Via Planetizen.
An article in the LA Times bemoans sinkholes resulting from aging sewer lines (of course we had our own recent example of that in Portland).
I think this is emblematic of a much larger problem: we simply aren’t funding maintenance of key civic infrastructure including roads, bridges, water and sewer lines, schools and public buildings.
We’re living off the investments our grandparents made and we are not making comparable investments for our grandchildren to benefit from. It doesn’t matter whether you prefer investments in freeways or transit, we’re just not investing enough in the the public realm.
This is a function of the Federal government reducing or eliminating matching funds coupled with the property tax revolt of the end of the last century, and a shift of tax dollars into financing health care.
But whatever the reason, it’s a problem we need to come to grips with!
65 responses to “Our Collapsing Infrastructure”
I have lived in Portland for 30 years and never before seen the roadways in such a state of general disrepair. One or two more winters are going to leave us with so many potholes we might think we have moved to a 3rd world country.
On the bright side, potholes may be more effective than speed bumps slow down crazy drivers.
Chris, potholes/sinkholes have little to do with federal dollars. It has much more to do with budgeting for maintenance that any prudent person practices. Our sewer, water line, and street in front of our house has been in place for over 100 years. I believe we have paid ten times over the amount needed for repairs/replacement. We even had a sinkhole a few years ago that was six ft. wide by four ft. deep, and several brakes in the sewer line that flooded basements and main levels of homes below the street. It all about priorities in local budgeting-not waiting for the federal cash cow.
Chris, potholes/sinkholes have little to do with federal dollars. It has much more to do with budgeting for maintenance that any prudent person practices. Our sewer, water line, and street in front of our house has been in place for over 100 years. I believe we have paid ten times over the amount needed for repairs/replacement. We even had a sinkhole a few years ago that was six ft. wide by four ft. deep, and several breaks in the sewer line that flooded basements and main levels of homes below the street. It all about priorities in local budgeting-not waiting for the federal cash cow.
Chris, potholes/sinkholes have little to do with federal dollars. It has much more to do with budgeting for maintenance that any prudent person practices. Our sewer, water line, and street in front of our house has been in place for over 100 years. I believe we have paid ten times over the amount needed for repairs/replacement. We even had a sinkhole a few years ago that was six ft. wide by four ft. deep, and several breaks in the sewer line that flooded basements and main levels of homes below the street. It all about priorities in local budgeting-not waiting for the federal cash cow.
Looking at the PDOT and in some cases Metro, instead of spending taxpayer dollars wisely and prioritizing needed maintenance on existing roadway infrastructure, the real problem exists with those in power wanting to be remembered for flashy projects like streetcars, couplets, street makeovers with curb extensions, bicycle perks, esplanades, nature trails, TOD and high density subsidies, etc. that some people will view as their legacy. The results have been “Taxes Gone Wild” and a roadway maintenance backlog; in part because of an over reliance of a one leg funding stool whereby motorist paid taxes and fees fund the majority of transportation projects. When the users of alternative modes of transport such as transit passengers and bicyclists start paying a proportionate fair share for the services received and the infrastructure used, and the subsidy siphon from motorists to alternative modes of transport corked, money for street and road maintenance will begin to flow again and hopefully the correct priorities established..
Streetcars, couplets, street makeovers with curb extensions, bicycle perks, esplanades, nature trails, TOD and high density subsidies, etc. that some people will view as their legacy. The results have been “Taxes Gone Wild” and a roadway maintenance backlog;
Its interesting when you look at some of the urban infrastructure that was created in the past. There is an indoor community swimming pool at Buckman School built in the 1920’s. Taxes gone wild I guess. It stayed open through the depression, but Portland closed it at one point a few years ago because they couldn’t afford to pay the lifeguard.
There is Forest Park, why hasn’t it been sold off for development? The Zoo, another Metro boondoggle. OMSI, who needs it? Japanese garden? No one goes there, too crowded. Same with the Chinese Garden. Pioneer Square? Stolen from motorists, it ought be a parking garage. The park blocks, a complete waste of downtown real estate. Laurelhurst Park, an amenity for a few rich folks in Laurelhurst. The esplanade? Another of Vera’s follies. Waterfront Park? Tear it up and put the the highway back in.
There is a road maintenance backlog for several reasons. The gas tax has remained flat while inflation has dropped its real value. People are driving more and there are more people, putting more wear and tear on the roads. Money has been siphoned off the maintenance funds to build new road projects like Kruse Way, Roy Rogers Road, the Sunset expansion and the Jackson School Road Interchange to name a few.
Ross:
Stop it! If you keep citing all those roadway expansion projects I won’t be able to use my “we never invest in freeways and they are like way better than everything else” argument!
Thanks
NC
Ross,
You mention several entities that are distinctly City of Portland projects, such as OMSI (which provided loans to OMSI and Chinese Garden), Pioneer Square, Laurelhurst Park, the Eastbank Esplanade, and Waterfront Park. All of those are funded through property taxes on Portland residents, and not residents outside the City of Portland.
Now an argument could be made for all of the tax abatements/credits given to the “rich and famous” of the Pearl and SoWa, leaving the burden of those facilities left to the rest of Portland – I’m sure that Lents is getting their fair share (aren’t quite a few streets in Lents still GRAVEL??????)
On the other hand, you follow up by naming Kruse Way (which is a Lake Oswego city street, but also on the National Highway System – but it’s questionable whether any NHS funds have gone there because there have been no projects on that road in many years), Roy Rogers Road (a Washington County project funded through the MSTIP, which is a tax increase on county residents), the Sunset Highway expansion (which was an ODOT/FHWA project, and shall we recall that MAX preceded the expansion – what happened to MAX solving our congestion problems?), and Jackson School Road (a joint Washington County/ODOT project).
Comparing the two is apples and oranges; they are different projects paid for by different people and out of different accounts. The only thing that’s common is that they are all located in the Portland metro area, but so what?
I have to agree, based upon TriMet’s experience, that TriMet is robbing Paul (the bus replacement fund) to pay Peter (light rail expansions) so that we have busses that are 17 years old (1400/1500 series Gillig Phantoms, delivered in 1990) even though the FTA guidelines state busses should be 15 years old. The City of Portland has a maintenance backlog on roads – why is it using roadway funds to build Streetcar, particularly to build Streetcar in SoWa where roads didn’t previously exist; at the same time there are gravel roads in East Portland and backlogs elsewhere in the city?
Washington County doesn’t seem to have the same problem, because many county roads are going into city jurisdiction; however there are still many county roads in poor condition. But Washington County was able to build one new road (the Forest Grove/Highway 47 bypass) and then turn it over to the state (ODOT) – which says something about the financial prudence of the western county.
Finally, it seems that whenever Metro puts their hands on something, you can throw out sanity with it. Washington County has been successful because it has led many projects without Metro’s involvement. Clackamas County also has taken on the lead for projects and pushed them through. So in reality the City of Portland has a prioritization issue with what to fund and it’s desire to go for sexy (Streetcar) over the necessary (basic street maintenance – after all, would the City Commissioners feel good about themselves about pouring asphalt on a street that was annexed into the city 15 years ago but is still gravel?); and Metro’s insistence that light rail is everything, and highways are an after-thought.
