Advocacy & Safety - Portland's Transportation Budget: Bikes vs. Other Modes

This is from City Commissioner and Office of Transportation Manager Sam Adams' blog:

From time to time, we ask city staff members and others to write on subjects on behalf of the office. For this article, we asked Paul Smith, a Planning Manager at the Portland Office of Transportation, to write about a recent budget analysis he performed on Sam's request. The findings are rather striking.

At one of our regular PDOT management meetings with Sam, he brought up how much flack he got from a small but vocal group of people who were seemingly incensed over the amount of transportation dollars PDOT invested in bicycle infrastructure improvements and other bicycle-related programs. These people often complained that automobiles and freight are getting the short end of the stick, and that those modes have needs that are not being attended to - while all the while, funds were being lavished on bicyclists.

While it may be true that there are many freight and automobile-oriented projects with merit that are still waiting in line for full funding, and while it is true Portland has much more extensive bicycle infrastructure than many other American cities, the amount of money the City of Portland spends that is bicycle-related is nonetheless a tiny fraction of PDOT's total budget. For the city staff involved in allocating the funds for transportation projects, this is pretty clear. But for many in the public and particular lobbies, it is not. And quite frankly, the city budget has never been broken down by transportation mode - until now.

Wanting to have some hard numbers to be able to present to the public and take a look at himself, Sam asked me to go through the entire PDOT budget - capital expenditures, maintenance, staff and all transporation programs - and find out how much money we were actually spending on bicycles and how much we were spending on freight projects. On this post, I focus on capital infrastructure investements. (Soon, I will look at all other costs for bicycle projects, too, do the same for all the other modes of transportation - automobile, pedestrian, and transit - and share those results on the blog as well.)...

...The main findings of my analysis: we spend about $3.5 million a year on bicycle-related capital improvements, though that estimate is a liberal one that attributes costs to bike lanes that would have been expended regardless - for instance, the cost of pavement in bicycle lanes was put into the "bicycle cost column," - even though that pavement would have been there as an automobile sholder anyhow.

When it comes to freight-oriented capital improvement projects, the city spends just under $50 million annually.

A brief summary: The biggest city expenditures on bicycles are probably bike lanes, which are simply a stripe of paint and not a huge cost to the city. On the other hand, freight projects include lots of overpasses and bridge replacements, which are pricey. When all is said and done, for every dollar the city spends on bicylce improvements, at least $14 are spent on freight projects.

More at:

http://www.commissionersam.com/sam_adams/2006/04/bicycle_expendi.html

Sam's blog is open for public comment, as well.

Here's a response to the question as to whether motorists 'own the road' as a result of paying gas taxes:




Gas Tax Revenue accounts for $50 million of PDOT's total $187 million annual budget, or about 27% percent.

Roughly 3 out of every 4 dollars PDOT spends come from non gas-tax funds. I will provide a link to information outlining this above.

Still waiting for the links to be posted....

And here's a reply I found on that blog. Yeah, there are no road signs for autos, and bikes are the main cause of idle traffic causing all sorts of costly delays and increased pollution :rolleyes:

Paul,

Thanks for the numbers.
Please note that all the numbers are not included.
For instance, where are the costs for all of the signage that has gone up, apparently for bikes, that shows various distances to different sections of the city? Example: 3.9 miles to the Lloyd district. 2.3 miles to Mt. Tabor.
The motoring public, that pays for PDOT expenditures, have never been extended this courtesy. These signs are obviously aimed at bikes as they are too small to effectively read when driving a motor vehicle.
That is one cost that I am sure has been left out of the report. Are there more?
Also, is there a way to quantify the costs of air polution caused by traffic being stalled or slowed while waiting for bikes? Check out 82nd ave. during rush hour and see how many motor vehicles are forced to sit and idle while a bike is loaded on a TriMet bus. That does not even take into account the lost productivity caused while sitting in this traffic.
Also, shouldn't the cost of the ground that the bike lanes are placed on be considered a cost? Motorists bought and paid for this ground only to have it taken away, causing even more congestion for the motoring public (see the backups at S.E. 92nd and Powell Blvd., mainly on 92nd, during rush hour, where it used to be two lanes, as one example) so it could be given to a small segment that pays no fees to aquire or maintain this land.

Your report is a good start but it is not by any means complete.

The cyclist haters come out of the woodwork...