Last week, Oregon lawmakers continued the 12-stop Statewide Transportation Safety and Sustainability Outreach Tour with visits to Albany and Eugene. Members of the Joint Committee on Transportation and local legislators toured the areas with state, transit, county and city officials before hosting a roundtable discussion and public hearing in each city.  

Lawmakers have set out on this tour to hear from Oregonians about local transportation needs and to see the state of our transportation system up close. The tours will help inform legislators’ efforts to develop a plan for the 2025 legislative session, where they hope to find solutions to fund the maintenance and safety needs of Oregon’s transportation system.  

On Tuesday, July 16 in Albany, ODOT partnered with the Corvallis Transit System, the city of Albany and Linn County to show lawmakers our shared work of improving and maintaining our roads, bridges, bike and pedestrian paths, and more.  

One stop was at ODOT’s Albany maintenance station where crews gave lawmakers a small presentation and tour of the facility, sharing the day-to-day work they do for Oregonians. A member of ODOT’s Incident Response team shared their work to respond to crashes and emergencies, often as first responders before law enforcement or ambulances arrive. Maintenance crew members detailed the challenges of responding to extreme winter events like the most recent ice storm in 2023, wildfires along highway corridors in the summer and frequent crashes on I-5 —and the added challenge of rising costs for materials and inadequate revenue from the State Highway Fund.

Because of structural funding challenges, the agency has enough funding to keep state highway maintenance levels roughly stable until the middle of 2025. After that, in the absence of additional revenue or revenue reform, Oregonians can expect longer road closures, more trash and graffiti, worse winter driving conditions, and more potholes. 

“The services our maintenance crews provide today keep people safe and lead to fewer and less costly investments needed in the future. I’m happy that we were able to bring lawmakers and our maintenance crews together so that our leaders can hear directly from those who are doing this important work every day,” said ODOT Director Kris Strickler. 

The public hearing in Albany brought out 80-100 members of the public to Linn Benton Community College. Public commenters shared their hopes that lawmakers will help improve alternatives to driving and address safety and congestion issues. A video of the hearing and written testimony can be found here.

Around 100 people attended the public hearing that evening at the Lane Events Center in Eugene to share their transportation priorities with the legislative committee. Community members also shared the hope that lawmakers and transportation agencies improve alternatives to driving in order to achieve climate goals and provide better options for people with disabilities, seniors, and low-income residents. A video of the hearing and written testimony can be found here.

The next tour stops will be in Coos Bay on August 7 and Medford on August 8.