This Thursday, the Oregon Transportation Commission will be voting on whether to continue to allocate money towards the doomed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion or instead direct this revenue to covering ODOT’s other backfilled needs.
Due to the failure of the Oregon Legislature to pass House Bill 2025 this summer and the ultimate pending referral of House Bill 3991 passed this spring, ODOT is flat out broke. The agency stands to lose hundreds of employees who undertake critical functioning for the agency including fixing potholes, running snowplows over mountain passes, and keeping our state roads and highways safe.
This is an existential emergency for the state of Oregon, with significant consequences if we do not find immediate money for short term plugs to keep our transportation agency solvent and keep state employees on the payroll. This requires bold action to redirect funding away from these massive multibillion dollar proposed freeway expansions and instead towards ensuring ODOT has the resources to continue their core functions.
We’ve known for years that proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion is a disastrous idea – No More Freeways has been fighting it for over eight years on grounds that the project is too expensive, terrible for air pollution, won’t fix traffic, is a disaster for climate, and robs us of our other pressing transit and street safety needs. The only honorable components of the project – the freeway caps and neighborhod development spurred by Albina Vision Trust – are significantly jeopardized after the Trump administration’s revocation of nearly half a billion dollars for the project. We’ve also known that the project is doomed – the costs have spiraled far beyond what the state can afford, especially with the withdrawal of support from the federal government.
It’s a very big deal that the OTC is being offered the opportunity to exercise their authority to oversee the agency and redirect funding to the most urgent need – and we need you to demand they exercise that authority and choose Option 3 as outlined in this letter.
Oregon desperately needs funding to cover our most basic transportation needs. We simply cannot afford to let the Oregon Transportation Commission continue to throw good money after bad and allocate another $160 million towards this boondoggle when the state has so many other needs.
We need you to email the members of the Oregon Transportation Commission before Tuesday at 12pm (that’s soon!) and demand that they choose Option 3 at Thursday’s OTC meeting in Salem.
You can submit written testimony using the form below; if you’d like to sign up for oral testimony on the issue or include an attachment, you can use this link.