The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-04-21
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (20,039 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met on April 21, 2025. Following roll call and a statement of conduct, the session covered three agenda items. First, Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) leadership presented budget information, describing fund structures, general transportation revenue forecasts, and a projected shortfall requiring reductions to programs including parking sign adjustments, safety camera expansion, derelict RV removal, street sweeping, pavement markings, capital project matching funds, and support services; figures for the shortfall and related savings were stated inconsistently across the presentation. Committee members asked clarifying questions about restricted versus flexible funds, ADA ramp financing through revenue bonds, general fund reductions, and potential additional revenue sources such as parking fees and transportation network company surcharges. Second, a draft asset management strategy concept was introduced for future committee consideration, described as citywide in scope and potentially to be brought back as an ordinance. Third, representatives from Albina Vision Trust and No More Freeways presented differing perspectives on the Rose Quarter I-5 project, addressing the highway cover, freeway widening, project costs, and federal funding, with committee members asking questions about project scope and future funding certainty. Votes, if any, occurred and outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The next meeting was scheduled for May 12.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 One row and.
1 Oh my gosh.
2 No. How long is the whole time? I took the top out of it. And anyone can use. Started writing on Saturday before.
3 Good morning. I call the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to order. It is Monday, April the 21st at 930. Diego, can you please call the roll?
4 Koyama Lane. Morillo. Here. Morillo.
5 Sorry. Here.
6 Green.
7 Here.
8 Smith.
9 Here.
10 Clark. Here.
11 And. Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
12 Good morning, and welcome to the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland.gov/council agenda slash transportation and infrastructure committee. Or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record and address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
13 Thank you claire. Thanks everybody for being here this morning. We have three agenda items. A fairly packed agenda. First, we're going to have a discussion with PBOT leadership on current budget recommendations, bureau priorities and trade offs that they're going to need to consider. Second, I'm going to share an asset management strategy concept that I'm developing and look forward to committee member input. And finally, we'll have one part of a larger conversation on major projects that intersect with the scope of our committee. Today we're having the albina vision trust and no more freeways to share their perspectives on infrastructure improvements in the rose quarter. And I'd like to emphasize, given that, that we anticipate having further discussions on the rose quarter work with ODOT and other partners at a future meeting. So with that.
14 Diego, would you can you hear me or. Went off?
15 Can you hear me now? Yeah. Diego, can you read the next item, please?
16 Item one discussion on budget recommendations related to transportation.
17 Thank you. The committee had a very in-depth overview from PBOT back in February, and today's conversation is really focused on pbot's budget. I've asked PBOT leadership to give us an overview of their fund structure, their spending priorities, and what trade offs they are facing in the next fiscal year. So with that, I would call up. I see director millicent williams in the audience. I'm not sure who's coming up with you.
18 Everybody.
19 Everybody. Okay. Well, you know, everybody needs to introduce themselves once they're at the dais. And I think you're also sharing some slides, I believe. And everybody.
20 I'm looking for deputy city administrator. Okay. Okay.
21 Director williams, would you like to begin?
22 Yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Good morning, chair Clark and members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. My name is millicent williams, and I am the director of the Portland bureau of transportation. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you to share information about pbot's budget. Today, I'm joined by my colleagues, the subject matter experts and leaders in our organization who ensure that we effectively and efficiently plan, build, operate and maintain the transportation system in the city of Portland and to empower or support our efforts and our staff, the bureau, the city, as our organizational structure reflects in the interest of time. I won't introduce them now, but we'll ask that they do so as they share information about their groups and their parts of the budget. Our agenda today. Next slide please. Our agenda today will be described by okay. Is as listed. We will be focusing, as you mentioned, chair Clark, talking about our vision, our goals and the decision making framework. We had to make some really tough decisions as we considered the gap that we will be hearing more about in just a few minutes. We will provide a brief budget overview to remind us of where the money comes from, and then where it goes. We will also talk about the general transportation revenue forecast for 2526, the impacts of those. And then we will have the discussion on reductions and preservations. And then the hope that we have for the future of the organization. Next slide. Our vision for portland's transportation system is simple. A well-maintained street and sidewalk system that people can use to travel the city safely and efficiently, whether walking, biking, taking transit, or when driving personal or freight vehicles. A system that allows for the efficient and safe movement of goods and offers opportunities for climate friendly travel options as we move to the future. This vision also includes the identification and maintenance of ongoing sustainable funding so that we're able to better provide quality customer service and optimal asset management for livable city consistently. While we won't recapitulate all of the many, many, many, many things that the bureau does, we will share with you. If you'll go to the next slide. The three areas that we consider our highest priorities maintenance, safety, and livability. As we talk about these three things, we recognize that the transportation system is at and ours is not unique in this. It's at a breaking point. Whether you're talking about the asset condition, whether you're talking about how well and how safely we are able to move people through our system, and then whether you're talking about how our system appears and how it functions, we recognize that all of these things are important. They have always been important, and they will continue to be important regardless as to how we'll need to make adjustments based on our budget. And so, as I've shared, I won't rehash the things that you've heard multiple times, and we thank you for the opportunity to come before you as many times as we've had to be able to share the critical information about the bureau. But we will move now into the conversation about what our decision making considerations have been. So we'll move to the next slide. And this may sound, as I share it, a little counterintuitive, but please allow us, as we walk through the presentation to make it more crystalline for you. So after six years of budget decisions that have required us, that we make cuts, we are where we are today, recognizing that in order to be the bureau that we suggest that we are suggest that we need to be with the cuts that are proposed, what we'll be able to do is maintain minimal operability where possible, minimal operability where possible. We'll manage risk, and potential liability will continue to fund required costs such as ADA ramps and debt service like the Sellwood bridge and Portland milwaukie line on TriMet and pers. We'll continue to prioritize revenue generating functions such as parking enforcement that helps us not only to raise revenue, but to maintain order in the city. And then we hope to maintain staffing to complete current projects under construction, and to perform basic maintenance tasks on a day to day basis. And then, as we've mentioned before, we will focus on livability. I'll now turn your attention to the next slide, and I'll ask that our deputy director of finance and administration, jeremy patton, take over.
23 Good morning everyone. Jeremy patton with PBOT finance. This slide that you're seeing in front of you, we did show you a couple months ago, but it was based on the current year adopted budget. We have now updated it to reflect the budget for 2526. We'll just go through the numbers one more time. Kind of give you a brief overview. This is basically pbot's budget in a nutshell. It provides a high level breakout of our total budget, both the revenue side and the expense side, the revenues on the left and the expenditures on the right. So if you're looking at the upper left hand corner, what you'll see is our general transportation revenues or our gtr. And this includes all state highway funds. So this is all of our gas taxes and dmv fees that come from the state. It's also our parking related revenues such as meters, permits and citations. Gtr also includes interest earned from cash balances. These are most discretionary revenues, but also have limitations in how they can be spent. You'll notice a line referring to borrowing from restricted revenue reserves. As you know, PBOT put forward a series of reduction options to balance this five year forecast, and this line item reflects how we balance the 2526 base budget, pending budget decisions on reduction packages or new revenue sources. Basically, it is a revenue amount that we have to show in order to cut from moving forward to meet our forecast in the out years. The bottom left provides details on our restricted resources, which represent a majority of our budget. We categorize them as restricted because they can only be spent on programs that they were either awarded for, such as federal grants, or for which we charge a specific fee for, such as permit fees to dig up the streets. Other significant sources include Portland clean energy funds, a majority of which is supporting the replacement of streetcars. And that's what you're seeing in that amount. And fixing our streets funding, which is restricted for the uses outlined in the ballot language work for other jurisdictions, mostly bts is an a line item there. It's pretty similar, about $40 million. We also have system development charges that can only be spent on expanding the system and parking garage revenues, which are an independent business entity within the city. Moving over to the expenditure side of things in the upper right hand corner, this is all of the expenses supported by gtr revenues. It's important to note that even though we have resources, these resources are our most discretionary source of funding. We have significant required expenditures or revenue generating programs that are supported with these limited resources. And we're talking about that $72.5 million box in that upper right hand corner. We call them required because they we don't have the ability to reduce these expenses in order to fund other high priority needs. So these are things such as payments for citywide services, such as general fund overhead, which is determined by a citywide allocation model. We have the ADA ramp expenditures, which are required by a settlement agreement with the civil rights education and enforcement center. We have debt repayment, which includes costs for the Sellwood bridge, portland-milwaukie light rail and pension payments. Reductions to parking enforcement staff would only lead to less revenue collected, so we consider them more in that upper right hand corner category and the remaining flexible fund expenditures totaling 89.6 million, which is those expenditures that are included in that red box. They include funding for core transportation services like paving, street cleaning, signals and street light maintenance, transportation planning and support services. So when we talk about gtr reductions for next year, specifically the shortfall, those reductions will have to come from those flexible gtr resources in that box in the lower right hand corner, we highlight the expenditures supported by restricted expenses or resources. As you can see, most of these resources are dedicated to our capital program, both for current year expenditures and future year expenditures, which are shown in the reserves line item. Here you will also see expenditures related to permit issuance, work on behalf of beis and restricted resources, contribution toward support services, and payments for citywide services. It's important to note that these restricted resources also provide services that are viewed by the public as core PBOT responsibilities. We just don't have the flexibility to move these resources to other programs if the need arises. Next slide please.
24 Chair, may I ask a clarifying question on the last slide?
25 Absolutely.
26 Can you go back to the last slide please. So this budget remind me again what forecast vintage. This is this for the 2526 the best available data we have today based upon the city administrators proposed. Is that what I'm looking at?
27 This right here is based on what we budgeted prior to the citywide proposal, the administrator's proposal, which I'll get to in the next slide, kind of the differences in the forecast, but this is the current budget not showing any reductions yet.
28 Okay. So this is sort of like the early in the year. Correct. Got it. Thanks.
29 So the next slide will.
30 Give me just a moment. Councilor Smith, did you have a question?
31 Yes. Thank you. Just to clarify, on the previous screen, you have 13,000,137 185 for ADA rent program. So does that mean you set aside that every year for the ADA ramps?
32 That is the general transportation revenue for the ADA ramps, correct? Yeah, we also received general fund revenue and have other capital resources for that program.
33 But this is this is the part of your restricted funds.
34 Yes.
35 $13 million. And you're going to be asking for $80 million in in limited revenue bonds.
