely you recognize there are a minority of people who don't experience an increase in their standard of living by having more automobiles but do benefit from public transit?

My statement was in response to JK who said, "More people with cars would lift the standard of living for everyone." This of course is demonstratively false.

Please demonstrate.

Thanks
JK

Hi JK

That's easy. On two counts.

1. Autos and associated costs are an economic drain on Oregon's economy. We, as a community, and as a state, earn income that we can spend here. If we spend it on "imports' that money leaves our economy. Autos are made elsewhere, insurance companies are elsewhere, gasoline comes from elsewhere. Parts and supplies for maintenance and repairs come from elsewhere. Each time I fill my tank, or spend money on my car, most of it leaves Oregon. If, on the other hand, I was able to conduct my life and business using public transit, a lot less of my income would leave the state. I'd spend less on trapnsportation and would be able to spend it on other things, and of what I do spend, a higher percentage would stay in Oregon.

2. I'm going to cite an excellent book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" here. autos and related costs are expenses. His very good point is that people who are wise about finances spend money on assets, not expenses. Mass transit systems are community assets, that save us all money on auto expenses (and on auto infrastructure). That is the wise course, to invest our society's funds into assets that result in us not having to export ship loads of dollars overseas for oil.

488 people were lost their lives in Oregon automobile collisions in 2005.

Had all those people in cars, been on MAX, about 732 would be dead. This is because light rail, including MAX, kills peopal at about 150% the rate of cars.

see: debunkingportland.com/Transit/MAXSafetyChart.html

Thanks
JK

I would have to agree with JK! I just recently got a job in the South Waterfront area. I have not owned a automobile for three years since I used to work a few blocks from where I live. Now I work in SoWhat and live in Irvington. I tried the lousy Streetcar system the first few days on the job. One day the reader board said "someone called in sick so there may be delays". Another day the reader board said "power outage, may be delays". Well needless to say on FOUR different occasions it took me nearly 2 HOURS to get from my home just off 13th and Broadway to Gibbs and Moody using a combination of the MAX and Streetcar. I could probably have WALKED faster than that! What a waste of time. The railfreaks blather at length about the virtues of their dumb system, how it saves the economy, the environment, blah blah blah but what about the wasted time of the people who have to rely on the system? Another observation I made - someone commented on the Streetcar that it is usually busy at the beginning of the week but on Friday morning its nearly empty because people will TRY the Streetcar on Monday and are fed up with it by Friday. Only tourists and students are regular users. Serious commuters need not apply. I actually (GASP) bought a car today. And no I won't be using BioDiesel! It takes me about 10 minutes to drive to work. Sorry the LRT and Streetcar systems are not all they're cracked up to be - they're terrible! I wonder if other cities struggle this much or if this is just here in "The City that Works"?

I echo your concerns about the streetcar, I don't think it is a very good choice for commuters. I found I could usually walk to the Pearl District from the Cultural District in the same amount of time it took me to wait for a streetcar. I would only use it if the reader board indicated that it was due momentarily. I agree that the streetcar would be more useful for tourists and students.

For about a year I commuted from the Cultural District to the Lloyd District using the MAX and that only took me about 15 minutes of walking/riding and was very reliable. A few years ago when the snow shut down the rail line, I took the bus. In a company of 100 people, I was one of the 3 that made it to work that day.

Jim, you can't reasonably compare ~1 death a year to ~500 deaths a year. The numbers are too different to be useful in comparison. Your source seems purposefully misleading.

Jim, shame on you for citing your own website as a source without disclosure.

David Dean Jim, you can't reasonably compare ~1 death a year to ~500 deaths a year. The numbers are too different to be useful in comparison.
JK First the MAX deaths of about 1 per year have been going on for 11 years now, so it is hardy a fluke. (Has it really been over a year since the last MAX killing? If so we are about due for another.)

The standard way to compare safety is per exposure. If one person per year does something and one person per year dies doing that something, we justly think it is dangerous. Conversely if something is done 100 million times a year and one person dies per year, we think it is pretty safe. That is why we have to consider exposure - how many people do it. (It is the same for many other things like drugs, cancer causing chemicals, industrial activities etc.)

In transportation the goal is to get from one place to another, so the logical measure is to use trips or miles. Since trips can vary in length, we use miles of exposure to the danger. To account for the fact that more people use some modes than others, we use passenger-miles to compare dangers.

