Newsroom

Part One: It Tolls For Thee

Tolling. The very utterance of the word can amp up blood pressure, twitch yer fingers, and blur yer vision. Around these parts, it’s been known to right down cause a man to lose the wits about him.

Jesse Boone, the great-grandson of pioneer legend Daniel Boone, knew about tolls. He and that there family of his operated the Boone Ferry in Wilsonville, Ore., for a mighty long time. You had to pony up to get your wagon and stock over that Willamette River back then. Lot of folks thought he charged too much for them tolls. Poor Jesse. In 1872, a neighbor shot him dead right there by the river. Seems that tollin’ just to shu your sheep around was a little too much for some folk. I reckon that is why we haven’t seen any tolls in this neck of the woods ever since.

Now I hear folks are making quite a ruckus again, back at that same Boone Bridge and everywhere else in the territory. A group of boys from a place called ODOT are in town aiming to start that tollin’ stuff all o’er again. Don’t know how all this is gonna turn out, but I know one thing, if folk up there care about this, it’s no time to be part of a herd of sheep.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is set to begin tolling bridges in the South Metro area next year and then install additional per-mile tolls all along I-5 and I-205. That adds up to about 40 or more tolls motorists will face when they utilize the not-so-freeways in the Portland area.

ODOT says the plan is designed to meet a legislative mandate to reduce traffic congestion on Portland area freeways. They appear to have adopted a winning strategy. Lining I-5 and I-205 with toll booths could transform the freeways from congested to deserted as commuters head to the 40-plus offramps along the freeways to squeeze the congestion to local arterials, neighborhoods, and school zones. This is especially ironic considering ODOT recently approved millions to address Safe Routes to Schools to potentially make them less safe than ever before.

A study by Metro just two years ago predicted an average of 25% or more congestion in neighborhoods across the region. The pink and orange lines represent that congestion. The attendant safety, pollution, and livability concerns that will arise from squeezing Portland freeway congestion into neighborhoods have residents up in arms. Websites have sprung up to try and strategize how to stop the ODOT Express before it is too late to apply the brake.

ODOT also wants to raise revenues to use for future mega-transportation projects. It is a perilous endeavor as tolling revenues have proven volatile nationwide, especially where alternative routes are readily available, as in Portland. Already facing a financial crunch due to declining gas tax revenues resulting from more efficient cars and migration to electric vehicles, ODOT plans to issue 30-year bonds backed by tolls that may not meet expectations for revenue to pay for projects that increasingly exceed expectations by 200 to 300% more than the initial estimated in cost of delivery. It is a recipe to destabilize the agency’s budget and have it fall on the Legislature’s and taxpayers’ mercy to bail it out. A decrease in inflows and an increase in outflows sounds like the epitaph of Silicon Valley Bank.

Only three years after Washington built the SR99 toll road in Seattle, it is performing well under expectations to meet its debt obligations. The State Treasurer recently announced that in the years to come, the SR99 deficit will approach a quarter of a billion dollars requiring a taxpayer bailout if the State wants (and must) keep its’ bond rating intact.

ODOT might need to rename itself the “Oregon Department of Tolling” rather than Transportation.

Of course, we are talking engineers, accountants, and planners here, not political visionaries. That is expected, but Agency leadership should have calculated things with a more astute pencil and recognized the adverse reaction they would generate. When the Legislature authorized tolling, they may very well have thought that meant ODOT would put up two or three toll areas, evaluate the results over eighteen months for revenue measurements versus expectations, evaluate road diversion and issues associated with the diversion to calibrate future installations better, and win public support with the results. Instead of a couple of scouting crews, they launched an entire battalion, catching most legislators off-guard. They did not truly understand that ODOT’s definition of Congestion Pricing was taking the whole system hostage with a full-out assault. As a cake-topper, the planned tolls on I-205 by the Abernethy Bridge and the Tualatin Bridge are set to light up and cash out drivers in the Fall of next year—right before the General Election.

Louisville, Ky., went all-out on tolling when it decided that a congested bridge over the Ohio River with six lanes would be solved by spending more than a billion dollars on six more lanes and paying for it with tolls. Despite charging only $1 to $2 to get people to use it, the bridge has become a deserted stretch of concrete most of the time. The picture below was taken just after 5 p.m. on a typical weekday.

