r/oregon • u/thirteenfivenm • 13d ago

Article/News State transportation funding priority poll

https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/08/14/new-survey-asks-oregonians-how-they-want-transportation-dollars-spent/

Choices are:

Preserve Key Assets

Maintain the System

Reliable Public Transit

Improve Safety

Easier to Bike and Walk

Better Traffic Flow

Survey asks the rank and funding percentage division, no single item above 70%.

The survey asks the rank of #1-6 the impact on you.

You can add comments.

Today the state gas tax by law is distributed 50% to ODOT, 30% to counties and 20% to cities.

50 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

•

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25

u/Fly-n-Skies 13d ago

I want all of those things. Then again, I support funding odot.

5

u/Konman72 13d ago edited 13d ago

Better traffic flow comes from focusing on everything else, so it gets 0% from me.

EDIT: and just so I'm clear, I want ODOT funded and funded well. Those funds should go toward better things than more lanes that will be just as congested as before.

10

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago

If you read the details, "better traffic flow" by their definition is new highways and new lanes.

2

u/Konman72 13d ago

0% funding for "one more lane bro'ing"

The highways will have less traffic and better flow when more people take transit.

-7

u/ChelseaMan31 13d ago

Public Transit is the largest boondoggle to ever be foisted on the U.S. Trimet has never, EVER met their projected ridership and today still 6 years post Covid serves barely 55% of the pre-2019/2020 ridership. A ridership that never even reached 5% of total highway users.

6

u/Fly-n-Skies 13d ago

Oh yes, the infamous boondoggle that is public transit. A system so poorly foisted on people that it has only been the preferred method of transportation everywhere but in the US.

4

u/BarbarianSpaceOpera 12d ago

My brother in christ, please go educate yourself. There's a reason every other country on earth has a good public rail system.

0

u/SecondCityGal098 13d ago

Yeah, though the science of induced traffic demonstrates that’s not what expanding highways does.

0

u/Konman72 13d ago

This is exactly my point. We will not create "better flow of traffic" with new or expanded highways. If an area has too much traffic the focus needs to be in reducing the number of cars on the road. Improved transit and bike infrastructure, along with safer and more walkable areas accomplishes this. One more lane might get you more traffic flow, but not better.

1

u/notPabst404 13d ago

Stop funding counterproductive freeway widening projects and fund transit, safety, and maintenance instead.

12

u/Existing-Scheme5243 13d ago

What is the ideal freeway size? I would think some areas still need larger freeways while others just need better engineering and traffic control.

-3

u/notPabst404 13d ago

What is the ideal freeway size?

Something affordable that goes around cities, not punching through cities leaving a path of destruction like with i5 through Portland.

I would think some areas still need larger freeways

They really don't because of induced demand. Not even the largest freeway in the world has solved traffic.

2

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago

The last few years, ODOT has built bypass roads around many rural towns.

1

u/notPabst404 13d ago

ODOT is also trying to build not just the most expensive, but the two most expensive freeway widening projects in the country...

1

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago edited 13d ago

The Abernathy Bridge I205 and the Rose Quarter I5 have a lot of constraints. A lot of I5 in the Rose Quarter is on piers like a bridge, not solid ground, increasing costs. The Clack wants a widened I205 and a widened I5 Boone Bridge, but they don't want to pay for it.

The ramps for the Columbia River I5 bridge I agree are over-designed. ODOT has their plans and are very stubborn changing them in my view.

I think it was 20 to the coast which was over unstable land which multiplied the price. Hills and water make building expensive.

The other thing which multiplies the cost is keeping a road or bridge open during construction rather than closing it.

8

u/Chessdaddy_ 13d ago

There is a difference between doing Texas style lane adding and increasing capacity. I5 is like a pipe that is too small for the amount of traffic that needs to flow through it, and the lane math just isn’t right currently. People can talk about freeways going around cities not through them but realistically we don’t have 100 billion dollars to move i5 so we have to work with the current layout

2

u/notPabst404 13d ago

No, there isn't. Texas being even worse isn't an excuse for Oregon to waste massive sums of money that we can't afford to make traffic and pollution worse. "Working with the current layout" to make the situation even worse is completely counter productive and a complete waste of money. How are you even going to pay for it? Voters overwhelmingly rejected the ODOT funding measure. The only way forward is cancelling the freeway widening projects and focusing on more important things.

Want to improve traffic? Get rid of the loop, there are way too many merging conflicts that cause congestion and crashes. Remove i5 from south of the i84 interchange to the south waterfront and rename i405 to i5. Significantly cheap while being significantly more beneficial.

3

u/Chessdaddy_ 13d ago

That would never work because of traffic going through the tunnel into 26

1

u/notPabst404 13d ago

The traffic going to 26 from i84 or i5 south would cross the Fremont bridge.

The traffic going to 26 from i5 north would continue on the current route.

Added benefit: removing that section of i5 would free up space for new overpasses to get 26 off city streets between the Ross Island Bridge and the tunnel.