This is almost comical. This blog is starting to sound like the chapters of Atlas Shrugged.
But I digress…
This is a function of the Federal government reducing or eliminating matching funds coupled with the property tax revolt of the end of the last century, and a shift of tax dollars into financing health care.
So my question is, how did we build the massive infrastuctures before? When our tax burden was a mere 1, 2, or 4%? How did we build the great electrification of the north east (that is now failing slowly)? How did we go from a modest little British Colony to an economic powerhouse?
It wasn’t “Federal Involvement”. I think the question isn’t so much that we are or are not investing the right amount, I think a lot of it has to do with how it is invested.
If that isn’t the case, why do we spend more on this mess than we ever have in history and at the same time only in the last 30-40 years are we starting to truly have problems maintaining and building fast enough to keep up with ourselves?
Something definitely seems amiss in the idea that we truly need to spend more (Why is 100+ billion a year not enough?), when we got by on such a drastically smaller amount and had so much better returns before.
…and yeah, there is undertones of the public vs. private debate here. The private industry built this country, now that the public industry has taken over so much we truly seem to be frayed at the edges and beginning to cave in on ourselves. All of a sudden there doesn’t seem to be money for anything and there are demands for more money for everything.
Obviously something isn’t right.
This is almost comical. This blog is starting to sound like the chapters of Atlas Shrugged.
But I digress…
This is a function of the Federal government reducing or eliminating matching funds coupled with the property tax revolt of the end of the last century, and a shift of tax dollars into financing health care.
So my question is, how did we build the massive infrastuctures before? When our tax burden was a mere 1, 2, or 4%? How did we build the great electrification of the north east (that is now failing slowly)? How did we go from a modest little British Colony to an economic powerhouse?
It wasn’t “Federal Involvement”. I think the question isn’t so much that we are or are not investing the right amount, I think a lot of it has to do with how it is invested.
If that isn’t the case, why do we spend more on this mess than we ever have in history and at the same time only in the last 30-40 years are we starting to truly have problems maintaining and building fast enough to keep up with ourselves?
Something definitely seems amiss in the idea that we truly need to spend more (Why is 100+ billion a year not enough?), when we got by on such a drastically smaller amount and had so much better returns before.
…and yeah, there is undertones of the public vs. private debate here. The private industry built this country, now that the public industry has taken over so much we truly seem to be frayed at the edges and beginning to cave in on ourselves. All of a sudden there doesn’t seem to be money for anything and there are demands for more money for everything.
Obviously something isn’t right.
I don’t understand why so many people are disillusioned that there’s this Federal Money Tree up in the sky and we can just shake it any time we want. We just send all this money back east then a bunch of bureaucrat paper pushers churn it around and then we have to beg for some to come back. They don’t even give us as much as we send to them. What we outght to be doing is making our transportation systems profitable locally. That said, I think everyone who rides Tri-Met, Streetcar, the tram, etc. should pay the full fare and pay for the distance travelled from point A to point B. The same logic should be applied to car owners. Eliminate gas taxes and put tracking devices in cars and charge based on their odomoter readings once a month. Get progressive with our funding sources instead of this 18th century mentality.
I think if you look at the REALLY big picture (not worrying about what level of government is paying) you would find that as a percentage of GDP, public infrastructure spending is significantly lower (maybe half or less) than it was in the ’50s.
I suspect if you did a pie chart of public spending (again, regardless of level of government) comparing the ’50s to now, you would see a general decrease in infrastructure and a vast increase in health care.
In part I’m suggesting that as a society if we could get health care spending under control we would be better positioned to maintain our infrastructure.
the Sunset Highway expansion (which was an ODOT/FHWA project, and shall we recall that MAX preceded the expansion – what happened to MAX solving our congestion problems?)
Hasn’t this idea been refuted on this site before? ODOT certainly had the Sunset projects planned out well before MAX opened in 1998, so why is this statement being repeated ad nauseum?
Bill: Yes, and those same people love to point out that they had to widened I-84 at the same time they built the MAX too. Of course, the 2 extra lanes on I-84 plus the MAX line were instead of the 4 lane Mt Hood, so it looks like that argument is pretty ridiculous. But we can’t let facts get in the way of our arguments, can we?
Hasn’t this idea been refuted on this site before? ODOT certainly had the Sunset projects planned out well before MAX opened in 1998, so why is this statement being repeated ad nauseum?
Because MAX is supposed to REDUCE congestion. It doesn’t matter if the Sunset Highway expansion was planned before MAX, the fact is that MAX was built, it was intended to reduce congestion, and it failed. Sunset Highway traffic volumes increased – and increased at a higher percentage rate in the year that MAX opened and the following year – and continued to increase every year afterwards.
Meanwhile, we’re building more MAX lines when traffic volumes – despite the addition of mass transit like MAX – are increasing.
A better argument for the pro-MAX folly would be that a highway expansion was built, then MAX – and that the reduction in traffic warranted the highway expansion unnecessary. Of course, that is simply not the case anywhere in the Portland metro area.
Erik: “A better argument for the pro-MAX folly would be that a highway expansion was built, then MAX – and that the reduction in traffic warranted the highway expansion unnecessary. Of course, that is simply not the case anywhere in the Portland metro area.”
Read what you’ve written again. Take out MAX and put in highway expansion. Your line of reasoning seems so colored by your passionate dislike of TriMet and belief in cars that, in this case, it ceases to be a line of reasoning at all.
Because MAX is supposed to REDUCE congestion.
According to who? Max provides an alternative to sitting in congestion for those who choose to take it. It isn’t going to prevent the people who choose to create congestion from creating it. Its about having choices.
Of course when people make the choice not to create congestion there is less congestion than there would have been if they hadn’t had that option available to them. So in that sense, Max reduces congestion.
ross said:
There is an indoor community swimming pool at Buckman School built in the 1920’s. Taxes gone wild I guess. It stayed open through the depression, but Portland closed it at one point a few years ago because they couldn’t afford to pay the lifeguard.
Umm … my understanding, from a Buckman parent, is that the swimming pool developed a large leak in its plumbing, located directly underneath/deep within its concrete foundation, and that fixing the leak would require demolishing and rebuilding the pool from scratch, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. And of course the district can’t afford this.
School funding is a real problem, but i don’t think saving the Buckman pool is as simple as hiring one lifeguard. Otherwise, a parent would probably volunteer.
Read what you’ve written again. Take out MAX and put in highway expansion. Your line of reasoning seems so colored by your passionate dislike of TriMet and belief in cars that, in this case, it ceases to be a line of reasoning at all.
OK.
