Background
In May 2016, Portland voters endorsed the work of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) by approving Measure 26-173, a new 10-cent per gallon fuel tax for repairing streets. This was the first local funding source in the city’s history dedicated to the city’s transportation system. That same month, Portland City Council passed a Heavy Vehicle Use Tax (HVUT) on companies operating trucks over 13 tons, which resulted in companies paying 13% of the total fuel tax revenue which was directed for use on Portland’s streets. Collectively, this revenue is under the program called "Fixing Our Streets."
Voters renewed the 10-cent gas tax and Council re-passed the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax in both 2020 and 2024.
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Current cycle (2024-2028)
In early 2024, council renewed the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax and in May 2024, Portlanders renewed the 10-cent gas tax for another four years. Whether it’s paving our streets, filling potholes, improving street lighting, building sidewalks, or helping our youngest Portlanders safely walk, bike and roll to school, the Fixing Our Streets program helps Portland move forward while improving our transportation system for all.
Since the start of the Fixing Our Streets program, an oversight committee has provided accountability. This group uses the resource allocation strategy outlined below and detailed in city council documents to guide their oversight.
Fixing Our Streets helps realize the safer, more mobile, and more sustainable Portland envisioned by numerous plans and programs directing PBOT’s work citywide, including: the Vision Zero Action Plan, PedPDX: Portland’s Citywide Pedestrian Plan, Safe Routes to School, area plans like Southwest in Motion and Northwest in Motion, and many more.
Guided by the city’s Racial Equity Goals, Fixing Our Streets prioritizes projects that address inequities in our transportation system. This means ensuring that marginalized or underrepresented communities have greater mobility, and thus access to social and economic growth.
We also follow the city’s Climate Action Plan which impels us to create safer streets that prioritize pedestrians, people biking, and people taking transit as well as more efficient streets for motor vehicles using low-carbon electricity and renewable fuels.
The Fixing Our Streets (2024-2028) project list builds on these plans and the extensive public input that informed them. It is also shaped by feedback from neighborhood stakeholders, transportation justice advocates, and business groups. The projects represent what made the original Fixing Our Streets so successful: a relentless focus on repairs and improvements to make it easier and safer for all Portlanders to get where they need to go.