Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Loretta Smith
Chair Clark, this is Councilor Smith.
I'm online.
Here, Clerk, I'm online.
Olivia Clark
Okay, uh, good morning everyone.
I call the meeting of the Public Works Committee to order.
It is Tuesday, September the 22nd at 9:30 AM.
Diana, can you please call the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Certainly.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Koyama Lane?
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Green is absent.
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Absent.
Unidentified speaker
Clerk?
Olivia Clark
Here.
Thank you.
That's it.
Okay, here we are.
Did I hear Councilor Smith or did I miss that?
She's a yes.
Okay, Councilor Smith, do you mind maybe occasionally turning on your camera for us?
Thank you.
Uh, Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Chair.
Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the Public Works 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/publicworkscommittee or by calling 311.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 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 3 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, state your name for the record.
If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Claire.
Would help if I turn the mic on.
Um, so for today's meeting, fortunately we do have a quorum.
May not look like it, but we have people online.
That's great.
Uh, so we can conduct business today.
So first we're going to consider an alternative contracting method for the Montgomery Park Streetcar Extension Project, the CMGC, which is terrific.
Then we're going to have 2 ordinances to secure temporary property rights for pedestrian improvements.
And then we'll probably take a break.
The second half of the meeting, we're going to return to the implementation of the transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee.
We're going to dig in a little bit to that, get a progress report.
Thank you.
Report, really important.
But before we get to our main items, we need to approve the committee minutes for the meetings of July 28th and August 11th.
Do I have a consensus on that?
I think everybody nodding.
There's a yes, yes, yes.
Okay, great.
The minutes are approved by unanimous consent.
I don't see any objections.
So, um, Diana, can you please read the next item?
Unidentified speaker
Item number 2, document number 2026-333, approve the findings to authorize exemption to the competitive bidding requirements and authorize competitive solicitation for the use of the alternative contract method of a construction manager/general contractor for the Montgomery— For the Montgomery Park Street Extension Project.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
This ordinance that we're looking at today approves an alternative contracting method for the construction phase of the Montgomery Park Streetcar Extension project.
It's called CMGC, affectionately known CMGC.
I worked on it at TriMet.
It's a great way to do business.
It is the Construction Manager General Contractor.
So we've got our PBOT and procurement folks up here to Good morning, Chair Clark and committee members.
Unidentified speaker
I'm pleased to be here this morning in my new role as Interim Deputy City Administrator for Public Works and for one more day Acting Director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Thank you for giving PBOT the opportunity to share information about a series of items, the full 3 hours to discuss the 4 items on the agenda.
As you've already mentioned, first we'll ask you to consider approving an alternative contracting method for our upcoming streetcar expansion.
To the Montgomery Park Office Building.
And fun fact, in case folks didn't know, Montgomery Ward buildings all over the country are on the same model.
So if you look at the ones across the country, about 8 of them, they all have the same design elements.
So that's kind of cool.
Anyway, staff will bring forward 2 small temporary property rights as well for safety projects for your consideration and approval.
And then finally, the PBOT team will bring forward an update on the implementation plan for the transportation utility fee and street damage restoration fee.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Deputy City Attorney Nancy Thorington.
Unidentified speaker
The first item before you is an ordinance to approve the findings to authorize exemption to the competitive bidding requirements and authorize a competitive solicitation for the use of an alternative contracting method, as you've already mentioned, CMGC, Construction Manager and General Contractor, or slash General Contractor, for the Montgomery Park Streetcar Extension Project.
Our partners in Central Procurement are represented today by Chief Procurement Officer Sylvester Donaldson, as well as the project team, including project manager They're here to present the project details.
But I'd like to start by providing brief context related to how impactful the Portland Streetcar has been to mobility and housing in the Central City, and secondly, how important it is to advance this extension project on schedule today.
So the first point that I'd like to share is that opening in 2001, the Portland Streetcar has been a model for modern streetcar systems in the United States.
The system is owned by the City of Portland.
Building the streetcar alignment alongside community and housing development partners has significantly shaped the character of our central city.
Since 2001, the number of housing units built matches daily ridership growth on a 1-to-1 basis.
We have dense, walkable neighborhoods that are served by streetcar.
Our streetcar transit system has helped create climate-friendly communities for people of all ages and abilities.
Portlanders have seen what investing in streetcar can do to create thriving neighborhoods, with the Pearl District and South Waterfront being examples of dense communities, active open spaces, and thriving business corridors.
The Montgomery Park area served by this extension reflects a new public-private partnership aimed at providing middle-wage jobs, affordable housing, and a neighborhood park.
Second point is that the extension project entered into the Federal Transit Administration Capital Investment Grant, or CIG, funding process at the end of 2024.
The project has advanced several critical milestones in the past 2 years and is now approaching 30% design with environmental review underway.
Millicent Williams
Maintaining the project delivery—.
Unidentified speaker
Maintaining the project delivery schedule is critical to demonstrating federal project readiness.
As the team will present today, use of a CMGC contract would be able to best support successful completion of the project in an efficient manner to reduce and manage risk And deliver community outcomes.
And now I'd like to hand it off to PBOT Project Manager David Solve-a-Problem Backus.
Take it away.
David Backus
Hi, thank you.
David Backus, PBOT Capital Project Manager.
All right, we are going to go through just a few background slides here and really get into the project and why CMGC is the right fit.
We have 10 slides total.
I like to know what I'm getting into ahead of time.
So we're already done with 2, and here's the 3rd.
All right.
So as DCA Williams mentioned, Portland Streetcar is an important system, and it's really important to note that this is PBOT's transit system.
The City of Portland owns this and operates it in partnership with TriMet.
We have 3 lines today, and what we're looking at here is this little Green part, right now it goes up Northrup, down 23rd, but we're gonna swing right and head up into what is going to be a new neighborhood up in Northwest Portland.
This is also the largest modern streetcar system in the US.
So for Montgomery Park Streetcar Extension more specifically, this is a streetcar project, but it has many elements that are gonna bring a lot of benefits to the neighborhood as a whole.
Northwest 23rd Avenue was recently repaved as kind of a stopgap measure.
Olivia Clark
Yay.
David Backus
And that is great.
It looks good now.
What the streetcar project will do is reconstruct the street as a concrete street with the track bed on it to extend the lifespan.
That street is gonna look great for many, many years after.
It'll add street lighting, ADA upgrades to all of the corner ramps, in addition to the station platform pairs that we have on 23rd, and also constructs new streets in what is now a former industrial site up in Northwest in this purple area.
So it unlocks development potential up in Northwest, supports jobs, housing, many other benefits, and extends the streetcar line about 1.3 miles total in this loop.
The project has been in the works really since about 2009 through various planning efforts.
More recently, the Montgomery Park Area Plan and the locally preferred alternative were adopted by City Council in late 2024.
These kind of set the direction for the capital project, which is in the works right now.
I came on board a couple of years ago once the planning phase was Really set, the alignment was set, and my job is to bring the project through the design and construction phase, get it built so we can have riders on the line looking like 2030.
For our schedule here, you can see— I'm going to draw a little line— we're right around this point here working on our preliminary design.
Environmental clearances are underway, and what we're looking to do is get our CMGC contractor on board in early 2026.
Thank you.
You can see this overlaps with our design phase.
So what this means is we have the contractor who's going to build the project reviewing the plans as they go through that process.
A typical low-bid project wouldn't bring a contractor on board until here.
So the first time they're seeing the plans is when they're bidding on them.
A low-bid project doesn't allow for the opportunity to have a contractor say, you know, we could sequence the work in this way.
We get that message out to the public.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
David Backus
Early, and a CMGC really helps us mitigate risks throughout.
They can help identify, you know, potential challenges that they might encounter during construction so that the design can be responsive to those challenges and make changes while we're still in the design phase.
We've completed the topo survey of 23rd and the New neighborhood area further up in Northwest.
So our survey crews have been out, you know, people have been seeing things happening.
There's been a lot of spray paint on the ground.
We've completed about a 10% concept design and are advancing to 30% design here right now.
Project budget for this, since the funding is coming through the Federal Transit Administration, the FTA, Being passed through to TriMet.
PBOT is a subrecipient.
The total project budget is kind of the container for this entire new extension, which includes vehicle replacement.
About half the cost is vehicle replacement.
The portion that we're talking about today is what the eventual construction contract would be.
Oh no, we disappeared.
Let's try to get back here really quick.
Gabe Graff
Okay.
David Backus
And we're gonna try this way.
Slideshow from current slide.
And we're back.
Okay, so our construction cost is likely in the $60 to $70 million range.
This ordinance doesn't require PBOT to advance with that construction contract itself.
What it allows is for a pre-construction phase with the CMGC It's a much smaller portion of the budget, usually 0.5 to 1% of the construction cost, and gives the contractor budget to review the plans, provide value engineering assistance, and that kind of thing.
Once we get closer to the end of the design phase, the contractor and the city will work together on the guaranteed maximum price.
That's the actual construction cost.
It's much further down the line, and we have So when we have a project that is large like this, we work with procurement on a scoring sheet and kind of look at a bunch of different factors, some of which are required by Oregon Revised Statute when we are trying to exempt a project from the low bid method of project delivery.
So I think the question is, And for this one, council approval is required to allow that CMGC method.
The scoring sheet has a maximum score of 32 points.
This is kind of like those quizzes at the end of a magazine.
You know, if you get a certain score, it tells you which area you're slotted into.
I haven't seen a project score this high.
This got 30 out of 32 points, which really strongly points it to an alternative delivery method.
And I mentioned some of the benefits earlier, but it really allows the city and the contractor and the neighborhood at large to begin working on the relationship.
You know, what is construction going to look like well ahead of construction?
It offers a lot more flexibility around construction sequencing and mitigates impacts in a way you can't do through low-bid contracting.
One example is you can get out ahead of certain work scopes and begin construction on some items while you're still doing design of others.
So It can also help shorten the overall schedule, reduce the pain for the traveling public, especially the businesses along 23rd.
We want to be really sensitive to keeping, you know, foot traffic high any way we can, making sure we're supporting that community too.
And CMGC isn't the typical method that PBOT does for most of our projects.
The majority of them are low bid, but we do have really good examples of using CMGC for larger-scale projects.
82Nd Avenue is probably our most recent kind of success story on the CMGC front.
We had a contractor, Raymour, came in at about 60% design and were in the room for right-of-way conversations, constructability, vegetation changes.
They're also really helpful on working with businesses along 82nd on how, how do we keep businesses going during construction.
FUBON is out there.
They have really heavy traffic in and out of their parking lot that's directly accessed through 82nd.
So the CMGC was able to work with us and FUBON on making a secondary new driveway access off a side street so the traffic was coming in and out of their parking lot uninterrupted during the main construction push.
And what it really does is help limit last-minute scrambles when you're in construction and confusion to the public.
When we have a low-bid project, the project manager and design engineering team work together on kind of anticipating what a future contractor might do, and we convey that message to the public the best we can.
You know, we expect this part of the work to take 4 months, and, you know, based on past projects, we can get pretty good estimates for that kind of thing.
But we may end up with a contractor who has a different idea about how they're going to deliver the project for a low bid.
And the thing that we've been telling the public for, you know, a year or two sometimes looks pretty different from their experience on the ground.
So with CMGC, we can, you know, get ahead of those kind of issues and get a message that we're delivering to the public for what they're actually going to see during construction.
And that's it.
This is slide number 10.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you for—.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Great.
Um, do we have any comments from Sylvester?
From any— anything you want to add to that?
Unidentified speaker
No, I think, I think pretty much that it's been covered.
I do want to— and just to give council, uh, the committee, um, a brief update in regards to engagement with, uh, DBEs and so forth, that we will be working with TriMet this week to kind of Kind of button that up and see where we can actually do as much engagement with our— as we possibly can, although this is a federal project.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Olivia Clark
Terrific.
I'm glad to hear that.
I really think that, colleagues, this is a great leap forward for PBOT.
I don't know what took us so long to get to CMGC, but having worked on it at TriMet, I understand all the advantages of having a CMGC.
I think that going to low bid is really kind of a misnomer with these kind of projects.
You know, there are change orders, there's a lot of complications.
They don't necessarily— low bid doesn't necessarily work with a neighborhood association very well.
And I've seen the construction of light rail under CMGC and just know how much more of a benefit it is.
And I think you've demonstrated that on 82nd Street, David.
So, colleagues, do you— I see that Councilor Smith has her hand up and I'm open to entertaining any questions here, Councilor Smith, or comments.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, um, Madam Chair.
I wanted to ask about the DBEs.
So will that DBE contracting come through procurement at the city or through TriMet?
Unidentified speaker
It will be in coordination with TriMet, the city, as well as coordination with TriMet in order for us to be able to maximize the regional workforce Equity agreement.
So we will be working together with them, and we meet with them— the meetings start this week.
Hopefully we can give— if necessary, we can definitely give you an update later on.
Loretta Smith
Okay, thank you.
So just give me some kind of idea.
I'm trying to figure out if the RFPs are going to come through our shop or if it's going to come through TriMet, or you just don't know.
Unidentified speaker
We will be reviewing the proposals.
The CMGC contract itself will be held by the city, but TriMet is the reviewer of that.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
Okay, that's, that's what I needed to find out.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Good question, Councilor Smith.
