CITY CLUB OF PORTLAND
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study responds to a suggestion in an earlier City Club report that a committee be formed to answer these questions: “Is the governance structure for transportation (including planning, allocation of federal and state funds to specific projects, and other top-level decision making) in the Portland metropolitan region adequate to meet the needs of a region facing significant growth, aging infrastructure, and climate change? If not, what criteria or principles should be followed in making needed changes?”
After reviewing possible definitions of the “Portland metropolitan region,” this report settles on “Metro Region” for the area inside the Metro Urban Growth Boundary, and “Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area” to mean a broader area that includes the Metro Region and its suburban and exurban extensions in Oregon and Washington. It discusses the complex, interacting federal, state, regional and local components of the current transportation governance system. Transportation governance in the Metro Region is the product of Oregon state policies that require the close integration of land use and transportation planning, with a focus on transportation-oriented development. In contrast, Washington State requires less integration and less dense development, which makes unified, consistent planning throughout the Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area difficult to achieve.
The report discusses three case studies — the Sellwood Bridge, the Newberg/Dundee Bypass and the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) — that illustrate some of the flaws in the present system of transportation governance. The Sellwood Bridge has been allowed to deteriorate because ownership and responsibility are not linked to the users and their financial resources. The Newberg/Dundee Bypass has been favored by state politicians making deals at the expense of more important projects in the Metro Region. The CRC is a costly bi-state collaboration that is collapsing because of different land use and transportation objectives and local politics on both sides of the Columbia River.
The report then focuses on Metro and the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation within Metro (JPACT). JPACT has 17 members, including representatives of local governments (counties and cities), state agencies, Metro and Washington State. It makes policy decisions, helping to develop the regional transportation plan for the Metro Region, which is tied to Metro’s long-range planning document, the 2040 Plan. JPACT also allocates a small fraction ($23-37 million) of the funds ultimately spent in the region. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) controls a much larger percentage of the state and federal expenditures in the Metro Region — about $200 million per year for road-related projects, including interstate freeways, state bridges and local streets that have regional significance. ODOT distributes transportation funds directly to cities and counties — about 29 percent of the funds spent by cities ($56 million) and 48 percent of the funds spent by counties ($70 million).
The report next identifies future challenges affecting or affected by transportation governance: population growth, climate change, deterioration of existing transportation infrastructure and transportation equity. It discusses the proposed federal response, which will be implemented through the next federal transportation act, the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 (STAA 2009). STAA 2009 identifies serious problems that should be addressed, particularly poor maintenance of existing facilities, delays in completing approved projects, inadequate funds and a lack of a performance-based framework for intermodal transportation investment. It proposes major “Tier One Grants” for 10 metropolitan areas, selected in a competitive process. Criteria for selection include evidence of successful cooperation to reduce transportation congestion, the use of tolls for congestion management and infrastructure improvements, prescribed planning criteria, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and performance management.
The state has responded along the same lines as the proposed STAA 2009, with Governor Ted Kulongoski’s Transportation Vision Committee making recommendations, the most intriguing of which is the formation of a transportation utility commission, comparable to the Public Utility Commission, which would determine the revenue needs of the transportation system, including all modes, and then, using performance measures, analyze the means available to meet them. This would require a far better understanding of the cost of transportation operations, maintenance and desired improvements than exists today. The Oregon legislature responded to the Transportation Vision Committee recommendations by adopting HB 2001, which takes some of the recommended steps and increases the fuel tax, but unfortunately also establishes an unwelcome precedent of legislative earmarking of transportation improvements.
The proposed Metro 2035 Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) states a vision for the Metro Region transportation system that reflects the continued evolution of transportation planning from a project-driven endeavor to one that considers impacts on daily living. That vision includes a more thorough collection of data and a better use of performance monitoring measures. It emphasizes integration with the 2040 Plan. Unfortunately, the 2035 TIP defers consideration of 13 unresolved issues to some date in the future, including climate change, a regional transportation funding strategy, a regional bridge funding strategy and ODOT’s district and regional highways, which now function as aging urban arterials.
