The Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates (ATFI), of which NATSO is a founding member, renewed its call for the Oregon Transportation Commission to abandon plans to toll Interstates 205 and 5.
In comments submitted August 30, 2022, to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), ATFI said that current draft policy is “heavy on presumed benefits of tolling as a revenue source but conspicuously fails to consider the real-world, adverse impacts that define new tolls on existing lanes as a political and practical loser.”
ATFI urged the agency to abandon the plan and concentrate on developing an equitable, sustainable and practical plan for managing traffic and public transportation needs in the Portland metro area and across Oregon.
ATFI submitted previous comments in 2020 calling for ODOT to abandon the tolling plans.
In its most recent filing, ATFI said, “Nearly two years later, we find ODOT again collecting public feedback on a plan to permit flat or variable tolling not just on Interstate 205, but also on Interstate 5 and potentially other state freeways and bridges. The folly of this strategy endures, with one exception: Its negative impact is now proposed to be greater, promising to spread the economic inequality and inefficiency of tolling to communities across Oregon.”
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