And I can tell you from the TriMet experience, and TriMet has a great DBE track record, and I think we have— we can benefit from that.
Any other Questions?
I think we have one person signed up to speak to this.
Is that correct?
Jordan Lewis
Correct, one person.
Olivia Clark
Shall we call that person up now?
Sure.
Jordan Lewis
Jordan Lewis.
Olivia Clark
Or are they online?
Jordan Lewis
Uh, if they are online— they can't be online because they signed up too late to do online testimony.
Olivia Clark
Okay, we have a Jordan Lewis in the house.
Jordan Lewis
If not, then that completes testimony.
Olivia Clark
Okay, thank you.
Uh, colleagues, any other questions about CMGC and whether we should move forward?
We have an ordinance here to send to the full council.
If there's not any other questions, I would entertain a motion to move ordinance document number 2026-333 to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
Loretta Smith
So moved.
Unidentified speaker
Second.
Olivia Clark
Great.
Okay, it's been moved by Councilor Smith and seconded by Councilor Koyama Lane.
Uh, if there's no further discussion, will the clerk please call the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Certainly.
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Uh, Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Uh, with 4 ayes and 1 absent, the motion to refer the ordinance document number 2026-333 to the City Council with a recommendation it be passed Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you all for being here today.
Appreciate your work.
And let's see, uh, Diana, will you please call the next item?
Unidentified speaker
Item number 3, document number 2026-334, authorize Bureau of Transportation to acquire certain temporary property rights necessary for construction of the Southeast Division Street to Southeast 148th Street to Southeast 174th Street project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
I don't think I need to repeat that, um, but I would say that this includes a number of, um, pedestrian and ADA improvements.
I believe at least one of these does.
And I remind the committee that Southeast 148th and Division is the same intersection we heard about from the traffic engineer and the then, uh, now I guess interim PBOT director, uh, Wendy Cully, earlier this summer when we were talking about Vision Zero.
We did talk a little bit about this, so I'm going to hand it off to the PBOT staff to, um, introduce this item for us.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Thank you, and good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
For the record, my name is Elizabeth Tilstrom.
I serve as a capital project manager for PBOT, and I am joined today by my colleague Carly Ruggles, a right-of-way agent for PBOT.
We are here today to bring forward a right-of-way ordinance for a temporary construction easement to the Southeast Division Street, Southeast 148th to 174th Avenue project.
And can you all see my screen here in the presentation?
That's not the presentation.
Okay, let me press that again.
There we go.
So for background, we've been working for over a decade to address the serious safety issues on Southeast Division Street, a designated high-crash corridor, through numerous capital projects.
We've been using a multi-pronged safe system approach to help reduce the high incidence of crashes that have historically occurred along this corridor.
This includes a reduced speed limit, speed safety cameras, additional street lighting, greater frequency of enhanced pedestrian crossings, protected bike lanes, and raised center medians.
The project before you today will address the 2 remaining segments on Southeast Division where we do not currently have raised center median.
As we continue to work on and study the Southeast Division street corridor, we have found that areas on Southeast Division where we've applied all of these safety countermeasures Including raised center medians.
In those areas, we've seen crashes reduced by 55% compared to only 7— a 7% reduction where we haven't added medians.
In these same areas, pedestrian crashes have gone down 38% compared with 18% where we do not currently have medians.
Medians help to improve safety by reducing the number of conflict points related to vehicle turning movements that lead to crashes.
They provide people walking with a safe refuge at crossings.
They enhance crossing visibility and support safe driving speeds.
The 2 remaining gaps in raised center median are on Southeast Division between 152nd and 160th and 166th and 174th.
These sets of medians will include, include breaks for left turns, U-turns, and pedestrian crossings.
We will also be allowing left turns directly into certain properties where we have high turning demand, such as multi-family residences, or for businesses that have large vehicles needing direct access that can't U-turn, such as an RV business in the easternmost segment of our project area.
This project also includes modifying an existing signal at 157th and Division, converting it from a pedestrian signal to a full signal So we are currently in the design phase for this project and will continue— and design will continue through summer of '27.
We anticipate advertising the project for construction in fall of '27 and then beginning construction spring of 2028.
This is a federally funded project through ODOT's All Roads Transportation Safety Program.
The local match is being funded through gas tax revenue.
Thank you.
We've had extensive engagement effort related to the development and safety action plan on Southeast Division over the years.
Early on when we were developing the safety action plan, which introduced the concept of raised center medians, direct community engagement around these next 2 segments is ongoing and will continue through design.
And then we'll continue communicating directly with adjacent businesses and property owners and the surrounding neighborhood through construction.
Um, and now I will turn the presentation over to my colleague Carly to discuss the specifics of this one right-of-way file on the project.
Unidentified speaker
Yes, hi.
Um, great background there, but we actually only need one right-of-way file, and that is for a temporary construction easement.
Olivia Clark
Would you put your name on the record?
Unidentified speaker
Oh yeah, Carly Ruggles, PBOT right-of-way agent.
Um, so we, like I said, we need one temporary construction easement that is technically a slope modification temporary construction easement, and that is needed from an owner on the corner of 166th Place and Division Street.
Um, so we are here today to get authority to initiate those negotiations with the owner and extend an offer of just compensation for the acquisition of the easement.
And if negotiations are unsuccessful, the city may proceed with condemnation to the easement if necessary.
Um, the affected property owner has been notified of the project and the impacts via certified mail, and they have been invited to these— this meeting and the council hearing.
And I also have spoke with them on the phone.
Olivia Clark
Well, thank you.
Great presentation.
Appreciate it.
I know this is— um, you answered my questions about community outreach, and it sounds like it's ongoing.
Um, I'm going to ask Councilor Smith, since this is in D1, if you would have any questions or want to make any comments here.
Loretta Smith
Yes, um, thank you for giving the presentation.
I'm just curious to know, are there any other residential folks who are experiencing or, or having some difficulties with our new construction project other than the, the one that you're— you just talked about?
Right.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Um, I think initially for the community, adapting to the new travel patterns.
Like when we first implemented the medians, we received a lot of feedback.
In some of those areas that have already been installed, we are going back to modify again for those areas that really have high turning demand and need increased access.
Right.
Yeah.
And then we are continuing to have discussions with the community on this project and, and briefing the neighborhood and businesses and neighborhood associations, East Portland Chamber of Commerce.
And so we haven't received any direct pushback or feedback.
I think everyone's just kind of getting ready for this next round.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, or they're just not paying attention.
Question, what is the impact on pedestrians and folks who are rolling Down Division or between the 148th and 157th, what in terms of access, are they still able to, to use the road at all?
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Are pedestrians able to use the road?
Loretta Smith
Yeah, well, that's the street, you know, adjacent to it.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Absolutely, yes.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
Okay, okay.
Um, I just, I would just like to add one quick thing.
If, if we can't come to an agreement with The resident who has a problem with the easement, that if you plan to go into eminent domain, could you please schedule an executive session?
Because there are some questions that I'd like to ask you before it— before you put that on the agenda, if it actually comes to that point.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Absolutely.
And just a little bit more background on this specific right-of-way file.
So, Um, maybe— no, yeah, I'll start with this image.
Um, so the reason we are— so this right-of-way file will establish a new driveway connection to that corner parcel off of Southeast 166th Place.
And so what will not only serve as additional access for that corner property, but for the 175 mobile home units to the north which is highlighted with that red boundary.
They currently have an easement across the property and access a driveway that exits out directly onto Division.
And so in order to, you know, again, wanting to provide as much access as possible, those residents and the property owner and any patrons going to that commercial site will be able to use the new driveway access off 166 which has a signalized— is a signalized intersection, so they'll be able to make safer left turns to head east.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we're hoping— I mean, the residents at the mobile home park, this is a concern they raised when we first started talking about this project of restricted access for them with this next set of medians.
And so this is responsive to that.
Loretta Smith
And we're also hopeful that this property owner will see this And since this has been going on for 10 years, when was the last time that we connected with the community in terms of outreach just to update them on what the latest movement is on this project?
Elizabeth Tilstrom
As recent as this summer, we were last at— so this entire project is within the Centennial neighborhood.
We've presented to them 3 times on this project.
And went to their most recent meeting this summer.
We've also been out at community events tabling and have information for this project out whenever we're talking to the community as well.
Loretta Smith
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Thank you.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Yeah, thank you.
Great question.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Can I just clarify, Elizabeth, that this is a temporary easement?
Correct.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Yeah, so the, the temporary easement— I'll go back to Carly's slide.
Allows us to construct the driveway connection.
The permanent improvement, the new driveway, will be entirely in the public right-of-way, but Sense will be stepping onto the property to construct, and there could be some grading work in order to make that driveway connection feasible, not have vehicles bottoming out.
We'll be doing some slope adjustments with the construction of that driveway, but it's all temporary.
Um, and the improvement itself again will be in the public right-of-way.
Olivia Clark
So we're not actually purchasing anything?
Unidentified speaker
No.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Just—.
Olivia Clark
We're just purchasing the ability to access for now for construction?
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Correct.
Yes.
Yeah.
Olivia Clark
And by that, so—.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
But property owners still need to authorize that temporary access.
Olivia Clark
Got you.
Well, fortunately we won't— hopefully we won't get to eminent domain.
Fortunately they'll understand that and be justly compensated.
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Olivia Clark
Uh, colleagues, do we have any other questions For these 2.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, um, I guess 2 questions.
First, are they here?
Because I understand that they're, uh, invited for—.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
They are.
They, um, are a remote owner.
The address we have is in Seattle.
Sameer Kanal
Um, and so are they here online then?
Unidentified speaker
No, we, we invited them to come, but they didn't want to.
Sameer Kanal
And my understanding is the process by which we do that is a mailing.
Um, how far in advance are those sent?
How does that process work?
Unidentified speaker
Uh, we send them, uh, at least 2 weeks before.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Yeah, but I, I called them over a month ago to discuss the project and let them know about this upcoming, um, process and, and the TCE that's needed, and we hadn't heard back from them on the phone, but I'm glad to hear you did.
Unidentified speaker
I did, yeah.
I spoke with them and—.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Thanks.
Great.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Good question.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thanks so much for being here.
I just wanted to say how encouraging it is to see this safety project and see the scope of it and see how the Safe System approach is at the center of this and have these examples of buffered bike lanes and completing sidewalks and having the raised center median and safer crosswalks, more streetlights.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Terrific.
Um, since there's no one here to testify and we don't have any other questions, I would like to entertain a motion to move the ordinance document number 2026-334 to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
Sameer Kanal
So moved.
Unidentified speaker
Second.
Great.
Olivia Clark
So we've, uh, the motion has been moved by Councilor Kanal, seconded by Councilor If there's no more discussion, would the clerk please call the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
With 4 ayes and 1 absent, the motion to refer the ordinance document number 2026-334 to the City Council with a recommendation It be passed, has been approved.
Olivia Clark
Great, thank you both for being here today.
Appreciate it.
I now— I assume you're on the next one as well.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Yeah.
Olivia Clark
Um, Diana, can you please read the next item?
Sounds familiar.
Unidentified speaker
Item number 4, document number 2026-335, authorize Bureau of Transportation to acquire certain temporary property rights necessary for construction of the Southeast Stark Street, 111th to 151st Street Avenue project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Diana.
I'm not going to repeat all that, um, but this is our 2nd property, uh, rights ordinance to support infrastructure and safety improvements.
So I'm going to hand it off to Elizabeth again and welcome Heather.
Heather Byers
Thank you.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Thank you.
And thank you again.
For the record, my name is Elizabeth Tilstrom, Capital Project Manager for PBOT, and I am now joined by my colleague Heather Byers, right-of-way agent for PBOT.
And we are here to bring forward a right-of-way ordinance for temporary construction easement to the Southeast Stark Street, Southeast 111th to 151st Avenue project.
And some background on this project.
So Outer Southeast Stark is another designated high-crash corridor in East Portland where we've been working to address safety for all modes.
Since 2018.
And as part of this work, PBOT applied for and was awarded a grant through ODOT's All Roads Transportation Safety Program to construct enhanced pedestrian crossings at 6 key intersections on this corridor.
That includes 111th, 119th, 137th, 141st, and 151st and Stark.
And those crossings are designated with the blue Pedestrian circles in the map below for reference.
So for these crossings, we have 2 different design concepts that we'll be applying.
The concept on the left will still allow left turns into the neighborhood while restricting left turns out to avoid the left turn movement conflict across that pedestrian crossing.
We selected this design where we wanted to maintain and support access into the neighborhood at the intersection due to the surrounding grid street network either not being fully connected or would involve routes on unimproved streets.
So we'll still be allowing left turns in at the intersection under Concept 1, but we'll be restricting left turns out.
The second design on the right is a full median concept that restricts left turns in and out.
And so our traffic engineers recommended this version where we have good street connectivity and where alternative routes into and out of the neighborhood are on paved streets.
We are also currently in the design for this project.
It's very similar schedule to Division.
We'll continue design through this summer, and then we anticipate advertising the project for construction in fall of 2027 and beginning construction This is a federally funded project through ODOT's ARTS program.
The local match is being funded through gas tax revenue and Fixing Our Streets funds.
And finally, there's also been extensive public engagement related to the safety action plan on Stark.
