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As Portland’s roads continue to crumble faster than the city can afford to pave them, a committee of the Portland City Council is mulling a $68 million-a-year funding package that would charge homeowners, renters and utility franchise companies a monthly fee so that the city could fill potholes and keep its streets from deteriorating further.
Members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, led by committee chair Olivia Clark, expressed strong support Monday morning for imposing two separate fees to raise up to $68 million in revenue annually. The recommendation from Clark came after the city led intensive listening sessions and online polling across all four council districts to gauge Portlanders’ appetite for different funding mechanisms.
The funding package, if approved by the committee and then the full council this spring, would consist of two parts.
One fee would charge homeowners and renters a general transportation use fee, tacked on to monthly water and sewer bills. A single-family home would pay $12 monthly, while a renter would pay around $8.40. City officials estimate that would net $47 million annually.
The other fee, called a street damage restoration fee, would be imposed on utility companies operating in the city. At Clark’s recommended level, the fee would bring in an estimated $22 million annually.
“We’ve come to a very critical juncture, and we have a desperate need to fix what we all own,” Clark told her committee’s members after a presentation by transportation staff on the results of the city’s outreach.
She said a transportation fee would bring Portland in line with other West Coast cities.
“I’m absolutely appalled that our neighbors are raising more money than we are, and their streets are in better condition than ours are,” Clark said, “and that they are 20 years ahead of us in this region, which just blows me away.”
Clark’s four fellow committee members showed strong support for her funding package.
“I’m definitely in favor of going all the way, and getting as much funding as possible,” said Councilor Angelita Morillo. Councilor Mitch Green said: “It feels like hyperbole to say in 25 years our street will be nothing but rubble, but that’s probably not far off if we don’t do anything about this.”
The fees would add to the already-existing funding sources for the Portland Bureau of Transportation operational budget. The budget is generally supported by gas tax and parking fee revenues, both of which have steadily declined in recent years.
That’s left the bureau unable to keep up with basic maintenance of Portland streets, like filling potholes and patching sidewalks.
The bureau says its deferred maintenance backlog now tops $6 billion.
In 2024, WW explored how the problem grew. At the time, city officials were asking voters to renew a 10-cent gas tax, even as they conceded its revenues would barely dent the paving backlog.
The results of the city-hosted listening sessions showed respondents’ top priorities across all four districts were overwhelmingly filling potholes, closing gaps in sidewalks, street maintenance, and overall safety.
The committee will seek to send the package to the Committee of the Whole on April 2, which would then discuss and, if all goes well, send the package to the full council on April 8.