A better argument for the pro-highway expansion folly would be that MAX was built, then highway expansion – and that the reduction in traffic warranted MAX unnecessary. Of course, that is simply not the case anywhere in the Portland metro area
Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Because MAX was built, and then the highway was expanded (I’m sorry but Westside MAX was built in ’97 and the Sunset Highway was expanded just a couple years ago, are you trying to revise history?), and that the expansion of the Sunset Highway did not reduce traffic; it added capacity to keep up with traffic demands (no one is claiming that new highways reduce traffic).
Further, if you even knew me, you’d know that your statement “your passionate dislike of TriMet and belief in cars” is flat out wrong. Otherwise why does my household own fewer than the average number of cars per household (we have one car) and why do I ride TriMet exclusively Monday-Friday? Can YOU make that claim? I actually ride TriMet every day (line 12-Barbur Blvd, 40 minutes each way from Tualatin to downtown Portland) and it’s that TriMet continually provides a poor service.
The facts are that 80%+ of Portland residents drive. The facts are that Metro intentionally withholds highway funding (as reported in the Oregonian on Monday), and that TriMet intentionally steals capital funding intended for bus replacements and gives it to light rail – the combination of which results in congested highways and more light rail at the expense of the majority of metro-area residents who do not live near a MAX line. Despite this, highway traffic increased. It’s no wonder that our infrastructure is collapsing, because the “we can’t build our way out of congestion” folks seem to be bent on building our way out of congestion by building more light rail – forget fixing what we already have.
Ross – read TriMet’s own literature on their webpage. According to TriMet’s OWN Fact Sheet, the #1 attribute of MAX is, and I quote:
“removes cars from our roads and helps to keep air clean”.
http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/publications/factsheet.pdf
If MAX isn’t intended to reduce congestion, then why does TriMet claim so?
Read what you’ve written again. Take out MAX and put in highway expansion. Your line of reasoning seems so colored by your passionate dislike of TriMet and belief in cars that, in this case, it ceases to be a line of reasoning at all.
OK.
A better argument for the pro-highway expansion folly would be that MAX was built, then highway expansion – and that the reduction in traffic warranted MAX unnecessary. Of course, that is simply not the case anywhere in the Portland metro area
Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Because MAX was built, and then the highway was expanded (I’m sorry but Westside MAX was built in ’97 and the Sunset Highway was expanded just a couple years ago, are you trying to revise history?), and that the expansion of the Sunset Highway did not reduce traffic; it added capacity to keep up with traffic demands (no one is claiming that new highways reduce traffic).
Further, if you even knew me, you’d know that your statement “your passionate dislike of TriMet and belief in cars” is flat out wrong. Otherwise why does my household own fewer than the average number of cars per household (we have one car) and why do I ride TriMet exclusively Monday-Friday? Can YOU make that claim? I actually ride TriMet every day (line 12-Barbur Blvd, 40 minutes each way from Tualatin to downtown Portland) and it’s that TriMet continually provides a poor service.
The facts are that 80%+ of Portland residents drive. The facts are that Metro intentionally withholds highway funding (as reported in the Oregonian on Monday), and that TriMet intentionally steals capital funding intended for bus replacements and gives it to light rail – the combination of which results in congested highways and more light rail at the expense of the majority of metro-area residents who do not live near a MAX line. Despite this, highway traffic increased. It’s no wonder that our infrastructure is collapsing, because the “we can’t build our way out of congestion” folks seem to be bent on building our way out of congestion by building more light rail – forget fixing what we already have.
Ross – read TriMet’s own literature on their webpage. According to TriMet’s OWN Fact Sheet, the #1 attribute of MAX is, and I quote:
“removes cars from our roads and helps to keep air clean”.
http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/publications/factsheet.pdf
If MAX isn’t intended to reduce congestion, then why does TriMet claim so?
Adron said:
Something definitely seems amiss in the idea that we truly need to spend more (Why is 100+ billion a year not enough?), when we got by on such a drastically smaller amount and had so much better returns before.
Any discussion of the cost of infrastructure through history has to be indexed against all that has changed since then: the value of a dollar due to inflation, the cost of raw materials, the cost of energy, the size of public works projects, the size of the public, the higher modern standards for large-scale engineering work, etc. etc. etc. Apples and oranges, in other words.
You know, this is just another one of those threads where everybody airs their pet theories without any facts to back it up. Yawn. I blame Chris for knowing exactly how to provoke all us forum lurkers. =)
Chris “suspects” that public infrastructure spending has halved since the ’50s. (1950? 1959?) I might be willing to believe that … if he’d actually give me some evidence … like any. But even suggesting that we need to return to ’50s levels of investment seems to miss what the ’50s were about.
From what I’ve read, the post-war years were a uniquely rich (in dollars) era in our history. All the strength we’d marshalled to fight WWII, plus all the technological advances we came up with to beat the axis, plus all the loot we plundered after we beat them, all suddenly got turned loose by a giddy, victorious nation to erect a modernist fantasyland of ultimate civic hugeness. They built it to last the rest of *their* lives …
“removes cars from our roads and helps to keep air clean”.
I don’t see “congestion” in that statement. You seem to think taking “cars from our roads” will inevitably mean less congestion. But as I pointed out above, it doesn’t in much the same way added capacity doesn’t eliminate congestion.
Because MAX was built, and then the highway was expanded (I’m sorry but Westside MAX was built in ’97 and the Sunset Highway was expanded just a couple years ago
The decision to expand the Sunset was made long before MAX opened. In fact the two decisions were part of an overall transportation plan for the west side. Everyone understood the number of trips was increasing and likely to continue to increase. I’m not sure why you think that foresight was a failure.
Greg Tompkins Says:
I don’t understand why so many people are disillusioned that there’s this Federal Money Tree up in the sky and we can just shake it any time we want. We just send all this money back east then a bunch of bureaucrat paper pushers churn it around and then we have to beg for some to come back. They don’t even give us as much as we send to them. What we outght to be doing is making our transportation systems profitable locally. That said, I think everyone who rides Tri-Met, Streetcar, the tram, etc. should pay the full fare and pay for the distance travelled from point A to point B. The same logic should be applied to car owners. Eliminate gas taxes and put tracking devices in cars and charge based on their odomoter readings once a month. Get progressive with our funding sources instead of this 18th century mentality.
WOW, For once Greg, I agree 99% with you (The tracking device could just be replaced with a road odometere – charges based on “JUST” roadway costs, no reason to charge farmers that are riding around in their unpaved dirt-pending that I’m 100% in agreement).
If only we had leaders that where ballsy enough to actually do something so bastly proven and intelligent. Instead, our system that worked was fixed until it is now, broken.
Ross Said “Its interesting when you look at some of the urban infrastructure that was created in the past.” & “The gas tax has remained flat while inflation has dropped its real value.”
Looking into that history of the urban infrastructure that was created in the past – at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, Portland had a bicycle license tax to pay for paved strips on unpaved streets for bicycles. Streetcar and transit systems were developed by private companies for the purpose making a profit by providing a service to transport people. The gas tax was designed as a user tax to pay for the construction and maintenance roads (not mass transit, bicycle infrastructure, esplanades, nature trails or subsidize land development). Each mode of transport paid the majority of their own way.