PBOT conducted an 18-month engagement process when developing the safety action plan for Stark through a funded planning process.
Thank you.
And crossing improvements were continually identified as one of the top priorities for the community.
Community engagement around this project and the 6 planned crossings and other safety improvements along Stark— just as an aside, we have a larger capital project bringing additional safety improvements to the corridor also in design.
So we've been talking about all of this comprehensively in the community, and then direct outreach to the adjacent businesses and properties where we are planning these crossings will also continue through design.
And then— oh, I will now turn this over to Heather to talk specifically about the 2 right-of-way files we need.
Again, temporary construction easements related to our crossing at 119th.
Heather Byers
Hi, Heather Byers, PBOT Right-of-Way.
So as Liz said, we're seeking 2 temporary construction easements for this project.
No permanent easements are being sought.
So today we're seeking the authority to initiate negotiations and extend offers of just compensation to owners for the necessary easements.
And again, if negotiations are unsuccessful, we may proceed with condemnation to obtain the easements.
Affected property owners have been notified via certified mail of the city's intent to acquire the easements.
Again, similar to Carly, those were sent out a couple weeks ago and both received.
Um, and they're notified of this committee and the council meeting.
So these are the locations of the easements we're seeking.
Um, one of them is 65 square feet, the other is 63 square feet, um, just at those 2 properties in green.
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Well, thank you.
That concludes our presentation and available for any questions.
Loretta Smith
Great.
Olivia Clark
That's not a lot of property.
It's just a little sliver, isn't it?
Elizabeth Tilstrom
Yeah.
Olivia Clark
Um, let's see, Councilor Smith, is this in your district?
Loretta Smith
Yes, ma'am.
Olivia Clark
Would you like to speak to it?
Loretta Smith
Yes, I would.
Um, a couple of things, and I've been listening to both of these easement requests, and, um, you all say very confidently That you've sent letters.
I think in these kind of situations, in addition to sending letters, I think you all need to get folks on the phone.
Because sending a letter, you know, it's, it's probably not going to work.
And if you haven't heard a response, if you— I know in that area there are a lot of older residents.
And they may not be reading this, but it would be better if you could talk to them.
And not just depend on sending a letter and thinking that you've done your due diligence, because I think that's kind of, um, not really hitting the mark for me.
And particularly since you're talking about eminent domain, so that it's very clear what it is, if it's temporary, if it's permanent.
And it— I, I'm, I'm not feeling too comfortable with our, um, So could you tell me what, what you do if you don't hear from them?
Do you send out another letter, or, um—.
Millicent Williams
Good morning.
Loretta Smith
Or do you give a call?
Millicent Williams
Good morning, Councilor Smith.
This is Millicent Williams, uh, interim DCA for Public Works.
I've asked that David McEldowney, our right-of-way manager, come forward to speak to the overall process while we do engage through USB We do hear you in suggesting that folks may not always understand what the ask is.
And so I'd like for him to share what our overall process looks like, that people are not rushed to make decisions, that there are periods of negotiation that folks are engaging in.
And generally speaking, we are pretty successful with moving forward items like this.
Thank you.
But I just wanted you to hear from Dave MacLeod, who runs the program and is able to speak with a great deal of experience, both from the city's perspective as well as the state's perspective about these types of transactions.
Olivia Clark
Welcome.
Loretta Smith
I appreciate that, DCA Williams, but I also understand there's process and then there's actual what we actually do.
Yes.
So that, that's what's concerning to me.
I know we have a process.
Millicent Williams
And that's what I wanted Dave to speak to, Councilor, is, is not just the process, but some of the extra things that his right-of-way agents do to ensure that we're connecting with community appropriately.
Loretta Smith
Okay, thank you.
Olivia Clark
Yes.
David McEldowney
Good morning, Councilors.
David McEldowney, Property Services Division Manager.
I do want to say that this process is a long process.
I mean, we're talking 9 months or more from start to finish.
So we do— typically the project managers have the initial contact with, with, uh, the property owners or tenants so that they know the project's happening.
But more to your point, for these meetings here, we, we do reach out by mail I know, I know Carly was talking with, uh, the property owner, um, either this morning or yesterday.
Again, we do reach out.
We will— I will take a, a finer look to make sure that we are calling everybody up beforehand, uh, to your point, to ensure that that happens.
So we will do that, but That's just for this meeting too.
I do want to let you know that we either hand deliver, you know, in person, or we certified mail.
Um, and plus all these letters that are sent out are certified mail too.
They have to be signed for.
They're not going out just regular mail.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, but we, when we go into the offer phase, we, we make offers To the people.
We meet with them.
Nothing ends up, you know, going to eminent— through the eminent domain route without several meetings that take place over months and months.
The minimum federal law is, you know, 30 days.
In Oregon, we're at 40.
We stick to the longer, but at the city, it's more like—.
Unidentified speaker
60.
David McEldowney
You know, 90, 120, longer than that even, because we always try to reach resolution.
We have not had a trial.
I cannot remember the last time, probably when I came on board the city, I think they had a trial for the Big Pipe project like 20 years ago.
But we have not had any trials.
We typically resolve everything through— Conciliation.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Okay, that kind of makes me feel a little bit better.
Um, I'm just concerned that, I mean, we use a lot of these words and we're familiar with them, um, because we work with, with, um, you know, easements every day, and I just want to make sure that they understand what's going to take place and that they're comfortable with, um, what's going to take place.
I appreciate you all taking care of some of these safety issues, particularly in District 1, because we are— we have many of the high crash corridor highest locations in the city.
And so to be able to make things a little bit simpler, to, to make sure that we're not having as many accidents, Stop all the crashes, and I think this is important.
But I also think that we also need to, you know, we could speed up the process, um, by, by at the same time that we're calling, that we're sending something out, that we should be calling too, just letting them know we're sending you out a letter and that letter is going to explain what this is, and please don't hesitate to call me at that number that's in that letter.
I'm, you know, and I think this process could, um, kind of be streamlined too.
And the reason why it's taking long is because people probably don't understand what's going on.
David McEldowney
You know, I'll just follow up with that.
You know, we share the same concern.
We want to make sure that every property owner is comfortable with what we're doing.
They understand the plans.
They understand, you know, where a driveway is going to go, the timing of it.
Um, we, we don't want surprises from them.
We, we don't want them calling you saying that, you know, we didn't know what was going on.
So we want to be very certain that they are comfortable with what the project is.
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Councilor.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, David.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Kanal?
Oh, okay.
Councilor Koyama Lane, did you have— that was a legacy.
Okay.
All right, um, well, thank you for the presentation.
If there's no one here to testify on this and we don't have any other questions or comments, thank you so much.
Um, let's see, I think we can proceed with, um, entertaining a motion to move ordinance document number 2026335 to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
So moved.
Loretta Smith
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Great.
Olivia Clark
It's been moved by Councilor Koyama Lane and seconded by Councilor Smith.
There—.
I don't see any other discussion.
So the clerk, will you please call the roll for us?
Unidentified speaker
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
You're really cruising today.
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
With 4 ayes and 1 absent, the motion to refer the ordinance document number 2026 6-335 to the City Council with a recommendation be passed has been approved.
Olivia Clark
Terrific.
Thank you all for your good work.
We really appreciate your being here and presenting, uh, such a clear overview.
We really appreciate it.
Um, we are ahead of schedule, but I would like to recommend that we go ahead and take a break now because we're going to have a long session, uh, updating the, um, the TUF and the street damage risk ratio.
You feel okay?
Councilor Smith, are you okay with a break right now?
Why don't we come back at, uh, I'm going to say 10:35.
That's a long break.
10:35.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
All right, welcome.
Uh-oh, my phone is having some problems.
Do you mind if I turn that on?
Her phone was on.
Unidentified speaker
She might need help getting connected when she comes back in now.
Olivia Clark
Okay, sorry, just a slight, um, slight delay.
Unidentified speaker
Technical—.
Olivia Clark
I think we turned it off.
Oh, she's outside.
All right, well, I think we can go ahead and proceed.
Um, Diana, would you please read the next item?
Unidentified speaker
Item number 5, document 2026- 2026-336, Update on Local Transportation Funding Investment Strategy, Non-Residential Methodology, and Financial Assistance.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Diana.
Um, colleagues, this is our second update from PBOT on its work to implement all the directives from our work on the transportation utility fee and the street damage fee that we passed Uh, this spring.
We've specifically asked them today to really focus on the methodology that will be rolled out for commercial payers as well as low-income residents.
So with that, I'm going to hand it off to DCA Williams and the PBOT team.
Millicent Williams
Uh, good morning again, Council Vice President Clark and members of the committee.
For the record, my name is Millicent Williams and I'm the interim Deputy City Administrator for Public Works, and I'm also I'm temporarily acting as Director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation until Wendy Cully returns later this week.
So 37 more hours, and then I will be doing just one job.
What fills me with pride as I step into this role is having had the opportunity to see firsthand the collaboration happening across our Public Works bureaus as we work in tandem to launch the Transportation Utility Fee and Street Damage Restoration Fee programs.
I'm glad to be here today in both of these roles because this work is truly a service area-wide effort.
It involves teams from maintenance, engineering, project management, planning, Vision Zero, finance, utility billing partners, and others.
I want to take a moment to particularly thank the Water Bureau and the Bureau of Environmental Services teams who've been involved with this work.
You'll not hear a lot about this behind-the-scenes work, but it is essential to the success of this entire program.
I also want to thank the PBOT staff you'll hear from today, as well as so many others.
I especially want to thank Gabe Graff, who has stepped in as the project manager for this effort, working to ensure that the many different pieces are all kept in motion at once.
We have many updates for you today, so I will very quickly hand this— end my comments and hand this over to Shoshana Cohen to start the presentation.
Shoshana Cohen
Thank you, DCA Williams, and good morning, Council Vice President Clark and members of the committee.
For the record, I'm Shoshana Cohen, Chief of Staff of the Bureau of Transportation.
Here is our agenda for the presentation today.
We'll start by quickly checking in on the implementation timeline.
We'll go over the updated investment strategy.
We'll update you on the work on financial assistance and non-residential rate methodology.
And we'll wrap things up with a quick update on the implementation of the street damage restoration fee.
And then, of course, leave time for questions and discussion.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Deputy City Attorney Nancy Thorington.
Shoshana Cohen
Next slide, please.
This is the timeline for our work.
We shared this with you before.
We're past July and August now, as you'll see they're shaded out.
And our September milestone is this morning's presentation.
Next, you'll see that there will be a notification about the transportation utility fee in the fall utility bill mailer.
This is just one of the items that we've been collaborating with the Water Bureau on.
We also expect to be back before council with a final cleanup ordinance as we get ready for implementation.
You'll see that in November.
We'll be doing another update for utilities in the fall related to the street damage restoration fee also.
And you can see along the bottom of the timeline that we've been working on the administrative rules and other behind-the-scenes work to get ready for the street damage restoration fee over the summer, and that work will be continuing all fall.
Of course, January 1st is the implementation date for both of the new revenue sources.
In February, we will hold a rate hearing for the non-residential methodology, and also in February, we'll be hosting an open house in each district to share more information about the— how the revenue is being invested with the public.
In a moment, Gabe Graff, our new project manager for this program, will go over the investment strategy.
However, before I turn it over to Gabe, we have Stefan McLandrich here to say a few words.
I believe Stefan is online.
Unidentified speaker
And Stefan is the chair of the Fixing Our Streets Oversight Committee.
This committee previously oversaw our work related to the 10-cent local gas tax and the heavy vehicle use tax.
And while they're continuing with that work, they're also now taking on the oversight of these 2 local funding sources as well.
We are incredibly grateful for Stefan and the other committee volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to working with us Asking us critical questions and providing direct community feedback.
And so again, I believe Stefan is online and I will pause.
Oh, there he is.
Okay.
Heather Byers
Welcome, Stefan.
Unidentified speaker
Hi.
Stefan McLandrich
Thank you, Shoshana.
I'm Stefan McLandrich.
I am one of the co-chairs of the Fixing Our Streets Oversight Committee.
I'm just going to touch quickly on our structure, our members, and our process.
So we have about 15 folks.
Myself and Wayne Bauer are the co-chairs, and currently we have 6 meetings a year to discuss updates on project selection process and project selection, planned project scopes and budgets, and project scope and budget changes.
And as co-chairs, Wayne and I make recommendations on our meeting's agenda to ensure the committee is given a clear understanding of our committee's scope.
Thank you.
And that our committee has time to ask questions and give feedback during our meetings.
The committee members are chosen by PBOT, and our membership has diverse experience and covering a lot of different roles in and outside of the transportation community.
I am myself a civil engineer.
Members obtain— the members that we have have a genuine support of PBOT and their goals, but also possess a healthy dose of skepticism, which— and we are not shy to respectfully push back on certain directions.
Our members are invited— were recently invited to step down in advance of this expanded role.
Which is now going to cover the 2 new fees.
And so far, I don't believe anybody has done that, and the members are looking forward to the expanded services and projects that are going to come from the new funding sources, and that the bylaws are— I'm not sure, they're either in the process of being updated or have already officially been updated.
Lastly, I'm going to talk about our process.
Our oversight focus is centered around PBOT's process in translating the funding increase into maintaining and expanding the existing service and capital improvement projects that are receiving funding from these aforementioned services.
