Kotek halts tolling plans — Taxpayer victory!!

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

KATU-2 Reports that Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has called her agencies to stop plans for tolls on Portland area freeways.  Although this does not spare a potential toll on an I-5 Columbia River Crossing bridge replacement.

KATU reports, “Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek says the “state’s path toward implementing tolling in the Portland area is uncertain, at best.” In a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission, the governor is pulling the plug on the project for now….“In 2023, at the urging of local jurisdictions and elected officials, I asked you to delay toll collection until 2026 so that ODOT could develop an updated finance plan for the Urban Mobility Strategy and a comprehensive report on the agency’s work on equity impacts of tolling and traffic mitigation,” Kotek stated in the letter. “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. The finance plan also included costs associated with advancing the RMPP and the tolling program overall.”

This is a huge victory for the heroic and brave people behind the Vote before Tolls petition effort.  They have been gathering signatures of a petition giving voters the right to vote on toll plans that politicians plan to force upon them.

The Taxpayers Association of Oregon has been helping raise signatures for this effort.

The Taxpayers Association of Oregon has also put out a lot of toll memes:

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