Today the first priority before any increase the gas tax is even considered is to look at history, and return not only the gas tax, but all motorist paid taxes and fees to a roadway fund only, and then directly charge/tax the users of alternative modes of transport for the services received and the infrastructure used.
The gas tax was designed as a user tax to pay for the construction and maintenance roads
Actually I don’t think that is true. The roads were already there, the money was added to increase the number of paved streets.
Portland had a bicycle license tax to pay for paved strips on unpaved streets for bicycles.
Do you have a source for that claim? I could not find any evidence of a bicycle tax in Portland, much less one dedicated to providing paved strips for the exclusive use of bicycles.
return not only the gas tax, but all motorist paid taxes and fees to a roadway fund only
I believe that is already in the Oregon constitution isn’t it? What really needs to be done is to eliminate that provision and dedicate the gas tax to mitigating the emissions the use of gas creates.
This History of Bicycling in Oregon seems to indicate that bicyclists were one of the major advocates for paved roads. There was a state tax for paved bike trails which I assume is what you are talking about. It lasted for less than two years.
Increasing the number of paved streets (and highways) is road construction and (upgraded) maintenance.
Yes – In fact bicycles without license tags on them were picked up by authorities.
The Oregon Constitution ties the majority of gas taxes to roads that is now widely interpreted to include bike lanes on roadways and sidewalks. Furthermore, 1% of the gas tax is allocated for bicycle infrastructure. Other taxes and fees, including federal gas taxes subsidize transit, subsidize bicycle infrastructure, land use tied to transportation and often pay for things like nature trails when new highway or bridge construction occurs. An example of the latter is money set aside from the I-5 Delta Park widening project of trails along the slough.
As previously proclaimed, motorist paid taxes and fees should be solely dedicated to roadways only with other modes of paying the majority their of own way before any consideration of raising taxes and fees on motorists is even considered. The freeloading, siphoning, sponging, tapping, draining, leechlike taking of motorist paid taxes and fees to fund anything other than motorist infrastructure must end.
The City of Portland had its own bike tax arounf 1900.
The decision to expand the Sunset was made long before MAX opened. In fact the two decisions were part of an overall transportation plan for the west side. Everyone understood the number of trips was increasing and likely to continue to increase. I’m not sure why you think that foresight was a failure.
OK, then let’s get I-5 widened to four-lanes in each direction from I-205 to the south I-405 split, and proto!
It’s called “foresight”! Portland needs the additional capacity to continue to be a major commercial, industrial, and transportation hub.
Oh, wait. Foresight is only permitted with light rail; when foresight is used in conjunction with highway planning, then it’s a bad word. So instead of envisioning “foresight” we are stalling major decisions in the metro area because we want to include light rail (new infrastructure used by a minority of residents, and serves limited functionality, as compared to highway-based transportation). That’s why, according to the Trib, nearly 80% of the federal flex funds that Metro is seeking is transit, and only 20% is highway flex funds; even though actual transit usage is the opposite – 80%+ is highway and 20%- is bus/LRT. I see a coorelation here; if we spent more money on highways (that is already paid for by highway users anyways) that we wouldn’t be arguing over our collapsing infrastructure.
I would not believe much that I read in the Trib. No one, or almost no one, in Portland wants the kind of “forsight” that destroys more of the most valuable neighborhoods in the region…one’s own.
No question the road building period is pretty much over; the issue is how to best build out the transit and bike systems into all corridors and sectors.
Terry –
Where are your sources? The history I linked indicates that the courts overturned the state bike tax within two years. There is no mention of a Portland bike tax.
Erik –
“Portland needs the additional capacity to continue to be a major commercial, industrial, and transportation hub.”
No. It doesn’t. In fact, adding more capacity to I5 will simply clog Portland streets with more congestion created by commuter traffic. What’s needed is to provide alternatives that are more attractive to those commuters than continuing to create that congestion.
i can think of one scenario where I5 would be changed into an 8 lane highway thru portland:
if there is a new generation of cars that are much quieter, pollute much less, and can be driven safely in much smaller lanes.
I5 is built to capacity. its as wide as it will ever be.
Because MAX is supposed to REDUCE congestion.
Last time I checked, the MAX didn’t move any cars. It moves people. It’s your choice if you want to ride the MAX or not, but I think it’s doing pretty darned good for such a limited and incomplete system. Now, if we had another 5 or so lines that actually gave decent coverage of the Metro area, it would make more of a dent.
Ross, one of the most important reasons that Boeing has moved its headquarters and sent much of it’s manufacturing out of state/country is the failure of providing service vehicular mobilility in the Puget Sound region. Boeing made pleas to planners for a recognition of this problem decades ago. This has been reported by some trade publications, press, and insiders.
Our freeway system and other service mobility streets are vital to the future of our region. We also have many businesses making the same kind of pleas as Boeing. Ask Intel about their concern in the time it takes to ship goods from Hillsboro to PDX to meet a flight certain. There are now giving themselves a 2 hr lead time to make sure the flights are met. The list goes on, but you hear little about this in the press, because these companies do not want negative press. But someday they may be just like Boeing-we kindly spoke, you didn’t listen-we left.
Ask Intel about their concern in the time it takes to ship goods from Hillsboro to PDX to meet a flight certain.
I am sure their transportation folks at Intel think that is critical. But I remember the representative from Intel at the e-freight conference talking about how delivery times were just not a priority for Intel. It just wasn’t that critical to their operations. He went on to talk about tightening up the connection between purchases and manufacturing.
My guess is that a couple hours lead time for chips is not all that important. Its probably pretty annoying for Intel employees, the same as everyone else. But what is even more interesting is what are the solutions to improving movement of either passengers or freight between Hillsboro and the Portland airport? Highway 26 and 84 are built out. Adding capacity to I5 and I205 is just going to make matters worse when that extra traffic needs to move east or west.
The reality is that moving goods is important, but mostly to local businesses. But you need to find ways to take commuters and other trips off the road. Because, until you do, they will fill whatever capacity is built. And freight needs will remain unmet.
Intel will leave when Portland is no longer the a great place to attract the best employees from all over the world. The focus should be on keeping it a unique place to live and work. Part of that is creating a world class transportation system.
In fact, adding more capacity to I5 will simply clog Portland streets with more congestion created by commuter traffic. What’s needed is to provide alternatives that are more attractive to those commuters than continuing to create that congestion.
HOW? Expanding I-5 isn’t going to magically increase the population, the number of commuters, or the number of cars! Or are you afraid that by building a decent highway system, that people will be proud and will want to move here?
Intel will leave when Portland is no longer the a great place to attract the best employees from all over the world. The focus should be on keeping it a unique place to live and work. Part of that is creating a world class transportation system.
And part of a world-class transportation system includes having a decent highway system, decent bus service, etc. Yes – MAX has had a positive impact, but it has come at a price. We have a transportation system that is breaking because we seem to think that MAX is the answer for everything.
