A 25-person committee tasked with offering recommendations to the state's transportation commission on how, whether, and where to toll Interstate 5 and 205 in the metro area passed the halfway mark Wednesday.

The Value Pricing Policy Advisory Committee held its fourth of six scheduled meetings in Northwest Portland.

Despite being more than halfway to its designated finish line, the group created after the Legislature approved a $5.3 billion transportation package last year, doesn't appear close to any sort of consensus. Lawmakers asked the commission to investigate tolling Portland area highways with the goal of reducing congestion.

The committee is looking at five concepts:

Toll all I-5 and I-205 lanes in all directions, a total of 47 miles of freeway.

Toll lanes in both directions between North Going Street and Southwest Multnomah Boulevard on I-5.

Convert the existing carpool lane on I-5 northbound in North Portland to a toll lane while converting a southbound left lane to tolls in the same region.

Add a toll on the Abernethy Bridge on I-205 in West Linn.

Add a priced lane on I-205 under a plan to add a new travel lane in both directions between the Abernethy Bridge and Stafford Road.

The group discussed how to alleviate proposed tolls, which are years away from becoming a reality, for low-income residents. They separated into small groups and workshopped ideas such as giving people toll "credits" if they ride transit, offering variable pricing during peak transit hours, and even lowering income taxes for Washington residents who work in Oregon.

But when they reconvened, elected officials from both Multnomah and Clackamas county's commissions expressed concern about the process overall.

Jessica Vega Pederson, a Multnomah County Commissioner, said the committee is forced to make a lot of assumptions about what the region's transportation network will look like in a decade, when tolls would be effective. She said there are two separate conversations happening about the region's transportation future, with no cohesion between plans for expanding public transit throughout the region and the toll debate.

"You can't just be talking about one," she said, "or the other."

The committee is expected to send a list of recommendations to the Oregon Transportation Commission this summer. That body, which is appointed by the governor, is then expected to discuss and debate a tolling plan. A formal submission to the Federal Highway Administration is expected to occur by the end of 2018.

Sean O'Hollaren, a state transportation commissioner and a member of the tolling committee, said the committee needed to look at the issue "holistically," and "not just those two corridors," he said, citing I-5 and I-205, "but a much broader loop around Portland that addresses a much bigger area."

He also added the transportation commission, in his view, isn't constrained to looking at tolls strictly on I-5 and I-205. He said the statute gives the commission leeway to consider other highways. "It's something that we may need to do," he said.

The tolling committee next meets May 14.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen