

Locally, our transit system gets most of it’s funding from a payroll tax on all the businesses in the Tri-County area (why it’s called “Tri-Met”, Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties.)
https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2025-adopted-budget.pdf
$62.4 million from passenger revenue.
$540.4 million from payroll tax.
The payroll tax is 0.8237%.
So…
0.8237/$540,400,000
x/$602,800,000
Solve for x…
0.8237 x 602,800,000 = 496,526,360
496,526,360 / 540,400,000 = 0.9188126573
So if we increased the payroll tax 0.0951126573, an amount absolutely nobody would notice, we could make our mass transit system here free.



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While all that is true, at least in Portland it will be partially off-set by the need for added security.
We ALREADY see it as is with the paid system, it would just get worse in a free system:
https://www.kptv.com/2026/02/11/man-charged-with-bias-crime-after-attacking-transgender-woman-portland-max-stop-court-records-say/
https://www.mcso.us/news-information/transit-police-investigation-results-grand-jury-indictments-three-suspects-charged
https://www.kgw.com/trimetattack
https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/court-docs-suspect-covered-in-blood-after-attacking-man-with-boxcutter-on-max-train-trimet-portland-oregon-82nd-avenue-jonesmore