We have forsaken our bus network. We are not maintaining our roadways. Traffic is difficult at rush hour. MAX is not reducing congestion. Access to transit is being reduced (either by reduced locations to board, reduced service hours, or reduced routes.) We have focused huge investments on things like the Portland Streetcar (which is clearly anything but a transportation project) and the Tram; meanwhile large parts of Portland don’t have decent bus service that is reliable and frequent. Metro intentionally denies funding for much-needed street projects, in favor of “studies” when the problem is already known.
I would love to see more MAX – I’d love to see MAX built in a logical manner – but also not at the sacrifice of other service. TriMet needs to improve bus service; otherwise MAX becomes nothing more than a trolley between downtown and parking lots; and the remote areas now have local street congestion as the suburbs are now auto-centric. Metro’s land use policies all but discourage affordable housing, so 30% of Portland’s residents can choose where to live, while 70% are shoved into the outer areas (and less-served by transit). This causes greater demands on our local street network as more people are forced to drive, because TriMet has zero desire to build out bus service.
When transit is successful, more people ride – when more people ride, a higher capacity vehicle is needed, and that’s where MAX comes in. Anyone who wants to say Kruse Way needs transit – based upon what? I know Tigard and Tualatin needs better transit – try riding the 12, 76, 78, 94 or 96 busses. But TriMet refuses to make any improvements.
“MAX has had a positive impact, but it has come at a price. We have a transportation system that is breaking because we seem to think that MAX is the answer for everything.”
Erik,
Describe a major urban city in the US that does not have a transportation system that is breaking. To ascribe Portland’s woes to MAX or TriMet seems like more than a stretch. Take a drive to Seattle, Atlanta, Houston or San Francisco where they have invested huge sums in highway projects. In comparison Portland doesn’t look bad…
I personnally would agree to a 10 cent increase in the state gas tax and the revenue would go to the local governments for road maintenance. But the money could also go to “green road” construction or improvements.
Then we reduce run off faster and get the Willamette River cleaner, faster.
Our local roads are falling apart. Powell out between 148th and 174th is cracking up big time.
Ray
We have forsaken our bus network.
I don’t think that is true. But there is certainly a need to invest in improved bus service.
HOW? Expanding I-5 isn’t going to magically increase the population, the number of commuters, or the number of cars!
Congestion is caused by too many vehicles at the same place at the same time. Increase the number of vehicles that can use a freeway at the same time and you will increase the congestion wherever they get on and off.
I know Tigard and Tualatin needs better transit
I believe that the 76 is slated to become Frequent Service when Commuter Rail starts.
http://www.trimet.org/bus/frequentservice.htm
The primary reason our roadway infrastructure is collapsing is because there is an over reliance on motorist paid taxes to pay costs for the other alternative modes of transport that use roads, a one legged stool of sorts. In the tri-county area, Metro’s flawed social engineering planning scheme includes rationing highway capacity, hence the disinvestment in roads. Metro also wants to use the funds from this rationing to subsidize alternative modes of transport. Such a flawed methodology allows bicyclists in the bicycle mode and using bicycle infrastructure to continue to freeload their mobility off of other people’s funds. The flawed methodology also fails to calculate the subsidy cost burdens to society and the economy of operating a transit system that only goes downtown with any reliability, and does not meet the needs to transport most people to and from their places of employment. The costs and infrastructure needed to provide the latter type of service using transit are prohibitive and incomprehensible.
Furthermore, such so called smart growth policies are an attempt by political forces to separate the affluent, who can afford to pay for rationing, from the working, minority and impoverished classes of people; discrimination masked as a smart growth concept. In actuality, the majority of growth in the region is now occurring outside Metro’s reign of control in places like Columbia County in Oregon and Clark County in Washington where less density is mandated and less controls exist. Multnomah County, for example, has actually recorded a job loss in the last several years.
As a partial solution to resolve the transport infrastructure funding issues, before any increase in the gas tax or further taxation of motorists is even considered, a direct tax on the bicycle mode of transport must be initiated, and the transit fares charged must better reflect the true costs of providing a financially self-sustainable service thereby reducing and/or eliminating the subsidies..
Ross,
I checked my source and the bicycle tax in Portland was actually applied by Multnomah County, with statewide recognition, but was for the most part used in Portland. The tax in 1899 was one dollar for a bicycle license tag, also applied to out-of state bicycles. Bicycles without tags were seized by authorities and held until the license tax was a paid. 561 tags were issued by April 3, 1899.
Terry –
You’ve made that assertion many times, but if you took all of the state gas tax revenue which you have argued has been inappropriately used for alternatives you don’t like (striping of bike lanes, traffic calming devices, curb extensions, etc.), it wouldn’t come close to covering the backlog of needed road maintenance.
Your characterization of these alternative modes as being the “primary” reason our infrastructure is “collapsing” is, well, amusing at best.
– Bob R.
I checked my source
What is that source? The history I linked above says that the tax was passed in 1899 at the behest of organized bicyclists and was thrown out by the courts shortly thereafter. It appears you are trying to make what is an historical footnote into something more significant.
Increase the number of vehicles that can use a freeway at the same time and you will increase the congestion wherever they get on and off.
Are you suggesting that freeways sponstaneously give birth to automobiles? Widened freeways do not equate to instant traffic increases.
Describe a major urban city in the US that does not have a transportation system that is breaking.
So? The other major urban cities are investing in their highways. Metro has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that we don’t need to spend on highways. So it’s taking federal gas tax dollars and spending them on non-highway purposes – which means less funding for highways. Coupled with the “local match” which is general fund revenues towards transit, and we’re spending a lot of money on transit which isn’t contributing to the congestion problem, we’re spending less on highways, and now we’re spending millions on ‘studies’ such as the toll-road studies, that essentially tell us what we already know.
If we spent less time and money on planning and studying, and we spent gas tax dollars on highways, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Isn’t Portland’s maintenance backlog for the streets somewhere around $40M? How much has the existing Streetcar cost? We could have cleared up the backlog for the entire city, but instead the “eggs are all in one basket” on one streetcar line, far removed from the Lents neighborhood.
Whereas Washington passed the nickel gas tax (solely dedicated to highway purposes) and is making significant improvements statewide in their highway infrastructure, Oregon’s leaders remain devoted to insisting that transit be included – and that’s why every freakin’ gas tax increase gets shot down. People in John Day don’t care about MAX but they will yell and scream if U.S. 26 or 395 is impassable.
Portland’s solution would be “let’s build MAX to John Day!” Of course that idea is…well…DUMB. But until the Portland region realizes that light rail is not the end-all-be-all solution, every tax increase is going to go down in defeat. Our neighbors in Washington know that – and their economy is much stronger, there are more jobs, more major employers, and an all-around better government. Oregon’s idea of being in the forefront is MAX, and now we’re hardly in the forefront of anything except a broken tax system, a population which is mad about tax increases, a metro region that has despirate transportation needs but aren’t getting fixed because we’re bickering over MAX, and jobs leaving the state. Freightliner is curtailing production in Portland, did Paccar do the same in Tacoma??
