Portland road conditions worsen as city weighs new fee
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From deep wheel ruts to uneven pavement and even sinkholes, Axios Portland readers shared their frustration about our bumpiest streets and how little has been done to fix them.
Why it matters: These recurring concerns come as city leaders weigh new ways to fund road maintenance, including a proposed transportation utility fee that would charge residents monthly.
- That latest potential fix is up for a committee vote Thursday, and would then go before the full city council next week.
- If officials can't find a solution to the Bureau of Transportation's longstanding funding crisis, the agency's $6 billion maintenance backlog will only continue to grow and more services will be cut, officials warn.
Zoom in: When asked to name the worst stretches of road in a recent survey we ran, readers repeatedly pointed to the same problem areas.
- The most frequently mentioned corridor: Northwest 23rd Avenue (from Lovejoy to Vaughn). Other frequent trouble spots included Southeast Division (around 39th to 55th) and stretches of Powell and Holgate boulevards.
- About 75% of respondents said these streets have been in disrepair for more than two years, citing potholes, wheel ruts and cracked pavement as the top issues.
By the numbers: Opposition to a new transportation fee outweighs support among our informal poll of Axios Portland readers.
- About 45% said they were against adding a new tax compared to roughly 26% who said they would be OK with it, while nearly a third remained neutral.
What you're saying: "Fixes that do take place are mostly patch jobs that fail after a few months," Grant Bakken, who lives in Kerns, told Axios. "I would be significantly more open to a new tax if our property tax codes were rewritten from scratch."
- Richmond resident Hilary Waks was skeptical that any new fee would be a cure-all: "Portland will have to prove they can use what they have efficiently before I'm likely to vote for additional ones."
- Duncan Parks, who lives in Ladd's Addition, offered a suggestion: "We should charge for street parking everywhere to fund repairs. Street parking uses public land, and charging for it would put the cost on the vehicles that cause the damage."
Meanwhile, Shannon Pernetti of Creston-Kenilworth echoed a common sentiment: "The city can redo the Moda Center and not its streets?"
Follow the money: Road fixes aren't cheap. It costs an average of $300 to fill a single pothole, according to PBOT, which includes the work of crews in the field, customer service staff fielding reports from the public, and maintenance of the agency's interactive map.
- PBOT did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment about repair timelines, road conditions and maintenance priorities as well as funding constraints.
The bottom line: Portlanders will continue to see — and feel — the problems with our streets every day, even as the city debates how to pay for fixing them.