Here are the deaths per passenger-mile. (Actually per 100 million passenger-miles to get numbers that don’t have a bunch of zeros ahead of them):

MAX death Rate............... .1.14 deaths per 100 million passenger- miles
Motor Vehicle death rate... 0.46 deaths per 100 million passenger- miles
So the MAX death rate is 2 ½ times the motor vehicle death rate over the period of 1987 - 2006.

If one manufacturer’s product was 2 ½ times as deadly as another’s I’ll bet you would want it off of the market. But of course light rail is about religion, not transportation.

See: DebunkingPortland.com/Transit/MAXSafetyChart.html for the calcualtions and original data to prove that this is correct. Be sure to click on things to get back to the original government or other credible sources.

David Dean Your source seems purposefully misleading.
JK What source might that be? The newspaper? Trimet? Or perhaps Portland State University’s Second Annual Portland Metropolitan Region Transportation System Performance Report. Or my presenting those sources on DebunkingPortland.com?

Thanks
JK

It'll certainly improve the quality of life for the auto manufacturers and oil companies who apparently pay your salary, Jim.

I see Nerd Burger has no rational argument and has decided to attack me personally.

Thanks
JK

I didnt know about the meeting or townhall that was coming to my neighborhood before I got the robocall on my answering machine.

Thank you, because usually I think that government does a really poor job publicizing these sorts of things taht are really important to the entire city and that eveyrone should provide input on.

And it does seem like robocalls should cost a lot less than actually hiring or coordianating volunteer callers, too.

Email notices, a post card to each household and a meeting telephone message from the local neighborhood president, meeting listings on most all the evening newscasts: I want to thank the Sam and his team for doing to what has to be the most complete meetng notice I have ever witnessed. Bravo.

I agree whole heartedly with the post above. We have spent far more than these road repair costs on light rail, streetcars and the new project for the mall. We used federal dollars before to convert a freeway allocation to the first light rail. It is worth trying to do again. Even so, these other projects are not 100% federal funds. Our contribution, locally, is still considerable. What is the amount?

Further problem: the streetcars require ongoing subsidies to operate. How much are these? In total, how many local dollars are being used for the new mall, the new light rail through town, the streetcar extension and the operating subsidies supplied by the city.

Lastly. A 12 cent per gal. gas tax only imposed within the city will likely send all of us to the suburban area for gas. After all, a 15 gal purchase at 12 cents saves us $1.80. Another effect will be on the gas station owners as their volume decreases. How many will you put out of business?

Do the repairs and maintainece from the general fund!

Light Rail and the Bus Mall are both operated by and almost fully paid for (PDOT still does the street maintenance) through TriMet, which is funded through a payroll tax and receives no gas tax dollars.

I have to say that I honestly don't know the exact history of how the funds were transferred from the highway project to LRT. Obviously, there must have been a lot going on behind the scenes to make that move acceptable both politically and legally. I agree with you that it is defnitely worth delving into.

As for the General Fund paying for transportation maintenance, I agree with you in a broader philosophical sense that there is not a great reason why GF cannot be used for transportation. That said, I also know that with both Police and Fire understaffed that it would be a hard sell and not very politically palatable, since it would require some tough trade-off decisions. The funds would need to come from somewhere, and that would mean a cut in some GF-funded program or service.

I disagree on principal that general funds should be used for roads. Roads should be paid for by users fees, such as gas taxes. Subsidizing users results in more use. I don't think we want that. Using general funds masks the problem, which is that users haven't been willing to come up with the user fees needed to maintain the system. You start down the road of subsidies (excuse the pun) and we'll be on if forever. Most people have no grasp of how society's assets are paid for (you're getting criticized on this blog for thing that other governments do!). Don't subsidize roads with general funds. If they start to fall apart, maybe people will vote to increase user fees to take care of them. Make the choices clear.

Using your logic, everything should be funded by user fees.

The fact is, roads benefit everyone -- just like schools, police and fire departments. Everyone should help pay for roads since everyone benefits from them.

Joke? I'll respond respectvully to your comments.

I believe a lot of things should be paid for by user fees. I'm fairly socialist but I'm also an economiist. When, as a society, we agree that we want to subsidize things, that's fine with me. (schools, libraries, medical care for kids, etc.)

But when we don't, I think we're all better off using the "free market approach", of user fees. Many, many things benefit everyone, but most of them are paid by the user. Metro has tried to argue that the Convention Center benefits us all, and has asked us to kick in through property taxes. We said no. I think that's right. Farmers benefit everyone, but we don't pay for them with the general fund. Sewer and water systems benefit everyone, but the users pay for those services (In Oregon; In California, often water isn't metered, and, guess what, people use more and they have big water problems).