Erik, Freighliner curtailing production in Portland had absolutely nothing to do with the city of Portland, local taxes, or local transportation needs but rather everything to do with the North American Free Trade Agreement and to a lesser extent emission standards.
Additionally, I have never once heard a comment on this website, or from any other individual, entity or organization for that matter, where someone claims that “MAX is the end-all-be-all solution.”
Why would you say things like these? You appear exasperated, and I do understand and empathize your concerns, but attributing strange stances to people/organizations and placing blame on Portland for Freightliner’s lay-offs just because it was conveniently easy to do so, doesn’t seem very constructive.
_______________________________________
“Freightliner defended as inevitable its decision to shift Freightliner-brand production to Mexico and open a new plant there in 2009. The company says competitors make more trucks in Mexico and undercut Freightliner with lower prices. Its Mexican plants will mostly supply a fast-growing Mexican and Latin American truck market, the company says.
“I view NAFTA as a unified economy,” Freightliner Chief Executive Chris Patterson said last week. “I have to.”
Critics say the truck maker’s move south benefits DaimlerChrysler shareholders, which owns Freightliner, at some cost to U.S. employees. Freightliner estimates it can build a truck in Mexico for sale in the United States for half what it costs to build one in Portland, mostly because its labor costs in Mexico are one-sixth what they are in Portland.”
http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/4/4/91496344.html
Are you suggesting that freeways sponstaneously give birth to automobiles?
No. Are you suggesting that automobiles spontaneously give birth to congestion? Because the one I have parked most of the time doesn’t. Its when and where people drive cars that causes congestion.
Dan,
OK, Freightliner has multiple plants, and they are expanding one in Mexico.
Why aren’t they curtailing one of those other plants and shifting production to Portland? I understand the slowdown in truck orders, but why shut down Portland?
Certainly economics – local economics – plays a factor. From local transportation issues (movement of people, raw materials and finished products) to education issues (inability to obtain skilled welders, thanks to our education system’s all-out desire to train students for college but not jobs) to taxation and wage issues.
Since this is a transportation website, focus on where Freightliner is – Swan Island. One road on and off the island, Going Street. Going Street leads to I-5. I-5 has the Interstate Bridge to the north, and a very badly configured interchange with I-84 to the south. Interstate Avenue is no longer a usable backup route as Interstate MAX took out 50% of the street’s capacity (Freightliner trucks can’t ride MAX.)
The reason I keep stating that “MAX is the end-all-be-all” is because that is Metro’s philosophy and that is TriMet’s philosophy. Look at TriMet’s own webpage – it’s “rail and bus projects” don’t have any bus projects. The only reason the Commuter Rail project is there is because it was forced down TriMet’s throats by Washington County. TriMet stubbornly refuses to invest in its bus network, the biggest investment it has made is…bus stop signs!!
Metro is well aware of the highway need; yet it makes no effort to plan for highway improvements or obtain highway funds. The Portland Tribune even reported on Tuesday that Metro obtained $90M+ in transit flex funds, but only ~$15M in roadway flex funds. And then it has the gall to turn around and say how bad the roads are – when it has a direct responsibility in controlling the purse strings. No wonder!
So we have a deteroriating highway infrastructure that ODOT can’t do anything about (because Metro controls the purse strings), Metro doesn’t want to do anything about (because of its obsession with LRT), and TriMet just wants more money for LRT at the expense of bus service. Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of trucks sitting on I-5 just trying to make a buck.
Meanwhile – Washington is investing millions in better roads, and its economy is reaping the benefits from it. So is California, and even Boise, Idaho, and Utah. Oregon, on the other hand, has had to borrow millions just to replace bridges that were built on the cheap, wasted some $15M on a “tourist” bridge on the east side of Mt. Hood, and sits around and talks about MAX as if 1.5 million Oregon residents use it to commute to work each day.
We have a couple improvements that are needed, several critical infrastructure improvements to replace things 50 years old or older. Not talking about the AWV, that has died down in the news up here for right now. It is the Albert D. Rosellini Bridge over Lake Washington, Interstate 5 through Seattle(going to have an expansion joint replacement in August), and the Ferry Klickitat. The latter was built in 1927, and recently some welds fatigued, and an entire deck plate had to be replaced, at the cost of $50,000! The replacements should be under construction, but the DOT wants to deal with only one shipyard, and at least one other keeps suing to get bidding opened up. Last month, the Klickitat had to be pulled from service just ahead of the anniversary of a bad day for BC Ferries up in British Columbia. March 22, 2006, the MV Queen of the North, built in the 1960s, sank near Gil Island in the Inside Passage. 2 dead. Thankfully the USCG did not let the Klickitat sail until she was repaired. As for cars, the Klick was built to carry Model Ts, not Model Vs(as in SUVs and RVs).
The PACCAR plant that build’s Kenworth’s is in Renton, but Renton has a better idea for that neighborhood. They want the Supersonics to move there, and the attitude in Seattle is, they can have the NBA team. We passed an initiative last year that required a rate of return on any public money for improving the KeyArena(which was renovated just 10 years ago) equal to a T-Bill. It passed with 75% of the vote. At the same time a tax levy for street repairs, opposed by Tim “wants a vote on all new taxes” Eyman, barely passed at the polls. The Initiative Guru was opposed to it, because he did not want essential road maintenance funding to be a special property tax levy. I would rather vote for Light Rail, a streetcar, even road improvements(if it was paid for by local option gas taxes or vehicle fees, not property taxes alone), over a sports stadium to replace one that millionaire owners and athletes have got bored with, seeing other cities build better. I have been listening to local talk radio on that one, and the Sonics say that in tax revenue, government will make money, but refuse to indemnify taxpayers if they are wrong about it.
I stated in a previous post “The primary reason our roadway infrastructure is collapsing is because there is an over reliance on motorist paid taxes to pay costs for the other alternative modes of transport that use roads, a one legged stool of sorts.”
I stand by that statement. First of all, motorist paid taxes are not limited to just the state gas tax. Second, alternative modes of transport that use roads include not only bicycles, but transit vehicles such as busses and streetcars. Third, although I said modes of transport that use the roads, light rail and commuter rail are also both part of the same equation.
There is an old cliché that states “proof is in the pudding”. With Metro and in Portland “proof is in the spending request”. As a previous post by Erik noted, Metro is well aware of the highway need yet they are requesting 90 million plus for transit flex funding, but only 15 million for highway funding from the Feds. Since all this transportation money comes from the Federal Highway Trust Fund (dollars that are generated from the 18 cent federal tax on every gallon of gasoline that is purchased by motorists), the term “flex funds” is but the latest new phrase as an attempt to disguise to the public how their federal highway dollars are being used to subsidize transit and allow bicyclists to continue to freeload. Currently, neither bicyclists or transit riders accept the financial responsibility for their mobility choices, nor do they contribute the funding source with any directly applied tax like motorists do. A better term than “flex funds” would be calling this type of funding “welfare gift certificates”. With these highway funds dwindling, in part due to the continued raid on them for alternative mode uses, the time has come whereby all modes of transport must start contributing with a direct tax on the bicycle mode of transport and surcharges on transit fares that also better reflect the costs of providing the service.