36 The revenue bonds will also cover this particular amount. That's going that's shown in this in the sheet. So that 12 million will be covered by those those ADA revenue bonds. It will take the place of those resources.
37 Okay. And so in the following years you're going to have another 13 million that's going to be freed up. Is that.
38 If we do the revenue bonds.
39 Yes. The revenue bonds.
40 Ongoing savings. Correct.
41 Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to figure this out. Thank you so much.
42 Thank you, counselor Smith. And I think we'd like to circle back to that issue a little later as well. Councilor Morillo.
43 I just had a quick clarifying question on this slide as well. I see that there's two things for asset management or asset maintenance. One in the flexible and one in the restricted. And I was just wondering if you could explain a little bit about the difference there or what those cover.
44 Yeah. So what's in the restricted is just the general transportation revenue money that we put into asset maintenance. So this is all the parking revenues and the gas taxes. Everything else below would be anything in asset maintenance where we're getting other funding sources. So something interagency agreements for folks like the bs interagency amount is probably within that. We're doing asset maintenance on a bs asset, but it's a restricted funding source coming from them because we can only spend it on their particular assets.
45 Gotcha. Thank you. I wasn't sure if it was for the project or for where the money was coming from. Appreciate that.
46 I think there's a lot of information in this chart, and we may need to come back to it later, but thank you.
47 Absolutely. I think we jump to the next slide. So that was kind of the greater understanding of the overall budget. Now we're going to focus a little bit more just on the general transportation revenue shortfalls, which is going to be mostly what is included in the presentation slides to follow. But just kind of wanted to go over how we get from what we've been talking about, largely as a $38 million reduction, and then tie that back into the city administrator's budget, which is currently showing at an $18 million reduction, just in general transportation revenues. So the first on that $38 million, which is on the left hand side of the graph, it's mostly most of the shortfall is due to new expenditures that are either expected to start in fiscal year 2526 or expected to start in within the five year forecast, and beyond or beyond 2526 within the five year forecast. So these include some assumptions we made around citywide interagency cost increases in the out years. It assumes creek settlement costs. And this is 50%. So as we're forecasting out what those ADA ramp costs are out in the future, we were assuming 50% would be a burden within the general transportation revenue side of things and 50% on the general fund side of things. So this is just showing our side or the general transportation revenue side of that. It also includes funds for the impact reduction program, a Portland permitting and development interagency in the out years and increased personnel costs due to earlier union negotiations. We've also updated our forecast for revenues, and that's to match the state highway fund forecast, updated last fall, and also to update our parking forecast to assume no growth in parking demand moving forward.
48 Jeremy, can I ask you a question on the citywide administrative costs? Can you talk a little bit about what those are and if there's any future projected savings in our new organizational model?
49 Yeah, so those are everything which is included in all include general fund overhead and citywide administrative costs. So this is all of your facilities costs, everything from computers to any sort of central support functions like auditor, city attorney, risk management, central finance, central air central procurement, all of those types of support type services that you see that are existing within, within the city. I would say any out year, we'd have to wait and see what is included in the mayor's proposed budget to see any sort of assumptions on outyear savings for that. This forecast does not assume any savings due to consolidation of those services.
50 So it's basically just a roll up from what you've been paying. Okay. Yes. Thanks.
51 Yes.
52 Councilor Clark, dc is here. She might be able to speak to some of the benefits that could be gained from the consolidation efforts. When we.
53 Come back to that. Thank you, thank you.
54 So then on the right side, just a few of the changes that you can see that get us from the 38 million down to the $18 million. So we did assume in the original forecast some higher inflationary factors for those citywide administrative costs into the out years. And the city administrator said pending, you know, some expectations around how those costs could be reduced, he said. To go ahead and take that particular piece out. So you'll see that in that top line item to the different assumptions there. We also reduced the Portland permitting and development assumed interagency moving into the out years based on kind of some of the programing that they're doing on their side. We added positions in the dca's office to support the service area operations, and then we also assumed approval of the bond financing for the ADA curb ramp settlement within the city administrator's budget, and that reduced the total down to $18 million. So the details basically within the difference between the 38 million and the 18 million, what we're going to talk about on the next few slides is all going to reflect. What we initially proposed is the $38 million reduction. We do not know yet what the programs that will be added back within the city administrator's budget or the mayor's proposed. So we went ahead and just showed you the full suite of reduction options for the 38. And assuming that we'll come back at a later time and show you what's in the mayor's proposed. And I think I'll move on to the reductions and art.
55 All right.
56 I got one more slide. Sorry. I'll be quick on this one. So this is just an overall summary. Again, it includes a lot of the same information in this first couple columns that were in that where the money comes from and where it goes particularly what we wanted to show is, as we're talking about the reductions in red there, the $38 million on the next few slides, it's really important to keep in mind that that 38 million is coming off of that $90 million base. So when we have our total gt-r backed kind of available programing at 162 million, once you back out those required expenses, you're left with about 90. And we're cutting 38 million off of that 90, which is about a 40%, a little over a 40% reduction. So as you're hearing the reductions, they're going to they're going to seem quite dire. And they are because we're cutting almost half of a lot of those programs or full programs in some cases as we move forward. Now moving on to art.
57 Good morning. Councilors. My name is art pierce. I'm deputy director for planning projects and programs here at the Portland bureau of transportation. Thanks for having us this morning. So this first slide is talking about the area in terms of long range planning, engineering and program delivery. And this is really where the vision for portland's brighter future begins and where we devise the physical capital projects that are then designed and constructed, and the people based programs that support people adapting to help. Portland is changing. What is preserved in this area is some core project management and engineering functions, working particularly on funded projects that are in design and engineering and construction. Our modal coordinators some limited support to. And limited community use permit support. Some limited amount of policy and planning work, and our work on the state required transportation system plan and continued work on externally funded projects and programs. Mobility programs in particular, that were picked up and funded through PCEF last year, and then continuing operations of the Portland streetcar. What is contemplated here in terms of reductions is quite significant for our capital project management and capital program. This is contemplating reducing by more than half the match that we do for federally funded and state funded projects. So this would entail us canceling $50 million of grant funded projects due to us eliminating those grant matching funds. These are these are projects like outer division, outer stark, cully 148th 92nd. Foster chavez. So very significant and important projects that we were planning for investment. This reduction also reduces the outreach capacity and management oversight as we're shifting project management supervisors over to direct project delivery to reduce the amount that they're billing to the general transportation revenue for the project planning. And this also contemplates reductions on the engineering side in terms of support and oversight of the delivery of those projects from the engineering folks in the in the capital side, as well for the project planning and project development area. This reduction contemplates eliminating the plaza program, reducing overall street activations such as street paintings and other collaborative collaborations with business and community. It would reduce the amount of support that the planning team can do on grant development, project planning and project development of projects that we're looking and pursuing funding for. This would reduce ADA support significantly, and the city traffic model would not allow us anymore to still have our own traffic model, to do our analysis of the impact of policy choices or project changes, we'd have to rely on external consultants to do that work, and this would eliminate our support for development of new right of way codes and development support. That is very significant. Now, that pad is an external entity that we need to pass on guidance to. So we would expect reduced service and clarity for the development community.
58 Can we take just a pause here? I see two councilors have their hands up. Councilor Green first.
59 Thank you, chair Clark. Thanks, art of this. Of the positions cut on the screen and the amount proposed reduced on the screen, does any of that preserve, say, a consultancy where you could have cut the consultancy?
60 No, no, we've already onboarded the projects that we were able to deliver ourselves. So that was sort of the first first step a couple of years ago is we pulled back the consultant contracts that we thought were viable to do so. And there may be we, of course, will do another round of that, depending on what we see in the next couple of months, if there's any other potential shifts. But at this point, we are that's sort of the initial building block of this.
61 Okay. Thank you.
62 Yep.
63 I want to note that this is really coming after, what, six years of budget cuts. So just put that in perspective. Councilor Smith, did you have a question?
64 Yes I do, I'm trying to get some clarity here. The mayor asked everybody to take an 8% constraint. And so how much was your 8% constraint?
65 I can handle it. So the 8% constraint was on our general fund resources that we receive. That was only just over $100,000, which we'll get to later on in the presentation, a very small amount. We receive a very small amount of general fund resources at PBOT.
66 So how much general fund resources do you receive?
67 I think it's just over 11 million between 11 and 12. But most of that is for the ADA curb ramp program, which was excluded from any of the 8% reductions. So what was left was just about $1 million that we had to take a reduction off of.
68 But if that's the case, and I'm looking at this. If all we received is 11 million, we had a big chunk of general fund money in, in a screen that you gave us, which was way more than $11 million.
69 That's the contribution to.
70 Us. I'm just trying to figure out which one.
71 That one.
72 You had a box and you had the red box around it.
73 We go back to slide six.
74 Oh, the red box. So just to clarify, the red box is the flexible general transportation resources, which is pbot's resources received from the state for state highway fund and all of our parking revenues. Those are PBOT specific resources. The general fund resources would be transfers coming in to us, and that's based on property taxes, business licenses, utility license fees. That's the general fund portion, which we get just about $11 million.
75 But you say these funds are are flexible. The 89 million.
76 They are flexible for PBOT related activities.
77 Only for PBOT related activities. Correct. So what's the so I would say that those funds are restricted expenses.
78 They were restricted to PBOT related activities. But within PBOT they are least restricted resource. They can be spent on most anything related to transportation.
79 Can it be used for debt debt repayment?
80 Those resources and those resources are what you're looking at is those are we call it flexible, but those are flexible programs. So those are expenses side of things. So the upper left, when you're looking over there that $162 million, those are the resources really side of things for PBOT that are flexible. Those flexible resources are spent on things on the top right two boxes, which are the expense side of things. Some of those expenses we have to do every single year. And that's what we're calling required. Some of those, everything that's left we're calling more flexible, which means we can cut those. We just can't cut anything in that top.
81 Okay. Okay. Thanks. So you only had $100,000 that you had to that you had to replace, but yet you all had over 150. Vacant ftes.
82 We had 100,000 of general fund resources that were reduced. But on the general transportation side of things, the 162 million of programing, we have to cut 38 million of that for our forecast.
