A proposal before the Oregon Legislature would tie the gas tax rate to the overall MPG of Oregon vehicles.
A committee of local leaders endorsed a transportation funding proposal Wednesday, joining a list of groups supporting action in the coming session of the Oregon Legislature.
The Metro Council unanimously endorsed the funding proposal Thursday, calling on the Legislature to approve a series of proposals from the Oregon Transportation Forum.
Members of the Forum, a group that includes truckers, ports, land conservation advocates, bicyclists, governments and other transportation organizations, developed their proposal in late 2014, in hopes of starting a conversation in the 2015 Legislature.
Their proposals, among other things, calls for more money for road maintenance and multi-modal transportation expansion projects.
To pay for the proposals, it calls for gas taxes that increase as cars get more efficient, and another unspecified gas tax increase. Oregon's gas tax is 30 cents per gallon.
It also proposes $75 million for transit for the elderly or disabled, and $20 million for youth transit. Those programs would be paid out of Oregon's general fund.
Finally, the proposal calls for a one cent per gallon gas tax increase to help pay for improvements to state highways that function as local roads, highways like 82nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard in Portland, the Tualatin Valley Highway in Washington County and McLoughlin Boulevard in Clackamas County. Some of those highways could be transferred from ODOT to local road departments.
At Wednesday night's meeting of the Metro Policy Advisory Committee, representatives of some suburban governments were supportive of the proposals.
"I would like to see a half dozen more GroveLinks," said Oak Lodge Water District board member Dick Jones, who represents Clackamas County service districts on MPAC.
Andy Cotugno, Metro's lead transportation planning and funding expert, said there's a need for those systems all over Oregon.
"There are very high needs, especially in rural parts of the state," Cotugno said.
Lake Oswego City Councilor Jeff Gudman wondered how much of the state transportation package would be earmarked to specific projects.
Metro lobbyist Randy Tucker, a member of the Forum's board, said there's always a tension in Salem between maintenance and new construction.
"Local governments are often agitating much more energetically for fix-it dollars," Tucker said. "There's a huge need around the state that's unmet. There are projects, of course. But the emphasis is on fixing roads.
"On the other hand, legislators often want to be able to show a project got built with the money they raised by voting for an increase in the gas tax," Tucker said.
In the end, MPAC unanimously endorsed the proposal.
Thursday afternoon, the Metro Council followed suit.
"The forum has urged a series of actions that are necessary to move us forward, in terms of financing infrastructure needs for the economy of the region," said Metro Council President Tom Hughes. "We are very supportive."
The Oregon Transportation Forum is led by a board that includes representatives from AAA, the Oregon Transit Association, Metro, the BNSF Railway, the Oregon Environmental Council, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the Port of Portland, 1000 Friends of Oregon and the Oregon Trucking Association.