Portland, OR. — Portland’s transportation system is in measurable decline after four decades of deliberate anti-automobile planning, according to a July 2026 report from the Cascade Policy Institute. Author Randal O’Toole, director of the Oregon-based Thoreau Institute, documents rising congestion, collapsing transit ridership and a sharp increase in traffic deaths even as the city and Metro poured hundreds of millions into planning that prioritizes modes carrying less than 5 percent of passenger travel.
The report’s central finding is straightforward: automobiles account for more than 95 percent of passenger-miles in the Portland urban area, yet nearly all planning energy has gone to transit, walking and cycling. The region has not opened a new freeway since 1983. Instead, officials have reduced roadway capacity, slowed traffic and treated congestion as a policy tool. The results, O’Toole argues, were predictable.
Between 1982 and 2024, hours of delay from congestion octupled and fuel wasted in traffic nearly quintupled. Transit’s share of commuting fell from 9.8 percent in 1980 to 5.0 percent in 2024. Traffic fatalities in the city of Portland rose 150 percent between 2010 and 2024; in the broader urban counties the increase was 159 percent. Pedestrian deaths have nearly tripled since Portland adopted its Vision Zero plan in 2015.
O’Toole contends these outcomes stem from three flawed assumptions. First, anti-auto policies simply do not reduce driving. The share of solo drivers rose from 66 percent in 1980 to 74 percent in 2019; even after the pandemic boosted remote work, per-capita vehicle miles traveled climbed 12 percent between 2019 and 2024. Second, the policies ignore automobiles’ clear advantages in job access and equity. University of Minnesota data show Portland residents can reach ten times as many jobs in a 60-minute car trip as by transit and more than 60 times as many in 20 minutes. Low-income households rely on cars at rates similar to the regional average; studies cited in the report find that expanding auto ownership is one of the most effective anti-poverty tools available. Third, the social costs of driving have been dramatically reduced by better vehicles and highways, not by restricting travel. Toxic emissions from motor vehicles have fallen 92 percent since 1970 even as driving tripled. Fatality rates dropped more than 75 percent over the same period.
Vision Zero’s focus on lower speed limits and traffic-calming redesigns has coincided with the opposite of its goal. Most pedestrian fatalities occur on non-freeway arterials at night, often involving homeless or intoxicated individuals crossing mid-block—conditions speed reductions do little to address. Bicycle fatalities, meanwhile, cluster at intersections where painted bike lanes typically disappear.
The report offers a free-market alternative grounded in proven performance rather than mode preference. It calls for high-occupancy toll lanes on every freeway, priced to keep traffic flowing and financed by the tolls themselves. It urges TriMet to abandon further rail and dedicated busway projects in favor of a polycentric bus network linking major employment centers—Hillsboro, the airport, downtown and others—on those uncongested lanes. Safety efforts should shift to data-driven analysis of actual crash patterns rather than blanket speed reductions. Bicycle policy should emphasize local-street bicycle boulevards that separate cyclists from through traffic instead of lanes on busy arterials. Finally, Portland’s clean-energy fund could finance low-interest loans for low-income residents to purchase efficient or electric vehicles, treating auto ownership as essential infrastructure rather than a problem to be engineered away.
O’Toole’s analysis presents Portland’s transportation crisis as the product of deliberate policy choices, not inevitable growth. By planning almost exclusively for the 5 percent of travel that is not by car, the region has degraded the mobility of the other 95 percent, raised emissions through avoidable congestion, and failed to deliver the safety or equity gains its plans promised. The alternative, the report concludes, is to improve the vehicles and roadways people actually use.
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