Instead of a congested bridge, they have a mile-long bowling alley. Even a dollar a day has not brought them all back. The idea of congestion pricing is to reduce vehicles on freeways, not eliminate them by diverting them to other crossings weaving through neighborhoods along the way.

By going all in all the time, ODOT is threatening its financial stability and the ability to perform essential maintenance functions.

Trying to do it much too fast can cause serious problems. Too bad Jesse Boone was not around to advise them. What’s that saying? “Those who don’t study history are bound…

Part Two: There’s Still Time to Take the Off-Ramp

Reducing Congestion and Funding Construction Can’t Be Achieved With Tolling

Full disclosure: The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is not to blame for all its fiscal problems. The legislature is primarily responsible as the dealer that got the agency addicted to bonded indebtedness. As chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee for almost a decade and co-author of the OTIA and JTA legislation of the 2000s, I own a share of the responsibility.

Before 2001, ODOT operated as a pay-as-you-go agency. Indebtedness was very limited.

In 2009, Vice-Chair Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Hillsboro) and I created the massive Jobs & Transportation Act to put people back to work after the Great Recession of 2008. We enacted revenue increases to pay debt service for important projects. Those revenues matched the estimated costs as provided by the department. Unfortunately, those estimates proved to be not just rosy but wildly unrealistic.

In some cases, the final cost to completion came to 200% or more above original estimates, and the revenue raised could only partially support the final tab. ODOT dipped into money needed for maintenance, preservation, and other needs, along with federal grants and local government support to keep the projects online. Some, like the final stages of the Newberg-Dundee Bypass, are still not completed. ODOT’s debt is approaching 30% of its existing yet declining revenues.

As the chairman, my committee at the time relied on ODOT estimates without applying the scrutiny those estimates deserved. Today, current project cost estimates for the Abernethy Bridge, Rose Quarter, and I-5 Bridge replacement are already 200-300% above the original estimate and are likely to balloon even higher. I hope that this Legislature will learn from that history and not embark on policies that risk the financial stability of ODOT while meeting, in a measured and thoughtful way, the many transportation needs of this state.

_____________________________________________________________________________

When the Oregon Legislature authorized tolling in a section buried deeply in the catacombs of a huge transportation package bill (HB 2017 Section 120) late in the 2017 session, there was virtually no debate between committee members. There was barely even an acknowledgment of the provision’s existence during the seven meeting dates the bill was heard. There were, however, almost 12 hours of praise heaped upon the many excellent provisions in the bill, from transit and pedestrian enhancements to money for ports and local governments. Amens were all that could be heard echoing off the hearing room walls.

Perhaps it was the crafty code that was used. The provision created the “Congestion Relief Fund.” Who would question congestion relief? Everyone needs a dose of NyQuil on occasion. The fact is, it authorized tolls and the money was directed to the fund solely to provide congestion relief. Such tolling can be done in moderation and at a low cost to motorists while still achieving the desired results.

Having achieved the legislative authorization needed to toll Oregon highways, ODOT returned in 2021 and quietly and unassumingly swapped out the artwork. Again, near the end of a bill the size of a James Michener novel, ODOT added “technical changes” that, in reality, repealed the “Congestion Relief Fund” (SECTION 139. (1) The Congestion Relief Fund, established under ORS 383.155, is abolished.) and replaced it with the “Toll Program Fund.” The change was a substantive one. The one and only purpose of the fund was no longer to reduce congestion. Language saying the fund was to ‘reduce traffic congestion’ was deleted in Section 146 and replaced with ‘managing’ congestion. That’s like changing goals from “reducing homelessness” to “managing homelessness.”

ODOT then added as a primary purpose: (b) Partially or wholly funding the construction, operation, or maintenance of a highway sec 146.

1000 Friends of Oregon picked up the change and testified that the language should be returned to “congestion relief” and not as a funding source for more mega projects. The plea was not answered.

The two mandates of reducing congestion while maximizing revenue conflict with each other. Reducing congestion means efforts to keep people off the freeway during peak hours. Raising revenue relies on getting as many cars as possible to take the freeway in peak hours to collect tolls.

