BEND, OR -- The city of Bend held its third and final roundtable on a proposed transportation fee Wednesday. Participants voiced concerns about equity, revenue accountability, and long-term funding strategies.

Mayor Melanie Kebler told the group some equity consideration has figured in to prior road improvement projects, “But there are other ways that we can use data to talk about where has been underserved in our community and where we need to invest more to meet those equity goals.”

The Central Oregon Council on Aging’s Cassie Regimbal wondered how the fee would impact older residents, “How are we going to justify an additional fee to them when it does not benefit them in any way? Because they're not able to leave and we have not actually improved their access to other modes of transportation.”

The Bend Chamber’s Sara Odendahl offered ideas to ensure transparency, “The idea of a scorecard is always really interesting, right. So there's some agreement upon the values and the projects that are going to be put forth and funded by this fee coming back and revisiting it in a really public manner.”

Mark Buckley, from the city’s Environment and Climate Committee, is in favor of an online dashboard to provide transparency for how and where money is spent, “The key elements of this accountability is affordability and being sure that we're demonstrating to the community that this is being done as cost consciously as possible.”

Gina Franzosa, with the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee, says it's important to have metrics on outcomes rather than accomplishments, “It's really easy to say, ‘Oh, we built, 10 miles of bike lanes.’ But if the cars are moving 40 miles an hour next to the bike lane, then you know how many people are actually using that bike lane? A really small percentage of the population.”