And the committee reviews the changes to previously agreed-on projects.
And project scopes, and lastly, from my perspective, having PBOT prepare for and present their work to our committee on this regular basis is bringing us citizens, both taxpayers and transportation system users alike, a great value before anyone on the committee even starts to ask the first question.
So that that is how our committee operates, and and I'm here if folks have.
Unidentified speaker
And now I'll turn it over to Gabe Graff, who's going to discuss the programming.
Thank you so much.
Gabe Graff
For the record, my name is Gabe Graff.
I'm a capital project manager at the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and I'm the project manager standing up this transportation utility fee and street damage restoration fee.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide you with an update on our work on the new local funding programs.
As DCA Williams and Shoshana mentioned, when we last updated the Public Works Committee, we shared how the Transportation Utility Fund was being invested in our current fiscal year budget and promised to return with an investment strategy providing more details on how PBOT will invest funds from both the transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee looking forward to next fiscal year, our first full year of revenue collection.
And thanks to the hard work of many teams, I'm pleased to share that we have completed this investment strategy That was guided by council directives when enacting these revenues.
Over the next few slides, I'll walk you through the strategy and the 6 programmatic funding areas and our projected investments in each for the next fiscal year.
We've also included the full strategy as an exhibit should you wish to delve further.
Next slide.
Oh, thank you.
The investment strategy speaks to the investment revenues from both the transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee.
In all cases, we grounded our work in council direction provided in April.
By this direction, 100% of the revenues from the street damage restoration fee are to be invested in pavement maintenance and coordination.
To this end, we have established a dedicated street damage restoration fund that will house these revenues and invest in this much-needed work.
Can I get the next slide?
Thank you.
Similarly, for the transportation utility fee, we have established a transportation utility fund.
Which will house the revenues for this fee brings in and will invest in categories of work per council direction and the ordinance that established the fee.
You'll see here that our direction was to dedicate three-quarters of all the revenues in the Transportation Utility Fund to maintaining and preserving our transportation infrastructure.
As shared previously, this funding has been critical in avoiding severe cuts in our five-year forecast and stabilizing our maintenance and operations program.
One quarter of the revenue is dedicated to safety, with an even split between Vision Zero safety work, 12.5%, and on objectives outlined by council for the Sidewalk Improvement and Paving Program, or SIP, also at 12.5%.
The programming of this safety funding builds off prior good work in both these program areas.
Got the next slide?
Thank you.
This table outlines the full investment framework for fiscal year 2027 and 2028.
Across the Street Damage Restoration Fund and the Transportation Utility Fund.
Beginning with the Street Damage Restoration Fund, you'll see that projected revenues are entirely dedicated to pavement maintenance and coordination.
We are programming this $10.7 million for next fiscal year as contingency in our budget due to forecast uncertainty specific to this fund.
Working down the table for the Transportation Utility Fund, 3/4 of the revenue again is dedicated to maintenance work.
Thank you.
With $15.7 million for pavement maintenance, $3.2 million for pavement striping maintenance, $8.1 million for signal and streetlight maintenance, and $5.1 million for local street cleaning.
On the safety side, 25% dedication works out to $5.3 million for next fiscal year to be invested in Vision Zero work and another $5.3 million to be invested in sidewalks and alternative pathways consistent with CIP.
Finally, we are budgeting $4 million for next fiscal year in the Transportation Utility Fund program contingency to allow for revenue impacts from proposed methodology changes that Mark will talk about, extending low-income discount tenant to tenants in multifamily units not eligible for financial assistance under the city's existing financial assistance programs, which Cynthia will discuss, and forecast uncertainty with the fund.
All told, the investment strategy details $57.4 million in investment Can I get the next slide?
Thank you.
Now I'll provide an overview of each of the 6 programmatic investment areas, starting with the largest category, which is pavement maintenance.
Here you'll see we're programming up to $26.4 million in this category for next fiscal year, including the $10.7 million of funding from the Street Damage Restoration Fund, which we are showing as contingency.
This category of work is focused on basic pavement maintenance, including grind and pave, Seals, including crack seals and slurry seals, which prolong the life of existing pavement by preventing water from getting through.
Base repair, where we tackle segments of road where water has gotten through and damaged the supporting structure underneath the roadway surface.
Filling potholes.
And we also will be evaluating contracting out more complex and challenging paving projects to local contractors utilizing that street damage restoration fund.
Thank you.
In all the categories we'll be discussing today, the team has put time into thinking about how to prioritize projects and maintenance activities across the city.
You'll see these criteria on each of these slides for each of these 6 programmatic areas.
For paving, work will be spread across all 4 districts in the category with a focus on streets of citywide significance.
These are streets that play critical roles in moving people and goods across Portland.
These streets support transit, high-volume travel, freight movement, emergency response, and neighborhood greenways, which are priority pedestrian and bicycling routes.
We also look for opportunities to further our safety work and leverage opportunities with our sister bureaus across Public Works and other partners.
Our pothole work is responsive based on community reports and regular staff assessments, and I'll note that our long-term goal is to be able to perform timely pavement maintenance, preventing the potholes from developing in the first place.
Thank you.
On all categories of work we'll be discussing today, we are committed to transparent reporting, and you'll see here our reporting metrics, uh, in this category are lane miles paved and the number of potholes filled.
Moving on to signals and streetlights.
This work is also in the maintenance category, also funded by the transportation utility fee, with $8.1 million programmed in next fiscal year.
The work will be focused on a few areas: repairing streetlight knockdowns and vandalism, applying protective coatings to streetlights, and signal and rapid flashing beacon maintenance and reconstruction.
Like all of PBOT's maintenance work, while this is maintenance in the maintenance category, there are clear safety benefits to these investments as well.
The signals and street lighting maintenance team is coordinating closely with our Vision Zero team to leverage opportunities to enhance safety alongside maintenance work.
Work in this category will also be spread across all 4 districts, with work prioritized based on the asset condition, how long the disrepair has lasted, and whether the infrastructure in question is on our high-crash network.
For performance metrics in this investment category, we will track the number of signals rebuilt and streetlights repaired or repainted.
Starting next fiscal year, the Transportation Utility Fund will ensure our long-line pavement markings are well maintained across The $3.2 million allocated for fiscal year 2027 and 2028 will allow the bureau to perform twice-yearly striping maintenance on the long yellow and white lanes across Portland, roughly 4,100 miles of them.
This refreshed striping will be retroreflective, improving visibility at night and in the rain.
Crews will perform a third restriping refresh on priority high-crash corridors For these investment areas— for this investment area, we will report on the total lane miles striped.
And I'll just note that PBOT has separately funded programs for other pavement marking maintenance, like the refreshing of crosswalk markings and of sharrows and that kind of thing.
Next slide.
Now on to local street cleaning.
Our local street sweeping program was eliminated in fiscal year 2023.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Sawant, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mayor.
Councilmember Sawant, I would like to thank the Public Works Department for their work to restore and expand the street sweeping program.
Gabe Graff
This program was suspended in fiscal year 2023-24 due to severe budget constraints, and we're pleased to be able to restore and expand the program thanks to the Transportation Utility Fund, which will fully fund the program in fiscal year 2027-28 with $5.1 million.
We've already begun gearing up for this work, which will clean local streets multiple times per year starting next fiscal year.
Street sweeping equipment is specialized and has long lead times, and we've already ordered 4 new street sweepers Thank you.
And we have 2 more to get ready, with one already in the lot.
Our performance metrics for this work are the number of local street lane miles swept.
And I'll note, similar to the striping, that we have separately funded street cleaning programs for major arterial streets and for the downtown core, and our bike lane sweeping program is also separately funded and supported by PSIF.
Next slide.
Now we move to the safety category and the sidewalks and alternative pathways investment area.
Here we have $5.3 million programmed in next fiscal year.
This work is informed by the prior work on the Sidewalk Improvement and Paving Program, or SIP.
Our project selection here builds off existing plans such as PedPDX with a careful look to project readiness so we can stretch our limited dollars as far as possible.
Initially, these funds will be focused on a few sidewalk infill projects like the one you see on Southeast Fauvelle pictured here.
For the first year of the program, we've identified shovel-ready small projects in Districts 1 and 4 that we are able to complete easily.
Looking forward, we are drafting a more comprehensive list of potential sidewalk and alternative pathway projects, building off previously— previous planning and engagement efforts, and we'll be sharing this longer list and gathering feedback on it through our community engagement at our February open houses planned for each district.
Our performance metrics in this category are the number of sidewalk and alternative pathway projects built.
And last but not least, our final investment area is in Vision Zero, with $5.3 million programmed in next fiscal year, with funds supporting both programmatic and capital investments.
On the programmatic side, we are investing in safety analysis, project identification and development, community engagement, and safety evaluations that ensure our capital investments Thank you.
The capital investments in Vision Zero category for this fiscal year are focused on high-crash intersections and segments where we can make the most cost-effective improvements that will make our streets safer.
We'll have additional candidate small-scale Vision Zero projects to share with the public also this February during a round of public open houses.
Like all our Vision Zero work, these projects will be data-driven.
And focus on the high-crash network.
Like I said, our Vision Zero work is data-driven at every level, including project prioritization, and we'll be focused in this category on our high-injury road segments.
Our performance metrics will be the number of high-crash intersections and high-crash roadway segments improved.
And now I'll hand it over to Cynthia.
Cynthia Castro
Thank you, Gabe.
For the record, my name is Cynthia Castro, and I'm PBOT's Policy and Special Projects Analyst.
It is a pleasure to be here today to update you on the progress of our work to fulfill council's direction related to transportation utility fee financial assistance.
Next slide.
This slide summarizes directives from the Transportation Utility Fee Adoption Ordinance that have been guiding our work.
The city has existing utility financial assistance programs available to income-qualified single-family households and regulated affordable multifamily residential properties that will extend to the TUF.
We are tasked with ensuring that income-qualified multifamily residents who do not— who are not directly billed for water, sewer, and stormwater services and are therefore not eligible for the existing city utility financial assistance programs receive an equivalent discount provided to single-family residential accounts.
Providing financial assistance directly to multifamily tenants is a challenge that our utility bureau and water utilities nationally have grappled with for years.
This is because water, sewer, and stormwater charges are frequently master metered and embedded in rent Which means most traditional bill discount programs miss individual tenants entirely.
To inform our work to develop approaches for providing transportation utility fee financial assistance directly to multifamily residents, we were directed to consult with the city's Data and Privacy Office and to engage with community-based organizations, nonprofits, renters' rights organizations, and the Portland Utility Board.
Finally, we are to provide a report and recommendations to council on options for assistance, discount amounts, and delivery methods by December 31st of this year.
Our goal today is to provide you updates on our, on our progress.
Next slide.
Here are additional transportation utility fee financial assistance directives from the ordinance that are related to implementation.
We are to provide a simple and accessible application process with options for online, in-person, and community-based assistance.
Residents approved for the relief shall remain eligible for a period of no less than 2 years before they are required to recertify.
And whatever program we establish will not be effective unless residents are aware of it and can access it.
To help achieve this, we are to conduct outreach and partner with community-based organizations to spread the word.
Next slide.
This is a slide to remind you of the city's existing utility financial assistance programs, as well as the amount of discounts provided to residents through each individual program.
The figures you see on this slide are for fiscal year 2025.
I will talk more about the 2 programs on the far left, Link and Ramp, as they are the most relevant for the transportation utility fee.
I will take a moment though to mention that the Utility Bureau also offers the Crisis Program, which provides one-time vouchers for customers who have had a personal crisis that affected their ability to pay their bill, and the Clean River Rewards Program, which provides a discount to ratepayers who safely manage stormwater on their property.
You'll see the Bureau of Planning Sustainability's logo on the slide, and that's because the Bureau's new garbage billing financial assistance program is also partnering with the utility bill to provide discounts to single-family garbage customer accounts.
Loretta Smith
Next slide.
Cynthia Castro
LINK is the single-family low-income discount program offered by the utility bill— by the Utility Bureau.
The LINK discount is available to low-income qualified single-family residential utility customers.
Currently, there are approximately 12,000 active LINC participants.
What this means for the transportation utility fee is LINC participants will automatically receive the TUF discount, so no additional application or steps are required for— of LINC participants to receive the TUF discount.
Participants will receive a 50% discount, which is $6 per month.
LINC already offers online and paper applications and community-based assistance options which aligns with council's directions for TUF financial assistance.
LINC also requires participants to recertify every 2 years.
This will be the same for the transportation utility fee discount applied through the LINC program.
Next slide.
The utility bureau also manages the regulated affordable multifamily assistance program, also known as RAMP.
RAMP provides utility bill discounts for multifamily properties approved through the housing bureau's nonprofit low-income housing limited exemption program with the expectation that they will pass the discount savings to their tenants.
There are 194 properties participating in RAMP, reaching over 11,500 units.
Those properties participating in RAMP will automatically receive the transportation utility fee discount.
So again, they do not need— they do not have to take any additional steps.
They will receive a 50% discount, which amounts to $4.20 per month per dwelling unit.
Thank you.
RAMP has their own program guidelines that we will follow, including their annual recertification requirement.
Next slide.
Now I will talk about our work to develop approaches to provide transportation utility fee financial assistance to income-qualified multifamily residents who are not eligible for the financial assistance programs I've just mentioned because they are not directly charged for water, sewer, and stormwater services.
