Sept. 9, 2024
For more information, contact Kevin Glenn, 503-910-5965.
On August 28 and 29, Oregon lawmakers traveled to Ontario and Hermiston as part of the Statewide Transportation Safety and Sustainability Outreach Tour. These visits to eastern Oregon highlighted the difficulties of serving rural, remote communities with insufficient maintenance funding—and the added challenges of long winters, wildfires, limited options for freight movement and growing urban development.
Structural revenue challenges threaten ODOT’s ability to deliver critical services such as plowing snow, paving potholes, improving bike and pedestrian safety, and more. ODOT and local agencies showed legislators how funding challenges are already impacting the quality of our roads, bridges, intersections, DMV offices and weigh stations in eastern Oregon.
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In Ontario, legislators spent the morning at the Farewell Bend Port of Entry along Interstate 84. ODOT staff shared how ports of entry and weigh stations across the state support a safe, efficient, and responsible commercial transportation industry in Oregon—and how a lack of investment impacts our ability to carry out these services. |
The group also heard about the challenges of maintaining some of Oregon’s most remote highways, such as Highway 95 that spans the southeastern corner of Oregon, from Idaho to Nevada. ODOT employees and their families stationed at the Basque maintenance station—ODOT's most remote maintenance facility in the state—often drive 135 miles to Nampa, Idaho, just to buy groceries.
 Ontario bus tour driving along OR-201 to see an active slide area.
ODOT partnered with Umatilla County and the city of Hermiston to show legislators the growing Hermiston area. With the influx of new data centers, major retailer shipping centers, and a growing workforce, the highways originally built for small farm communities are deteriorating from increased traffic. Additionally, this area has seen challenges from natural disasters fueled by climate change, like the Umatilla River flood in 2020. Lawmakers visited Echo to see how the Umatilla River has changed its route and is now impacting the bank along the road.
 Tour group poses for a photo in front of the Eastern Oregon Trade & Event Center.
The listening tour is gathering input from the public to inform legislative efforts to develop sufficient and sustainable transportation funding during the 2025 legislative session. At each of the tour stops, there are public hearings so that legislators can hear directly from the traveling public about their concerns, needs and priorities. Videos of the public hearings and written testimony can be found here: Transportation Joint 2023-2024 Interim - Oregon Legislative Information System (oregonlegislature.gov)
The remaining tour stops include:
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