Currently, neither bicyclists or transit riders accept the financial responsibility for their mobility choices, nor do they contribute the funding source with any directly applied tax like motorists do.
Both of these are flat out untrue. No matter how many times you repeat them. As is the claim that motorists pay the full costs of their mobility choices. Mobility choices have a combination of public and private costs, paid for with a variety of funding sources both private and public. That is true for all modes of transportation including pedestrians, bikes, transit users, trains and motor vehicles.
Ross,
If what I posted was true and not a hoodwink job by alternative transport activists, motorist paid tax dollars would not be siphoned off from roadway use and be subsidizing transit and bicycling. None of the 90 million plus in flex funding Metro is requesting comes from transit fares or bicycle taxes. Bicyclists contribute zero directly taxed funding towards bicycle infrastructure and current transit fares cover little more that 20 percent of transit operating costs. That is a fact!
CORRECTION
If what I posted was NOT true and not a hoodwink job by alternative transport activists, motorist paid tax dollars would not be siphoned off from roadway use and be subsidizing transit and bicycling. None of the 90 million plus in flex funding Metro is requesting comes from transit fares or bicycle taxes. Bicyclists contribute zero directly taxed funding towards bicycle infrastructure and current transit fares cover little more that 20 percent of transit operating costs. That is a fact!
Ross,
While many (maybe even most) bicyclists also own motor vehicles, they don’t specifically pay for bike lanes; nor do they (or anyone else) have the option of diverting part of their taxes to bike lanes (otherwise I’m sure a large number of Americans would opt that their income taxes be diverted away from the Pentagon!)
On the other hand, those bicyclists who don’t own cars, aren’t paying anything at all. Meanwhile, motorists who pay gas tax and are under the assumption (as backed up by an amendment to Oregon’s Constitution) that their gas tax funds goes to highway spending. After all, it is a form of a user fee.
I would agree with Terry that if bicyclists demand improved bike access, that some funding mechanism be devised that does not negatively impact highways – it seems as though bicyclists are afraid of having to pay a tax for services that they want and use. I see no reason why a $5/year bike tax is not unreasonable – after all we have an ATV tax in this state, which goes to fund a variety of ATV-related purposes (parking lots and trail improvements). And the ATVs often don’t try to claim the exemption from motor fuels tax that they are technically eligible for as an off-highway use, so they are essentially double-taxing themselves.
I do not agree, however, with bicycle tolls, because it’s just unfeasible unless pedestrians are also tolled (a la the Washington State Ferry System). And it’s quite arguable that sidewalks and other pedestrian walkways are appropriately funded through general fund sources.
If there were 500,000 bikes in Oregon, a $5/annual tax would raise $2.5 million a year for bikeway maintenance and improvements. Why is that unreasonable to ask for? As an aside, there would be an instant licensing mechanism that would also assist in the recovery of stolen bikes. McMinnville requires a bicycle license (often ignored, because there is no enforcement clause in the city code for the requirement) but its rationale is to assist in the recovery of lost/stolen bikes. However, I believe the city bike license fee is still $3, and it’s a permanent license.
Terry, a lot of public services are mostly supported though something other than user fees. For instance, [in general*,] the police department doesn’t make it’s money off of renting out work gangs, or off traffic tickets, it gets a “handout” from the general fund. Same thing with schools, or the fire department. We, (as a society,) have decided that those things should be encouraged, and have funded them, and until you come up with a convincing argument why we shouldn’t, (instead of just pointing out that we do,) we will continue to do so. However, bicycling is good exercise, (less people showing up at emergency rooms cause they are having heart attacks, and since a lot of people don’t have health care, that affects the people that do have healthcare’s pocket books,) doesn’t pollute, (global warming,) and doesn’t tie up nearly as much parking or roadways as driving, so we as a society have decided to pay for it..
*The one notable exception is Coburg’s police force, which a couple years ago decided that they could make a bunch of money by patrolling I-5. And make a bunch of money they did, they made about 30% of their revenue off of tickets given on I-5, enough to buy new equipment, and hire two more police officers (for a total of 7.) Of course, the public, (many of whom were driving 80+ mph on that section of the road, even though it was signed for 65,) had a fit and complained, and so they stopped…
On the other hand, those bicyclists who don’t own cars, aren’t paying anything at all
Erik –
Every time someone bikes or walks to a store that provides “free” parking their purchases are subsidizing the folks that use that free parking. I guarantee you bicyclists and pedestrians, even those that don’t own a car, pay more of motorist costs than the other way around.
Almost all local streets are heavily used by a variety of transportation modes that are paid for by the adjacent property owners. Of course the property owners benefit from the street as do those that use it. But that is very similar to the benefits of bike lanes, they benefit the people who ride their bike, but they also benefit the people who drive their autos by taking those bicyclists out of traffic.
These complaints about bicyclists and pedestrians are like someone complaining about paying for their bottled water because people get to drink tap water for “free” with their meal.
Why is that unreasonable to ask for
I think you might find some objections from people who have to pay a fee to let their kids ride their bike on the sidewalk in front of their house. And I can’t imagine that $5 fee doing much more than paying for its own collection. And, like McMinnville, I suspect you will end up with enforcement being selective at best.
Matthew Said: “We, (as a society,) have decided that those things should be encouraged, and have funded them and until you come up with a convincing argument why we shouldn’t (instead of just pointing out that we do,) we will continue to do so”
Actually socialist political forces and politicians that want to control the lifestyles of the populous, often backed by media attention, have chosen this route. The convincing argument that bicyclists should be directly taxed for the infrastructure they use is simple, there is a substantial cost attached to providing that infrastructure, it should be paid for by those who use it, and it should NOT be paid for by those who do not use it.
Ross said: “Every time someone bikes or walks to a store that provides “free” parking their purchases are subsidizing the folks that use that free parking”
Someone who bikes or walks can “freely choose” where they want to shop, and decide not shop at a store with a parking lot if they so “choose” to do so. Therefore such a parking lot argument has no merit. However, if that same store decides to remodel or relocate, that store owner can NOT “freely choose” whether or not to supply bike facilities for pedal pushers (used or not), and that same store owner can NOT “freely” decide and design how much parking they supply to meet their customer’s needs even if they own the property. This is social engineering and comes very close to being discriminatory in nature.
Ross also said: “I suspect you will end up with enforcement being selective at best”
This already exists, I can not even count the number of times when I have been waiting for a traffic signal to change from red to green and a bicyclist just blows past and right on through the intersection. The same is true with stop signs. Are all bicyclists illiterate when it comes to reading four letter words rather than shouting them? Are they color blind? Furthermore, red light cameras just ignore bicyclists. Bicyclists already know selective enforcement and discriminatory enforcement already exists, and arrogantly demonstrate what they can get away with on a daily basis.
Someone who bikes or walks can “freely choose” where they want to shop, and decide not shop at a store with a parking lot if they so “choose” to do so.