I want to acknowledge the team behind this work, including my PBOT colleagues Adriana Aguilar and Angel Ordez.
Our team also consulted Kenny Scott, the Water Bureau's Financial Assistance Program Manager, throughout our process.
Kenny has been a tremendous resource and sounding board, and we greatly appreciate his ongoing partnership.
Beginning in June, we reviewed online research of existing financial assistance and community resource programs.
We looked at transportation utility fee-specific discount programs, utility bill discount-specific programs, and other low-income discount and community resource programs more broadly.
In the early stages of our work, our team met with staff from the City Data and Privacy Office who shared resources related to data protection best practices and provided direction about the kinds of program information that we need to contemplate and that is helpful for them to advise us.
We also met with representatives of several organizations and programs to learn about their experiences with providing financial assistance and other community resources.
This included some internal programs like the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's Garbage Billing Financial Assistance Program and PBOT's Transportation Wallet Access for All program, as well as outside organizations like the City of Hillsboro, the City of Austin, and SUMA.
There were some themes that stood out to us through our research.
For transportation utility fee discounts, we saw a reliance on bills to apply the discount We saw approaches based on income qualification and other approaches that are based on incentivizing behavior change.
Many cities have spent years, if not decades, looking into solutions to provide multifamily residents who are not directly billed for water services with financial assistance.
We've seen cases where programs were implemented with a phased approach to fine-tune as they learn and adapt over time.
We also looked at how financial assistance programs are funded and found that many programs may set Standard rates higher to fund financial assistance programs and/or add surcharges.
Next slide.
These are the different discount approaches that emerge in our process.
The first is a property-based discount pass-through model.
In this model, the utility discounts the master metered property account with the expectation that the owner will pass the discount through to the tenants through different forms like rent reductions, credits, or service enhancements.
Another utility discount approach we looked at is a cross-utility crediting model.
Thank you.
For this model, another bill that the tenant does receive, such as an electric bill, is used as the vehicle of delivering the discount.
The third model is a direct-to-tenant rebate or credit model.
Tenants apply to receive the discount, and they are sent a rebate via a mailed check, loaded debit or gift card, a digital app, or potentially another delivery method.
The last model would take a similar approach at PBOT's Transportation Wallet Access for All program, which provides prepaid cards to Portlanders living on low incomes to help them pay for transportation-related services such as transit, rideshare, or e-bike and e-scooter share.
Next slide.
For each of these models, there are things we must consider and that are— that we are continuing to examine.
The property-based model relies on the property owner or manager to comply and pass the discount to their tenants.
It can be hard to know if the discount ever reaches the tenant.
The Utility Bureau's RAMP program is an example of this property-based model and is one means in which we are providing transportation utility fee financial assistance.
We know that the Utility Bureau is continuing to evaluate RAMP, and we will stay in close coordination with them.
We are also aware that there are other affordable housing models out there that have not fit into our utility financial assistance programs that we are interested in learning more about.
Our team met with the city, the Sorry, our team met with staff from the City of Austin to learn more about the cross-utility model in practice.
It has proven effective there.
However, Austin's utility environment is different than Portland because the city controls multiple utility services, including electric.
In Portland, the city manages water, sewer, stormwater, and garbage services, but electric services are provided by PGE and Pacific Power.
Adopting a cross-utility approach for the tough would require our utility partners' willingness to partner with us, as well as agreements and ongoing coordination between our agencies.
We are still evaluating the feasibility of the cross-utility approach with our external utility partners.
The rebate or credit model would allow us to reach tenants directly, and it does work in our utility environment.
This approach would also provide participants with agency to choose how, how they spend the funds.
This option would require significant administrative setup, however.
We are also still evaluating the feasibility of this option.
Using an approach like the Transportation Wallet Access for All model would also reach tenants directly.
There would be a nexus with transportation, and we could leverage an established program.
However, this approach would limit funds to being used on transportation services and would require administrative capacity and/or efficiencies to scale up.
We are continuing to evaluate the feasibility of this option as well.
Thank you.
Next slide.
Over the past 7 weeks, we met with 17 organizations or groups representing housing providers, tenants, utilities, and community-based organizations and nonprofits.
We also attended a Portland Utility Board meeting to present to them about our work and elicit their feedback.
During this period, we expanded our internal engagement by meeting with additional city offices and programs, including PSUV e-bike rebate program and accounting services.
Some themes that stood— some themes that stood out to us through these very rich conversations included a strong emphasis on communication and education to prospective participants, including being present out in the community to share information.
We heard how important it is to keep the program low barrier and accessible for participants.
For example, technology, language access, and application requirements were shared consistently as barriers for participation.
We also received feedback to design a relief program that minimizes the administrative burden for both city staff and community organizations.
We received varying feedback about the different discount delivery methods.
We heard a sentiment that property owners or landlords pay the bill, so they should receive the discount.
But more often, we heard concerns about relying on property owners or landlords to provide the benefit to tenants.
Providing a discount on another bill, such as an electric bill, was the most popular option because it is provided directly to the tenant and This was followed by prepaid cards, which would again be provided directly to the tenant and gives participants flexibility in how they spend the funds.
Many organizations that we spoke with had direct experience with providing prepaid cards to community members, such as during COVID We heard about some challenges like utilization, hacking, added costs, and administrative load.
To minimize administrative burden and to make the discount more attractive, there was agreement that providing the full year's value of the discount, which is $1,000, $50 per year upfront and in one installment would be preferable.
The Transportation Wallet Access for All program was also one that one organization shared was well received by residents they worked with because it helped them cover the cost of transportation to get to places like doctor appointments.
We greatly appreciate the time that staff from these organizations and our city colleagues spent with us to share their vast experiences and feedback.
Next slide.
There's still a lot of work to do to evaluate the feasibility of the different discount options.
We plan to further engage with our utility partners about the feasibility for a cross-utility crediting partnership.
We will continue to evaluate the feasibility of the different financial assistance approaches overall, and we are aiming to return in November with a recommendation for transportation utility fee multifamily financial assistance approaches.
Thank you, and now I'll pass it over to Mark Lear.
Mark Lear
Thanks, Cynthia.
I'm Mark Lear.
I serve as PBOT's resource partnership and policy manager.
Unidentified speaker
Today I'm going to provide an update on the work we are doing related to the transportation utility fee commercial non-residential rate methodology and appeals process.
Mark Lear
Next slide.
As this slide indicates, the first year of the— in the first year of the program, the commercial rate is 4.3% of a business's water, sewer, and stormwater charge.
This Phase 1 approach ensures that businesses pay their fair share while we develop a Phase 2 methodology and a billing system database.
Unidentified speaker
In Phase 1, Council directed PBOT to provide relief for non-residential users where the water, sewer, and stormwater bill is disproportionate to the transportation impact.
Council also directed PBOT to work with the Revenue Division in coordination with this Public Works Committee For a Phase 2 impact-based transportation utility fee for commercial properties that could begin January 1st, 2028.
Next slide.
Mark Lear
We are currently in the process of developing alternative methodologies for February rate hearing.
Unidentified speaker
The transportation utility fee ordinance requires that at a minimum we present 2 potential methodologies.
Mark Lear
First, a trip-based transportation utility fee similar to 31 other Oregon cities that currently have transportation utility fees, and a second, a land use-based methodology with a combined per unit and parcel square footage rate model.
In order to develop these alternative methodologies, we are currently reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of other TUF programs in Oregon and across the country, developing a database that will allow us to establish a rate structure, analyzing revenue and billing system implications, and analyzing impacts on small businesses.
After holding the rate hearing, PBOT will report back in April with a recommendation that could be implemented January 1st, 2028.
Next slide.
In order to provide a little more background on this work, I have included a couple of slides that highlight how the non-residential portion of transportation utility fee is collected in Hillsboro.
This slide, this slide shows the basic principle behind Hillsboro's transportation utility fee.
Different land uses generate very different amounts of traffic, so they shouldn't be charged in the same way.
On the residential side, Hillsboro distinguishes between a house and an apartment, as we do in Portland, based on the average trips per property type.
The difference between types of properties and trips generated per 1,000 square feet of improvement As this slide highlights, a 1,000-square-foot office generates about 11 trips per day per 1,000 square feet, while a 1,000-square-foot drive-through restaurant generates about 67 trips per day, roughly 6 times as many, 6 times as many.
So the important takeaway isn't Hillsboro's exact rates, it's the methodology.
The fee is meant to reflect the transportation demand associated with the type and size and intensity of the land use.
Thank you.
That's particularly relevant to our Phase 2 work in Portland.
Some good news is we can use the same general concept while relying on Portland-specific trip generation information and land use categories, including the work already embedded in our development review system.
Hopefully this will give us a path forward or path toward a commercial rate structure That is more proportional to the transportation impact, more defensible, and easier to explain.
Next slide.
These next slides show how the principles translated to actual monthly charges.
I'm in Hillsboro.
Residential customers pay fixed amounts based on average trip generation by property type, house or apartment.
Non-residential properties pay a rate per 1,000 square feet based on the type of business and expected trip generation.
So an office or a manufacturing facility may pay less than a much smaller fast food or drive-through business because the smaller use can generate more trips.
Next slide.
This slide provides a little more detail on how Hillsboro sets its commercial rate.
Rather than creating a different rate for every individual business type, Hillsboro groups businesses into 7 categories or bins based on similar trip generation per 1,000 square feet.
Each bin has its own rate per 1,000 square feet, so businesses that tend to generate more trips pay a higher rate for the same amount of floor area.
Hillsboro also includes a base charge, which helps ensure that every commercial account contributes at least a minimum toward the transportation system.
This general approach is pretty consistent with how transportation utility fees are structured across Oregon.
Cities vary in the details, particularly in how many categories or bins they have, How they can set the rates within each of those bins.
For Portland, we plan to develop one Phase 2 scenario using the trip generation approach based on square footage of improvements, similar to other Oregon cities, and also to create a second scenario based on parcel size.
So at this point, we are not selecting a specific methodology.
We are developing alternatives that we can evaluate and compare.
Thank you.
Next slide.
The last piece I want to cover is how we are thinking about the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 and how we are proposing to handle the Phase 1 appeals process.
Once we finalize the Phase 2 methodology and develop the billing database, we will be able to calculate what every commercial account would have paid under Phase 2 and compare that with what they actually paid in Phase 1.
Unidentified speaker
If an account paid more under Phase 1, the billing system will automatically credit the full difference at the beginning of Phase 2.
Mark Lear
Businesses would not— under this proposal, businesses would not need to file an appeal or provide supporting documentation, and we will not go back and charge businesses that paid less in Phase 1.
Next slide.
We think that there are several advantages to doing this automatically.
First, it's fair.
Unidentified speaker
Second, it's efficient and transparent.
We can run the same calculation for every commercial account.
Mark Lear
Instead of requiring hundreds of individual appeals.
We're hopeful that this is particularly helpful for small businesses that may not have the time or information to challenge the initial bill in a traditional process.
And most importantly, this process ensures that no commercial account would end up paying more in Phase 1 than it would've paid under the final Phase 2 methodology.
Unidentified speaker
Next slide.
Mark Lear
This last slide highlights the remaining work and schedule.
Over the next couple months, we will continue developing the alternative rate methodologies, including the trip generation approach we discussed—.
Unidentified speaker
Approaches we discussed today, and an alternative based on parcel size.
Mark Lear
We'll also be developing materials and doing outreach so businesses can understand the approaches before rate hearings and inform those decisions.
And we will continue Looking specifically at how different approaches affect small businesses.
Our current schedule is to hold a rate design hearing in February 2027, followed by City Council consideration of a Phase 2 rate design in April.
Unidentified speaker
Now I'll hand it back over to Shoshana.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark.
I will just provide a quick update on the work underway on the street damage restoration fee.
Next slide, please.
So just as Portland residents are supporting street maintenance with the transportation utility fee, the street damage restoration fee ensures that utilities and others who dig trenches in our streets contribute their fair share toward long-term pavement preservation.
Since we last presented to you, our team has made significant headway on the stakeholder outreach and cross-bureau engagement front.
We've analyzed feedback from our comprehensive utility survey sent to both private utility partners Including electric, gas, and telecom, and our public utility bureaus.
Additionally, we've met directly with leadership from the Bureau of Environmental Services, Portland Water Bureau, Portland Parks and Recreation, our unified CI capital improvement team, and Portland Permitting and Development.
Effective coordination between our public works bureaus and with both external and internal utility partners really is going to require dedicated capacity, and we're committing Finally, on the administrative front, PBOT staff are currently finalizing updates to the draft administrative rules governing street openings and utility permitting, and this will include going through a public comment process which will begin in a few weeks.
These updated rules will establish clear, consistent fee calculation standards, outline permit requirements, Define exceptions for emergency repairs, and integrate our permitting software to track utility cuts and assessment data.
And these structural preparations are— we're really hoping going to ensure that when the fee takes effect in January, the rules will protect our pavement investments and incentivize smarter pavement management of our public right-of-way.
Next slide.
Wrapping this up now, I know I've been talking for a long time, just quickly with some next Next steps.
So as mentioned, we expect to be back in November with a cleanup ordinance to ensure that the code reflects the final amendments that were part of the April ordinance.
