Portland Voters Decisively Approve Renewal of 10 Cent Per Gallon Gas Tax

The four-year measure will supplement the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s budget, which has been decimated by COVID-19.

Portland gas station. (Aaron Wessling)

Portland voters tonight greenlighted Measure 26-209, the four-year renewal of a 10-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline sold within city limits.

The measure was originally projected to raise about $75 million over four years, starting in January 2021, with the money to be used for repaving, pothole repair, safety fixes and other transportation improvements.

That $75 million figure assumed normal driving patterns. Traffic volume has declined sharply since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has both a near-term impact on the budget of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, which relies on gas taxes, and long-term implications, if traffic is slow to return to pre-COVID-19 levels.

No matter the case, voters passed the measure with ease. They seem to have grown comfortable with a tax whose creation damaged the political standing of both former Mayor Charlie Hales and former City Commissioner Steve Novick, who championed the concept originally.

In 2016, the initial measure narrowly passed 52 to 48 percent. The story looks different tonight: 76 percent of voters supported the renewal in early returns.

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