83 Okay. Thank you.
84 Thank you. Art, are you.
85 I think maybe I'm done. I think at the very bottom of it, one other reduction that is contemplated in this is changing the way we manage our our parking districts and one of the major revenue streams that we're using in the parking districts for the permits is if people decide not to get a parking permit and decide to live without an automobile or with one less automobile. We provide transportation wallets, wallet resources for transit passes, bike share, and other things. And so this also kind of plates stopping the program of sharing within those parking districts. And I'll pass it on to alex.
86 Yes.
87 Good morning. Alex hirano deputy director of engineering services and chief engineer. This portion is really about the right of way development and permitting. Umbrella underneath engineering services, really reducing in two areas. One is the compliance program, which is a relatively new program. We've cut positions out of that vacancies from there, which will lead to us not being able to address either timely or really that's it in terms of how we go about doing assessments and compliance activities. The other piece of this is the sidewalk postings program, which is a charter required program where we have inspectors go out and modify or modify and inspect streets. You can see the picture there. That's really what they do, is to make sure that our streets are safe. And so that program will also see a reduction as well. That program has seen reductions over the last six years of half of its staff. So what is cut and impacted is the non-response or the delay response in unpermitted activity structures within the right of way, the reduction in sidewalk inspections. We currently have over 5000 5000 case backlog in that piece. And then we have reduction of funding for subsidy, basically of right of way dedication. So when a developer has required to dedicate, we absorb those costs. And so that will continue to be.
88 Alex, can I ask you a question about that on the 5400 case backlog, are you able to sort those by the new city districts?
89 Yes, we should be able to do that. Yes. It's all complaint driven. So it comes in. So we have addresses. We have locations certainly can do that.
90 I think that's information that we might like to have.
91 Certainly we can get that to you. Thank you I'll turn it over to city traffic engineer.
92 Thank you. I'm wendy cully and I'm the deputy director for transportation operations at PBOT. I have five divisions within my group, and I'll be speaking to four out of the five divisions that will be experiencing cuts with the budget proposal. The first two divisions are parking, operations and enforcement. What we will be able to preserve. There are parking, sign adjustment for metered areas and for capital improvement projects. Over the next few months, we will hire 14 additional parking enforcement officers until we have 80 parking enforcement officers that enforce all throughout the city, the majority in the metered areas. And then we will have continued support and enforcement for the private for hire program, but it will be reduced. We are proposing to eliminate one position from that section. What is cut and impacted is we are cutting the budget in half. About 50% reduction for parking, sign installation and adjustments. We will be focusing on ADA parking requests and parking removal for safety and less on request to just simply move signs or turn, you know, change the parking limit. The time limit. We will only be able to support existing speed and safety cameras. We will not be able to expand that program. We currently have 20 speed cameras and 17 intersection safety cameras, and that's where it will remain. With these budget cuts, we will be reducing our derelict rv budget by 75%. We are currently able to remove 550 rvs from the right of way and demolish those annually. With this budget cut proposal, we will only be able to remove about 140 rvs from the right of way, and then finally, finally will be reducing the parking district shared revenue in northwest, in the central east side, and in lloyd by about 75%, which, as art mentioned, will be eliminating the transportation, wallet, funding and associated bike and pedestrian projects in these districts. We'll have just a very small amount of money to do some of the things there.
93 Wendy, can I ask you a question on the safety cameras? Can you put a dollar amount? Can we actually on all these can you put dollar amounts on these for us?
94 Yes. We can get that to you after this. Sure. Any other questions on parking. All right. So another division in my group is the traffic operations division. What will be preserving. There are only emergency requests through the 8283 safe program, which is pbot's traffic safety evaluation and response program. We will be focusing only on stop sign requests and visibility requests, the highest number of requests to safety requests that we receive. But the response time will be greater than four months because we will only be able to retain one coordinator and one engineer for all of the requests that we get throughout the city. We will be able to preserve support for the legal requests and lawsuits. The information that we're required to provide. We will have limited review of developer permits because we'll be eliminating one position in that area. So response times are likely to increase in our review of permit projects, and we will be able to preserve our quick build design support for non revenue projects, like projects that are funded through fixing our streets and PCEF. What is cut, as I mentioned before, is the majority of a23 safe except for stop signs and visibility. We will also cut small safety and maintenance improvements requested by constituents. That is mostly things like crosswalks or small curb extensions. And then we will also need to cut traffic control support for rose festival, tree lighting and other city events. We currently provide that through gtr funding.
95 Wendy, I think I don't know if I speak for all of us, but I. I am very interested in having a dollar amount on each of these items so that we understand how much money we're really talking about, and we expect the mayor's budget balance budget to be coming out on may the 5th, and we'll have an opportunity to weigh in on that after that time. So I think we're very interested in having dollar amounts on all of these cuts. Thank you. Sure.
96 And then I have one more division that I'll be addressing is our signals and street lighting division. And we are proposing a $4.2 million cut, which is about is more than 50% of the discretionary budget for maintenance on signals and street lights. What? We'll be able to preserve our signal, knock down repairs only on the high crash network, which is 30 of our highest crash corridors and 30 of our highest crash intersections. We'll preserve street lighting repairs only on the high crash network, and then we'll limit repairs on school beacons and rapid flashing beacon beacons. And we'll get to as many as we can. But we will have limited funding to address those. What will be cutting is repair of downtown ornamental street lights. These lights are nearly 80 years old and well beyond their useful life. Two weeks ago, one fell down at fourth and taylor due to rust. Thankfully, no one was injured and you'll see a slide of what that looked like later on in this presentation. But this is the fourth or fifth light that has just fallen down because it's so old downtown, so we can no longer afford the risk of these lights, and we'll begin removing the damaged street lights as soon as this summer. If we can't shore up some funding, we will also be cutting new ADA push button installations at existing signals. This will impact our ability to meet our ADA transition plan. We are cutting signal repair of knockdowns on non-high crash network streets. If we need to, we will replace with all way stops. We will be cutting partnership funds to assist developers with street light or signal requirements. We have a small fund right now where if a developer comes in and has an expensive signal repair because they're on a corner that has a traffic signal, we are often able to provide them with some of the materials or do a little bit of the work for them to help get the signal upgraded and help them meet their frontage improvement requirements. And finally, we'll be cutting new signal detection and repairs to signal detection. Detection is what makes our signals smart. It tells the signal controller when people are arriving, whether they're pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, freight or transit. And without detection, all of our users will experience longer delays at our traffic signals, and I'd be happy to put dollar figures to each of these things as well. And if there aren't any questions, I'll pass on to jodie yates with maintenance operations.
97 All right.
98 Good morning. My name is jodie yates, and I'm the maintenance operations group director. And I have the honor of leading 400 employees over at the kirby campus facility, which is right next to legacy emanuel. We're underneath the freeway there. So. And I'll take the same note. We'll put we'll itemize out for you, councilor Clarke and the rest of y'all. So what would be reduced in maintenance operations is a lot of significant programs. First off, we'll start with the street. In the street maintenance realm, we would keep sign installation and maintenance. We are currently in year. We finished up year two of replacing street name signs and all all regulatory signs in our second map. So we're in. We've completed year two of seven of replacing street name signs throughout the city. So we're going to continue that program. We'll continue long line striping. That is what's shown in the visual there. That's a striper truck that we have and the apply paint all throughout the city will continue the quick build project delivery program that wendy referenced previously. We will do landslide abatement, which means taking mud and debris off of roadways, and we'll have winter weather response. But with the reduction of positions, we will have to modify how much service we will. We will be providing. What we will eliminate is pavement markings. So the crosswalks, the Green bike boxes, stop bars will be eliminated and we will have reduced pavement repair. So we'll eliminate our crack seal program, reduced base repair and reduced paving.
99 So jodie, when you say that. The bike boxes will be impacted, does that mean they all these all this infrastructure just sits there and you can't use it. It just isn't activated.
100 No. Like the Green bike, the Green paint that's in the bike boxes will just continue to deteriorate and eventually will wear itself away with traffic on it.
101 You're a pedestrian and you push a button. You're not going to repair those or maintain those. That's I'm sorry. Okay.
102 That's in wendy's side.
103 We'll do the best we can, but we will have very limited funding. And most of the repairs and upgrades will need to come through fixing our streets or PCEF projects or capital improvement projects.
104 Okay, thanks.
105 And similarly, in the pavement repair programs that will be limited down to the fix our streets funding that we have. Next slide in the street cleaning programing area. What will preserve is vegetation management. So this is we have about 160 Green spaces. And so when we describe that that would be like the ainsworth park blocks. That's the wide medians. It's a lot of the medians throughout the city. So these become visual. Pedestrians and cars can't see each other. So we have to keep that vegetation at bay. The brush cutting. So that's our some of our more rural looking roadways. Similar thing. The brush continues to come out onto the roadway. So it's a safety program. And then the traffic islands throughout the city will maintain the anti-icing program. This is the liquid deicer that we put down onto the roadways around 40 to 40 times 40, 40 to 45 applications annually. It's magical. It happens during the night and you never see it. But we put it on our bridges and overpasses and a lot of our roadways out there to especially on those frosty nights. And then we'll do our right of way. Hazard mitigation. These are the urgent responses. An example of that might be, hey, there's a box of nails that fell off a contractor's truck. And, well, we're the folks who go and pick those up. So what is cut and impacted? We will eliminate all street sweeping. We've already eliminated residential street sweeping that occurred July 1st of 2023. This would be the remainder of the street sweeping program. So all commercial districts, the cbd here, arterials, bus malls would all be eliminated. We would eliminate the fall leaf day collection program, and those leaves that we collect up are taken out to our sunderland recycling facility. It's near the airport and we would eliminate that recycling facility also at that facility we take all of our rock and all of our construction spoils out there, and we actually harvest out, like as we're demoing out our ADA corners, we take that sidewalk debris out there, we have a rock crusher, we turn it into rock, and we reuse that on our gravel streets program, things like that. So we reuse most of those materials. Next slide. Some other programs within maintenance operations. We will continue to maintain our bridges and our bridge decks, and rail maintenance and repair is done in our world at maintenance operations will continue to do guardrail repairs. The traffic attenuators. The harbor wall is one of our assets, and we'll continue to maintain that. We will maintain fence handrailing and some street furniture. It's a very small category. And then any stormwater work that is funded with our partners at bts, what will eliminate is structural maintenance of city stairways, retaining walls and curb repair for the city stairways. We would just close them, put up a hard closure across those stairways. If they fall into disrepair, we will have reduced winter weather again, eliminating positions means we can't respond as well, and then we'll have reduced inlet and catch basin cleaning. And we will also be eliminating management staff. So there'll be an increased span of control. Most supervisors in the maintenance operations realm are in a 20 to 1 span of control currently, and I think that's all of my eliminations. It's hard to actually talk about them out loud because it's significant. Next slide or I think I'm done.