We'll also bring recommendations, um, we expect at that time around the financial assistance.
Then the next, um, of course everything will go into effect in January, and then in February we'll be holding a rate hearing, and in April we'll then come back for direction on the Phase 2 methodology after that rate hearing.
Um, and I think in February we're also going to do the open houses, which weren't on there.
Uh, so thank you again for the opportunity to present.
Um, and that concludes our presentation.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Um, this is an amazing lift.
This is a lot of work.
I really appreciate every member of the team, and you are a team.
I see that really pulling together.
These are very— some very complex issues, um, I think particularly the low-income side.
Thank you, Cynthia, that was a great presentation.
I can see you've done a lot of work on that, and we could be plowing really new ground.
I'm glad to see that you reached out to other entities.
I'm really glad to see, Mark, that you've provided us with another example from Hillsboro.
I think it was helpful to think about that.
Thank you.
This is what— this is so important because it's what people touch every single day, you know, top to bottom.
I have lots of questions.
I'm sure my colleagues do too.
I'm not even sure where to start.
There's so much material.
Well, let me, if you don't mind, colleagues, I'll just kick it off with a few questions.
It really ranges.
The gamut here.
There's just so much to it.
Um, back to the very beginning, um, on the pothole repair, this is what everybody, you know, in Portland is concerned about.
Um, I'm just wondering, and we can do this offline too, but I would like to learn more about how the pothole repair will be, uh, prioritized.
You know, I hear about this from My constituents all the time.
They all have their own ideas of what priorities are, so I want to talk to you more about that.
We can do that offline.
Um, and I'm wondering, um, where do stop signs fall in these categories?
You know, I hear a lot about, oh, we want a stop sign, we want a 4-way stop.
I get a lot of that.
Where, where does that fall in, in this overall?
Millicent Williams
Uh, Councilor, if I may, um, regarding the pothole prioritization, and I know we've talked about it a lot, um, we will continue to do what the bureau has done in terms of when we receive a report, um, which any resident can call in a pothole, we within 30 days, uh, go out and make repairs.
Unidentified speaker
Um, so I think that we, uh, will need to continue to make sure that people know that they can help us to address the needs that they see.
By helping us to know that the need exists.
In addition, however, as we're out repairing, say, one pothole, if we see an area that is particularly riddled with places that need attention, we'll do more than just that singular location.
Millicent Williams
The goal is really smoother streets, as we've also discussed.
Unidentified speaker
It's not just about filling the hole.
It's about creating the opportunity for us to not have to fill potholes.
And so some of those instances will require or give us the opportunity to do a little base repair or a half-block quick grind and pave where that's allowable.
Millicent Williams
So, but people can help us to prioritize that.
There are also areas that we know that people don't report.
Unidentified speaker
And so we've discussed how we've done a potholepalooza, or excuse me, a March Madness, where we knew that people were underreporting in District 1, and we went to locations East of 82nd Avenue and did a full assessment and created the opportunity for the teams to respond in that way.
So we'll be looking at a different— a series of different ways to address that really pronounced need to fill potholes.
And I know the team can provide greater context and insight there.
But— and thank you for the opportunity for us to get back to you on that.
With regard to stop signs, and I do wish that Wendy was here, As the city traffic engineer who helps to inform the technical expertise on the placement of stop signs.
I know that a lot of complaints and concerns come into the bureau about, oh, we should be able to put a stop sign here.
It looks like we should mark a crossing here.
There are reasons for the placement of, the direction of, the frequency of stop signs and other traffic And so allow us to provide that insight to you.
I know that Shoshana can probably also share some things, but as we talk about safety, we would not fail to look comprehensively at a problem.
If we're solving for one thing, the hope is that we would be able to solve for others.
And this is not Vision Zero.
This is basic maintenance.
This is basic safety and something that is on the forefront of our minds all the time as we're working to make Portland a safer place.
Mark Lear
Thank to you.
Unidentified speaker
Do our basic work.
Um, so, um, one of the things that we will share is that, um, often when community comes to us to suggest a treatment, uh, the team does go out.
823 Safe team does go out.
They do the assessment.
They determine what is appropriate and what's warranted.
Uh, sometimes, um, the treatments that people would like are not the tool that is most appropriate, and there are any number of reasons for that.
So, um, We're going to have to work in partnership with community to help them to understand that if we say, uh, no, it's not no period, it's no but, uh, or yes and, uh, because sometimes the solutions that people think would be the most expedient and helpful are not the ones that align with the broader system need.
So, uh, more to come on that.
And if I may just add one piece in addition, the 823 Safe, um, program which was just referenced, actually one of the reasons we didn't talk too much about that is it's not currently being covered by the transportation utility fee.
So this is helping stabilize many of our programs, but we also still have other, um, you know, other small safety programs and, and various other things.
So that's one of the reasons we didn't get into it too much here.
Olivia Clark
I think it would be helpful for me and potentially my colleagues if you would send us something that we could put in our newsletters, um, just to remind people if you have a pothole or Or some other request, here's what you do.
And we can push that out so that people have a better understanding.
I don't think everybody knows what to do.
Maybe they call, you know, the 3-whatever.
311.
311, Yes.
Unidentified speaker
But I think—.
Millicent Williams
Which is also a tool.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, I know.
But, and other cities have things like that called Fix-It.
I think Seattle has a Fix-It line where you can, anything that you need fixed, and there's some sort of triage.
But I think that would be helpful for me anyway, if you could send me a paragraph or something that I can put in my newsletter to let people know this is what you do, how you process it.
Loretta Smith
Glad to do that.
Olivia Clark
Shift gears.
I want to talk a little bit about that commercial side with Mark.
I'm really— this is one of the things that makes me the most nervous about the implementation of the TUF.
And the fact that we're going to go ahead and use the 4.3% in the first year and then come back and, and reevaluate, um, I'm, I'm really nervous about that, I guess I just want to say.
And I don't know, um, this may be blasphemy, but if we were to delay that implementation, what that would cost us, um, and I'm I'm curious to know which business organizations you've reached out to, if any, so far.
Unidentified speaker
Um, and I'm—.
Olivia Clark
I noticed in the Hillsboro example, I'm glad they carved out restaurants because we heard a lot about the water use of restaurants may be artificially high or very high, higher.
So they're going to be paying even more in the first year and then get a rebate the second year.
Um, just, I'm concerned about that, how that's going to work, how we're, you know, people, businesses are going to get this 4.3% and later we'll, we'll help you out on that.
It just, it's just awkward.
Um, anyway, um, just want to throw that out there.
I'd like to know more about your outreach efforts to the, all those constituencies in the commercial area.
And you can, you know, we can talk about that now.
I don't know if you're all interested in that and hearing from Mark a little bit about that.
Unidentified speaker
Sure, I could say a couple things about it.
First, just the revenue impact of delaying the commercial side of the transportation utility fee would be about 30% of the total revenue.
When we did the calculations at a high level, Based on the number of trips that are generated by residential and commercial properties.
The basic math was about 30% of the trips, and the way they did that model was on the commercial side.
So that would be the impact.
The outreach that we've done so far, the first steps that we took on our outreach to businesses was to reach out to a team of people in Prosper, at Prosper, especially in their small businesses group, because we want to be As proactive as we can in getting that information out.
We also are going to be including some information in the utility bill that goes out that gives, you know, when people get that information on the commercial side, will be able to understand that process.
We'll include information related to the appeals as a piece of that.
So I think that's going to be really helpful.
The one thing that is just a little bit challenging is that You know, we can be really clear about what's happening in Phase 1 in that first year of the program, but because we're, you know, committed to having a, you know, real process where we bring 2 scenarios to those February rate hearings, it's— we, you know, we can't really describe the outcome of those rate hearings or council's deliberation on that.
So we're going to, you know, do our very best to make sure that we're really engaged and really working closely with The PROSPERS small business team.
Mitch over there has been really helpful to make sure that we're getting information out and we're meeting with the different groups.
Again, I do think the appeals process is much better than it could have been if we had that process of trying to have people do the paperwork in that first year period.
But we are, you know, gonna— it's gonna be a little bit of a step-by-step process where we're describing Phase 1, We're describing the options in that deliberation related to Phase 2.
I mean, that's going to happen pretty quickly between now and February with council making decisions in April, but it's a little bit hard to describe what happens in Phase 2 until we've gone through that deliberation.
Olivia Clark
I appreciate that.
I'm really glad to hear you're reaching out to the small businesses through Prosper.
I think Mitch does a great job.
Can you just remind me how we got to the 4.3%?
Unidentified speaker
How did we Yeah, because we recently had done the work related to the flood safety benefit fee, which they generated that revenue as a percentage of the commercial non-residential accounts.
It was once we knew what the 30% of the revenue needed to be based on, you know, doing the math of how much revenue was generated by the residential side at the at the residential rates, then we could— the math was pretty simple because we knew kind of how to prorate that based on the revenue that was coming in from the flood safety benefit fee.
I think, Mark, to say there's— in all 31 cities, there is this balance between what the residential and the non-residential are paying.
And so that's the— right, starting with what would— what is the overall balance that makes sense based on trip generation in Portland?
That's how we got to the 70%, 30%.
And then the 4.3% followed from that.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, thanks for the real, um, reminder of that.
That was a while back that we discussed that.
I appreciate that.
I'm going to, um, ask, uh, Councilor Koyama Lane to speak next.
Thank you so much.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Um, thank you, Chair.
I first wanted to start with— I remember a few years ago I was meeting with, um, different advocates about about, you know, what their hopes are for this new council and, and how we can fix our streets.
And I was like, what are— some of them worked in Piedmont.
I was like, well, what do you think we need to do?
And they described the TUF, and they were like, it's, it's going to be hard to pass.
And I'm just— I was just thinking about like how we're here.
You really led on that, and you were an amazing leader.
And, um, I think leadership is like when you're willing to do something that You're going to get pushback on, even like people that are your supporters, disappointing them.
And so just want to say thank you to that.
That's, that's how we got here.
Um, I wanted to ask a little bit— I mean, I'm really interested in the financial assistance piece.
I'm wondering if someone can talk a little bit more about— it's called MySuma.
Uh, it sounds like we've con— like BPS has contracted with them.
Um, And I'm wondering if someone can talk a little bit more about the benefit of that, comparing it to kind of the prepaid debit cards and the checks.
I know that sometimes those come with fees.
I know we— my husband and I just took my— for my kid's birthday, we went to a Hops game and we're like, oh, we'll get Visa cards so the kids can go get their own lunches.
And it's like $5 to activate each one.
Yeah.
So we didn't even do that.
We just were like, we'll use— just everyone come with me and order at the same time.
But wondering What are some of the benefits?
Can we hear more about Suma?
Is that a real thing that we can really consider?
Unidentified speaker
What are some pros and cons?
Olivia Clark
Yeah, sure.
Unidentified speaker
I'm happy to jump in.
So yeah, we did engage with Alan and learned about Suma through the— during the development of the TUF phase.
And so we were introduced to that community resource app during the development phase.
During my engagement process, I did ask About specifically this concept of, you know, resources being added to like a phone app where then people can use it to access, you know, whatever vendors are available on that app to, you know, access those different resources.
Like I mentioned, with— in the engagement, technology was brought up as a barrier that many community members still face.
We did receive feedback specifically from an organization who had experience with Summa.
And it— I mentioned in my notes that, you know, considering the administrative load for not just city staff but community organizations as well.
And so because of those continued technology barriers, it required a lot of capacity from staff in order to help individuals navigate that.
So certainly we are still, you know, exploring and in the process of evaluating different approaches.
As I mentioned, prepaid card was something that many organizations had more familiarity and experience with, including our own utility bureau, who said that it was very popular when they were providing that during COVID You mentioned transaction fees.
That is something we also heard.
Cynthia Castro
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
As something to consider.
And, but we also know that through potential, like, program design, there are many elements that we could address as well.
Can I add, I think it is still sort of in consideration as one of the options in that direct, you know, direct financial assistance category.
And if we were to want to, if, you know, in the continued outreach and evaluation, it seems like something like an app-based mechanism is the way to go, I think we would have to do an RFP and see who could— you know, there's— even if all directions point to that, we can't say, here, we're just going to contract with Sumo.
It would be an RFP process at that point to find a vendor.
And I wanted to underscore that in order for us to engage any vendor, any contract support, we would need to go through a competitive Fair, consistent process that aligns with procurement expectations.
And so while I think there are any number of benefits with the tool that you've raised, and our team has met with Alan and understand the app in ways that we could align it with this work, it will be important for us to, especially given the scrutiny of the program overall, that we cross every T and dot every I.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Regarding who we engage as partners in support of implementation of this work.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That makes sense.
And bringing up the point of you also need to have resources to help people figure out how to navigate this.
I know every time I get a new app, I'm like, oh, I am getting older.
Technology isn't always as easy as it used to be.
Well, thank you so much for bringing this forward.
I'm really excited to see this move forward.
And as always, I'm really excited to talk about Vision Zero and how that intersects with also age-friendly Portland priorities.
Looking at slide 13, I'm excited to see the programmatic bullet points and some of those capital improvements.
I love seeing that, you know, that's what's important is we're really looking at these limited funds and thinking about How are we using the data to make sure that we're using that money in the best way possible?
