Last week, Oregon legislators visited Bend and The Dalles as part of their ongoing Statewide Transportation Safety and Sustainability Outreach Tour. The purpose of the tour is to help lawmakers understand the unique needs of Oregon’s transportation system and the consequences of inadequate funding as they prepare for the 2025 legislative session.
The agency has enough funding to keep state highway maintenance levels roughly stable until the middle of 2025. After that, because of structural funding challenges and in the absence of additional revenue or revenue reform, Oregonians will begin to see longer road closures, more trash and graffiti, worse winter driving conditions, and more potholes.
On Thursday, Sept. 12 in Bend, ODOT partnered with the Cascades East Transit system, the city of Bend and Deschutes County to show lawmakers the shared work of improving and maintaining roads, shared-use paths and more.
One stop was at ODOT’s Bend maintenance station where ODOT staff shared the day-to-day work they do for Oregonians. The supervisor of ODOT’s Region 4 electrical crew, Brad Stevens, gave an impactful description of his team and all they do, and how little they do it with.
“Our crew maintains every traffic signal in central Oregon, even the ones owned by cities and counties. In 1970 our electrical crew had three employees,” Stevens said. “54 years later and with thousands more assets to maintain, it’s still only a crew of five.”
Stevens said with his small staff, the electrical crew struggles to keep up.
“So much of our time is spent running from broken thing to broken thing,” he said.
Without the introduction of LED lightbulbs, Stevens said they would be far behind in their repairs: “The time is quickly approaching when we will fall behind without more staff.”
The public hearing that evening in Bend brought out members of the public to Oregon State University Cascades Campus. Nearly 40 public commenters shared their hopes that lawmakers will help improve alternatives to driving and address safety and congestion issues in a rapidly growing central Oregon. A video of the hearing and written testimony can be found here.
The next day in The Dalles, ODOT partnered with Wasco County, The city of The Dalles and Mid-Columbia Economic Development District. The group took lawmakers on a bus tour around the Columbia River Gorge in ODOT’s district 9.
This tour focused on the challenges in maintaining many types of roads. District nine encompasses an interstate, historic highways, recreational corridors, and rural highways, each with unique characteristics and funding challenges. An emphasis was put on rock-fall that commonly impacts all of these roads, and the limited funding available to mitigate it.
Lawmakers listened as staff described the challenges and dangers of working with less staff. One ODOT crew member talked about crashes and near misses in work zones. With smaller crew sizes, workers abilities to set up proper traffic control will be limited. Having enough staff and traffic control in work zones makes them safer for everyone.
The public hearing that evening in The Dalles highlighted many topics, but the need for funding to support public transit was a common theme. Columbia Area Transit, Gilliam County Transportation, Sherman County Community Transit and The Link Public Transit all spoke about how important transit services are to communities in north-central Oregon. Local agency partners like the city of Hood River and Hood River public works talked about how more funding is needed to support the growth of their rapidly growing community. A video of the hearing and written testimony can be found here.
The Joint Committee on Transportation will head to Happy Valley and Hillsboro for the final stops of this tour on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27.