Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday announced her intention to halt plans to toll Portland-area freeways, citing uncertainty about the costs of planned freeway projects and the revenue tolling would bring in.
In a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission, which sets state transportation policy, Kotek said she believed it was time to end the work on the Regional Mobility Pricing Project, the state transportation department’s plan to impose per-mile tolls on interstates 5 and 205 from Wilsonville to Portland’s northern border.
“The state’s path toward implementing tolling is uncertain at best,” Kotek wrote in her letter to commissioners. “After years of work, the challenges of implementing the Regional Mobility Pricing Plan (RMPP) have grown larger than the anticipated benefits.”
The Oregon Department of Transportation has sought to toll the two freeways as a way to reduce congestion, but also to generate funding for new freeway projects. The plan has been met with fierce opposition from most sides, including residents in communities along I-205 that would likely see increased traffic from drivers trying to avoid tolls, and from environmental advocates who feel that proposed tolling costs are unnecessarily high and would fund freeway-widening projects.
Following Kotek’s announcement, Metro Council President Lynn Peterson said she was relieved to set aside the “regional conflict” over tolling.
“Now it’s time to come up with new, common-sense ideas for transportation funding that address our modern needs and meet our state and regional climate goals,” Peterson said in a statement.
In written statements, Oregon Transportation Commission Chair Julie Brown and Vice Chair Lee Beyer both said they still view tolling as an important element of state transportation policy.
Beyer, who was a state senator until last year, said he had supported tolling when he was in the Legislature, and that hasn’t changed.
“I remain strongly supportive of tolling as one piece of a modern, stable and resilient funding structure,” Beyer wrote. “However, metro leadership views on tolling have changed. Local and regional opposition to tolling makes clear that Oregon is not ready for regional tolling. I respect that change.”
Transportation department Director Kris Strickler said the state’s transportation system is vital to Oregon’s overall health and that tolling could have been a “critical” tool to address some of its needs.
“Despite years of work with local and regional elected officials, community leaders and members of the public, it is clear the toll program cannot be designed in a way that meets the needs expressed by our local partners while also meeting the needs of Oregonians statewide,” Strickler in a written statement. “I look forward to working with partners, communities across the state and the Legislature to identify resilient funding solutions to maintaining a safe, accessible and sustainable system.”
Kotek last year ordered a pause on toll collections until 2026 so that state transportation department could present a finance plan and more thorough report on the impact tolling would have on low-income and minority communities.
In her Monday letter to the commission, she said those findings made clear that tolling is not viable at the moment.
“The finance plan made clear that rising project costs and uncertainty around future toll revenues meant that the state did not have all the funding needed to proceed with the full strategy as originally envisioned,” Kotek wrote.
She added that the agency’s study of a low-income toll program showed that a program that kept toll rates low enough for working families, while still raising enough funds to support new projects, would “fail to meet expectations for local project funding and revenue sharing.”
The commission had previously approved a plan to decrease tolls for low-income drivers — Oregon and Washington residents who earned up to 200% of the federal poverty level would receive at least a 50% discount on tolls.
Kotek said her decision would not affect plans to toll a replacement Interstate Bridge and said state transportation officials should continue to work with Washington officials to keep that plan on track. Officials from both states are currently seeking funding to rebuild the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River.
Tolling was also planned on the Abernethy Bridge on I-205, but that has now been pushed back until at least after the 2025 session.
“To be ready for legislative direction in either way, we are slowing our spending on designing the Abernethy Bridge toll, and trying to identify if we can get the project to a good milestone and then pause work,” said Kevin Glenn, an ODOT spokesperson, in an email.
The state transportation department faces an ongoing budget crisis: The agency is staring down a $680 million deficit in the next five years, largely due to rising costs and slower-than-anticipated revenue from gas taxes.
Kotek said the state must tackle those “catastrophic” funding challenges during the 2025 legislative session, when she said lawmakers also can “provide clearer direction on tolling.”
—Jayati Ramakrishnan reports on Oregonians’ access to housing, transportation and mental health care. Reach her at jramakrishnan@oregonian.com.
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