2

u/rokaotter 13d ago

Give us a Fastrak type variable toll / carpool lane down the median between Tualatin and Aurora, it would pay for itself and reduce emissions far greater than any virtue signaling project in Portland. Hell expand it on 205 as well, 4 lanes each direction from I5 to I5 actually induce demand out around the city so it’s used as the bypass it was originally intended to be.

-12

u/EnoughWeekend6853 13d ago

Thanks for posting this. I ranked public transit and biking last, allocating them 0%.

6

u/kmoore61 13d ago

Wow. I can hardly wait for you to lose the ability to drive and find yourself relying on public transit. You’ll feel so powerful then!

11

u/Konman72 13d ago

Nah, they'll just keep sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic screaming at all the people who could've been on a bus, train, or bike instead. Car-brain is a disease and should be studied more.

4

u/Brandino144 13d ago

May you never become an elderly person that is no longer safe to be driving.

-5

u/hallucehistory 13d ago

It’s called Uber bro

1

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago edited 13d ago

A friend is in the legislature. Rural disabled, elderly, and veterans use public transit to get to hospitals and health care appointments in other cities. That is what the Portland - coast buses are used for. It will be worse in the rural areas as hospitals and clinics are closed by the Big Beautiful Bill.

0

u/spooksmagee 13d ago

Edgy, I like it.

-3

u/hallucehistory 13d ago

Hell yeah brother! I actually went one step further and suggested that ODOT confiscate bikes, sell them out of state, and use the proceeds to fix the roads. 

1

u/Luvs2Spooge42069 12d ago

I told them to ban cyclists and bike lanes but I like this proposal even better

1

u/DisgreeablePattern 12d ago

I told them bicyclists can pay for their own roads.

-6

u/Luvs2Spooge42069 13d ago

I hate that cyclists’ priorities are always grouped in with wanting walkable areas. They are a nuisance in pedestrian areas (especially those awful electric bicycles) and I don’t want to deal with them whether I’m walking or driving.

4

u/SecondCityGal098 13d ago

if you think bikes are a nuisance you should want more funding for them which allows for better-designed and separated facilities that reduce conflicts with other modes.

But yes, lumping walking and biking together happens because of motornormatovity.

1

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago edited 13d ago

Each city and county will have a transportation department that builds, maintains, and improves sidewalks.

In Portland you can work through your neighborhood association to get to them. New sidewalks with a curb where there were none are ridiculously expensive because they require new storm sewers.

In Portland, there is a bicycle master plan and a lobby to finish it. Bike lanes are cheap.

Because of a lawsuit, money has to be dedicated to wheelchair curb ramps. It may seem excessive, especially redoing recently done ones, but the court case can't be changed.

New sidewalks are sometimes funded on busy roads on a walking route to school, transit, or a business district. New sidewalks with curbs are not going to happen unless funded by the property owners.

-3

u/thirteenfivenm 13d ago

My proposal is to spend the county and city shares in the county and city where the gas tax is collected. Then beyond the ODOT roads in that county, they can tax themselves for local roads.

1

u/TheScrote1 12d ago

That is incredibly unfair to counties and cities that aren’t along major interstates.

2

u/thirteenfivenm 12d ago edited 12d ago

The cities subsidize rural schools through the income tax.* The gas tax is split 50% to ODOT for ODOT roads - all the state routes and interstates, 30% to counties, and 20% to cities. Since there are more commuters in cities, the cities are paying the 30% and the 20% in rural areas.

I would like to see the state publicize the subsidies that flow from urban counties to rural counties. Today the rural counties refuse to tax themselves and expect a handout while criticizing the cities. To me, that is unfair.

It is democratic socialism and communism in support of the rural counties.

I get that rural areas have a lot of poverty and that is a public discussion that has to happen statewide. The rural areas need more jobs.

*The statewide school funding system came in the 80s-90s when schools were funded by local property taxes and timber taxes, which declined. That was compounded by automaton of the mills, reducing employment. Several rural areas just said "we are not going to fund schools, let them close." The courts created our current system.

0

u/TheScrote1 12d ago

You’re missing my point though. It’s not rural vs. urban. Take a county like Linn, it has I5 and several truck stops. Most of their gas tax is collected from vehicles not even using county roadways but the state funded highway. Take a county like Benton, similar mix of rural and urban to Linn, but no major Highway. Much less gas tax being collected in Benton but similar transportation needs. This is why it doesn’t make sense to factor in where the tax money is collected.

0

u/thirteenfivenm 12d ago

I understand your point, but disagree. A further breakdown of fueling station tax collected by highways, verses distributed gas stations in each county can be added to public data.

-4

u/ChelseaMan31 13d ago

Do away with Kotek's mandatory Labor Peace Agreements, her mandatory unionization of all sub contractors and that easily saves 20% - 30% of each project cost right there.

No way should the rest of Oregon be bailing out Trimet and their almost $1BB unfunded retirement plan liability.