A new heresy: road maintenance fees to cover costs

Down in Portland’s suburbs, the Tigard City Council decided that road maintenance fees should actually cover road maintenance costs! I suspect we’ll be seeing more articles on fights like this one: “Grocers to petition street maintenance fee.” The fees will rise from 78 cents to $2.42 per parking space. The kind-hearted big box grocers (Fred Meyer, Safeway, Costco, Thriftway) are thinking of the poor small businesses who “are just barely hanging on.” They suggest raiding gas tax money to pay for local street maintenance. Surely there’s plenty of gas tax money to go around.