Could we please stop the war on cars?

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I, Elvis, lived in Portland from 1981 through 2015, and most of my trips were by bicycle to work or shopping.  I occasionally drove to work in the city.  

I moved to Milwaukie, right next door, since 2015, to escape the madness of Portland's governance, and to allow my wife to still be able to drive into Portland for her various hobbies.

I find driving into the City of Portland highly frustrating since the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) started taking out road lanes, installing diverters, since the mid-2000s especially.  In the 1980s and 1990s, when Portland's population is only 75% of its current level, I could easily and safely bicycle Portland's neighborhood streets even though they did not have the bicycle infrastructure now in place in Portland.

The ironic thing is that despite all of PBOT's investment against people driving their vehicles to get somewhere quickly, cross town for instance, bicycling's share of trips has not changed materially from its fractional share of all trips (something like 7% the last time I checked a couple of years ago and confirmed most recently by Randal O'Toole) over the last ten plus years.

What I observe is that a majority of bicycling is not for work or shopping but rather for recreation.  Meanwhile driving has the same share of trips upwards of 80% that it has had for decades.  But with PBOT's war on cars, driving in the city of Portland means more traffic congestion and maddening dead ends when trying to navigate by car Portland's streets - which used to be a simple, easy to understand grid pattern - which was actually planned way back a long, long time ago.  (Can you imagine spending your career as a planner whose main mission is to stop the vast majority of people from easily, quickly commuting.)

Portland's war on cars sprang from what is called the Oregon Transportation Rule adopted in about 1990 (OAR 660-012).  Here's the key passage of this Administrative land use law:

“A key outcome of this effort is a reduction in dependence on single occupant automobile use, particularly during peak periods. To accomplish this outcome, this division promotes increased planning for non-driving modes and street connectivity and encourages land use patterns throughout urban areas that make it more convenient for people to walk, bicycle, use transit, use automobile travel more efficiently, and drive less to meet their daily needs.”

Here's Randal O'Toole's study (quoted in the panel at the start of this posting) that finds that Oregon's Transportation Rule as implemented by the City of Portland and Metro Regional Government is an absolute failure:

 7-27-26-Portlands-War-on-Cars-1_Losing-the-War-on-Automobile_PDF.pdf 

Given the seeming inability to escape Oregon's Transportation Rule and PBOT's mad planners, the inability to build new roads, the relatively recent advancement in bicycle technology, or its electrification, seems worth pursuing as a means of improving Portland's mobility.

Electric bicycles and other micromobility like scooters can use the dedicated bicycle pathways having been installed or being built so to bypass the congested streets of Portland.

One key conundrum to advancing micromobility is funding the infrastructure (bicycle pathways, for example) micromobility could use.  Bicycling pays no user fees to access the bicycle infrastructure, as it is hard to track who is using the pathways - whereas with cars, there is the gas tax and the new road usage fee for electric cars.

What I propose is to tap the Public Purpose fee - now used to chase after small, low return gains in energy efficiency - to fund bicycle/micromobility pathways.  

The Public Purpose fee generates over $70 million per year in fee proceeds.  The Public Purpose fee is created in the very early 2000s and was supposed to sunset ten years later, after it was supposed to capture the easier-to-get energy efficiencies.  But the state legislature keeps extending the sunset date and so the fee continues on (The only thing close to having eternal life is a government program, as the Gipper use to say). The Public Purpose fee is a charge on your electric and natural gas utility bills.

Micromobility is not a panacea, but helpful in getting around the transportation maze planners and government have imposed on us all.

Why not a panacea?  Well, first the Portland area gets inclement weather about half the time of the year - maybe less if Climate Change continues on its current trajectory (Hey, why move to California for the weather when Climate Change will bring it to us here in the Willamette Valley?)

Second, as we get older, we lose our nimbleness - as in we do not generally hop on skateboards as seniors (over the age of 60).  (and Unfortunately, TriMet and Soft on Crime governance, has made riding the bus and especially light rail tattered with ongoing personal safety concerns, especially for seniors, children and the less hard body like people.)

(Posted by Elvis Clark on August 12, 2026)