But there is a solution that addresses congestion without sending drivers to the local payday lender – altering the legislation to design a Hybrid Cordon pricing plan for the region. This would include:

• Putting a single toll area on the four major highways, including Highway 26 west towards Hillsboro, I-84 east towards Gresham, and I-5 and I-205.
• The toll would only be operational during established peak hours of 5-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.
• Motorists can travel in the zone for free 16 hours a day.
• Once a single toll is collected on any freeway, it negates all other toll zone impositions during that day.

Considering that 140,000 people a day travel into Portland from Vancouver, 100,000 more come from the south, and 230,000 drivers enter the zone from the combination of I-84 and HWY 26, just a 10% traffic reduction during peak hours could reduce congestion by up to 30%. There would be far fewer diversions or neighborhood impacts because of the zoned toll, but fewer than there would be under the current plan to charge a toll for every mile driven on I-5 and I-205.

ODOT could be restricted from using toll revenues as support for bonds and instead dedicate the money to maintenance and preservation. The agency testified last week that this is the area that their fiscal distress has most impacted. Bonding for new and rebuilt infrastructure can use existing revenue sources and ramp up the agency’s lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., to acquire some of the additional $43 billion in transportation grant money available for state projects.

Rather than operating in silos, imagine if the Oregon and Washington delegations joined together for a Northwest Transportation Infrastructure Initiative and used their collective political clout to secure a nice piece of that $43 billion for the plan as one applicant.

As for the immediate issue of how to pay for the construction of the Abernethy Bridge that is already underway through using a credit card? A simple two-cent increase in the gas tax ($32 million annually), entirely dedicated to Abernethy Bridge debt service, would solve that issue. At the same time, projects like adding lanes to I-205 at Tualatin and updating the Boone Bridge can be put in the back pocket until the Legislature weighs in on a long-term funding strategy for the agency.

ODOT should also get aggressive about developing a long-term funding plan (VMT, Electricity surcharges, state transportation tax, etc.) for consideration by the Legislature to replace the slowly dying gas tax.

A better way is right before us. Oregon must take the off-ramp from the current plan of tolling every mile, return focus to the original core issue of reducing congestion, and develop and implement a long-term strategy to fund the transportation needs of this state, as called for by Gov. Tina Kotek. If not, we face the genuine threat that a citizen initiative already in the works will constitutionally all but take the tolling option away from policymakers to use for any purpose, including replacing the interstate bridge.

Leaders today must ask themselves, “Do we take a proactive step towards solving congestion surgically or stay back in the shadows and deal with the aftermath of inaction that is sure to come if the plan is not altered now?”

It has been over four decades since I last crossed paths with the Pythagorean Theorem. We have not missed each other. Save for the chemists, scientists, surveyors, and engineers, most of us have managed to muddle through life reasonably well despite the concerns of our algebra teachers.

Students today face a more complex world, especially in navigating the tar pits of personal finance, asset management, and risk aversion. Oregon has not required a semester of personal finance in a quarter of a century in public high schools. Almost immediately after it was subtracted from graduation requirements, educators, parents, and students began trying to add it back in.

Financial literacy has been in a decades-long courtship with the Oregon Legislature, only to see the nuptials continuously disrupted on the altar by Sine Die. This session, fueled by legislative leadership, teachers, school board members, and committed advocates, we may finally witness the tying of the knot.

The Senate Committee on Education is scheduled to have a work session Thursday on Senate Bill 3 that, when amended in committee, will guarantee a robust semester of personal financial empowerment curriculum for Oregon students.

Oregon may be late in recognizing how critical these tools are for graduates to have in their life planning arsenal, but they are being joined by at least nine other states this year rushing to make up for lost time in their educational offerings. More states passed legislation last year, including Michigan. The Michigan Education Association, administrators, parents, and business leaders led a half-credit personal finance requirement to the governor’s desk with votes of 35-2 in the Senate and 94-13 in the House.

So, what has changed in Oregon? Some of the 17- and 18-year-olds discussed on the floor of the legislature more than two decades ago are now sitting in those legislators’ chairs. Back then, lawmakers and advocates made an emotional case to arm students with financial empowerment tools to minimize the chances that they might end up in a spiral of homelessness and be unable to afford vital services. Twenty years later, some of these young legislators have lived that prophecy through their friends, family, and classmates.

