EL PASO, Tx., November 17, 2025: This morning the El Paso City Council will be meeting in a work session to discuss several items. The meeting starts at 9. One of the things they will be discussing is whether to add a fee to use El Paso’s streets. According to the Capital Improvement Department, which posted the item for the city council to discuss, the proposed fee seeks to charge El Pasoans and local businesses a monthly fee for using El Paso’s streets.
The proposed monthly fee will be a fee based on the “estimated street usage.” The Transportation User Fee (TUF) will apply to “both residents and businesses.” If city council approves the introduction of the fee, the city will host two months of public input to allow residents to voice their thoughts on the proposed fee.
The proposed TUF seeks to address street maintenance that was listed as the number priority for next year in the 2023 survey conducted by the city. According to the backup material provided to the council members, El Paso residents are dissatisfied with the maintenance of the city’s streets.
About 50% of El Paso’s streets rank fair to very poor according to the packet given to the council members. But, although city officials have increased spending on city streets from $62 million in 2020 to almost $35 million last year, the amounts have not kept up with the repairs needed for them.
The proposed fee would only be assessed to city residents because, as the presentation points out, the city is “not able to bill county residents” even though they use city streets regularly, along with trucking companies crossing from Juárez, and other travelers. The Transportation User Fee is proposed to be a monthly fee “charged to properties based on estimated street usage.”
The proponents of the TUF argue that the proposed fee “provides a dedicated, stable funding source” for street maintenance, and “reduces reliance on property taxes or debt finances,” which are also paid for by taxes. The proposal says that 17 cities use TUFs for street maintenance.
The proposed fee, if adopted as presented today, would be assessed on a calculation that takes the size of the property, factors in a “trip generation” factor per square foot and multiplies that against the size of the property. That factor is then applied to the “total trip calculation” for every resident and business in the city arriving at a percentage of the total by dividing residents and businesses. A tier based on the impact would then be applied. Combining these factors would determine the monthly fee.
The proposal suggests a monthly fee for El Paso residents ranging from $4.40 per month to $11.37.
But because the fee can only be applied to city residents and 60% of the traffic is not from city residents, the proposal seeks to establish a commercial tier that attempts to factor in the 60% to commercial users.
According to the presentation, a 7,143 square foot medical supply business would be assessed $33.75 per month, whereas a fast-food restaurant would pay almost $500 monthly. Cielo Vista Mall would pay $5,497.57 each month, the presentation says.
Presumably, Juárez shoppers will pay through the businesses they frequent, but it is not clear from the presentation how the fee will be covered by trucking companies transiting through El Paso from Juárez to other parts of the country.
Should the city council vote to move forward on the proposal, city residents will be provided with the opportunity to voice their opinion on the proposed fee through community meetings starting this month through January.
Although the public is now becoming aware of the proposed fee, according to the material in the agenda, city council members were briefed on the proposed fee in September and October. Today’s session is the culmination of those briefings.
The first TUF was implemented in Oregon in the 1980’s, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Cities in Oregon and Utah, and two Texas cities are using TUFs for street maintenance. The Texas cities are Taylor and Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi cancelled their fee in 2023 and are again considering it, according to the presentation. Austin and Killeen are also using the fee, according to city officials.
City Representative Chris Canales (District 8) wrote in an editorial published by El Paso Matters yesterday that “while a new fee may sound like a bad thing, it could save taxpayers millions in the long run.” Mirroring the handouts the city council will use to discuss the proposed fee, Canales added that “El Pasoans are frustrated with the condition of our streets.” Canales argued in his editorial that the proposed fee would replace borrowing to make street repairs that the city has relied on in the past, writing that “crucially, and for me, very concerningly, much of that spending [street repairs] has come from borrowing.”
According to Canales, if the city replaces “bond funding for streets with a user fee that provides cash up front to fund the same work, then we save that huge interest cost.” He added, with the fee “you get more asphalt for your buck.”
In an email, City Representative Lily Limón (District 7) told us that today’s agenda item is “titled erroneously.” Limón explained that “what is being proposed is not a fee, but in essence it is a tax.” She added that the proposed fee “will be paid by a community that has already been hit with higher utility prices, high taxes and an economy that intentionally hurts the poor.”
Limón told us that “I am against” the fee, which she calls “a tax.”
The proposed TUF is not the first time a fee has been added by the city council to address infrastructure shortcomings without having to raise taxes. After the 2006 floods, the then-city council voted to establish the stormwater fee.
In July 2008, the city council voted to transfer its responsibility over stormwater drainage to the Public Service Board (PSB) after the 2006 floods. As a result, the PSB, through the water utility, added a monthly stormwater fee to water customer’s water bills. The fee was implemented to address underfunded storm mitigation services. The fee was originally set at $2.38 for a small house up to $4.75 for larger homes. The stormwater fee, now ranges from $3.71 to $14.81 each month.
Then-City Representative Eddie Holguin criticized the fee as a tax disguised as a fee. When the fee first showed up on customers’ water bills, there was an outcry from most water consumers, including the Ysleta Independent School District (YISD).
YISD told the water utility it was not going to pay “the $42,000 bill in protest.”
Following the outcry, former Mayor John Cook told the El Paso Times that he would reassess the fee. Holguin, lauding Cook’s comments, urged the mayor to “eliminate it altogether and replace it with a lower fee to rebuild the drainage system over a longer period.” Holguin told the newspaper that “it’s taken at face value that we have to pay for a 500-year flood construction project right away…and not tax people out of their home in order to get things done.”
The stormwater fee was supposed to resolve stormwater problems within 20 years. After another flood occurred, the timeline was reduced to ten years. Seventeen years later, flooding continues and the “stormwater fee still shows up on my bill,” Raul Martinez told us. He was referring to the August flooding on the west side of town.
This is a developing story. Follow-up reports will be made as more details become available.
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