I didn’t realize people didn’t “freely choose” to use their automobile or buy gasoline. The issue you raised was not about whether people have a choice, but whether people who choose to use one mode “subsidize” people who choose to use another. On balance, its motorists who are getting the subsidy from those who choose to walk or bike.
And Terry –
If you are going to make silly ideological arguments, then be consistent. The reality is that prices are set by the market. So it doesn’t matter whether you shop at a store that provides free parking, the price you are paying includes the cost of parking.
I can not even count the number of times when I have been waiting for a traffic signal to change from red to green and a bicyclist just blows past and right on through the intersection.
And I can’t count the number of times a motorist has almost run me over in a cross walk. Failed to stop at a stop sign, exceeded the speed limit, made an unsafe lane change or any number of other moving violations that have endangered my life. I have had not one such life-threatening incident happen with either a pedestrian or a bicyclist in my entire life.
Terry argument went something like this:
Actually socialist political forces and politicians that want to control the lifestyles of the populous, often backed by media attention, have chosen this route. The convincing argument that [parents] should be directly taxed for the [services] they use is simple, there is a substantial cost attached to providing that [services], it should be paid for by those who use it, and it should NOT be paid for by those who do not use it.
(It is exactly the same argument, I’m just using education as an example instead of bicycling. I could just as easily use fire protection, or police protection, or any number of other things…)
My response of course, is: Yes indeed. A well educated workforce, (not just the children of the wealthy,) is very important to the functioning of a modern society, and the media regularly reports that European and Asian children are better educated than ours. However, I think you are in the minority in believing that education isn’t a problem that should be dealt with by the government, so those politicians are just doing the will of the people, like they should…
(And calling our politicians “socialists” doesn’t help your argument. If you can’t explain what is wrong with it better than resorting to name calling, then maybe there isn’t a problem there.)
Every time someone bikes or walks to a store that provides “free” parking their purchases are subsidizing the folks that use that free parking. I guarantee you bicyclists and pedestrians, even those that don’t own a car, pay more of motorist costs than the other way around.
That’s an apples and oranges comparison.
A business CHOOSES to provide parking or locate where parking is required. A business that locates in, say, downtown, need not provide parking.
A bicyclist who CHOOSES to do business with a company that has a large parking lot CHOOSES to pay that business for services, which I’m sure includes that company’s operating costs which includes the parking lot.
If there is a large group of bicyclists who don’t want to engage in this, then why don’t they open up a whole slew of bicyclist-friendly stores that don’t have parking lots? Either way, there is a huge difference between paying for highways (with the gas tax, which bicyclists don’t pay) and parking lots.
Speaking of which, how many of us Transport bloggers are boycotting Haagen’s for their non-support of TriMet’s Commuter Rail project, because of their “infringement” of their parking lot? (But they do have a really nice, covered, bike parking area out front…) How many of us bloggers are openly supporting businesses in downtown Tigard or Hillsboro instead of in the suburbs? How many of us are boycotting Orenco Village, for its reliance on streets and parking lots despite being a “TOD”?
Erik: No I’m not boycotting Haagen over the Commuter Rail thing, nor am I boycotting them because they don’t fill prescriptions for the morning after pill… See, I’ve been boycotting the entire city of Tualatin for the last 10 years, ever since I had to sue a computer company there to get them to honor their warranty, (the computer spent 8 months out of the first 11 in the shop, including a lot of times when I’d go to pick it up, plug it in at their counter, and it wouldn’t work… I wasn’t being picky, they agreed it didn’t actually work.) This was about a month after my mother had to threaten to sue a sewing machine repair company to get them to give her machine back after they’d had it for 3 months and had done no work on it, which was about 2 months after some company went out of business 2 days after my Mother had placed a down payment on an order, (all of these in Tualatin.) As such, I can honestly say that I’ve never had a good thing happen to me in Tualatin, and I avoid the place like the plague. The fact that TriMet is having problems there doesn’t surprise me at all, I think it would be best for everyone who rides that train if they didn’t serve the city at all, preferable avoiding even passing through the city limits.
(Okay, that may be a little strong. I don’t have any reason to go there on a regular basis anyway, I don’t own a car, and I live a long ways from there, so it isn’t like I’m going to a lot of trouble to boycott them. :-)
Lets get back to the subject of conditions of our transportation infrastructure and how to fund maintenance and future needs.
In the State of Oregon, City of Portland and the whole Metro Region, government is and has been collecting record tax revenue and fees. We the citizens are paying more money in conbination as a precentage of our gross income to government to be redistributed by those the we elect to represent us.
Our elected officals and leaders have choosen to spend all of our money that we give to them based on priorities that many of us may not agree with, but they have the right and if we do not like it, vote them out.
I support increasing our State Gas Tax, I think it is a good and reasonal method to fund our roads and highways and it does not create new and expanded government to make it happen.
I support expanding the Transit Payroll Excise Tax in the Metro area to eliminate any exceptions, where significant entities do not pay anything to this method of funding the capabilities and expansion of all Transit in Metro Region.
Currently we use Tax Increament Financing (TIF) methods to fund to much and this method of grabing TAX revenue from going to where it should have gone has ended up skewing out everything.
It is that we do not have enough money it is because we have allowed this stupidity to exist.
Lets get back to the subject of conditions of our transportation infrastructure and how to fund maintenance and future needs.
In the State of Oregon, City of Portland and the whole Metro Region, government is and has been collecting record tax revenue and fees. We the citizens are paying more money in conbination as a precentage of our gross income to government to be redistributed by those the we elect to represent us.
Our elected officals and leaders have choosen to spend all of our money that we give to them based on priorities that many of us may not agree with, but they have the right and if we do not like it, vote them out.
I support increasing our State Gas Tax, I think it is a good and reasonal method to fund our roads and highways and it does not create new and expanded government to make it happen.
I support expanding the Transit Payroll Excise Tax in the Metro area to eliminate any exceptions, where significant entities do not pay anything to this method of funding the capabilities and expansion of all Transit in Metro Region.
Currently we use Tax Increament Financing (TIF) methods to fund to much and this method of grabing TAX revenue from going to where it should have gone has ended up skewing out everything.
It is that we do not have enough money it is because we have allowed this stupidity to exist.
[Moderator: I’ve let this spam comment through for a bit of a chuckle. I love the idea of so-called “libertarians” trying to make a quick buck via spam, which utilizes other people’s time and resources. In this instance, ours. – Bob R.]
Hey, nice article. We’re huge readers of Rand and Atlas Shrugged here too – so much, in fact, that we built the chain link bracelet that Rearden gave to his wife. We call it the [Redacted] and you can check it out at [Redacted]. Donations are going to the Campaign For Liberty so we figured you’d be interested.
If you’d like to blog about the Bracelet or have us write an entry on your site, we’d be happy to send you the “Friends and Family” discount for them! Please send an email if you’d be down, we would be very thankful.
Anyway… slick blog… we joined your feed now so thanks again!