In a quickly evolving and complex financial world, they have witnessed first-hand the social and economic impacts of misguided financial decision-making. While the Legislature rolls out hundreds of millions of dollars to battle the backend consequences of housing shortages, homelessness, mental illness, and other issues, restoring financial literacy in school can help eliminate a subset of those individuals from the next generation of adults.

Studies demonstrate that part of the homeless population can be associated with poor financial decision-making, planning, and understanding of the perils of living on debt. It is not just the poor that comprise this population. A recent study found that 50.8% of people making over $100,000 a year live paycheck to paycheck. Those making up to $200K annually are not much better off at 47%.

Bills Add Up to Solve Issue in 2023

SB 3 provides future planning essentials to students, including resume writing, interview techniques, filling out college admission and financial aid forms, and other career option opportunities and guidance. It is a half-credit course. The final bill will amend portions of HB 3094 to direct a separate half credit of financial literacy and allow the Department of Education to have that credit satisfy the state’s current math requirements.

Some schools took things into their own hands. Newport High School is one example, where algebra teacher Isaac Bass teaches a robust personal finance curriculum. It is so popular with students that the classes are often oversubscribed. Read some of the students’ letters to the committee.

Bass and fellow personal finance teachers incorporate algebraic principles wherever possible to demonstrate how students can build their financial futures. An example is using basic algebra to calculate the total cost of a home mortgage from the interest accrual in the amortization tables of options like 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed, and five-year variable mortgages while using different interest rates and down payments. The class also counts towards the student’s state-required math requirement.

Now the Oregon Legislature is on the verge of guaranteeing every student access to the tools they need to succeed in real life. It is time to solve the equation.

If a scarecrow can do the math-then so can we!

Aged and refined after 23 years, Kevin Mannix is off the shelf and back in the game.

At 73 years old, Kevin Mannix is an unlikely rookie in the 82nd Oregon Legislative Assembly. But as Pappy Van Winkle is to bourbon, Mannix is a scarcity among legislators across the country. Both were aged 23 years. The last time he patrolled the legislative chamber Bill Clinton was president, and flip phones were all the rage. Why come off the shelf now?

“My wife and I had a conversation,” Mannix recalled. “We talked about the issues in the news and how nothing seemed to be getting done about them. I offered the usual refrain that ‘somebody needs to do something.’”

Mannix and his wife Susanna talked about how all their kids had grown up, grandchildren were doing fine, and how much he loved the legislative process.

The Legislature had just finished redistricting, and Mannix found himself in a favorable Salem-area district.

“Why don’t you run?” his wife said. Permission granted, Mannix returned to the campaign trail seeking the Republican nomination.

“On the outside, you don’t have the same abilities to make a change that you do on the inside. I love the challenge of the legislature.”

If politicians had trading cards, the Kevin Mannix sets would comprise an entire collection all on its own.

There would be the Mannix Assistant Attorney General Card, the Assistant Attorney General of Guam card, and the State Representative card. Then there is the State Senate, Candidate for Attorney General, Candidate for Governor, Republican Party Chair, and Candidate for Congress. And then back to State Representative. Been there, done that. That’s Kevin Mannix.

This veteran of the political wars is a very personable guy. He can also be disarming. He always looks you straight in the eye. You don’t know if he is intently engaged in the conversation or just trying to see through you.

Returning to the legislative halls after 23 years has taken some adjustment.

“So many members are new. They are refugees of the COVID process,” Mannix said. “They have only served with a Zoom camera. It has reduced human interaction, a key element in getting good things done.”

Mannix chuckled when he recalled the first time he popped in, unannounced, into another member’s office.

“They didn’t know how to react. But I was pleasantly surprised that they were pleasantly surprised. In my first week, I was in committee and realized I had some notes I had left back in my office. I texted my staff, and they came down to the committee members’ door, where I walked down and retrieved them. Members looked surprised, like, ‘can they do that?’ They haven’t learned how to use staff that way.”

“Some newer members are still adjusting to having live witnesses in the hearing room. People are testifying, and they are glued to their computer screens like they are at a college lecture. But I think they will warm up to it. The importance of making eye contact, reading body language.”
He is grateful that some newer members have asked him for advice.

“I tell them to have their questions written out and in front of them. I say, have you talked to the Democrats on the committee? Learn the tools of the process.” Mannix is a master of three-dimensional chess.

