At this station, the only Albany gas station in Benton County, the price of regular had risen to $4 a gallon on Saturday, May 24, 2025.
If it’s necessary to raise more money for street repairs, pollsters report that voters in the city prefer a local gas tax to a monthly street maintenance fee on their water bills.
Their conclusion is based on a telephone and “text-to-online” survey of 300 Albany voters conducted from March 26 to April 3. The survey respondents were picked according to quotas for age, sex, political party and council ward to ensue a representative sample. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percent.
The survey was done by DHM Research, a polling firm with offices in Portland and Seattle. The company has prepared a report that’s included in the May 28 agenda of the Albany City Council.
The council has been considering either a monthly street maintenance fee or a gas tax, or both, to raise money to tackle the long backlog of repairs needed on many of the city’s older local streets.
The pollsters found little support for a monthly fee. “Information and messaging have little impact on support for a street maintenance fee,” their report says. “Initially support for the street maintenance fee is low and rises to 34 percent after message testing.”
With a gas tax, they say, it’s different. “Initially, the gas tax does not meet majority support,” they are telling the council. “However, after information and messaging, support for the gas tax raises [sic] 10 points and surpasses the threshold needed to pass (51 %).”
The pollsters say that with “information and messaging,” support for a gas tax tax rose the most among voters age 29 and younger, as well as among women and respondents earning more than $100,000 a year.
As for what to tell voters, the consultants say:
“A majority find most gas tax messages convincing. The message ‘A 10 cent gas tax will cost the average driver $65 per year’ performed the best overall (58%) and among swing voters (76%). ‘Gas taxes are used in other cities’ performed the worst both overall (49%) and among swing voters (59%).”
Based on the survey results reported by DHM, one would expect the council to go ahead next month and put a gas tax on the ballot.
A bill introduced in the state Senate (SB 687) would allow cities and counties to impose fuel taxes on their own, without the voters’ consent. The bill has gone nowhere in the legisature so far.
At Albany stations, the price of gas has gone up markedly in the last few days. The poll results suggest that a local Albany gas tax might pass. Whether it does may depend on how much more gas prices rise on their own between now and when the election is held. (hh)
To be fair, the measure on the ballot should also include a tax on EV charging stations.
A $0.10 per kilowatt-hour tax on electric power distributed by the charging station operator sounds fair.
EV owners must pay their fair share of road maintenance.
And let’s not forget bicycles. The state should increase the sales tax on every new bicycle from $15 to about $115. If it has wheels and uses the road, tax ’em.
Voters would pass these in a heartbeat.
Oregon already has EV fees in place. Owners have a choice either pay $115, or choose the OReGO program where they get charged $0.02 per mile driven.
I believe Hasso did a story on the mileage tracker, and used one, many moons ago.
Does that fee apply to out of state motorists? They pay our gas tax
EV owners do not buy gas. That’s why we buy EV’s
Then why not a tax on pedestrians?
I heard the Orange God King say that gas was $1.98 and “coming down “bigly”. If that’s true, I’ll gladly pay the proposed gas tax.
Why don’t you get a life and visit a red state where gas is $2 cheaper than in Oregon! Perhaps Albany citizens would approve a gas tax if liberals in the west coast didn’t put laws and regulations in place to punish voters who drive gas rigs.
I supported the gas tax last time and promoted it. It failed. If it failed then, why wouldn’t it fail again since the price of gas is around a dollar more now? If it does fail, What will our council do? Will our council kick the decision to the future for repairs of streets as past councils have?
Naw, they’ll get add another “fee” to our water bill.
So the people that live outside of the city limits will be punished when we buy our gas in Albany. Oregon already has some of highest gas prices in the country. Don’t make it even more unaffordable!!!!!!!
The idea is that anyone using the roads pays the tax regardless of where they live. That’s how it should be. At least until the whole system is scrapped and replaced with vehicle weight per mile fees.
If the tax isn’t added to the gas, they’re planning on adding another “fee” to the water bills for street maintenance. At least with the gas tax, some of the revenue would be generated by tourist driving through our state and using the roads instead of adding more fees” to a basic necessity which, also, are some of the highest prices in the country.
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/water-prices-by-state
Assume every single person in Albany (about 60,000) buy gas at the tax proposed of $65/year and that’s a bit less than $4 million a year in money collected – admittedly on the high side given not all peoples living here buy gas. No info on sales to non residents and if diesel (sold at truck stops) might be covered. How many potholes does $4 million a year fill? Better still, what is the marker that this tax is working and does what it’s supposed to do, or is it just a money grabb?
Trucks that pay the PUC fee don’t pay state tax.
How do you fairly assess a street fee to ones utility bill? I don’t own a motor vehicle, while one neighbor parks up to 6 cars overnight and another parks multiple vehicles and a sometimes loaded log truck.
How about a punitively high tax on studded tires? People would tend to use them when needed and not the full Nov-Apr season.
Raising the gas tax would be unfair to people who buy fuel electric car owners don’t tribute to road repairs
Derided for ham-handed execution, DOGE’s legacy will be to question the status quo of civil service delivery. I can’t recall the cost/sq.ft of proposed street repairs, but I have the inkling it was staggering. Why so much? We can palaver about prevailing wage until the organized cows come home, but innovations in street surfaces and their costs of installation and maintenance are reaching the proof of concept stage. Why does it have to be asphalt, when permeable pavers are cost competitive and provide improved resiliency in high water events. Maybe streets and neighborhoods wish to opt-out of the City tax plan and fund their own design and maintain their own streets. Give them a BOLI carve out from the current bidding mechanism as long as design standards are met and the contract process is transparent.
A fee to all households and business would be the fairest. Those that don’t drive must be using some kind of transportation but not paying the gas tax. All of us use the roads one way or another so all should pay thru a household/business fee.
So how much should I pay for 15-20 miles/week on my bicycle? That’s when the weather is good enough. For medical reasons, the bus stop is too far to walk and I don’t have the strength to load the bike on the bus. Only place to park the bike & take the bus is 1 mile away. Why bother when my longest errand is 1.6 miles away?
How much should the City pay for running 4 mostly empty busses around?
300 people were polled. Do we live in Hooterville? lol. Voters 29 years and younger, women, people earning over $100,000 support the tax. Who can trust swing voters? I think they only polled North Albany.
why the snipe at North Albany? I know a number of people who live there and none I have spoken to were polled!!!!
Richard, North Albany solely based on size of polling amount. The other refers to cherry picking who gets to vote. Personally, I like North Albany people. At least they care enough to stick up for each other. Thank you for that. No one I know was polled either.
What is “Message testing”? Rephrase the question to get the answer you want?
With such a small, convoluted sample size, +/- 5.7% is pretty meaningless, considering the other gobbledegook emanating from their orifices.
The polling firm named does credible work. Without organized opposition it might actually pass.
Some people paid for the road when they bought the house, some, (primarily in the older parts of town,) did not pay all the expenses because the City built the road in front of their place, it is the older parts that were subsidized, with the tax, they would be the first to get fixed because they are in the worst shape. the answer????
All local roads should be fixed with a local improvement district at the time that a determined percentage of the local population wanted to. Otherwise you are discriminating against the folks who just bought homes and paid the full price which was included in the purchase price of their house.
The city has stated that they need between $9-11 million dollars to fix the streets. The last biennial Streets Budget rolled over $18 million. That was funding that wasn’t spent in the previous budget. Why do they need to create a new tax? If you run the numbers, there are about 240 miles of paved road in Albany and the high side of repaving a mile of road is $500,000. $120 million to repave every road in Albany. We have the budget to repave every 12 years. Some roads haven’t been touched in almost 50 years.