106 I think.
107 It's back to oh thank goodness.
108 And so the final section to go through are reductions in within support services. So some of the main things we're preserving are basic accounting functions to receive and spend revenue. Some of our emergency management functions facilities rent things like the actual facilities that we reside in right now. And some of our fleet management staff. The reductions are about 35% across all other programs. So we're looking at delays in vendors, payments delays and grant billings delays in response to constituents and elected officials, longer recruitment timelines, technology failures. So a lot of our technology support staff are included within this last workplace safety risk mitigation support, reduced graphic design capacity and ability to respond to public records requests, and the reduced capacity to track asset conditions and make strategic asset management decisions. Next slide please. And so we've we've talked a lot about our general transportation revenue sources and the reductions from that. We did want to highlight just some of the other areas, the other funding sources that are also receiving reductions. So in work with the bureau of environmental services, we provide the maintenance activities on their behalf. And they have requested a reduction in those services of about 3.5 million, which will require the elimination of 25 positions. And this will lead to a reduction in sewer and stormwater pipe cleaning, reduction and ditching. And then we're also looking just at the required permit, the permit requirements to make sure that we can actually fulfill those or be as can fulfill those with this lower level of service from the cannabis tax reduction side as well. I just want to clarify, the $677,000 reduction is a it's the 2526 reduction or the next year's budget. What we're looking at is 277,000. The bureau also received a $400,000 reduction to that program in the current year. For 2425, it was backfilled with general fund one time on a one time basis. Those resources are not available next year. So what we're trying to show you is the full impact to these programs. They were supported one time in this year, but that 400,000 is not available next year. So it will be a $677,000 reduction in actual programing. And what we're seeing here is a reduction in vision clearance for priority locations and pedestrian intervals and intersections, reduction improvements along the high crash network, which include turn calming rumble strips, raised pavement markings and elimination of outreach materials, and engagement with community based organizations on safety. And then finally, the general fund 8% reductions. We've talked a little bit about this, but just so that, you know, the types of activities that it funds are things like Sunday parkways, safety programing, some street cleaning, paving, gravel streets and sustainability efforts, which are basically efforts to provide low carbon transportation options. And the next slide, please, I think we're back to wilson.
109 So our reductions are significant, but our priorities remain consistent as we look to the future. Again, maintenance, safety and livability. And I recognize that the information that we've shared might not look like that's what we're prioritizing, but that is how we are prioritizing. This was a very, very difficult budget for us to develop. As we looked at all of the options, there were no good options at this point based on the many, many years of cuts. We're not cutting fat. We're cutting into the bone. And I know that a question has come up in other conversations that other committees have had with their bureaus about what could you do less of? There's very little that we could eliminate completely. There are a few things that we could eliminate completely, but not a lot, especially because of the risk that's associated with the programing that is delivered through the programs that we have in place. So the conversation is really hard, and we are looking forward to figuring out how we can work together to address the significant gaps that we have. Next slide. And this is another of our staggering images, many of our assets. And I know we're going to talk about that later. Specifically, our pavement are still in poor condition and will continue to worsen without investment. And I'll share that even if we're able to fill the $38 million gap. And I recognize that the city administrator has made some recommendations about how we will bring the two ends closer together. If we had $38 million, we would still just be doing okay. We would not be able to advance any work related to asset management. We would not be able to do more than we're already doing, and we're currently just doing enough. Next slide. Again, we talk about safety and we recognize how important it is for us to look at the safety data that we have, but not just the data, the names, the people, the families who are affected and the cuts that we are potentially going to need to make as a bureau will potentially cause this map to grow ever increasingly dark and really speak to a set of conversations that will be really hard for us to have, hard for us to justify having. And so we do need to look strategically about how we'll make sure that we can address gaps and think thoughtfully. Be thoughtful about our future as an organization. Next slide. We'll continue to address livability issues throughout the city, including derelict rv's, graffiti, and damaged assets. But this is what we see today. The street light that wendy talked about is the one in the upper right hand corner. This is happening all over the city and this is what we're faced with based on decades of neglect, decades of under or underinvestment, and now decades of future challenge. If we don't do something soon and significant. Next slide as we continue, as we continue to focus our priorities in the years ahead, we look forward to working with the mayor, the city administrator, city council, and this committee, especially to support the identification of all of a stable source of transportation funding to address our current and future needs. As the city investment in transportation creates opportunity for all. And with that, we close our presentation and open the floor for questions.
110 Thank you, director williams. I and panelists, I have to say, this is probably the most depressing presentation I've had since I've been here. I've only been here, what, four months? Maybe? Now this is the most awful presentation I've received and it's a shame. And I'm embarrassed by the condition of our assets and what we can do about it. We're confronted with a very bad budget this time around, and very difficult choices. And I appreciate the work that you do and how hard it's been to see the department's. The bureau's resources diminish year after year after year, and our assets decline. I'm strongly in favor of doing something about it. First, we just have to get through this budget, which I know is very painful, and I would appreciate receiving all the specific numbers on each item would be very helpful for all of us as we think about the budget and how we intend to deal with the mayor's budget when it comes out in may. So I appreciate your work. I appreciate you hanging in there and working with us. And I'll ask my colleagues if they have other questions or comments. I think, counselor Smith, is your hand up first?
111 Yes, my hand is up. Thank you so much, madam chair. Thank you all for delivering this this presentation. And I think, yeah, I'm I'm frustrated and disappointed and. And I understand because there, there has been a lack of investment in there has been investment taken away taken away over the last six years. But I want to go back to math because I don't do math well in public. And so I did the 8%, over $11 million and that was 880,000, not 100,000. So can you explain that to me?
112 Yeah. The amount that is going towards the ADA curb ramp program from the general fund for next year is a little over $10 million of that 11 million, and they excluded that from the 8% reduction options because it's a required expense per the lawsuit. And so we only had to cut off of a little over $1 million left in general fund transfers.
113 And so you need to change your your presentation materials, because I think if you're looking at this and you're like me, every time I see a number, I go in and check it, because in the presentation materials it says 8% taken off and they include the 110. And I was like, that's not 8%. So your your presentation materials should represent what the real percentage is. And or give the note that you just gave me and why the 8% is not being taken out so that we because everybody is looking for that 8% number. What did people get rid of from the from the initial 8% request? The other issue is I'm still trying to add up what is the actual savings to the department. If the $80 million in bond money is approved?
114 So the savings to are you talking about just the overall program savings or just the savings to PBOT.
115 The savings to PBOT in general, and in terms of what the mayor has to work with. So I'm trying to get to those numbers.
116 So if we assume the $80 million bond sale that is up, and if we also assume a subsequent bond sale to cover the remaining portion of the of the six year program, we're assuming just over $12 million in total savings to PBOT through that, through two different bond issuances, the 80 million and then a follow up bond issuance as well.
117 And tell me something, because I don't understand this. Why would you not bond for the entire amount and then come back for two years later? I don't know why we're really playing small ball on this.
118 Part of it is, is you only have three years to spend your bond resources over the six year program, so we have to stagger those issuances out so that we're able to spend the resources in the time frame that we're allowed to spend them in.
119 So you have three years to spend, but you have you can do 15 or 20 years to pay back.
120 Correct.
121 Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. This is all new to me, so I'm trying to grasp all the concepts and anecdotes that you all are putting forward.
122 Just one more item to as well. Just with the bond sales. It gives us more time also to look at what our cip looks like. So we do project lower cips in the out years. So if those see if something happens in more cip resources come through, it means we'll have to make up with less bond resources in the out years. So it gives us some flexibility on that second issuance to match up closer to where we think we're going to land in a couple of years.
123 Okay, so do we have enough staff to be able to spend that kind of money in three years? Do we have enough resources, people, resources to do that? And we're cutting our staff right now.
124 We do have enough staff as far as the money that is going to our maintenance operations staff to do the ramps required of that. Most of the money will also be going into contracted work. So we'll go out with contractors to implement those ramps.
125 Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
126 Councilor Green.
127 Thank you, chair Clark. And thank you for the sobering presentation. It's sobering, even more so every time I see different variants of it. You don't have to go to the slide. But but I recall from the kind of revenue versus expenses breakout, which I found very helpful. There was something about I think it was $23 million in system development charge revenues on the inflow side, but I didn't see a matching expense on the outflow side. So I wonder if you can help me understand what those sdcs are funding in this budget right now.
128 Yeah. And maybe I'll clarify. So I think the sdc number I have is $26.8 million or so. That includes one time. So previous sdcs collected and new sdcs. We don't receive that much in sdc resources. Every year we're down at that probably 4 to $5 million range. Hopefully coming into the next year. All of those resources would be seen in that capital planning project and engineering construction line item that 218 million. They're all going towards projects within that line.
129 Okay. Thank you. So what is the balance in allowable sdcs like what's the fund balance right now off the top of your head? If you if you know.
130 It should. Be I think it should be that 26.7. But I can double check.
131 So that's the whole fund balance that you're, that you're rolling forward here. Yeah. Okay. That's that's useful. Yeah. We we're in a low development period. Right. So it's like we're not generating a lot of these. But I, I wanted to make a broader point, as we look forward that we're going to have to think about approaching our policy on sdcs to be a little bit more expansive, because when I think about infrastructure failing, because we haven't maintained it, that to me looks like a loss of capacity. And so I know that system development charges are to fund new capacity expansion and some sort of equitable manner. But if, if, if we're accumulating sdcs at a rate that are faster than we can spend them because we don't want to grow new capacity expansion, which creates more ongoing costs. So if we're going to take an asset management approach is where I'm going with that, we're going to have to look at our sdc policy down the road, but we don't generate much right now. So it's kind of a moot point. I think I wanted to respond and just in dialog with councilor Smith about the bond issuance. You know, the three year if you don't spend, if you don't, if you don't, if you if you issue a tax exempt bond and you don't spend it in three years, then you can lose that tax exempt status on those bonds. And I think that's part of the constraint here that we'll need to be mindful. And then I think generally like if we have a big program, we want to go big and shoot for the moon and all that. We're still going to have to issue the bonds in a kind of small, rolling, staggered standpoint, because that allows us to take advantage of the option value of changing interest rates. So there's a sort of risk hedging approach to all this. So I so I think what I'm seeing with the ADA stuff seems like a pretty reasonable approach to, to debt management. And I just leave that comment there.
