Show up! Or someone will speak for you. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
The upcoming session of the Oregon Legislature will have vast ramifications for transportation. Lawmakers are expected to hammer out a deal that will allocate billions to infrastructure programs and projects. The last time this process occurred, in 2017, the governor signed over $5.3 billion to the cause.
Many capitol insiders and professional advocates have been preparing for the session for months already. Priorities are being laid out and the lobbying has begun. But most regular folks have plenty of other things to worry about. If you’ve been putting off doing your homework for the 2025 session, it’s time to circle an important date on your calendar: June 4th.
That’s the opening day for what the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation (JCT) is calling their State Transportation Conversations Across Rural and Urban Communities for the 2025 Package Tour (seriously). “This is the beginning of the process of outreach for community connections and input for the 2025 package,” read an email sent to committee members Friday.
This time around already looks better than how former Oregon Governor Kate Brown went about gathering input prior to the 2017 session. Brown put together a Governor’s Transportation Vision Panel that toured the state. While lawmakers touted the meetings as listening sessions that reflected the voice of the people, that’s not what happened. I don’t recall any events that were well-publicized and open to the public and the media. Instead, I recall invite-only guest lists and a limited scope of feedback that seemed assured to tell the governor and lawmakers exactly what they wanted to hear.
Unsurprisingly, the result of that panel and the legislative session that decided how to spend $5.3 billion of our tax dollars was a bill that created a tax on new bicycle purchases and was tilted heavily toward expensive highway projects and freeway expansions. While touted as a groundbreaking bill because it created dedicated funding for Safe Routes to School and public transit service, it’s prioritization on expensive megaprojects and over-reliance on a (now mothballed) tolling system to pay for them has put ODOT in a severe fiscal crisis.
This time around, thanks in large part to Portland-area House Representative (and JCT member) Khanh Pham, the process should be different. How much so remains to be seen.
For now, here’s what we know so far about the 2025 Package Tour:
Portland – June 4 Tillamook – June 18 Albany – July 16 Eugene – July 17 Coos Bay – August 7 Medford – August 8 Ontario – August 28 Hermiston – August 29 Bend – September 12 The Dalles – September 13 Salem – September 25* Happy Valley – September 26 Hillsboro- September 27*Note that the Salem date will be a virtual hearing in order to provide a place for folks to testify who were unable to attend other events.
According to the JCT, each stop will include roundtable discussions with local officials, site tours, and a public comment period. As for the site tours, Oregon Department of Transportation staff will “work with local communities” to identify 2-3 locations that, “demonstrate the type of ongoing maintenance needs that the local community may want to share with the legislators at each meeting location.”
The goals (according to the JCT)
Build public understanding of transportation funding challenges and potential funding tools to address those challenges Build legislative understanding of statewide transportation needs and shared priorities Build local, regional, statewide support and a sense of urgency for a transportation funding package focused on maintenance, operations, and safety Gather input from the public and community leaders about preferred methods for addressing the transportation funding challengeLocal nonprofit No More Freeways is already urging folks to attend, writing in a recent email that the June 4th stop in Portland will be, “a critical opportunity to demand investment in transit, street safety and maintenance over spending billions of dollars in freeway expansion.”
Details about time and location have not been released. Stay tuned. In the meantime, your homework is to watch our interview about transportation funding with Cassie Wilson and/or read her excellent report.