During his previous time in the House, Mannix earned the nickname “Amend-O-Mannix” for his propensity to amend others’ bills, especially late in the session.

“I just try to polish them up a little bit,” Mannix grinned. “Sometimes there is an issue that is a good one but doesn’t have enough horsepower on its own to move through the process. So, you try adding it on to another bill. The key is not harming the original bill. I just add a little car onto the train.”

He also is a master at discovering hidden on-ramps to get legislation moving. This is especially important if you have a recalcitrant chair giving an important issue short shrift or even refusing to hold a hearing.

“You need to learn how to mine relating clauses that are in other committees … You find a responsive chair and add a new car onto a train that is moving. You can also find one other member on the committee and issue a minority report. You must use that tool carefully, but if done properly and with wide support in the chamber, you can get your bill right to the floor.”
Nearly two months into the session, he is generally pleased with the level of cooperation.

“I think we reached the peak of partisanship just before the session. Now, Republicans are working really hard to be cautious in their responses, and Democrats are trying just as hard to be courteous. We aren’t in the trenches here. There is a real effort to reach out and engage.”
Mannix points to homelessness, housing, drug addiction, and mental health as issues the assembly must face. He says a broad-based system is needed to address these problems.

“We can’t keep facilitating things like homelessness and drugs on the street. We need to strengthen and support law enforcement in dealing with these issues.”

Mannix pointed to education as another area of concern and spoke passionately about ensuring every student has access to a robust financial literacy curriculum.

“It is a critical element in self-sufficiency as an adult. We need a buffet of opportunities. Let’s reward excellence.”

He would also like to refocus the state on a better way to fund major transportation projects. He says that with so much political power residing in the Oregon and Washington delegation in Congress, it is past time to use that leverage.

“Oregon and Washington should join together and, with all the federal money out there, push for a grand Pacific Northwest infrastructure package,” he said. “Both states would benefit.”

When asked whether he has any other creative ideas, a twinkle comes to his eye. Twenty-three years have subdued the harshness and enhanced his smoothness. Politics, as in bourbon, rewards patience with refinement.

Health care isn’t something younger people think about much. Like retirement savings, it’s often something you put off for later. Then, out of nowhere comes the wake-up call. I got mine earlier this month.

After about three weeks of blurry vision in my left eye, I made an appointment with an optometrist in Eugene whose office I’d had adjust my sunglasses several times. I anticipated discovering that I needed eyedrops, or perhaps prescription lenses for the first time. The doctor expressed some level of concern after determining that my retina was detached and had an assistant make an appointment with a retina specialist across town for the following morning before even telling me what he had found.

I had been told that the retina specialist was likely to put a needle in my eye as part of correcting my vision, which was genuinely terrifying for someone who doesn’t like to have their eyes touched. Much like the appointment before, the retina specialist had a staff member make an urgent referral to another ocular specialist — this time an oncologist, because the retina had been detached by a tumor.

Ocular melanoma (also known as uveal melanoma or OM) is a rare and aggressive form of primary eye cancer. OM is rare in that only about 2,500 people receive the diagnosis in the United States each year. By contrast, nearly a quarter of a million people — or 100 times as many people — will be diagnosed with primary lung cancer.

OM is aggressive in that about half of people with OM have the cancer subsequently pop up in other areas (this is known as metastatic disease), with the liver being the most common location.

Due to the tumor’s size, available treatment options that involved keeping my left eye were unlikely to result in improved vision. There was also a chance that the cancer would come back in the tumor after treatment. Given that I did not want to live the rest of my life in fear of that happening, and that I’d already essentially been relying on one eye for over a month with surprisingly little difficulty, the decision to take the eye almost felt like a forgone conclusion.

As of this writing, they are still gleaning information from the tumor itself and the potential of spread, but the outstanding news is that my post-diagnosis scans came back with no evidence of disease. We are still investigating clinical trials and learning about ongoing medications to treat rare conditions like mine. But the news – and support from family, friends and colleagues – has been amazing.

The experience has energized me in my role as a health care advocate here at Pac/West Lobby Group. I am feeling great, grateful, and anxious to get back to work next week. There is nothing like living the experience to understand the challenges and opportunities in Oregon’s health care system.