First off, the fact you're "fairly socialist" puts a massive dividing line between our points of view.

That said, water and sewer are funded by as user fees because they are easily controllable and metered (roads are not). Moreover, 99.9% of the population uses water and sewer and everyone pays toward it in some way, shape or form (unless you're homeless, living on the street and not paying taxes anyway).

As for agriculture, I'm totally against subsidizing them. They should compete on the free market like other industries. I'm against subsidizing pretty much everything other than education, transportation, safety and defense.

But we all use roads; for transportation of people (yes bicyclists, too), emergency vehicles and commerce. It doesn't matter if you're a complete shut-in, roads still benefit you. A portion of the general fund budget should go to roads. If there was a less big-brotherly way to tax milage, I'd be for that, but I'm not too keen on having the government track my car via GPS.

Yes, it's interesting. I'm proposing the conservative free market approach, and you're proposing the socialist approach, opposite, evidently of our philosophical biases.

I think a gas tax is a pretty effective user fee; the more road you use, the more gas you buy, the more you pay for the road. Works for me.

Been nice chatting. I think we understand each other.

"That said, I also know that with both Police and Fire understaffed that it would be a hard sell and not very politically palatable..."

Isn't it nice how all the urban renewal and subsidies Sam approved is gutting the general fund? Now you have the audacity to ask for more money?

You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

In the two years I have been transportation commissioner I have taken a balanced approach to the modal issue. I am not anti-car; I own and use one. We spend less than 2% of our capital dollars on bikes. We spend 15% on pedistrians. The remainder goes to truck and car projects. I encourage you to dig into the facts and see for yourself.

Sam said; “In the two years I have been transportation commissioner I have taken a balanced approach to the modal issue.”

Sam,

Misrepresented however is the absence of a balanced funding approach that would directly tax the users of alternative modes of transport instead of poaching funds from motorist paid taxes and fees. Missing from your (motorist only) “user pays” oratory is the reality that that bicyclists and transit riders are users of the road too. Balancing resources must include a bicycle tax directly assessed on adult bicyclists and the bicycle mode of transport that would pay the price tag for your glorified platinum desires. Also included must be increased transit fares or surcharges added to cover a far greater share than the current 21% for just transit operating expenses. Then Sam there is your other personal pet project, the Portland Streetcar that requires millions of dollars of operating subsidies annually, in part from motorist paid parking meter revenues, just to keep rolling. Redirecting those parking meter dollars and the money spent on going platinum would go a long way to reducing Portland’s street maintenance backlog.

I'd be happy to move to a system where everyone pays for the costs they incur on society. Cyclists would pay for the very low costs of of infrastructure, and get paid $1000 for the forgone health care costs that we save by being active.

Drivers get to pony up for global warming costs, for health care costs, for crash costs, for road costs, for noise pollution, and for all the space drivers need on the roads, and the cost of roads that have to be very thick to deal with multiple-thousand-pound vehicles driving on them.

Be careful what you wish for. Survey after survey show that bicyclists are subsidizing drivers, not the other way around.

Why do individuals who apparently desire to be taken seriously still insist on using attempted put-downs like "toy trains" and "sowhat"? It's only one small step further down the rhetorical steplatter to simply calling people "stupid", or telling them to "shut up." Let's leave schoolkid insults to the schoolkids and try to talk like adults.

As for modal equity, I agree with Sam that the balance is not too heavily weighted away from auto travel. Obviously Bob, you'll never get 4000lbs of tools on a streetcar. No one expects that. But funding alternatives allows those that can (and want to) use the alternatives a means to get out of your way. The latest census data shows that 13.3% of Portland commutes are by transit, and 3.5% are by bicycle. Those numbers are only possible due to the past investments in those modes. Imagine the mess we'd be in if those additional 17% of commuters were driving alone to and from work.

On a personal level, I frequently end up driving somewhere not because I want to, but because there isn't a safe and/or efficient way to get there by transit or bicycle. If an alternative existed for those trips, I wouldn't be in a car contributing to the congestion and wear and tear on the road. I may be "voting with my car" on those trips, but there's often only one choice on the ballot. Given alternatives, I'd be out of the way and you (and your 4000lbs of tools) would get where you're going sooner.

There's no arguing that our transportation infrastructure needs further investment. Thanks to Sam for having the courage to pursue this. We all need to come together and realize that a well-balanced transportation system will benefit us all.

Thanks for taking the time to listen.

And, of course, the proper spelling above should have been "stepladder". I apologize.