And I'm just wondering if, you know, while I know I see some people who focus on Vision Zero, I also know DCA, you also know a lot about Vision Zero and that there's a lot of commitment.
And I'm just wondering, is there anything that you or others would want to add to this capital improvements list?
Or have on our radar?
Not that like it's set in stone, but what are— are there any things that you want us to be focusing on a little bit more?
I know that my team just got to tour the traffic center.
Thank you so much, DCA Williams, for that.
And got to learn more about LiDAR and that new tool, which are being installed along Powell, and they sense when pedestrians and bikes Or in crosswalks.
And if we want to do this offline also, but, you know, I hear like different things like do rest in red, do like— are there any things that you want us to be thinking about and making one of our next things that we highlight?
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Councilor, for the question and for the opportunity to provide some feedback.
Unidentified speaker
I think what would be most helpful for the Bureau is the continuation of the broader themes versus the very specific prescription for what we will do.
As we know, every corridor has different needs, every part of town has different concerns, and we'd like to be able to come forward with any number of solutions that come out of a toolbox that we're able to develop in order to be able to be responsive.
The Rest on Red that we're doing on Powell, which actually isn't even our facility, although the lights are to maintain is something that we are finding success with.
And that's potential, a potential tool.
There are any number of tools, but I think the broader ask is that we continue to engage in the conversations about some of the problems that we're seeing and allow the team to bring forward a series of options for consideration versus us even in this setting saying, well, this and that and that.
Because often out of the need to satisfy one problem, it's kind of the balloon squishing.
We make something bigger and harder in another place.
Millicent Williams
Yep.
Unidentified speaker
So the strategy around how we can best be most effective, I think, is something that we can continue to develop iteratively.
And my ask and hope is that we could have the blankets versus the very specific fitted sheets so that we can provide the most comprehensive and meaningful response.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I hear that, and that makes a lot of sense.
I'm even looking at a letter from the PAC, the Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and there are things that they're calling for in here that I know that the Bureau is working on.
And so some of my wondering is, How can we be— how can I be helping to share that or explain that?
We might not need to write a resolution to direct that if it's already happening.
And would you say some of those big blankets are what's on slide 13?
Millicent Williams
I would say that those big blankets are what's on slide 13.
Unidentified speaker
I think it's important for us to also acknowledge that while the TUF is going to be covering mostly maintenance and preservation activities, that does not That does not suggest that there won't be other actual true CIP projects that are happening.
We have a list of about 250 capital improvement projects that will do some of that more transformational work, that corridor transformation work that I think people are desirous of.
This again is— this tool again and this funding source will help us to do the things that Portlanders have expressed to us time and time again that they'd like to continue to see or start to see us do, uh, in, in the, uh, spirit of maintaining our streets at the most basic levels.
That does not, again, discount from our opportunity to do that more comprehensive work, but there are, um, the discrete buckets within which that type of work will happen.
Uh, I know that you often will hear, especially from the constituencies that you engage, we aren't doing enough of X on There are reasons for that, and it's, as we know, tough to describe.
Well, we can do this here, we can't do that there.
I know that we get any number of emails saying, why are you adding another bike lane here when my street is riddled with potholes?
Because we have funding to do that very discrete thing in that very specific location.
The funding was available, we wrote for it, we were awarded it, we were able to do that work.
This provides us an opportunity to do what we have not been able to do in the history of the bureau, which is to be thoughtful and strategic about planning for the basic maintenance of those Streets and corridors and sidewalks that our folks are depending on using.
So, um, uh, we encourage the, um, continued, uh, engagement.
Uh, part of why we're excited about the oversight committee, uh, and their lens, um, in terms of bringing forward the advocate voice as well as the practical— uh, not that advocates' voices aren't practical, but the, the, the, uh, less connected voices of community as well as their, um, particular expertise, the fields of work that they've been identified, uh, to, um, represent.
Uh, we're excited about that because, as, uh, Stefan acknowledged, they push on the bureau to, um, think more broadly, to, um, ensure that we're being comprehensive and, and ensure that we're being, uh, thoughtful in our approaches.
So, um, we can continue to, um, hear again those voices, um, but it's important for there to be I don't want to say a segregation or distinction between as much as clarity around what maintenance and preservation dollars can do versus what capital improvement dollars can do.
So if there's support that the bureau needs, it's in your conversations with community to say, I hear you.
Yes, this can do that.
This is for that.
These are restricted completely.
I mean, the amount of our budget that we can't spend on either of those things.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Things that we're talking about is unfortunate.
But, you know, we continue to figure that out.
But this is the beginning of what I anticipate will be a really meaningful demonstration of the city doing what residents have been asking for for a long time.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you for all of this.
And full disclosure, Councilor Smith and I do love to throw out ideas, so we do have some fitted sheets that we've been playing with, but we will not just push it forward without a conversation.
Unidentified speaker
The good thing is we know how to fold fitted sheets, so, um, we can, we can make it all work.
We don't just ball them up and throw them in the corner.
Okay, thank you for your partnership.
Loretta Smith
Absolutely.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
I would just include, we need, um, silk pillowcases for the curly hair.
Unidentified speaker
We do need the silk pillowcases.
Olivia Clark
Okay, um, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Clark.
Thanks everybody for being here and for the presentation.
First, uh, just wanted to say, uh, I appreciate how much work's been done since the last time, um, in, in pretty much every area of this.
It's been, um, noticeable, um, in particular the outreach piece.
I, I really appreciated seeing that slide.
Um, I particularly also appreciate that, that the financial assistance delivery, that there wasn't a predetermined outcome to that.
That was really important to me, and I appreciate that that's been broadened.
Speaking on the financial assistance piece, one of the challenges that we're facing is, you know, there's cost associated with how the discount is delivered.
There's overhead, you know, all those different things.
And without knowing the relative cost of that compared to the revenue received by that particular subset of folks who are not billed directly, it's hard to even know If it's viable and whether it makes more sense to just skip that charge altogether than to try to come up with a discount that costs more to administer than it would get.
And it seems like we're avoiding that, or at least moving in that direction.
So that's great.
I want to just kind of observe that before probably any of us were here, we started this conversation where we were comfortable leaving a subset of people behind on this side of the day, as we were comfortable with that going back.
Yeah.
And so not offering financial assistance to folks who are in that particular situation, I'm really grateful that we've all acknowledged that that's no longer an option.
And so I just wanted to kind of really start there.
Generally speaking, I was really happy to see the transportation wallet piece be implemented.
That's something that has happened, has been interest expressed in that for a while, and we see folks have used it for other things.
Thank you.
The ability to send a single check at the beginning or end of the year.
I know that there are both options there.
When we— I used to staff advisory bodies over across the street, and we switching the stipend from a monthly payment to twice a year was a huge improvement in terms of overhead, time spent on it, things like that, and the recipients appreciated it more as well.
So anything that we can do on that.
The other thing I really wanted to explore, I know it's going to be harder, but unless they get back to us, but the partnership with the electrical companies where there is usually a bill there.
And then I just wanted to observe, you know, when we're talking about the different discount opportunities, feasibility is a subjective term, right?
It's based on who's analyzing it and whose analysis is used I think that if it's infeasible to deliver a discount to cost-burdened people, in particular renters, that's something that has to be a part of it in the first place.
And that's why I raised the skipping process.
At the same time, I know that it's not going to be easy to get this done quickly, and it's not going to be a flip of the switch.
And so I want to make sure that we're clarifying over time what the expectation is from council in terms of when each of these discounts are available.
And I think that the commercial side where you have a Phase 1 and Phase 2 is sort of a model of we don't have to get it all right on day 1, but we have to get it right relatively quickly.
Unidentified speaker
Mm-hmm.
Sameer Kanal
Um, I guess I'll stick on the, the TUF for a minute, and then I have a couple questions on other things or comments on other things.
Um, I, I've always felt since the beginning that, that I appreciate the clarification on where the $30,070 came from.
I don't really know why the flood piece is Yeah.
It always seemed pretty punitive to residential side users to have it be 70%.
And so as we shift to a less blanket structure for the commercial side, that might be something that we could do in parallel to that to increase that share so that small businesses that aren't major transportation use drivers aren't seeing their rates go up higher because it's paired with the adjustment of how Commercial is calculated, but that larger impact businesses like drive-throughs, or there's a giant new facility going in for trucking in Northeast Portland that should be paying even more than drive-throughs, you know.
And I think that's a good opportunity to have that conversation.
And on the residential use side, is there a conversation yet around a Phase 3 to shift that conversation?
Because we're using averages.
Yes.
Of trip impact or trip counts based on, um, uh, you know, apartments versus houses.
You have a slide with the little 2 graphics there on it.
And I, I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of folks who in both categories that, you know, use TriMet, um, when it's available, which is obviously decreasing.
But, um, to help, uh, ensure that someone who is riding TriMet every day is, is Is charged differently than someone who's driving every day.
And so we— I've been hearing conversation on the commercial side shifting in that way.
I think that's the right, um, calculation, the right, um, direction to be going, is saying not just 4.3%, but what's your actual impact as an individual business.
And so where's the conversation at?
Is there a conversation yet about a further in the future shift to the residential, uh, calculation for Sure.
Unidentified speaker
Maybe just a quick couple quick comments on that.
Thanks for your interest and, you know, support for this phased approach to continue to refine the process.
One thing that I think is going to be an advantage going forward is we had an amendment.
I think it came from Councilor Green when we were— when the ordinance was being developed that has us on an annual basis checking in with council regarding the methodology.
So I think that's going to really require that Phase 2 won't be the end, that there'll be additional conversations to have as we go forward related to the same things that you're talking about.
So again, I think it's really important that we move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 as efficiently as we can, and that we're really thoughtful to the comments that Councilor Clark was bringing up, as well as about the impacts to businesses.
I think the structure we have in place will allow us to do that.
But it's not the end of the, you know, the productive sort of changes to the program that I think will work best for Portland and be really thoughtful to the needs that are on residents and businesses.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so I guess how I heard that is nothing's in the works yet, but as we do the annual review, that's where that would come up.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I mean, maybe I just tweak it a little bit.
It's like we're definitely working really aggressively to present to the business community and all Portlanders a Phase 2 approach.
And that's going to happen in February, and then Council is going to get a chance to give us that direction in April.
So we're working, and the feedback that we got today is really helpful, and we're happy to have one-on-one meetings to talk more about that.
So we're really— that's a, I think, a super important time for us to try to get it as right as possible, but that then we'll be continuing to evaluate that going forward.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
And we can share information.
I mean, Shoshana made a good point earlier that all the TUFs in the state have some balance between the amount of the fee that's paid by commercial versus residential properties.
And that's information that we can share.
Again, we use our math from modelers to come up with that initial 70/30 percentage distribution based on trips.
Mark Lear
We only use—.
Unidentified speaker
The only thing we used from the flood safety benefit fee was just how much revenue do you generate per, you know, 10th of a percent or something like that when you charge commercial accounts just for that one year when we were using that as a way of generating revenue.
You know, that will be, as we move into phase 2, that will no longer be an issue.
So that'll be good, I think.
But I mean, this is perfect time to engage on these conversations.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thanks for that.
And just to kind of follow up, you said the math for modelers Yeah, that was based at a macro level, right?
Unidentified speaker
They were looking at trip ends from like residential and commercial properties and then saying for the whole city, what should that distribution be in total?
And so once we knew that, like, you know, 70% of trips being credited to residential properties, 30% to commercial, That allowed us to do the high-level math of, you know, how much should each of those parties be paying into the overall.
And that's what we used to establish the rates.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so just one thing to flag is I think, you know, the facility I mentioned, and there's several of these obviously around District 2 and around the whole city, are they're semis?
Yeah.
Right.
That's going to have a significantly different impact on the roads than than, you know, a passenger vehicle.
So for sure, you know, finding a way to incorporate that piece over time is just an interest of mine.
Unidentified speaker
Can I just add one quick thing on that?
Portland— I feel kind of proud of this because I think it was good work by PBOT as well as our freight committee— when we established our local gas tax, you know, we were really thoughtful about the fact that Oregonians have for a long time— it was actually done through an initiative process said that they think heavy vehicles should pay their fair share.
It's a requirement at the state level.
It's not actually a constitutional requirement at the local level, but we thought it was really important, and we set up a program called the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax, sometimes referred to as HVUT.
And what it does is, with our business license tax, anybody who delivers into the city pays the business license tax.
And we asked Eco Northwest to help us figure out, like, what should they be paying And we use the heavy— and then we use a percentage of their statewide weight mile tax to actually collect revenue from trucking companies.
Mark Lear
And it's been really—.
I mean, it's been—.
Unidentified speaker
The freight community was very helpful when we established that fee.
We work with them on how we spend those resources.
And it's actually a part of when we talk about fixing our streets now, having these 4 different revenue sources in it.
The heavy vehicle use tax is a part of that.
So we should continue to make sure that as we're having conversations with the council and the public that we talk about that and it's included in these conversations.
So thanks for bringing that up.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, thanks.
3, Not related to that particular line of conversation.
Going back to the SIP side, on slide 12, it says a comprehensive project list is being created.
Is that a citywide list?
Okay, I'm seeing nods there.
Mark Lear
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
For those who are maybe not hearing this on video, there's just, uh, revving engines, several of them in the background that are very loud.