132 Thank you, councilor Green. And before I turn it over to councilor Koyama Lane, I just want to say I believe that to expand the use of sdcs will have to change the state law. I believe the state law dictates what we can spend them on. Councilor Koyama Lane.
133 Thank you so much for this. Even though it is heavy and very daunting. If you'll bear with me, I just want to do a quick comprehension check and make sure that I'm understanding. So outside of the cuts from the general fund, what we're focusing mostly on today is talking about cuts within PBOT that we are looking at because we have a huge gap in general transportation revenue and meeting the needs of PBOT. Okay. That's correct. And then in addition, outside of the gtr, general transportation revenue, there's general fund and a couple other things like the cannabis tax and work that we, that PBOT does for bts. Yes. Okay. So I'm wondering about other forms of revenue. How what are some ideas. Also if you can give some updates looking to the state the transportation package, can you paint that picture for us at all?
134 I want to be careful in engaging in that conversation. There are a number of opportunities for us to reevaluate how we generate revenue. First of all, one that has come before committee is the parking increase that is being proposed. That is something that could generate up to is it 8,000,007. Seven or just under $7 million a year? If we are able to successfully pass that fee on to those who do park, I will acknowledge that one of the things that we had on the table to cut, though, is the revenue sharing for parking districts. Today, parking districts are enthusiastically supportive of us increasing parking rates because there is an opportunity for there to be some cost sharing. We give them funding to be able to do projects in their parking districts. However, if we are not doing the revenue sharing, then I think that the opinion around parking increases would be less than favorable. So that's something for us to consider. There are other conversations about potential utility fees. We are optimistic about what's happening within the transportation package space. In fact, one of our team members is having a briefing right now with the office of government relations to understand how things have progressed. Our overview of it, it does look promising and it could serve to fill a gap. But until we know, we don't know. And it would be irresponsible of us to suggest that based on a projection or an assumption that we would be able to fill a gap. So that's why, even as we've talked about what's happening with regard to what the city administrator has put forward, we're still talking about 38 million, because none of those things have happened yet. And so I know that that's a really tough conversation for us to have back at the, at the. At home, because people are but I see this I see that, but we don't know yet and we don't know fully how we'll be able to manage what the mayor's priorities are, what the council's priorities are as we look at the future of our budget, I do have optimism about where we'll go, but it's tough for us to be able to, in this moment, speak specifically. There are opportunities for us to sit with this committee to discuss other options around revenue generation. There are several places within the bureau that could also be places that we, if we revisit, could I identify and realize some revenue that comes from those sources? It will require potentially code change, potentially really tough conversations with community, not just residents, but also businesses and business associations. But we're willing to have those conversations. We have the information, we have the data. And as you've asked councilor Clark, we have the information readily available for you to see specifically how much in those buckets of discipline that we work within to be able to help to inform your future decisions.
135 Thank you so much. And I understand not wanting to bank on anything at this point. So thank you for your honesty there. I'm looking I know this is pretty. This is zooming in, but looking at the vision zero programing, which I know that a lot of community members and councilors care about, I'm wondering, I know this is kind of zooming in, but I've been briefed on the daylighting for pedestrians and folks on bikes at intersections adjacent to schools. And I'm just wondering if you can kind of paint a picture of what that reduction would look like. I think sometimes zooming in on a project and seeing how it would be affected can be helpful.
136 Well, we have had the conversation and I'm pleased to know of your interest in making sure that we're creating safety throughout our network, especially as it relates to schools. The cannabis funding does directly impact the staffing most directly impacts staffing for that function, and so we would be able to maintain the staff as it relates to the implementation of the program. We had yet to identify a full funding source to be able to do all of the things that we discussed in terms of corner clearing, especially in locations related to schools. But we were cobbling together and we continue to cobble together resources to be able to meet those objectives. That's something that we would again need to depend on this council to help us to inform. If there's something that you're asking that we shift to ensure that we are able to meet those expectations, then that's what we'll plan to do. But we can put the plan in place about the implementation. Some of that work is even happening now, so we're excited about being able to move some things forward. But a bigger, more comprehensive all schools approach would require us to go back to the drawing board and determine how we would be able to fund that work.
137 Councilor Morillo.
138 Yeah, thank you so much for your presentation. This was a really tough one, and I appreciate all the work that you're doing to get us this information, especially just given the runway, that we have to make some of these big, tough decisions. I was curious, and I don't really have a position on this. I'm just kind of brainstorming on it. If there are any other fees that PBOT takes in and how much fees revenue generate revenue, and I don't know if you've explored the idea of increasing fees or if that's kind of a no go, just given the economic situation folks are in, don't really have a position on it. Just generally brainstorming and asking questions.
139 We have over 400 fees, and some of those are ones that we can increase that don't even require council action. And those are things that we are considering. Now. Again, some of those conversations with the people who would be most impacted by those fee increases are things that make doing the fee increase a little difficult. But we have some opportunities to reevaluate what we're doing from the fee perspective. Recognizing, like you said, the climate is not particularly ripe for people to see large scale, broad, wide, sweeping increases. But that is something that we are able to take a look at. Some of the ones that, other than parking, that we think about, are like tnc fees. So uber, lyft, some of the active transportation fees that people pay are things that we could take a look at. And we have some opportunities to again evaluate what other cities are doing. How do we keep pace with other cities? It's not just us going into our own bags, but really looking at what the trends are across the state and across the country and across markets that are similar to ours. How do we find ourselves keeping pace with them, and how are they reinvesting those dollars in places where you see infrastructure that we aspire to? There are significant fees charged across the board, and we look forward to potentially getting to that space.
140 And a follow up, how much does the tnc generate?
141 As I bring it up? What is it?
142 I don't know, off the top of.
143 My head, I'm sorry, I we were just talking about it.
144 No worries.
145 All right.
146 Not enough. We do for tax per ride. It's a 65 cent surcharge. So there is room there for some increases, both from rides that are generated in the city, rides that emanate or end in another location outside of the city. There is a surcharge that's added to rides that are at the airport. And so again, that's a that's a space that we can evaluate. It could generate depending on how much up to $1,415 million. But that would depend on the rate of increase that we'd be able to realize.
147 Could I get that data sent to me later? I'm really interested in the tncs. And if we can maybe potentially find less regressive options for those fees, if possible. Yes. Thank you.
148 Thank you. Before I turn this over to well, actually, let's just go. Councilor Smith, we're and we're about to hit our timeline.
149 Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. I just have a this is kind of off balance. We've been asked to look into the possibility of a frog ferry. Have you all heard about this? This project?
150 Yes. And I'm going to ask that art come to the table to. There's another chair. Okay.
151 I'll quickly.
152 Everybody wants to give you the opportunity to address that.
153 Yes. And in fact, I see susan in the audience as well.
154 Yes. Hi, susan. I didn't know susan was here, but I'm trying to follow up on some conversations that I had about funding and looking at all of our funding needs for, for our current. For the, for the current operating budget. It does seem very bleak in many areas. And I'm trying to figure out, do we have the ability to I mean, we only get $11 million in general fund and that flexible fund that we talked about in that red box, are those dollars flexible for supporting a frog ferry?
155 It would require reducing other services. So the items that are all in there are programed against staff or programed against service delivery. And so to choose to reinvest them in the frog ferry, we would have to make a reduction in those.
156 Okay.
157 Okay. Further beyond the reductions that are already being contemplated.
158 And have you all been in conversations about this? Have we.
159 For sure. We've in helping with the frog ferry effort for a number of years, including some staff analysis of the ridership and various things, but we have not been in a position to financially support it.
160 Yes. And so just just so that, you know, I was not trying to overpromise and underdeliver and I have known about your your particular financial situation from, from PBOT. And I did express this to the, to the organizers in sandra. She, she knows about this. And I told her that we were I just wanted to make sure, because I had heard some rumblings that there was going to be a amendment for this. And I was like, okay, where are we going to get this money from?
161 Yes.
162 Right. And so from the council side, not not from you all side, not from the executive side. So I'm just trying to get some information because after looking at this, this presentation and hearing your earlier presentations, I think my sense is that it's still we're still very limited in doing outside projects.
163 For sure. And I think director was just clarifying. The most recent discussion is around an amendment to the regional transportation plan. Okay. And so that also is where we have a restricted list based on expected funding for what we are included as city of Portland projects in the regional transportation plan. So similarly, even in the planning sphere, even without it actually being attached to direct funding, we would have to reduce other projected projects to include the frog ferry in our projection.
164 Okay.
165 Thank you so much. Thank you for clarifying that.
166 Thank you. Thank you. Panelists. Thank you, director williams, all of you. And I just want to invite director, assistant city manager priya dana paul up to see if you had any comment concluding here or any comment on the general services charge that you I saw as going potentially going down. If you talk about the service area consolidation are there, could we foresee any other savings there?
167 Thank you, councilor Clarke. For the record, I'm priya paul, deputy city administrator for public works. We are currently evaluating the savings that we could realize from the service area consolidation, as well as the core services work that is ongoing right now. In the next couple of weeks, we will have more information on what are the targets that we are hoping to achieve and what savings we could realize, and it most likely we will. It will be highlighted in the mayor's budget that is coming to you all. And city administrator will also be able to provide more information on it. But at this time, we are in the process of working out the details.
168 Great. Thank you for that clarification and we'll look forward to receiving that. And thank you again for your presentation today. As sad as it is, we appreciate your work and we're here to work with you. Thank you. So thank you. Okay, so diego, can you please read the next item.
169 Item two asset management discussion.
170 Thank you. So, colleagues, I'm going to hand out a piece of paper to each of you. That's a draft. Of a concept I've been working on. It's been very clear since I became the chair of this committee. And we've been assembled that asset management is a huge concern for me. I've been very clear. I highlighted it in our very first committee hearing. I repeatedly or my mantra has really been back to basics and prioritizing, taking care of the assets that we have in our city. So the document that you have before you, I've outlined some actions that we may need to take to take to our city leadership, to prioritize and move forward on addressing the need for a city wide strategy and a financial plan on asset management. As many of you know, on Wednesday, the city auditor is going to release an audit, an overview of the city's asset management problems. This is not the first time that an auditor has raised this issue. In the city of Portland. There have been multiple audits regarding asset management. This 1st may be somewhat more comprehensive, but we'll know more on Wednesday when it goes public. So I've crafted a concept here that I would really appreciate your feedback on questions, comments, concerns. I'd like to bring it back to the committee in may, potentially as an ordinance, but I'd like any input that you have now on asset management. Any concerns you might have that would help me in crafting a final version?
