Don't look for Portland Mayor Charlie Hales or Commissioner Steve Novick to revive last year's polarizing street-fee campaign anytime soon.

Reluctant to dive back into the most divisive debate of his mayoral term, Hales on Tuesday said he is content to wait for the Oregon Legislature to eventually pass a statewide transportation-funding package - and that could take two more years.

Hales initially put Portland's street-fee discussion on hiatus in January, saying he wanted to give lawmakers a "clean shot" at action, and he planned to jumpstart the conversation "soon" after lawmakers adjourned.

Lawmakers ended their five-month session Monday without striking a transportation deal.

"But that doesn't mean it's dead," Hales said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday. "Gov. Kate Brown, Senate President Peter Courtney and Speaker of the House Tina Kotek have all said they want to keep trying. I believe they will, and I have faith they'll succeed."

It's unlikely lawmakers will revisit the topic until 2017. Hales' office offered no timeframe for moving forward with a local funding plan.

Hales' decision is the latest example of city officials shifting the contentious street-fee debate to the backburner, even as the tab to fix Portland's paving problem grows. In easily unnoticed moves, leaders have stopped calling attention to their mounting transportation backlog and their paving accomplishments with the same fervor of the 2014 campaign.

Delaying city action - and distancing themselves from the street-fee drama - may also prove politically beneficial for Hales and Novick, each up for re-election in May 2016. Recognizing that an unpopular proposal could be damaging, Novick initially quipped that voters "can throw us out" if they are "really mad at us."

Portland's street-fee history

Need a refresher on Portland's complicated history of street-fee proposals? Read our i

featuring a quick breakdown of where we've been.

To be sure, Hales and Novick secured extra breathing room thanks to a $49 million general-fund surplus in the just-begun fiscal year. The City Council directed about $20 million of that toward transportation efforts.

While many street-fee critics have offer guarded praise for Portland's realigned spending priorities, Robert McCullough, a prominent energy consultant, remained doubtful Tuesday about Hales' latest wait-and-see approach.

"Waiting for someone else to fix your problems is always a good plan," he said with a laugh. "I wish him all the luck in the world. But I suspect we're going to have to solve this on our own."

Different years, different approaches

City officials have taken noticeably different approaches to showcase transportation successes and shortfalls, depending on the intensity of their political campaign to pass a street fee.

In April 2014, for instance, Novick invited reporters to the side of busy West Burnside Street to highlight a new report tracking the annual deterioration of Portland roads.

At the time, 48 percent of busy streets and 54 percent of residential roads were in poor or very poor condition. Bringing roads up to city standards was estimated to cost about $1 billion over 10 years.

Novick said the report offered governmental transparency about Portland's crumbling infrastructure "without the dollars needed to keep them working today."

Now 15 months later, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has yet to issue a new annual report. Officials say staffing changes and editing have slowed the process.

A separate citywide report tracks the deterioration. As of December 2014, the share of busy streets in poor or very poor condition increased to 49 percent, while the share of residential roads inched up to 56 percent.

Dylan Rivera, a transportation spokesman, said he didn't know if officials would hold a media conference to release their new report, expected within weeks.

"We had a pretty good turnout last year," he said. "Hopefully people are still interested in the issue."

City officials also didn't highlight progress on their annual goal to complete paving and preventative-maintenance efforts on 100 lane miles of road.

On June 30, 2014 - the last day of the fiscal year - Hales and Novick invited reporters to watch construction crews pave a road in the Lloyd District.

They boasted about exceeding their 100-mile preservation goal: crews paved 47 lane miles, repaired 3 lane miles of badly damaged road and applied a sealant to 53 lane miles.

"We want to show you that we're serious about taking care of the streets that we own," Hales said at the time.

Then, in a made-for-TV-moment, Hales jumped atop a street paver and personally laid down some asphalt.

This year, officials completed essentially the same work. Rivera said the city repaved 56 lane miles, rebuilt 3 lane miles of wrecked road and applied fog seal to 44 lane miles of road - a total of 103 miles, the same as last year.

There was no show for the cameras, however. In fact, the Transportation Bureau hasn't highlighted the numbers in any way. Officials provided them in response to a request from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Rivera said the city is proud of its maintenance work but officials didn't highlight the efforts because of scheduling associated with the Fourth of July holiday.

"Is it as big of a news story the second year you do something?" Rivera said. "Maybe, maybe not."

2016 at the earliest

The Oregon Legislature was never going to solve all of Portland's problems.

Had lawmakers taken action, Portland officials would have secured only a fraction of the $40 million-plus they wanted for road repairs and safety improvements. But any increase in state funding would have decreased the amount of local money needed from residents and businesses, possibly making the street fee an easier political sell.

Democrats made a statewide transportation package a top priority but efforts fizzled amid pushback by Republicans and inaccurate statistics about carbon reductions. The prospects for immediacy now appear dim.

Dana Haynes, a spokesman for Hales, was unfazed Tuesday in his optimism that the Legislature would eventually respond. He took essentially the same approach as two weeks ago, when lawmakers announced they wouldn't approve a transportation deal in 2015.

Haynes said Tuesday that legislators could pursue a special session later this year.

But Courtney, the Senate president, said Tuesday he floated the idea of a special session. "That balloon got shot down real quick," he said.

Haynes said the Legislature could also revisit statewide transportation funding during the short 2016 session, particularly given the priority placed on it by Brown, Oregon's new governor.

Brown and many other lawmakers will be running for re-election next year.

"I'd be as shocked as you if she came back and said, 'Eh, we're going to wait two years,'" Haynes said.

But Kotek, the House speaker, said a transportation-funding bill wouldn't return until "2016 at the earliest."

"It takes a lot of dialogue to build a transportation package," she said Monday, minutes after the Legislature adjourned. "Whether that's 2016 or 2017, I hope to have the discussion. We'll have to see how that goes."

Either way, Hales is pleased with the city's extra financial commitment to transportation and said the city isn't sitting idly.

Hales said he is prepared to be patient.

"We will wait, we will pave, and we will continue to have faith in our leaders in Salem," he said.

-- Brad Schmidt

Denis C. Theriault and Ian K. Kullgren contributed to this report.

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