I appreciate your comment about speaking respectfully as adults to each other. But also understand how people can be rankled about this - once again, Sam is being hailed as a courageous visionary when all he is doing is proposing, yet again, more new taxes. That takes no courage and no vision in this city, where leaders routinely call for taxes at the same time crying that the sky is falling. Just look at the track record over the last 8-10 years.
Even if the situation is as bad as he claims, I agree with others: it is a sad commentary on his own leadership or lack thereof. Prior to being commissioner, he was with Mayor Katz for years. He and other elected officials stood by and did nothing to prevent this situation from occurring. It's not that nothing could have been done. But they chose instead to spend public dollars on so-called street improvements that make driving more difficult and dangerous, lining our streets with huge swaths of concrete barriers, and pet projects with massive cost overruns like the OHSU tram.
Sam has little credibility on transportation issues in my book. His call for new taxes to fix a problem for which I blame him is an indictment on his own failure to lead. Where are the true visionaries this city now needs?

While this is only one instance, I do remember that former transportation commissioner charlie hales tried to do some transportation fee in 2001 and got slammed by oregonian editorials and fred meyer.

My guess is that there were other attempts, too, but that the antitax zealots/ideologues stopped them - not caring that it just would mean that it would cost us all more to fix the problem later.

Public investment is smart for business and the economy and the fact that anti-taxers are too short-sighted to see that always irks me.

Taxes are not all bad- they are or can be investments, which if done well, make us all better off.

Are you saying that Sam should have called for higher user fees (gas tax, etc) while he was on Vera's staff, instead of waiting until now? What did you expect him to do while he was working in the mayor's office?

I don't know if the Mayor had the Transportation Bureau then, but whoever was the Transportation Commissioner should have dealt with this, yes. But now, Sam is Transportation Commissioner, and it seems that, after an appropriate amount of time settling into the job, he is bringing up the issue. Makes sense to me.

Bob, where do you plan to go that has a better transportation situation?

My former employer chose to locate in Portland instead of Seattle or San Francisco because transportation is better here. In one of those other cities, he said it would take too long to drive across town and too much billable time would have been lost during transit.

My uncle gets up at 4:00 AM to begin his 3 hour commute to Los Angeles.

It seems to me we are doing things right in Portland and we should applaud our leadership and continue to support them.

The way funds are allocated definitely DOES matter.

For instance, for every dollar of the (state) gas tax that Metro-Portlanders pay and send to Salem, the Metro area only sees 46 cents of it return to it.

And of that 46 cents, Portland shares that with other entities- it is distributed amongst the city of Portland, the counties, and Portland's surrounding cities.

We are constantly trying to be more efficient and make sure our process for selecting streets for maintenance is the best possible. There are always things we can do to improve, and we have been implementing a lot of them over the past few years- almost all of our senior managers at PDOT are new since the time Sam was in put in charge of the bureau. We are also implementing a series of management improvements to make sure that we repave streets at just the right time- paving too early or too late ends up costing more and being less cost effective.

I will tell you, all of these efforts we are taking to get more efficient(and there are a lot more) only free up funds around the edges and don't come close to filling the large and growing maintenance funding gap that we are facing in the city of Portland. (Every year, the maintenance backlog grows by an estimated $9 million)

The simple fact is that petroleum products (like asphalt) just cost a lot more! There has been 70% inflation since the last time the gas tax was raised in 1993.

Big Hummerlike SUV's absolutely cause the most damage to our road system as well as to our environment. Why not add 500 dollars of tax for every mile per gallon less than 30 on new cars sold? Or perhaps 1000 dollars of tax for every 1000 pounds over 3000?

People that are willing to ride around in these machines need to be responsible for the damage that they cause. Your average 160 pound biker isn't doing anything to screw up our roads. Tax bicyclists for construction of bike lanes, sure, but poor road conditions aren't their fault.

The other culprits are trailer tractors, ups vans, and the like. If they want to do business here, make them pay for the damage they are causing to our roads.

"The other culprits are trailer tractors, ups vans, and the like. If they want to do business here, make them pay for the damage they are causing to our roads."

AND if these 'culprits' DON'T operate here our economy and the goods, services and conveniences that you know and love goes down the tubes. I'd love to see this city TRY to survive a month with none of the above mentioned 'culprits' entering the Tri-County area; can you say stone-age? I knew you could.