171 Madam chair?
172 Yes, councilor.
173 Smith, I would, I would like to have a little bit more time to, to digest this and I do I just want you to know that I do agree with you that we need to, to do a better job of managing our assets and understanding what our assets are. How do we deal with the deferred maintenance that comes along with our assets, so that we're not basically tripling the cost over time? I would like to look at this a little further.
174 Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.
175 Thank you. Thank you for sharing this. Just confirming that this is for everything, not just transportation and infrastructure, all citywide assets.
176 Correct. Councilor Green.
177 Thank you, madam chair. I think this is a really welcome. Action on your part. I think, you know, we've first hundred days or so, we've we've gotten ourselves familiarized with some of the problems of the city. I appreciate that you're orienting the committee toward generative work here. I welcome a future ordinance on this. And I just want to highlight a couple of areas that I think are new that I, I want to reinforce in this. And it's worth worthwhile putting our efforts towards one, you know, with this new reorganization of our government, we have an opportunity to make coherent from a holistic perspective what and this is similar to what councilor Koyama Lane was, was, was mentioning was, you know, across all of our infrastructure areas, we're taking an asset management approach, which means and as I said earlier, you know, thinking about our system development charges in that lens as well will be really, really helpful because I think one of the things that I get worried about is this piecemeal approach we've done in the past has led towards an expansion of the capacity and some asset classes that may not be the highest, highest priority. And it's created a bunch of unfunded liabilities. So this will help us get a handle on those liabilities and deliver to taxpayers. So really happy to work with you on this and see where it goes.
178 Thank you, councilor Green. It is cross bureau. It's not just transportation, it's water. It's sewer. It's arts, it's culture, it's police, it's fire. It's all of our assets. So it is very broad. And I think that the new form of government, the fact that we have service areas is and we have a legislative body now that we can we can really address this in a comprehensive fashion. And once we get an asset management strategy in place, I think we'll find that across the board in all the bureaus, we can have a standardized approach to asset management, which we really need, and then an evaluation of what the risk is of failure and potentially closure of some of our assets. But this is you're right. It's a it's a long, longer term effort. It's going to take us a while to get there. But knowing that the auditor's report is coming out on Wednesday, I wanted to make sure that we were ready to address that. And I'd like to bring this back after you have a chance to really digest it and bring it back on our may the 12th meeting. And if it does take the form of an ordinance, we'll have a public hearing at that point as well. So, so thank you in advance for your your comments and input on that, I appreciate it. So, diego, can you please read the next issue.
179 Item three rose water infrastructure improvements, albina vision trust and no more freeways.
180 Thank you colleagues. This is an opportunity for us to hear about the rose quarter and the albina vision trust from different stakeholders. I fully intend to hold additional briefings on this project, as other, as well as other mega projects or infrastructure projects and future committee meetings, and with additional representation from project teams. But this item came at the request of councilor Morillo, and I'd like to offer her some time to make any introductory remarks. I know there's a lot of support for this project. The albina vision trust and the rose quarter, and this will not be the last opportunity that we have to talk about it. So take it away.
181 Thank you so much, chair. Clark. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear from these different stakeholders today and get more information directly from albina vision trust and folks from no more freeways. I thought it was important to have these two different community perspectives at the table. I think we hear a lot from industry and other big areas, but this is really, I think, a deep community discussion that needs to happen. There were a lot of historic harms that this project is attempting to address that I think are valuable. I'm personally really invested in the cap portion of this. As much as I don't like the expansion of freeways. And also we're in a very ever changing political landscape, especially at the federal level, where some of our big infrastructure projects are at risk with the trump administration and trying to figure out what they're going to do, what they're going to choose to fund, what they're going to choose to cut moving forward. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from both albina vision trust and no more freeways on their perspectives on this issue. And if they can bring more light to things that we as a council should be aware of and how this is going to impact our city moving forward. So with that, would you like me to call people up? Okay, I believe we have albina vision trust coming up first. Thank you. So good to see you. Executive director winter.
182 Welcome.
183 Thank you. Good morning. Council I'll be joined shortly. Can you hear me? Okay. I'll be joined shortly by jt flowers, our director of government affairs and communication as well. So thanks for having us here today, chair Clark, I appreciate your invitation for additional briefings. This is a really important project. And of course, thank you, councilor Morillo, for providing time for community perspectives. As I was thinking about how to share what has now been almost a decade of work on this project, it occurs to me that even when we present you with carefully constructed facts, the entire truth is often is still often obfuscated. And, you know, one of the challenges for the albina vision trust at this point is this idea that we're somehow being duped into supporting this project. So I want to be really clear that our support for the project is rooted in our very clear and deep understanding of trade offs, of project components and how we've gotten here to this point. At many times we've been odot's fiercest critic, but what's been important to us is our orientation and our commitment to not being reactive, that our vision is rooted in proactively building a future that really stitches albina. And in addressing the gash that is I-5, we are grounded by the memory for many in our community that the highway represents people's homes and businesses and faith institutions, that the early work of the albina vision trust actually started with tours with students from tubman middle school. Imagine walking around that neighborhood with students that are four feet tall. This is the only place in Portland where you can be crossing a street, facing traffic that's flying off of the offering. We don't think that's acceptable today, and it's certainly not acceptable as we prepare to build a district that will continue to welcome thousands of families into the area. And so we know that broadway is the most dangerous street for all modes of transportation within Portland. We also know that the impact of the freeway has prevented really anything from happening in the district. This is why when the albina vision work first started and we zoomed out to think about all of the pieces that would need to be addressed, the freeway was the most obvious, right? We needed to be able to tunnel or cap it so that the broader development vision could move forward. Albina vision trust has brought to this project the understanding that change is inevitable. We know that this district, 94 acres of prime central city real estate, will change. The question is who will it benefit in that change? And we made the decision early on that we didn't want to witness those changes. We wanted to be actively shaping the transformation. And so in embracing the fact that the status quo is not going to be enough, we have brought together community, political and technical expertise to embrace the fact that there will be change to deliver better outcomes for all of Portland. Together, we have completely redesigned the project that was originally introduced in 2017. We did not do this alone. The city of Portland has played an incredibly important role, including being willing to walk away from the project in order to make sure that the design of the project itself reflected Portland values, that it reflected our community's value to restorative justice, and that it committed, and that it reflected our intent to be both supporters of a project moving forward without giving away our our need to stay vigilant about the outcomes. The city's coordination on this project has outlasted many commissioners in charge and now of transportation. And now we're sitting here at another important inflection point, asking you to both consider and respect the deep engagement and consensus building work that's happened on this project, not only with av, but with raymore construction, where this project represents generational opportunities for minority contractors. There has been deep consensus building work with Portland trailblazers, recognizing that this part of the city is effectively portland's front porch, and that it's not acceptable for us to have an open freeway in the part of the city where most of us gather. Fundamentally, this is a state project that was intended to meet the needs of freight that has been foundationally transformed into something else, something better. And if there are questions about whether or not that change has gone far enough, you need to look no further than the $450 million in federal funding that was awarded to this project as part of the reconnecting communities planning, reconnecting communities project, intended to address exactly these kinds of freeways that have torn through black and brown communities. This project represents the braiding of climate, community, and economic statewide economic development goals to deliver an an outcome and a project that would not have existed if not for the organizations. The organizing of organizations like ours, and the willingness of city of Portland to stand up for what was right at every critical juncture. At this point, we ask that you continue to stand with us again, not as a rubber stamp for a project with, but as vigilant partners committed to forward momentum. We do not want to see this council be the one that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. On a project that represents over a decade of hard earned work and community building. Thank you. And with that, I'll pass it to jt.
184 And I'm so sorry for popping in here late. You know, reporters can be very chatty, especially around this, this issue. And they caught me in the hallway. My name is jt flowers. I'm the director of government affairs here at the albina vision trust. I had the honor of being led by this incredible human being who's the most fantastic leader I know. You know, we're here for a very clear reason. This project is not a project that is unfolding in a vacuum. Right? Our city and our state are in the midst of transformative change that's going to fundamentally alter the Portland of 50 years from now. And the question that we have to ask ourselves is, what type of future are we committed to building for future generations of children who call this place home? I'd like to point to a really important story that I think really illustrates the significance of what we're trying to do through the highway cover project. When secretary of transportation, I should say former secretary of transportation pete buttigieg came and visited Portland, he saw two projects. He went out with TriMet and the governor to check out the line being put out on 82nd avenue. And then he came and toured our project area alongside Dan, congressman earl blumenauer, and sat down with our team. After that tour, he said something that we found incredibly charming at the time, but we didn't think meant much in a substantive way. He said. You know, in his tenure as secretary of transportation, he's been to 603 cities and towns across this country. He has been to all 50 states. Nowhere in the country has he seen a project that is not only as audacious as this one, but as feasible as well. We said, hey, we get it. You're probably going to run for president at some point. If anything, you might have secured our vote through your charm, but we didn't expect it to translate to anything material. Just six months later, the well over $488.5 million in federal funding from the us dot's reconnecting communities and neighborhoods grant program came through the door, and our congressional delegation put out a press release. That press release didn't say federal delegation secures $488.5 million for odot's highway cover and expansion and pbot's broadway main street project, it said. Federal delegation secures nearly half billion dollars in funding for albina vision infrastructure projects. There's an understanding, even at the federal level, that the significance of this project is in the ways in which it ties into everything else being built around it. Our 94 acre footprint makes us the largest restorative redevelopment in the entire united states of America. We're building it right here in our own backyard in portland's central city. What we're trying to build at the most fundamental level is a central city neighborhood that is not only accessible to working class folks, to black folks, to historically displaced folks, but an entire neighborhood that is built around supporting the generational well-being and advancement of those communities in a material way. That absolutely has to extend to the way that we think about built infrastructure and built space. And this cover is a direct representation of that. Of course, we know our community was bisected by the construction of I-5. My father and my grandparents were actually displaced by the construction of this highway. Right. We know that this is not an abstraction for us. This is not an intellectual exercise. When we went to talks about decades of work that went into pushing ODOT critically, pushing our state critically to get to the hybrid solution that we're at right now. She's not just speaking to speak. These are real things that people have spent years of their lives and probably shaved years off of their lives in order to accomplish. So when we stand here and say we really, deeply advocate for the delivery of a full project, we do so in that full context. This highway cover and the I-5 rose quarter improvement project is not only, again, something that exists in a vacuum, it connects to the way we're thinking about the redevelopment of the east side waterfront. So the way that we're thinking about the historic redevelopment of the ten and a half acre Portland public schools administrative headquarters campus to the way that we're thinking about reactivating and renovating, you know, the two most significant arenas in the history of our state, we're trying to build a neighborhood. This project is a really, really significant step in us getting there. Us getting shovels in the ground is important, but we also want you to know that we appreciate all of your leadership and your continued commitment to making sure that all of this work that community has put in over the course of decades isn't all for nothing. Yeah.
