Cascade recently participated in U of O’s Inspire Oregon summit on Rural Housing Policy, where policymakers, administrators, and leaders met to discuss policy and draft recommendations for Oregon’s next legislative session.

Discussions centered on a theme: that of navigating state regulations so rural citizens can have local control in Oregon’s housing crisis.

Since 1973 Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Act has restricted communities from meeting the housing and economic needs of their growing populations, in essence, favoring land preservation over housing and economic uses, and stifling Oregon’s rural communities. This leaves local citizens without a voice in their own backyard.

In a session on “Streamlining Development Process,” they discussed improving the process for what’s known as “use by right” to encourage residential housing projects.

However, local opponents and special interest groups continue to stunt and delay “use by right” policy through the Land Use Board of Appeals. They work to block projects and convolute the process for home builders.

This year, the legislature tried to clarify “use by right,” amend the convoluted procedures, and limit opponents’ ability to sue over permitted developments.

Rural housing advocates will be asking legislators to adopt policies that favor residential development while respecting property rights.

Oregon should decrease risk and regulatory cost for developers, simplify codes, and increase local control so communities can solve their local housing crises.

Read the full commentary at CascadePolicy.org.

TriMet has a Board Retreat this week. Looking at their agenda, the first thing you’d notice is what’s missing. You won’t find any urgency to address their financial decline—or touch on operating losses of $850 million in 2024.

The only agenda items to mention money are the “Financial Scorecard Update” and “Federal Grants Update.” But TriMet’s problems go far beyond keeping score of revenue and expenses.

According to financial reports, every metric related to productivity, cost-effectiveness, and financial sustainability has declined for 10 years.

Fare revenue—down 52 percent; rides down, 28 percent; farebox recovery down, 8 percent from 34 percent.

The only things going up are taxes and bureaucracy. TriMet’s tax revenue is up 75 percent; labor cost, up 86 percent; full-time employees, up 19 percent; administrative, up 88 percent.

Undeterred, however, TriMet still plans to expand light rail into Washington, whose express bus is already superior to light rail. And to spend $350 million on reducing lanes for 82nd Avenue.

Wednesday’s agenda should focus primarily on the crisis at hand: how to reduce costs and raise revenue. TriMet doesn’t even have a minimum farebox standard. It should.

Our advice to the TriMet board? Use your time wisely. Procrastination is not a strategy.

TriMet Retreat Should Focus on Crisis, Not Expansion 

Since 1965, Congress has been subsidizing transit and taxpayers have spent well over $2 trillion dollars on transit. That’s in the same territory as the U.S. deficit.

In these 60 years, transit operating costs have increased 500 percent while fare revenues have ticked up a modest 10 percent. Total ridership – in actual numbers – has decreased by 10 percent, and riders per capita for urban residents has fallen by more than half.

Instead of improving efficient transportation, transit agencies have bloated their bureaucracies and nearly tripled their workers. Today, they spend 55 percent more on "general administration."

Most transit makes congestion worse, not better. Aside from New York, transit uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases per passenger-mile than cars and light trucks. Worse yet, transit spending siphons billions from improving roads for 100 percent of Americans.

It's time to stop this trillion-dollar boondoggle. Next year, congress will consider new legislation in the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill. Congress should end transit subsidies or tie them to fare revenues, so that transit must boost ridership—not spending—to increase funds.

Read more at $2 Trillion and No One Aboard - Cascade Policy Institute

This week, Cascade’s president, John Charles, testified at Portland Public Schools’ Bond Accountability Committee.

He commended BAC’s work reviewing this year’s $2 billion Portland school bond and agreed with their assessment that building three large high schools when enrollment is declining is a mistake.

He asked BAC to “Speak directly to the taxpayers who will have to pay hundreds of millions in unnecessary construction costs.”

When Portland Public Schools passed the largest bond in state history, to build the nation’s most expensive high schools, the measure required oversight by a citizen committee.

When the BAC reported on the bond, they expressed concern about “building such large schools…given declining enrollment and decreasing birth rates.”

Their advice at the October meeting was ignored, and the Board voted to move ahead with plans to overbuild three high schools by several thousand seats.

In a not-so-distant fiscal crisis, journalists will ask the school board, “What did you know and when did you know it?”

They’ll be forced to admit they ignored the warnings of oversight committees and citizen research groups like Cascade. PPS board members have breached their fiduciary duty and act as though there will be no consequences. Dear BAC – please tell the taxpayers.

Read the full commentary at ⁠Dear PPS Bond Committee: Please Tell the Taxpayers - Cascade Policy Institute⁠

The Portland Bureau of Transportation--or PBOT--is spending tens of millions to convert miles of a four-lane state highway, known as 82nd avenue, into a two-lane neighborhood street and busway.

TriMet is headed for a contentious decision November 7th to put 82nd Ave on a major “Road Diet,” cut motorist capacity in half, and replace car lanes with BAT lanes for bikes and transit.

It all started three years ago when ODOT transferred the Portland section of 82nd to PBOT, who began spending millions on a scheme to “build a better 82nd avenue.”

PBOT’s overarching vision—for 82nd and others—means converting state highways to busways by reducing lanes, adding barriers, punishing motorists with gridlock, and calling it progress.

It’s part of Portland’s “Transportation System Plan” that envisions walking, bicycling, transit, and shared vehicles for 70 percent of Portland. Their “strategy for people movement” literally does not include personal vehicles.

When Metro, PBOT, and TriMet meet--a rabble of bike activists, lawyers, and Democratic Socialists plan to make a showing and demand more miles of dedicated BAT lanes for buses and bikes on state highways.

Oregon motorists make up 90 percent of 82nd avenue users. They’re busy living their lives—not attending PBOT meetings. This time, when TriMet meets on November 7th – let them hear from you. Submit a public comment and tell them to remove BAT lanes from further consideration.

Last week, Cascade's President, John Charles, emailed a Memo to the Portland Public School Board urging them to consider the Bond Accountability Committee’s concerns about overbuilding high schools. Their report concluded by stating that,

“…the district should not be building such large high schools when there is not the student body to justify it. Given declining enrollment and decreasing birth rates this issue is even more pronounced given the project budget issues."

Willamette Week also cited the statement, raising alarm about the Board’s failure to use demographic and enrollment data in sizing future high schools.

Nonetheless, the PPS Board voted to move ahead as planned while Chairman Wang argued that size reduction is "unfair" and failing to explain how empty buildings will better serve students.

By 2033 Portland will have at least 3,000 empty high school desks. Even now, talks of school consolidation are ongoing. Do Portland taxpayers want to spend $1 billion on expensive and empty classrooms?

On the flip side, Beaverton High School has chosen better, building a high school for 1,500 students with the option to replace a building if enrollment goes up.

PPS should design real high schools for real students and expand later if necessary. By ignoring the Committee’s due diligence and moving ahead with over-sized and over-priced schools, they will accelerate the district’s slide into the fiscal crisis they already face. Portland taxpayers and students will ultimately pay the price.

Read more at www.cascadepolicy.org

The Portland Public Schools Board is considering the purchase of an 80,000 square foot building to house the “Center for Black Student Excellence.”

This triggered a 90-day due diligence review with a final vote in December on whether to purchase the commercial building. While the committee so far has reviewed the building’s merits, they haven’t asked the hard questions.

First is the fact that the One North building will not be used as a school, but as a community center and a hub for organizations who “advance a culture of black excellence.”

However, PPS is a school district whose primary mission is classroom education. They’ve never operated a community center with classroom dollars and buying a commercial building for non-school programming will be hard to justify.

A second question is the legal one. Supreme Court rulings have made it clear that race-based programs in public education violate Civil Rights laws. Is the District Board willing to risk federal revenue for a non-school, race-based program?

