Striving For Equity: A Tolling Story

There is so much that is not equitable about ODOT's tolling plan. One example is what it's going to do to local neighborhoods and side streets that will be overwhelmed with traffic from cars diverting off of the freeway to avoid the tolls. This concern has been raised countless times to ODOT, and I have yet to hear them admit that their tolling plan will create another huge traffic problem. How is this fair/equitable to the towns of Willamette or Stafford in West Linn or Downtown Oregon City when they toll that area of I-205? This is just one inequity out of many. They are tolling all lanes, both directions, 24 hours a day with a higher cost for working people who commute. If it's really about "controlling congestion" (which it isn't, and it won't), why charge anything at 2:00 am when traffic isn't congested? Please ODOT, answer that! Hundreds of thousands of people keep moving here, which has overwhelmed our infrastructure. When there are the same amount of freeway lanes in 2022 as 1980, of course they're not going to move efficiently, because you've quadrupled the amount of people using them. Punishing drivers with tolls isn't going to solve the problem. And why is an out-of-state company getting 30% of the revenue generated from tolls? That's a lot of money that won't be used to improve Oregon's roads.

Maybe Oregonians should have been given a vote on whether not they wanted tolls and not have it forced upon them.

Actually, there are a lot of older Oregonians who remember tolling. There was a toll on the Interstate Bridge when I was a kid, to pay for the second span after it was built. And, when it was paid for, tolling went away! If we need a new bridge, then it's time for new tolls to pay for it. But, some nebulous tolling need on highways that aren't in a construction/payment phase doesn't seem fair. If you want to work on 205 between I-5 and 99E, then toll it for the time it takes to pay for the improvements - and then stop tolling. In the meantime, raising the gas tax a bit and relying on some income tax seems like a reasonable way to raise money, rather than tolling. Both are income streams that are established and don't need new infrastructure to make them work. Trying to use tolls with congestion pricing is just unfair to a lot of people who have no choice in their commute, and it's not really a way to pay for infrastructure, because it's not like you're planning to build more lanes to accommodate those paying the tolls.

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