Olivia Clark
Ruining the pavement.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, Steven said that members were invited to step down.
Uh, can, can I get a little bit more on that?
That, that, that was an alarming turn of phrase.
Unidentified speaker
They were—.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't realize you were Councilor, you're still on.
Go ahead.
Yeah, just to put that in context.
So basically, the— our charge originally was to oversee the gas tax through the Fixing Our Streets ballot measure, and that once the role got expanded, we actually increased our meeting frequency, adding 2 additional meetings a year.
And, and, and the goal is to sort of get everybody to volunteer to like keep going with this expanded role and expanded time commitment.
And so, um, it was couched in a way like, we're not asking people to step down, we're asking them to volunteer more hours, but put it through a way that, that folks don't actually have to affirmatively say, I'm, I'm down for more.
Mark Lear
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
So that was the context of that.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank, thank you for clarifying that.
The last thing I wanted to say, this conversation around potholes is really interesting, uh, to me because I, I understand that from like an engineering perspective, it's often better to wait and redo the whole street.
I think there's a separate element of it, which is the government trust piece.
Sure.
And I'm watching, um, I, I don't like being behind other cities.
I, when I, um, especially cities I've lived in that I know are not better than Portland because I've lived there and my experience here is a lot better.
And so when I see 200,000 potholes being repaired this year in New York, and I get that the scale is different, I think that's not just about the actual impact on the roads.
It's the idea that if you ask for it, you might get it back and you might get something done that you asked for.
And so I understand that there are people who study traffic and actually do know better than the average person.
I appreciate that point.
But there's also, I want my pothole fixed, can you just fix that?
Millicent Williams
And yes, we can.
Unidentified speaker
We do.
Yeah.
Millicent Williams
And so I was— I'm sorry.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I think it's a scale concern.
Like I've said for years, I think the existence of the 823 bump number is an acknowledgement of a systemic failure.
The idea that you have to go and be the squeaky wheel, and I understand we did a lot for people in D1 Not make them have to be the squeaky wheel, but the idea that we're just not going to get to them unless we get prioritization based off of something.
And so I, I want to just bring that up in the— and I, and that's why I think the March Madness thing was so great.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Right?
Because that was a very clear human being putting input to government, seeing a result piece of it.
And I think that's where there's, there's been, um, a disconnect.
And one of the reasons for the disconnect is wanting to do things more comprehensively than they On daylighting, I've asked— it's the quote I always get back is, well, we have to pave this, we have to do all this stuff.
The basic blue bolted into the ground bike rack could daylight a corner of an intersection for much, much cheaper.
I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I asked for them, and I think it was 5 to 1, if I recall correctly.
So, you know, if that meant that we're kind of, you know, I don't want to say, you know, doing it half as well because it's not necessarily half.
It's maybe not quite as aesthetically pleasing, but it, A, can be done faster and cheaper, and B, we also actually need bike parking.
So there's that too.
And so that's where I think like the potholes question to me is broader than just that.
They got 100,000 done in 100 days in New York.
And even if you scale that down to the size of the population and the size of the budget, That's significantly better than what we do numerically, but it's also that they actually take the time to tell the story.
Yeah.
I would love to see that we— I would love to see us talk about how many we've done and not why we couldn't do more often, except in rooms like this where that's our job to talk about it.
But I also know that there's a lot of why it's not as good to fill potholes narrative.
And I gotta say, there are a lot of folks that really appreciate that clarity, really appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into that.
And also there are a lot of folks, and I imagine my colleagues are hearing this too, where that message goes over like a lead balloon.
Millicent Williams
Sure.
And thank you for raising that.
Unidentified speaker
And allow me to explain a little bit more or provide greater context.
When I said that we, we don't wait to fill it, we look around to see if there are more to fill.
So there are oftentimes that the maintenance operations team will receive information about a pothole that needs to be filled.
They will go to fill the pothole and they will see that there are 20 others that need to be done.
It looks like, according to the trip tick, that they've done 1, but they've actually done 20.
And so we do record that.
Much like the City of New York, when we did Potholepalooza, in 30 days we did 30,000 potholes.
So we're on track for that type of effort.
The challenge is we had to, in that instance, redirect the team that was dedicated to pothole— addressing potholes across the city.
A little bit to make sure that we could do that focused outreach.
That said, even with us doing those comprehensive, intentional efforts for that 30 days, we still kept on track with getting potholes filled within 30 days that were outside of the zone that we had selected.
So if— again, if reported, if we know about the problem, because we can't see all of the things that we would love to be able to see, at least we haven't been able to for the several years, we can be responsive.
We don't even have to be— we can be proactive.
We don't even have to be reactive.
We can be proactive.
And so I also know that in previous conversations that we've had before this body, there were questions about, well, why don't you do that while you're doing that?
Sometimes it does require a different crew.
But what we did not say, or I did not say in that convening, was that often when a team is out doing a repair or preparing a system for something, they will report that there was something else, and the appropriate crew will go out and do that work and again look around to see what else needs to happen.
We got a request for some restriping just a few blocks away.
The team did come out, restriped, but they also looked around to see what else needed to be done.
So that is happening.
So if it sounded like I was suggesting we just wait for everything to go to Uh, seed.
We aren't, um, uh, we aren't waiting to see, um, through to another country, uh, while we're looking at the depth of a pothole.
Uh, but we are trying to make sure that we're getting the biggest bang for our buck when we're going out.
And sometimes that does require a little bit of extra effort.
But the goal is, and we've been meeting that consistently for the past several years, to go out, um, when we know about something, to do something about it.
Um, the general expectation is if we We see a problem, we can solve a problem, and working together to make sure that we're doing that in ways that make the most sense.
Again, we need the community's partnership in that.
And I know that often we'll receive messages from councilors about specific locations that people would like for us to go to.
Sometimes we've already gotten the report through 311, through 823-SAFE.
It's already on our list.
So we keep the list.
We can report out on that.
We can let you know where we've been from From a district perspective, that's what we're excited about in terms of the TUF and SDRF.
We'll be able to track in real time.
Everyone can be able— will be able to see in real time where we are, what we're doing, and how we're addressing those really very basic fundamental needs.
But I would love for our storytelling to catch up with the way that we are actually out there.
We do a lot of engagement with community.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
In ways that are making impacts on a daily basis.
The opportunity is ours to identify the capacity to be able to help with that storytelling.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, so the— I will say, that all makes sense to me.
I'm also aware that in terms of the, like, the public trust piece of it, January 15th of last year when we voted on committees, I brought up painting a crosswalk, which I was I was told cost about $300 to do at the time, uh, on the south side.
Well, actually, like near McCoy Park on Trenton, where there are cuts for wheelchair users to go mid-block, but there's no daylighting.
So the, the parking spots are there and there's no painted crosswalk.
And I was told daylighting's too hard.
Got a crosswalk, still hasn't been painted.
And if I'm a city councilor, I don't know what it tells my, my constituents Why would they call?
Stefan McLandrich
Right?
Sameer Kanal
So, you know, because I've been bringing it up publicly, I've talked about this one at least 8 times on this dais, and it's still not done.
So I get like, that's what I'm talking about there.
I'm going to move on to the last thing I wanted to flag, which was that the SCRF piece is related to this as well, which is the idea that you do things together.
And I do appreciate that.
A great deal.
One of the things that I think relates to the— another thing that's related to it, not in the same direction as SDRF, but in the section of like how prioritization works, is it might be better to just do everything of a type.
I know that's less efficient, but it feels like a fluke when you see potholes fixed in one area and then you go to another place and they're still on the same drive and then they're not fixed.
Whereas if And I know that that's because PBOT has, you know, probably 100 people scoring what the most important thing is to do.
Millicent Williams
2.
Sameer Kanal
But I think—.
Unidentified speaker
In terms of the potholes, it's 2.
Sameer Kanal
For potholes.
But I'm saying in terms of like we do a couple potholes here, there, everywhere.
We do crosswalks here, there, everywhere.
We do daylighting here.
Like, it would be— and this is maybe not for the 5 people here, and I'm maybe more frustrated with the empty box over here.
Um, just do one of them for a year, because then next year we wouldn't have any potholes, and then in 2 years we wouldn't have any crosswalk issues, and 3— like, and I'm oversimplifying, and I get that.
Yeah.
Totally acknowledging that.
But I think there's been an idea of, of sort of a lot of prioritization and scoring and all that, and not a lot of, um, just doing the thing that's visible.
Because I hear more about PBOT than any other bureau, and As I'm sure you can guess, people come to me for, for like police all the time, uh, but I still hear about PBOT more.
Unidentified speaker
Sure.
Olivia Clark
Okay, that does not require a response.
I think that your point is well taken, and I think you're, you're right on.
We all, we all get those calls, um, and like I said earlier, PBOT is the one bureau that everybody touches every single day.
Sameer Kanal
And, and, you know, and I want to acknowledge we've systematically underfunded you forever, and like all this This is a mooted point until you get the money that's coming from these 2 fees.
Unidentified speaker
And I—.
And we thank you for agreeing to that.
Olivia Clark
And we are changing the trajectory right here, folks.
Councilor Koyama Lane, did you want to follow up?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on some of that.
Appreciate the conversation.
And it did remind me of this conversation about there's overarching work, long goals, and then there's the fitted sheets.
What was the bigger— was there another metaphor for that?
Olivia Clark
The blanket.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
The blanket.
The blanket.
Okay.
Um, you know, because as I've learned more, I've learned that potholes really are a symptom of not having paved.
And so, yeah, you can go in and, and fix those, and that's going to be kind of flashy and exciting and quick, but it's a symptom of a bigger problem.
And I also hear that, um, when people see some, some, some visibly things not getting fixed, you lose public trust.
And you also have to be thinking about that blanket.
And so I under— I just want to acknowledge that complexity.
And I don't know what that right ratio is, but I mean, usually I feel like most things are some mix of the two.
And so I do appreciate that there are— there have been some blitz filling in, but that we don't lose sight of the blanket too.
And just want to say it's complicated, and I appreciate that you're all willing to have this discussion.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you for that.
Just a couple quick questions, and then I'm going to try to get us out of here even a few minutes early.
I just wanted to say something to Steven, if he's still there, just how much I appreciate your, I guess, tenacity and enthusiasm, your willingness to serve.
Really appreciate that.
Just thank you for being here today, and sharing your committee's work and, and the change that you all are going through and the additional commitment.
But just thank you so much, Stephen.
Really appreciate you.
Unidentified speaker
All right.
Hey, thank you for having me.
Appreciate it.
Olivia Clark
Um, second, real quick, um, you were coming back in November with cleanup pieces.
Um, can we start to generate that list right away?
Because our agenda is getting very crowded and we need to know what you need what you absolutely need before the end of the year, uh, if possible.
Um, but I'd like to get that list as soon as possible.
Unidentified speaker
Sure.
And I can— it's—.
Shoshana Cohen
It—.
Unidentified speaker
The 3 things that we're doing were really just like pure cleanup, making sure that the last 3 amendments that happened in April, um, they made it into the ordinance and they didn't make it into the code.
And so it's just sort of cleaning up the code before we hit go in January.
We're not doing anything new meaningfully.
Olivia Clark
Good to know.
Good to know.
I wasn't sure.
They're just really technical, not anything substantive.
Okay, great.
And, and you mentioned, Shoshana, that you are going out to the public in February.
Is that because of the business side, or what, what are you looking for when you go out?
Unidentified speaker
The idea in February is just, you know, the people will start to pay the bill in, um, in the— in January, February, depending on their water bill schedule.
And we're really just going to be out trying to show what the work is, doing some of that storytelling.
And so we want to have Open house in every district.
And at that point, I think in multiple ways, just really start to say, hey, this is what, you know, these are the potholes we're filling.
Here's the list of sidewalk projects.
Here's the list of Vision Zero projects that we've collaborated with our team on.
And, you know, just what is the actual work at that point?
It's really just trying to engage folks in that.
Olivia Clark
Okay, that sounds great.
I know, um, some— we really appreciated the ones that you did pre-TUF when we decided to pursue this was really, really helpful.
I know that— I think the mayor went to every single one, but— and some of us went to— I think I went to 3.
I saw you at a couple of them, I think.
Yeah, right.
Okay, great.
Super.
Um, thank you again.
So much material.
Um, so much work, Cynthia.
So much work, Mark.
Just really appreciate everything that you're doing.
Um, you're really trailblazers for the city.
We appreciate that.
And it was a great presentation.
I think we all agree.
Um, very, very helpful.
Thank you so much.
We We look forward to seeing you in November.
Cynthia Castro
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Okay, colleagues, our next meeting is October the 13th.
We're going to hear finally about the asset management strategy report, and we're— and even more exciting, we're going to talk about autonomous vehicles.
And I'm really hoping at that meeting to have Um, all of us contributed in advance to a potential policy piece.
So that's exciting.
And then PBOT's going to be bringing forth an ordinance on the Northeast Parking Event District to address neighborhood parking challenges near the Moda Center.
So that'll be an action-packed meeting on October 13th.
So I'm also going to share for Councilor Koyama Lane that we're planning to have Okay.
Setting initial conversation if in October if we can.
Okay, so that's definitely on the radar screen.
So with all those announcements, I will adjourn the meeting of the Public Works Committee.