185 And just one last note here about the slogan lids, not lanes in this position that I've heard people advocate for, I think it's important for us to address that. Obviously, the part of this project that we are most invested in is the highway cover, and yet there is no highway cover without a complete project, which is why we are really clear about saying we support the delivery of the complete project. As you know, after listening to this morning's presentation from PBOT, I think it's safe to say I don't see city of Portland raising their hand to say we want to finance and build a highway cover in this part of the city, right? That's not happening. I don't see a path for the state to say, we will build a highway cover here without meeting the needs of freight and other rural industries. Our federal partners have said the delivery of this project is the best way for the covers to be delivered, which is why they granted their largest award to this project. And so unless you know someone has a secret plan for delivering just the covers, I want to be really realistic and just honest on the record and saying that that is not a real position. Thank you.
186 Thank you so much, both of you. Please stay. I think we may have some comments or questions. I just want to say I really appreciate all the work that you put in, and I especially appreciate what you talked about long term vision. And that's exactly what we need. All over the city is a long term vision of what we want this place to be like. So thank you so much. And with that, councilor Smith, I think you have your hand up. Oh. I think it's okay.
187 Here's my recommendation. I suppose I recommend that we have no more freeways come and present, because then we can do the q&a portion with everyone together so that if you guys have feedback or there's pushback, which I think is healthy tension, then we can have that discussion together. But what do you think?
188 I really think as long as we have them here on the dais, we should allow the committee members to ask questions or make comments. And then we can ask our other guests to come up and join you. I want you to stay at the dais as well.
189 Okay. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Madam vice chair, I heard what you said when you introduced them, that you supported the project and you took the words out of my mouth. That is the question I was getting ready to ask you. Can we actually do the lids without doing the freeway? And you answer my question. And so I'm really I know that the no freeways folks are going to come up, but I really wish we would have had ODOT as well, because I don't understand how we can have this conversation if ODOT is not sitting here in the room, because we need that money that you got from secretary buttigieg to be able to do the lids. So I think the public is getting confused, as if we could do the lids. And I'm going to ask you this question, jt, again, clearly, because I know winter just said it, but do you think that we can do these lids without doing the whole project?
190 There's absolutely no path financially or politically to developing a highway cover without the expansion of the freeway.
191 Thank you. And that's what I want the public to know. So there's a lot of confusion going on. There's a lot of misinformation that this this project includes five lanes on each side, which is totally ridiculous. And we need to understand that it's going to require and I wish ODOT was here to be able to tell their story. And from what I understand, if you could give me some clarity, they're they're trying to expand one auxiliary Lane on each side. And that would help to build the foundation for the lids, correct?
192 Yes. And just for a little bit of additional clarity here, you know, we've always publicly maintained that we are quite agnostic on the widening of the highway. Our priority is the reconnection of our community. If we could viably find a path to capping the highway without expanding it, we would be two thumbs up, right? It would require significantly less funding. It would get us there quicker. We would be very happy to support a reality like that. But functionally, we have to be pragmatists in the work that we do, especially if we're committed to executing on these promises that we've made to community. The reason that we say the lid and the widening are inextricably tethered to one another is because the project has been technically engineered on a structural level, in a manner that necessitates that both things happen at the same time. The cover excuse me, the highway will be widened while also being deepened to accommodate for a larger girders capable of supporting vertical development on top of the cover, which was actually the most significant piece of feedback that came from that three year long independent cover assessment project, which was, of course, a result of community saying ODOT, absolutely not. You're not expanding this highway without addressing the harm that the construction of this highway caused to begin with. Right. So again, this is not everette getting up here saying we're buddy buddy with anybody who throws money the direction of this project, it's us saying that pragmatically and practically, this is the path that we have to walk down. And it's time for us to remain deeply aligned and committed to the delivery of the project.
193 And I really appreciate that comprehensive explanation and hope, madam chair, that we can bring ODOT back so that we can have them explain their project. While you're not an engineer, you certainly explained it as well as any engineer that I know, to give us a very clear picture of what it takes, because I want the misinformation to stop. I want people to tell the truth about the project and not confuse it. And while you represent the community, you're also representing a entire project, not just the lids. So thank you so much.
194 We will definitely invite ODOT to come and speak on this councilor Morillo you have your hand up.
195 Yeah. Thank you so much for your presentation. I think it was really important for us to hear the context and the history behind this. And for me, I don't actually have a question about the highway expansion. I think that's something maybe you got from other advocates who have different positions. I understand the financial discussion around we have to expand the lanes, because that's the deal that was brokered with the federal government to get these funds. My really my only core question is this with the trump administration knowing that he and his administration do not care about black communities, and they have been stripping federal funding for a lot of bipoc communities and anything that is coming our way that's actually helpful to us. What guarantee do you have that that funding is secured for the cap? Because my, my earnest, truest, sincerest fear is that they are going to fund give us the money to expand the highways. The highways will get expanded, and then they will yank the funding for the caps, and then we will have a bigger problem than we had before. That's genuinely my concern.
196 Yeah, I appreciate that question. Councilor. You know, I think a few things and I know jt will have more to add here. One, you know, we can't deliver you certainty. And I just I have to say that. But what we can guarantee and what we've seen over the last few years and have a lot of confidence in is actually the leadership at PBOT, right? Pbot has remained vigilant in tracking every single stage of the project to make sure that as the project moves through the process, what is moving forward is what has been agreed to. So I think it's just important to state that on the record and in any future briefing that might involve ODOT to consider involving PBOT to talk about the ways in which their engineers, their planners, right, the entire team there is supporting the protection of the city's interests in this project. I can't overstate that enough. The other part of it is that the federal funding to date has been specifically for the highway covers, and that funding has not been rescinded. The signals that they will look to are around whether or not there is a level of alignment at the local and regional level, right. And moving forward with, with the project. The other important contextual thing to note right now is that we're in the middle of a legislative process where there is a significant transportation package that has is part of the package, a commitment to finishing the rose quarter project, which includes the delivery of the full project. And so there are two. The most important factor is going to be local and regional alignment, where we say we are ready. We've done all of the hard work of getting to the right project, and now we actually want it and we will show up in Salem together to advocate for the complete for the delivery of the complete project. So all of those components will be important. And then, as jt said, because this project braids together so many different interests, even if there's a part of the project that, you know, any particular administration doesn't like, there are other components that they do. And so this is again, where maintaining a commitment to the full project is important. This project is important for labor. It's important for freight. It's important for industry just as it is for community, for advocates, for multimodal transportation. And so, you know, the time to sort of hash out the project components is over. And this is where we have to really stay in alignment moving forward. And of course, always with a careful eye to making sure that what's delivered is, is what was promised, if at any moment that changes, you know, I would expect we'd have a very different message for you. But that is not today, and I don't foresee that.
197 Yeah. And just to add to what winter's saying there, you know, we received three significant grants out of that same bucket of funding, all of which was frozen as part of the freezing of biden era infrastructure investments. Right? The first was the reconnecting albina planning project grant that we're leading in partnership with the city. And if I'm not mistaken, we were the city was able to actually draw down additional funds from that grant as recently as about a month ago, which is fantastic news. We know that ODOT has also been able to draw down additional funds from their grant for early right of way acquisitions again within the past few weeks. So if we have heard anything at the federal level, it has been that while they have been very happy to issue stop work orders to projects that didn't have funds that were already obligated, they've been more hesitant to touch obligated funding. And this is really a testament to the fantastic work of the bureaus here in the city, specifically PBOT, who was so proactive in getting those funds obligated upfront for broadway, main street, and for the reconnecting albina planning project. It's also a testament to odot's proactivity in getting the 450 obligated. We expect that even though those funds, again, are reimbursement based, that that funding will continue to flow. And if it doesn't, we have, you know, deep alignment across every level of government that is committed to making sure that we can continue having a conversation. Metro councilor Ashton simpson actually introduced a conditional trigger into the resolution of approving the programing of those $250 million in state funds for the early work packages that said, hey, if this funding gets yanked, we have to come back to the table as not only a city, but a region and discuss what the future of this project looks like.
198 Thank you. That's a very good information. I really appreciate the big picture there. Thank you. Councilor Green, did you have your hand up?
199 I did, but I'm just looking at the clock and I want to make time for other presenters.
200 Okay. All right. Great. Well, thank you again very much. And I would just request that you stay at the dias if that's uncomfortable. And we'll have chris Smith and joe cortright join you. Welcome. It's been a long time.
