Background
The Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) was created by voter initiative in 2018. It is funded by a 1% surcharge on the Portland sales of large retailers with $1 billion in national sales and $500,000 in local sales. Revenue from the surcharge—about $200 million a year—is invested in projects and programs that support clean energy, transportation decarbonization, green infrastructure, and climate-related workforce development.
PCEF was initially set up to distribute revenue through community grants. However, as the program matured, the Climate Investment Plan was developed and adopted by City Council in 2022 to direct funding in a five-year cycle across community grants and strategic programs. The plan was amended in 2024 (for the 2024-2029 period) to add more funding in response to unexpectedly high revenue.
PCEF provides funding to PBOT in three ways—grants, matching funds, and allocations of strategic programs—outlined below.
Grants
PCEF’s Collaborating for Climate Action funding opportunity awarded PBOT's Sidewalks for Schools project $20.6 million in late 2024.
With these funds, PBOT crews and contractors will construct nine new sidewalk projects near schools to create safe, accessible routes for pedestrians and supporting the most affordable and carbon-free form of transportation. The project meets a long-standing need in East Portland and Cully and was submitted in partnership with Oregon Walks.
Matching funds
PBOT applied for and was approved for up to $680,000 matching funding through PCEF’s Strategic Program 15. The Transportation Priority Spot Improvements program is a partnership with TriMet that leverages grant funding from the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund discretionary program. This program is aimed at improving infrastructure related to transit to reduce delay, improve reliability, and increase ridership.
Projects include Next-Generation Transit Signal Priority or other signal modifications, improving bus stops or changing their location, adding transit priority lanes, or other changes to signage and striping. Some of this work, such as adding left-turn lanes, improve safety for all forms of travel. For TriMet buses, reducing the amount of delay, frequent stopping, and idling also improves overall efficiency and reduces emissions.
Allocations overview
PCEF has allocated $165 million to PBOT through the Climate Investment Plan. The Climate Investment Plan is a five-year funding program that allocates PCEF funds to city activities that support PCEF goals. These funds go to strategic programs located at PBOT, outlined below by program or project and strategic program number. Allocations listed for each program are over five years (FY 2024-2025 through 2028-2029). See all of PCEF’s Climate Investment Plan strategic program allocations here.
Equitable Clean Transportation Access (Strategic Program 7)
- Allocation: $25 million
- Description: Expands two existing programs:
- Transportation Wallet Access for All program that offers qualifying participants, people and households living on a low income, a package of free transportation options such as public transit passes, BIKETOWN bike-share, e-scooter ride credit, and credits for taxis and ride-hailing (Uber/Lyft).
- BIKETOWN for All program that offers affordable, accessible, and fun bike-share transportation for everyone, regardless of income. Those who qualify for certain forms of state or federal assistance can sign up for discounted BIKETOWN memberships.
82nd Avenue - Sidewalk and Street Tree Infill Project (Strategic Program 12)
- Allocation: $5 million
- Description: Sidewalk widening and tree planting along 82nd Avenue in select locations between SE Foster to SE Clatsop. Visit the 82nd Ave Sidewalk and Street Tree Infill Project website here.
Streetcar Replacement (Strategic Program 28)
- Allocation: $30 million
- Description: Co-funding the replacement of 12 Portland Streetcars, allowing continued clean transit operations and expansion of streetcar network.
Active transportation maintenance and operations (Strategic Program 29)
- Allocation: $10 million
- Description: Purchase 2-3 electric bike-lane sweepers and additional cleaning equipment. Fund maintenance staff to clean separated and shared painted bike lanes. The program goal is cleaning 400 miles of city bike lanes six times per year by 2027.
Community programming, education, and encouragement (Strategic Program 31)
- Allocation: $15 million
- Description: Programs to help educate, encourage, incentivize, and reward people in choosing low-carbon modes of travel. This includes the following key projects:
- Safe Routes to School, which makes it safe, convenient, and fun for children of all abilities to bicycle, walk, and roll to school and around their neighborhoods through education, road safety improvements, and events.
- Portland Sunday Parkways, which promotes healthy active living through a series of free events opening the city's largest public space—its streets—to walk, bike, roll, and discover active transportation.
- Portland By Cycle, which provides free guided bike rides, skill-building classes and online content, creating a supportive setting for adults new to cycling, new to Portland, or just getting back on the bike.
- Adaptive BIKETOWN, which is Portland’s adaptive bike rental program. The program aims to increase access to cycling for people with disabilities.
- General bike messaging, which are seasonal campaigns that encourage people to bike and generate citywide enthusiasm around biking.
LED street lighting (Strategic Program 32)
- Allocation: $37 million
- Description: Funding for replacement and infill street lighting with efficient LEDs, with focus on high-crash corridors, and purchase 100% renewable energy to meet load.
Active transportation small capital projects (Strategic Program 30)
- Allocation: $20 million
- Description: Small- and medium-scale capital investments to improve biking, walking, and transit and provide community members with safe, convenient ways to get around while reducing greenhouse gases. Most of these projects [HL5] are drawn from modal plans and existing plans like North Portland in Motion and Lower Southeast Rising.
