John Ley asks ‘will anyone step up to stop the fleecing of Washington and Oregon taxpayers by TriMet?’

John Ley 
for Clark County Today

The Interstate Replacement Bridge Program (IBR) has been one of the Portland-Vancouver area’s top news stories of 2024. In fact for the past five years, and in reality for the past quarter century with the failed Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project, this ongoing saga has drawn significant opposition from diverse groups in the region.

The “light rail project in search of a bridge,” as an Oregon Supreme Court Justice proclaimed, remains a huge concern for citizens. The 1.83-mile, $2 billion transit component will consume over a quarter of the cost of the proposal. Embedded in the proposal are several demands from Portland’s TriMet transit agency that warrant a nomination for The Golden Fleece Award.

Democrat Senator William Proximire created the award five decades ago. He issued it 168 times over the years.

The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was a tongue-in-cheek award given to public officials in the United States for squandering public money. Its name is sardonically taken from the actual Order of the Golden Fleece, a prestigious chivalric award created in the late 15th century. It is a play on the transitive verb fleece, or charging excessively for goods or services.

In the summer of 2022, TriMet’s Board of Directors approved moving forward with the IBR and their Modified Locally Preferred Alternative (MLPA) with a set of conditions. One was that “new revenues” (taxes) come from both Oregon and Washington to pay for the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of the included light rail extension into Vancouver. TriMet has never contributed towards C-TRAN O&M costs for bus service into Portland over the decades.

Today, we know TriMet is asking for $21.8 million annual new taxes, with Washington on the hook for 45 percent of that, or $7.3 million “if” farebox recovery increases to 25 percent of operating costs. If passenger fares don’t increase, taxpayers would be asked to fund even more. 

The $21.8 million demanded is nearly six times current MAX light rail O&M costs on a per mile basis – $11.9 million per mile demanded versus $2.1 million actual per mile MAX operating costs.

Currently, TriMet is slated to burn through $1.1 billion in cash over the next decade, according to its financial statements. Clark County voters should be concerned about any financial entanglements, given that they are already funding over 95 percent of C-TRAN O&M costs, with passenger fares covering 5 percent.

TriMet demanding any help with O&M costs, let alone six times actual costs, is fleece number one.

But the fleecing gets worse.

TriMet is demanding the IBR pay for 19 new MAX light rail vehicles. This equates to 10 vehicles per mile of the proposal. The transit agency ordered just four new light rail vehicles for its “Better Red” 10-mile light rail extension from Beaverton to Hillsboro this past summer, or one vehicle every 2.5 miles. The Federal Transit Administration will only pay for half the capital costs of a project, meaning Washington taxpayers would be on the hook for one quarter of the cost.

TriMet officials revealed they want $190 million to $290 million to purchase the 19 new light rail vehicles. That is $10 million to $15 million per vehicle. Yet in the Better Red project, they paid just $4.5 million for each vehicle. Why are they demanding two or three times the price? This again highlights the egregious nature of the project aimed to line TriMet’s pockets with cash, fleecing both Oregon and Washington taxpayers.

Finally, there is the reality of mass transit ridership over the Columbia River. TriMet officials have a history of broken promises, especially regarding light rail. As recently highlighted by the Cascade Policy Institute, they promised over 35,000 daily boardings on the Yellow Line for 2020. They delivered 70 percent less, only 10,600 boardings. TriMet promised eight departures an hour but only delivered four an hour during peak hours.

The IBR is projecting 26,000 to 33,000 daily transit boardings in 2045, which nobody believes. Earlier this year our Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council was told there is a “new normal” with significantly reduced transit ridership, more people working from home, and increased use of privately owned vehicles.

The C-TRAN Board was told in December that the ridership remains essentially flat. Prior to the pandemic lockdowns, there were seven express bus lines using both the Interstate Bridge and the Glenn Jackson Bridge for Portland service. Today, there are just three and ridership remains flat at under 1,000 boardings per day.

What is the need for any “high capacity transit” on the project?

Additional concerns are a TriMet “overnight” facility at the Expo Center stop, plus a sizable expansion of its Gresham maintenance facility. No specific cost numbers have been provided for either of these two parts of the MLPA. However the Ruby Junction (Gresham) expansion will require the acquisition of new land, potentially via eminent domain.

The amount of the total fleecing is unknown, because citizens don’t know the cost estimates for the Ruby Junction facility upgrade, nor the Expo overnight facility. But we do know TriMet is hoping taxpayers will dump a huge amount of cash into its coffers via this project.

If TriMet receives funding for 19 new light rail vehicles at $290 million, but only pays $85.5 million ($4.5 million each), it will walk away with $104.5 million in cash. Additionally, Washington taxpayers will be paying for vehicles TriMet can use for 3-4 decades on its entire light rail system.

If local officials agree to TriMet’s demands of $21.8 million per year in O&M cost subsidies, that puts over $220 million over a decade in their pockets, when the actual costs are under $4 million per year (current costs), or $40 million over a decade. And a good share of that subsidy would be coming from Southwest Washington taxpayers. It would be a forever, growing cost subsidy to Oregon’s TriMet.

The way to stop this fleecing would be for the C-TRAN Board members to say “no” and remove their approval of the IBR’s MLPA. Members of the Vancouver City Council could remove their approval. Our RTC Board could remove its approval. Washington state legislators on the Bi-state Bridge Committee of eight Washington and eight Oregon legislators could say “no.”

Will anyone step up to stop the fleecing of Washington and Oregon taxpayers by TriMet?

John Ley is a state representative-elect in Washington’s 18th Legislative District.