Pricing, Funding and Markets
Pricing, funding and markets help cover the costs associated with people and freight using the transportation system.
Maintaining Oregon’s transportation system is a constant, long-term endeavor. It’s expensive, too, and transportation fees do not keep pace with the costs to maintain, operate and build the system. Currently, Oregon’s transportation funding covers only 25% of total needs across the multimodal system. Even with that, many funding sources are limited to specific types of investments.
Each action in the Pricing, Funding and Markets category is designed to help address the maintenance, public health, economic, and environmental costs of driving. The common goal is to increase societal benefits by reducing how far and how often people need to drive, AKA reducing vehicle miles travelled. And for the miles they do drive, make sure they pay their fair share back into Oregon’s system.
Costs should focus on fees associated with each mile driven in order to influence how much people drive overall, and reflect the environmental and economic impacts of driving, such as:
Road maintenance and operations.
Equity and public health costs from crashes and air pollution.
Lost time and money spent in congested traffic.
Greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
Equity is an important consideration when pricing the transportation system. Some people in Oregon need to drive for certain trips, and transportation agencies can’t approach pricing with a “one size fits all” solution. They have to consider differences in several factors — income, location, access, and others — and adjust their pricing approach accordingly.
(For information about parking pricing policies, see the Land Use category page.)
How the revenue is used
Federal and state laws control how revenue from road pricing actions can be used. Each type of pricing action comes with limitations on what it can fund.
In some cases, revenue must directly pay for the infrastructure it serves — like a bridge toll used to maintain a bridge — or it can support other projects on the same priced road, like digital traffic information signs.
In other cases, road pricing revenue is collected from drivers across the system, and isn’t tied to a specific piece of infrastructure. This kind of revenue must be invested in “road right of way” projects, or ones that are on or near the road.
Carbon pricing applies to more than transportation, so it has a different method for generating and dispersing revenue. See the section below for more details.
Progress snapshot
Road cost recovery
Fuel tax revenue will decrease in a future of electric vehicles. A road use charging program — where all drivers pay their fair share for using roads — would recover much of that revenue. But Oregon’s program, OReGO, is voluntary; state lawmakers would need to mandate OReGO for it to be a viable long-term revenue source.
Congestion pricing
Congestion pricing is a type of toll that reduces traffic congestion by shifting some trips to non-driving means or other times of day. Tolling can both manage congestion emissions and raise revenue to maintain our multi-modal transportation system. As of 2024, ODOT is awaiting legislative direction to determine the future of Oregon tolls.
Carbon pricing
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality runs market-based programs that incentivize the use of lower emission fuels. The programs are new, but long-term they’re expected to accelerate Oregon’s transition to lower emission fuels. The programs may also fund non-driving options.
Other true costs of driving
Enrollment in “pay as you drive” insurance remains low. State agencies are working to reduce negative impacts and costs associated with transportation projects, while incentivizing people to drive less.
Explore each category below for an in-depth breakdown of our progress.