As for money for roads - when the city stops spending money on things like dulas, arts and a half a dozen other programs and spends it on repairing the roads and making the city safe (enough cops, firemen and jail space) - then we can talk about more money for roads. The city is like a child, they want everything and when they can't have it all they cut off a hand to spite a finger - then they whine about the hand and want to tax us to get it back.

Prioritize, make the roads safe and the citizens safe THEN we will talk about more money. The city spends money worse than a drunken sailor.

The same kind of thinking "profits and economic growth before public investment" has led us to the problem we face today. Using the same kind of thinking to solve the problem is ineffectual in the long run. For those poo-pooing limitations or taxes on heavy users and calling those advocates "short-sighted" is ironic indeed. Anyone proposing carbon taxes or vehicle-weight-mile taxes are visionaries and are WAY more long-range thinking than you "Native Portlander." Your sights are on economic prosperity which to you means $$$$. To those trying to create a sustainable environment, your thinking is the "status quo kind" which got us into this jam in the first place - "Let's hold off on making public infrastructure investment so I can make more money for myself..." Do you disagree?

Taxing five year olds who bike? Taxing people for a bucket of paint? How exactly is that going to work? Tax on bike sales (they'll buy them in Vancouver)? Stopping people as they bike? Don't the police have more important things to do?

You can't even tell me how much money you think we spend on bikes -- I'll tell you. It's less than 2 cents on the dollar. And how much would it cost to serve those people if they were drivers? Built a new road or river bridge lately? THe Sellwood's going to cost $200 million. Imagine having to build space for all the cyclists. A few bike lanes don't even come close to a tenth of that cost.

If you don't want to pay for maintenance costs, why not sell your car and get on a bike? Otherwise, stop complaining and pay for the damage that your vehicle is causing.

Terry,

I love how you resolutely and continually refuse to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of bikers in Portland also own cars and hence also directly pay for bicycle infrastructure. We simply utilize bicycles under particular circumstances to make efficient use of our transportation options.

However, I do kind of understand your refusal to acknowledge reality. After all, if you did, not only you would have nothing more to complain about, but you would actually realize how ridiculous you sound.

I'm just another lowly bike commuter in favor of sticking the bill squarely on the backs of single-occupant commuters driving gas guzzlers. We need to put some serious disincentives in place to check this destructive trend. What's next? Tanks?

Environment aside for just a second, we need to disconnect ourselves from the teat of imported oil. How many more lives will be lost to keep the black milk flowing to our greedy, super-sized lips?

"But until Portland adds a little "stick," there won't be significant defection from the cult of cars. We need to make it expensive, inconvenient, and slow to drive your own car in Portland."

Jeff, I'm curious if you have kids or have to commute outside Multnomah County for work. These two things seem to me to be the great dividing line between the anti-car crowd and the rest of us. I also wonder if you realize that making it expensive, inconvenient, and slow to use a car in Portland will be the final stroke to transform the city into a exclusive, elitist playground for retired and childless white people (in other words the entire city will become the Pearl)
If that's what you want, fine - you seem to have many allies. But that's a future I won't be sticking around for.

Remind me why African-Americans can't ride bikes again?

I COULD have a job which requires me to commute outside of Portland, but I choose not to. (And I choose a job that compensates me much less than my previous job, for quality of life reasons.) If I did have such a job, I'd consider moving to Hillsboro, or wherever, rather than wading through an hour of traffic every day.

I do have a kid, who rides the city bus to school. We either walk to restaurants and stores, ride the bus, or ride our bikes. She seems to have survived the experience pretty well. She's gotten pretty good at reading a bus schedule by now!

Yes, it's a little bit of a pain in the ass to bike everywhere. I always felt guilty about roaring around in a big car by myself, or with one other passenger, and now I don't. I know it's not completely feasible for everyone, but cars add a lot of danger and irritation to everyone else, and drivers should be prepared to put up with some compensatory expense and nuisance.

Well, that's my deeply biased opinion, anyway.... but for what it's worth, I'm not an elitist, nor am I childless. I'm a lower middle-class guy who stays in Portland because it's progressive, liberal, and green. And I want it to become more so, not less....

African Americans riding bikes? Not sure I follow that one. As for the rest of it, fair enough. I was mostly curious. Interesting you are a lower middle class guy, my point was that middle class people won't be able to stay in Portland much longer because they won't be able to afford it, and I think making it harder to drive will only accelerate this phenomenon.
Inner Portland cetainly is progessive, green and liberal, it is also increasingly unaffordable. Maybe I'm wrong and you're right, time will tell. I'm sorry you used to roar around in your big car, you should have slowed down, cyclists hate that kind of thing. Just kidding.