While buying the One North building is a bad idea for a tax-supported school district, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. Many private organizations serve minority youth with experienced staff and robust programming. The Center would be an imaginative project for them to sponsor.

The Center for Black Student Excellence should be a private venture. One great fit could be the 1803 Fund, established by Rukaiyah Adams, who first cast the vision for the Center five years ago. Ms. Adams could use this opportunity to launch the vision without the legal restrictions and challenges sure to arise for a tax-entity like Portland Public Schools.

Last week KGW news reported that Portland area rents are up 22 percent since pre-pandemic levels. We see it everywhere: so-called “affordable housing” costs have risen so quickly that even though cities and states now spend more money than ever, fewer housing units are being built. In April 2024, the Cascade Policy Institute published a report asking why this is the case. Unfortunately, the state of Oregon has refused to make data available that brings to light why rising costs continue to accelerate.

Fortunately, in the year or so since then, the Montana Department of Commerce provided data on 190 housing projects. Analysis shows that only one-third of increased costs are due to actual construction; the rest is due to the increasing size of housing projects. Large projects require developers to borrow money, which then adds interest expense. In addition, developers have massively increased the amount they spend on buying property for housing.

Developers welcome rising costs because they earn fees from the projects in proportion to the cost of the project. Unfortunately, state housing agencies who hand out “affordable housing subsidies” make little to no effort to ensure these funds are used cost-effectively. This means that affordable housing mainly benefits developers rather than low-income individuals who need it most.

The National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) annually releases a representative study of students’ academic performance. Known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” NAEP scores are an indicator of how much children are learning.

This fall’s report shows only 24 percent of Oregon eighth graders are “at or above proficient” in math, and 27 percent are proficient in reading. Of Oregon fourth graders, 31 percent are proficient in math, 27 percent in reading. These scores are lower than the national average.

This isn’t a surprise. Money spent in the public education bureaucracy has increased for decades, but everyone knows academic achievement has declined. It’s no wonder polls show strong majorities of voters, including poll respondents in Oregon, support “giving parents the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the school which best serves their needs.”

Oregon public schools can’t meet the needs of all children for reasons that are many and complex. But solutions can be simple, starting with freedom and opportunity. To improve education outcomes, policymakers should make it easier for parents to match their students with public, charter, magnet, online, private, home, or micro schools that best meet their needs and goals. Parents want their children to learn, and they want access to schools that will help them do that effectively. Children deserve no less than a great environment to reach their full potential.

On September 15, the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) released its 2025 Biennial Zero-Emissions Vehicle Report, revealing that Oregon is far behind on its goal of purchasing 250,000 “zero emissions vehicles” (ZEV) by 2025. The report was established in 2019 by SB 1044 to push ZEV adoption.

As of May 2025, 119,850 such vehicles were registered in Oregon, equaling 3.2 percent of the total vehicle fleet. Of those, only 84,636 were true zero-emission vehicles powered entirely by a battery. The remaining 35,214 vehicles were plug-in hybrids, which still rely on gasoline.

These numbers show that we’ve reached 34 percent of Kate Brown’s arbitrary EV Adoption Targets established during her era. Even more ambitious goals were set by ODOE for 2035, stating “at least 90 percent of new cars sold will be zero-emission vehicles.”

Two obvious reasons come to mind for this failed goal. For starters, EVs cost more than traditional vehicles—a good deal more. For medium– and heavy-duty vehicles the purchase price can be double or triple the price of a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle. In practical terms, finding or installing a charging station can be difficult or expensive, making long-distance trips a challenge to plan.

Few people will notice this policy failure because few really care about electric vehicles. The ZEV report is just one example of political elites telling us what to do and then being ignored.

Will the Oregon Department of Energy learn from their failure and leave us alone? No. That’s why they work for the government. But if you like your car, gas powered or hybrid, just keep it. Bureaucrats can’t make you buy something you don’t want and can’t afford.