Before making any recommendations, the report examines six comparable regional transportation-planning agencies. Since each agency is a product of local thinking and political structures that have evolved over time, none is a realistic model for the Metro Region. However, in San Diego, where transportation, land use and energy planning are combined in a single agency (SANDAG), there has been a significant improvement in the
integration of these functions, with conspicuous political and financial benefits. In Vancouver, B.C., there is a fully integrated transit system across all modes, including the network of arterial roads, which has the potential to result in coordinated, multimodal transportation decision making. Planning in the Metro Region and even the Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area could benefit from the incorporation of some of these ideas.
The report then discusses potential improvements to transportation governance in the Metro Region. Acknowledging that bi-state urban area cooperation is an elusive goal because of the different views that exist on opposite sides of the Columbia River regarding land use and transportation planning, the report suggests that federal funding incentives and a joint Metropolitan Planning Organization might, over time, reduce bi-state conflicts. To address the conflicts that can arise between the Metro Region and outlying areas in Oregon, the report urges the formation of a new Area Commission on Transportation, to include Metro and Yamhill and Columbia counties, with the hope that this could provide a new level of cooperation and planning coordination. The report notes that ODOT and the state largely decide what investments should be made in the Metro Region, which contributes more transportation revenue to the state than it receives. For the larger Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area, the opportunities for collaboration with Washington appear more limited than with outlying areas in Oregon, but the report recommends working with federal incentives, such as the Tier One grants, and more energetic efforts by the governors of Oregon and Washington to produce a unified approach consistent with Metro’s efforts for the entire region.
The report considers three categories of regional and local transportation facilities: the Willamette River bridges, regional roads and local streets, and transit. It discusses the creation of a bridge authority affiliated with Metro and a funding source to support the authority. It recommends the transfer to Metro of all funds previously distributed or spent by ODOT within the Metro Region, other than funds for freeways. It suggests that Metro be given the authority to take possession of and operate regional roads and local streets when and if it makes sense, while making clear that now is not the time. Finally, it recognizes TriMet’s expertise and ongoing successes and recommends that Metro, which has charter authority to assume the duties, functions, powers and operations of TriMet, not exercise that authority.
The report discusses transportation revenues and notes the inequities in the present system of raising revenues for local transportation improvements, which are inimical to the wise allocation of funds in the Metro Region. To address these inequities, which arise from historical choices and unforeseen circumstances, the report recommends that Metro’s charter be amended to give it authority to impose property, vehicle, fuel and/or road use taxes, tolls and fees for transportation purposes in the Metro Region. All existing property, vehicle, fuel or road use taxes or bond levies imposed for transportation purposes by cities and counties in the Metro Region should be phased out at the local level as Metro exercises its new taxing authority, and any further such local taxes should be prohibited. Metro’s revenues will have to increase to avoid the continuing deterioration of existing transportation infrastructure in the Metro Region.
As Metro’s authority increases, the composition of JPACT will have to change to make it more representative. The report recommends that JPACT’s present voting structure be made more transparent and accountable by reforming it so that local elected officials of the general purpose governments (cities and counties) in the region are the sole voting authority, in proportion to their populations within the Metro Region. Metro councilors, Washington state representatives, and agency representatives would have a non-voting, advisory role.
Finally, the report endorses the use of a “utility model” for transportation decision making in the Metro Region, to do a better job of matching resources to need and to induce a more realistic approach to the creation of a well-maintained, multimodal transportation system. Over time, Metro should establish a system to explain its current revenues, expenditures, and facility conditions; a system-wide revenue estimate; a conceptual framework for a rate design and a strategy for collection, including peak and off-peak congestion pricing; and a framework for least-cost planning.
Download full report (PDF): Moving Forward
About City Club of Portland
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“City Club of Portland is a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and research based civic organization dedicated to community service, public affairs and leadership development. Through weekly Friday Forums, citizen-based research reports and other programs the Club examines issues of importance to the Portland metropolitan region, the state and society as a whole.”
Tags: City Club of Portland, Columbia River Crossing (CRC), Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation within Metro, JPACT, OR, Oregon, PDX, Portland
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