Category: Transportation Funding

  • AWOL at the Portland Plan Workshops: Congestion Mitigation

    One of the questions asked at the Portland Plan workshops is where the City should focus its limited transportation resources. Different groups have had different top priorities: some favor transit, some sidewalks, one group said bikes. But in all six workshops so far, congestion mitigation has been near the bottom, including at the downtown workshop…

  • How Will We Fund the Bicycle Master Plan?

    As the “Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030” moves toward City Council adoption, the question that moves front and center is “how do we pay for it?” The estimated price tag runs into hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years – but is still small in comparison to our other transportation investments. In a discussion…

  • Who Says Cars Aren’t Subsidized?

    Streetsblog NY does a great job of documenting the fact that the Federal Government’s investment in electric vehicles in six months is greater than the entire annual budget of the Federal Transit Administration. And we won’t even go near the GM bailout.

  • Transportation Reauthorization a Windfall for Lobbyists

    Planetizen covers a report from the Center for Public Integrity on the lobbyists lining up to advocate for every possible angle on the transportation reauthorization. Many of the lobbyists will be former congressional staff members…

  • Contractors Not Satisfied with Every Penny of Gas Tax, Want More

    The Daily Journal of Commerce is reporting that contractors are griping that the Oregon Transportation Commission spent some stimulus dollars buying passenger rail cars rather than pouring it back into roads.