201 Thank you.
202 Chris Smith.
203 With no more freeways I'm going to share.
204 Some slides if this works. Okay.
205 Once you start referencing them they'll bring it up.
206 Okay great. As I said I'm chris Smith. With no more.
207 Freeways I'm going to.
208 Set the context here. My colleague joe cortright.
209 Will describe some of the facts and figures around the project. And then I'll come back.
210 And talk.
211 About the current moment that we're in.
212 So my first slide is a.
213 Chronology of the project.
214 Of course, we all know that in. The 60s.
215 The albina.
216 Neighborhood was demolished by the.
217 Freeway and other factors.
218 I had my first involvement.
219 In 2012.
220 As.
221 A member.
222 Of your planning commission. I voted against the rose quarter project because I couldn't imagine that in our 20 year vision for the central city, the largest single public investment would be a freeway widening that we didn't have better imagination than that. Frankly, not much happened then because there was no funding. Things got real in 2017 when house bill 2017 funded the project initially, and it was put in the Portland tsp. Our group, no more freeways, was formed at that time to oppose putting it in the tsp. Of course, this is all before albina vision appeared on the scene in 2021. To albina vision's credit, they forced an independent cover analysis. A very good thing. And in 2023 they were instrumental in securing federal grant funding. The upcoming dates you're going to see ODOT do a groundbreaking this year on phase one a, which includes stormwater and some other things. And frankly, we're not worried about phase one a, our opposition is really to what starts in phase one, which will not break ground until 2027. That's meaningful because we have two lawsuits in process that will play out between now and 2027. Talking a little bit about our our campaign, our basic philosophy is that in an age of evident climate change, when greenhouse gases from transportation are increasing, even as they decrease in every other sector, every dollar spent on freeway widening is a dollar wasted and adding more harm that could go to proactive investments like transit, walking, biking that could reduce greenhouse gases. That's what motivates us. We do grassroots organizing, along with partners like the sunrise movement, but mainly we sue people. That's the form of advocacy that we took. And, you know, there is no secret plan for how to do this, how to get lids without freeway widening. There is a lawsuit that says we should have an eis that examines a full range of alternatives, including pricing, including transit alternatives. And there's no reason that covers cannot be in that mix. We have never had a full alternatives analysis at that level, and that's what we demand in our federal lawsuit. We have had literally 3000 comments submitted to ODOT that they should be looking at these alternatives. But the project to widen the freeway powers on and we do believe in lids, not lanes. And if ODOT won't allow us to imagine a project that will do that, we need a better political imagination. And I hope some of you can help provide that. I'm going to turn it over to joe now, who's going to talk about some of the facts and figures in the project?
223 Great. Thank you. For the record, joe cortright, I'm also with no more freeways. I run city observatory, an urban policy think tank. One of the things that's really missing from the discussion here, I think, is several councilors have noted, is a real clear look at the facts about what this project entails. Here's a diagram or an illustration that was prepared not by me, prepared by ODOT. This is something they never show anymore. They showed it early on in the project, but they don't show it now because what they're really proposing is a massive freeway widening project. And again, as several of us have reiterated, there's no objection to covering the freeway. But what really what ODOT has said about doing is building a vastly wider freeway through northeast Portland, and it is a wider freeway with more traffic and all of the negative effects of the of freeways come not from the freeway itself, but from the volume of cars that they send into urban neighborhoods. And as our colleagues at albina vision noted, it's hazardous when off ramps funnel cars onto city streets. And this project, by enlarging the freeway, will funnel more cars, more pollution, create more crashes in this vital neighborhood. And we've long since learned, half a century ago in Oregon, in Portland, that we make more progress in the urban environment when we reduce or eliminate freeways than when we widen them. Now, I don't think there should be any mistake if we can go to the next slide, chris, that what ODOT is proposing is to essentially double the width and in some cases triple the width of I-5 through the rose quarter. This is a diagram that we obtained by a public records request. Because ODOT does not routinely disclose this information. Now they'll tell you that they're only adding one additional auxiliary Lane in each direction. Why oh why then are they doubling the width of the freeway from about 82ft to more than 160ft? This is the cross section that broadway weidler, which is a critical one. They've really engineered enough room for five 12 foot wide lanes and full shoulders in each direction. Once they build this project, there's nothing that stops them from running a paint truck like the one you saw, illustrated by PBOT earlier today, and restriping the freeway for five lanes in each direction. And again, this is not my document. This is an ODOT document that we obtained by public records request. Now, I know there's been a lot of controversy about does it really need to be this project. Do you need the full project? Well, as part of the independent cover assessment, ODOT hired a company called arup, which is one of the leading engineering firms in the world, and they've worked all over the united states and all over the world. And they said basically that ODOT has designed a roadway that is at least 40ft wider than it needs to be to accomplish the objective that they say that they need. Now, that's important for a couple of reasons. It makes the project vastly more expensive. But from the standpoint of albina vision, you heard jt talk about how thick these beams need to be. Every additional foot that you widen the freeway makes that structure much more massive and much more expensive. If you're going to achieve the redevelopment objective that we all agree makes some sense. So you have an independent set of engineers that tells you that this is a vastly wider project than it needs to be. Finally, we know that that's going to cause a huge increase in costs already. This project, which was promised at $450 million one year council, approved it as part of the central city plan in 2017, has more than quadrupled to $1.9 billion. And I would put an asterisk on that because a new cost estimate, which will reflect the latest redesign and extenuated schedule attenuated schedule, is going to be even higher. So before we've even turned a shovel of dirt, this project has quadrupled. And I'll just point you to the abernathy bridge project, which is the largest ODOT project running right now. When it was approved, it was supposed to cost $250 million. Once they broke ground, it doubled to 500 million. It's now 850 million. Odot has no capability whatsoever to control costs of these projects. And once you commit to this project, you basically and this is their strategy. Once you get it started, once you get shovels in the ground. And this is a classic robert moses technique from the 1930s, then you're obligated to build the whole project no matter what it costs. And it will be extremely costly. And I'll just note one other thing about the financing. It's true that we were able to get support for the covers because the federal government does support the covers, but then ODOT went to the us department of transportation and asked the biden administration for another $750 million to pay for the freeway widening, and the biden administration turned them down flat. There is a giant more than billion dollar hole right now in the cost of this project. And once you commence, once you head on this project, once you get it started, it will be irrevocably higher.
224 Joe, I'm going to have to interrupt you. We're we're I'm going to extend this hearing by a couple of minutes so that we can take some questions. Yes. We have we're normally a hard stop at 1130 and I'm sorry we went over time, but if you can wrap it up pretty quickly, that will leave time for some of us to ask questions.
225 I'll turn it over to chris to wrap.
226 It up. Let me let me go to my closing slide. So what our ask of you is be attentive to the details. I understand that there's a lot to love in what albina vision is doing, but there are a lot of other details you need to pay attention to. Don't let shovels in the ground be a free pass to unlimited funding. That's the classic robert moses play. And I would tell you that the breaking ground on phase 1 in 2027 is really the important moment. The work between now and then is not as critical. And I want to remind you that the number one transportation priority in your legislative agenda is rose quarter. If we exit the legislative agenda with funding for phase two. But PBOT is laying off staff and TriMet is canceling bus routes, you're going to own part of that result. And I want you to be very careful about your legislative agenda. And with that, we're happy to answer questions.
227 Thank you. Chris, I think we'll have a few minutes for questions. I just want to say that I think some of the data you're talking about is outdated. I don't know that we're really talking about that number of lanes, but we will definitely invite ODOT and PBOT to come back and rectify some of the misunderstandings here. But I appreciate your being here. I appreciate your passion. And I'm going to I'm going to allow councilor Smith to ask a question.
228 I would just like to respond to that chair, that the physical dimensions are correct. The striping underneath is a matter of opinion about what ODOT could do in the future.
Procedural episode · turns 229–237
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229 We'll wait to hear from ODOT and PBOT.
230 Thank you, madam chair. And I did note I was I was looking for the ODOT. They usually put their emblem up on different slides. And I was going to ask you the question, is that your rendering or is that ODOT rendering of that five lanes on each side.
231 The physical description of where the pillars are, the widths, that is all. Odot via public records request the red numerals showing where you put the lanes is our editorial comment.
232 Yeah. And I agree with the chair. That is outdated information. And that's really unfair and disingenuous of you to bring it here as if it was released yesterday. The other question is, do you think you can actually do the lids without expanding the freeway?
233 I think we could accommodate the transportation needs with a combination of pricing and alternatives, and then funding the lids becomes a political question. So, you know, if you're essentially buying agreement to the lids by further damaging the climate, that's our objection. The principles of just transition say we should move racial justice and climate justice together, not put them in opposition, as ODOT is doing now.
234 And arup, the independent engineering consultant, said it would be possible to be 40ft.
235 Now you don't have the floor, I do, I'm sorry. Could you please answer the question, chris? Do you think you can do the lids without expanding this new rose quarter project? That's what I'm asking you, not your political environmental plan. I'm just asking you as it stands right now, can we do the lids without doing the freeways?
236 The goal of a full eis is to answer that question. We've never been allowed to ask the question and have engineers answer it.
237 Thank you. So I would appreciate when you come to this, this committee, that you give us real information and not what you would hope, because that was the question that I would ask ODOT if they were here, but they were not here today, and they should have been here. Because it is their project.
238 May I answer that question?
239 Go ahead.
240 An independent engineering firm with worldwide status, arup prepared a report for ODOT that says that the roadway could be 40ft narrower than odot's design. So yes, you could build a much narrower freeway and that would make the covers cheaper.
241 But you don't want any freeway whether it's narrow or wide. So it wouldn't matter if it was a narrow freeway or not.
242 No, I don't think we.
243 Said that. Councilor Green an opportunity to ask his question.
244 Thank you chair. I just want to I want to reiterate that I strongly support freeway cap, and I strongly support investing our public dollars city, state and federal in re-envisioning and investing in a part of the city that has been destroyed by by freeway expansion. But it is also true that when you expand a freeway, whether it's re-optimize or create a widening for auxiliary lanes, you you run up against the induced demand principle and you will undermine the freight objectives of that whole investment. And so if we want to increase the freight throughput and lower the congestion in this area, even with some some reasonable investments to make it a safer area and build a lid, you do that by investing in a regional transit system that can get people out of their cars. There is no there is no shortcut to this. So as far as my politics go at this dais, I strongly oppose going all in on the rose quarter project for the state of Oregon. I think there's a better path forward to use our public dollars with way more cost control. I do not trust ODOT, ODOT for cost control. And I think that there's a path forward. We can build this without it.
245 Thank you, councilor Green. I believe that when we invite ODOT and PBOT to the dais to discuss the rose quarter, we can have a conversation about induced demand. That would be an excellent topic. So I'm going to close this section. Thank you all for being here. I'm sorry we've run out of time. We usually have 1130 hard stop. But this has been an excellent conversation. I really appreciate your time.
246 Thank you for having us.
247 Thank you.
248 Our next meeting is Monday, may the 12th. We'll have a an opportunity to come back and discuss some of the PBOT proposed cuts. If we have more questions, we'll have a draft ordinance or an ordinance proposal on asset management. And if we have time, we'll have PBOT and ODOT back to address some of the issues that were brought up today. But thank you everyone. Excellent hearing work session hearing. Thank you. And with that this meeting is closed.