- Strategic program 30 encompasses multiple projects, outlined below. If a project already has a website, it is linked. Otherwise, we include a project description. This list will be updated as additional projects are selected.
82nd Avenue: Glisan and Davis Signal Improvements
NE 42nd Avenue Bridge Replacement
Cully Street Improvement Project
Multimodal Missing Links
Holgate crossings at 62nd, 87th, 88th, and 125th
Holgate crossings at 108th and 117th and accessibility improvements from 103rd to 122nd
Killingsworth crossings at multiple locations
Halsey crossings at 51st and 56th
Smith and Charleston crossing- Safe Routes to School
Bicycle and pedestrian improvements on SE Holgate Boulevard (127th to 130th avenues)
As part of this Safe Routes to School project, crews will add concrete traffic separators to the existing buffered bike lanes along SE Holgate Boulevard between 127th and 130th avenues and enhance access to the school crosswalk at SE 128th Avenue. This will increase pedestrian visibility and protect people biking along the front of Gilbert Heights Elementary.
60s Neighborhood Greenway in Cully
This project would provide a neighborhood greenway along NE 67th Avenue (Klickitat to Mason streets) and 66th Avenue (Mason to Alberta streets), including crossing improvements, traffic calming, signage, and striping.
Pedestrian crossing improvements on SE 92nd Avenue (at Steele and Taylor streets)
This is a key walking and biking school route to Lent K-5 Elementary. As part of this Safe Routes to School project, crews will upgrade the existing paint-and-post diverter at SE 92nd Avenue and Steele Street to a concrete median island with speed cushions on either side. This will increase visibility for pedestrians and people biking and slow vehicle speeds. This project will also include a new marked crosswalk across SE 92nd Avenue at Taylor Street to increase pedestrian visibility on a key walking route to Clark Elementary School and Berrydale Park.
NE 70th Avenue and Glisan Street pedestrian crossing
This crossing will improve conditions for pedestrians in the Montavilla neighborhood along NE Glisan Street, which is on the High Crash Network. Improvements include curb extensions with ADA-compliant curb ramps and a median refuge island. Currently, the only marked crossings along this stretch are at NE 67th and 74th avenues. This forces pedestrians to cross at an unimproved location or go multiple blocks out of their way to find a safer crossing. PBOT will work with TriMet to relocate the existing bus stop at 70th Avenue and Glisan Street, if needed. This location is a high priority for neighborhood advocates, who staged a pop-up style crossing event in 2023 at this location, covered by the Montavilla News.
Bicycle lanes on SE 11th and 12th avenues (between Clay and Ankeny streets)
This project completes a segment included in the Central City in Motion plan and aims to improve pedestrian safety at crossings of 11th and 12th avenues while creating a new north-south connection through the central eastside for people biking. Part of this work includes reconfiguring the couplet to better accommodate trucks, buses, and cars by replacing two narrow travel lanes with one wider lane and a wide bike lane. This configuration preserves parking on both sides of the street. This is one stage of improvements. Later stages would include improvements to transit stops and extend south to Division Street.
Next-Generation Transit Signal Priority system – Configuration, programming, monitoring, and evaluation
The Next-Generation Transit Signal Priority system was a major part of the success of the Division Transit Project. The system also minimized delays to other modes of travel because of special programming by traffic signal controllers with PBOT’s Signals, Street Lighting, and Intelligent Transportation Systems division. This system-wide funding supports expansion of the new system, saving over 700 metric tons of CO2 a year and ensuring minimal delays for transit riders.
Additionally, the following projects leverage 50/50 matching funds from TriMet to program and upgrade the infrastructure that deploys LYT, TriMet's new cloud-based transit signal priority system. LYT detects and anticipates bus movement, communicating with PBOT signals to give approaching buses a longer green light. This reduces bus delay, breaking, idling and accelerating at traffic signals.
Projects include:
- 122nd Avenue (NE Skidmore Street to SE Foster Road). This includes work on as many as 22 signals primarily benefiting TriMet bus line 73 and intersecting bus lines 9, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25, and 77.
- SE Division Street (7thto 174th avenues): This includes work on as many as 13 signals, primarily benefiting TriMet bus line 10, 14, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 and future line 86 (along 148th Avenue).
- SE Hawthorne Boulevard (16th to 50th avenues): This includes work on 9-15 signals, primarily benefitting TriMet bus line 14 and intersecting bus line 75 along César E Chávez Boulevard.
North Portland in Motion implementation
Read the North Portland in Motion Plan
- N Burr Avenue Neighborhood Greenway Phase 2 (Page 30)
- Portsmouth University Park Neighborhood Greenway Loop (Page 32)
- N Ainsworth Street Neighborhood Greenway Phase 1 (Page 38)
- N Woolsey Corridor Improvements (Page 68)
Lower Southeast Rising implementation
Read the Lower Southeast Rising Plan
- SE Tolman Street Neighborhood Greenway: eastern segment (Page 126)
- Steele / Mitchell Neighborhood Greenway (Page 127)
- SE 60th Avenue Neighborhood Greenway (Page 128)
- SE 46th Avenue Neighborhood Greenway (Page 129)