If you’ve heard about the statewide “Transportation Roadshow” hearings on a possible 2025 funding package, but haven’t been able to attend one, tomorrow is one of your best chances to participate. On Wednesday, the Joint Committee on Transportation will host the sole virtual hearing of the 13 stops on their “roadshow” tour.
The deadline to register for your two-minute online testimony slot is this afternoon, so be sure to head over the event website and take care of that right away. While you’re there, check details for the final two stops in Happy Valley (Thursday) and Hillsboro (Friday).
You might recall back in June when I reported on the first stop on the tour that took place in Portland. I’ve since lost touch with the hearings, so I decided to welcome House Representative Khanh Pham into the Shed (virtually!) for a short interview. Transportation is a major part of Rep. Pham’s work and she’s a member of the Joint Committee.
In an interview this morning (watch it above or on YouTube) we talked about what Pham has heard in testimony so far, what’s at stake for our future, and how you can give effective testimony. As someone who has attended seven of these listening sessions so far, she was full of insights.
Asked if there were any themes from testimony she’s heard so far, Pham mentioned rural transit. “We often think of public transit as an urban priority, but actually if anything, I’ve heard more support for public transit in rural communities where they don’t have any other option,” she shared.
Pham says what she’s heard from Oregonians about the need for better transit has definitely strengthened her resolve to fund more of it. “Transit has been so critical to folks across the state, folks in addiction, folks who are elderly, folks who are have disabilities, young people — anyone who just doesn’t want to drive a car.”
In the previous transportation funding package passed in 2017, legislators created the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund (STIF), and given what Pham said about rural needs, there’s a good chance that program could get a significant boost if a new package is passed next year.
Has she heard anyone clamoring similarly for bigger freeways? “Absolutely not,” she said. “I have heard virtually no… very little testimony about widening any Portland area freeways.” The way Pham sees it, the immediate needs are so acute, that it’s, “Left little room for talking about these huge megaprojects.”
“We’re going to have to make some tough choices about what we truly we need to prioritize.”
Listen to the full interview in the player above or on YouTube.
Learn about tomorrow’s virtual hearing here. And check the Oregon State Legislature website for more information and the agenda for the last two hearings in Happy Valley (Thursday) and Hillsboro (Friday).
Thanks for reading.
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The quote from Representative Pham that she’s heard very little testimony about widening any Portland area freeways is disingenuous at best and panders to what her district that elects her wants to hear. Go listen to any of the recordings from this “roadshow” tour and you’ll find plenty of people testifying that they want to see the IBR, Rose Quarter, and Abernathy Bridge projects originally approved by the 2017 Legislature through to completion. They may not want NEW mega projects but many Oregonians want those 2017 mega projects completed and have testified to that end contrary to what many BP readers are hoping.
I hear you on this but will just point out that I think Rep. Pham is talking more about the regular, everyday folks who show up to these — not the invited guests or local bureaucrats, lobbyists, and elected officials. My sense is that most of “the people” don’t care about all the freeway expansion passed in the 2017 bill and are more interested in stuff like maintenance, safe roads, transit, and so on.
So yeah, I agree that lots of folks want those project completed (many of them tied financially to the projects or freight or agriculture business or something related, etc..), but I would not call them popular projects in the same way as transit, or safe and smooth roads are.
I think Fuzzy has a good point here. If you read everything coming out of ODOT, you’d think that everyone wants wider freeways, more space for cars cars cars. But if you listen to Rep. Pham, you’d think most people want transit.
The dissonance is rather jarring. I do wish you had pushed her more on what ELSE she heard at the hearings, not just what she wanted to highlight (transit).
Personally I’m on Team Bike and Transit, but it’s realistic to acknowledge the dominance of cars right now. How we transition AWAY from car dominance is the key, so maybe Rep. Pham’s baby steps toward transit are the way to go? Who knows.
Hi Fred, that’s sort of my point here. IMO the vast vast majority of pro-car, pro-freeway widening testimony we hear at these things comes from ODOT and/or politicians/lobbyists! I am often also/more interested in what actual real people ask for… especially the people who take time to show up and make their voices heard. And I think it’s a fact that the vast majority of those voices are not clamoring for more car-centric investments because even if they primarily drive, most folks with a brain understand that those type of investments are literally killing us and our planet at a very alarming rate and it’s time to change course.
And please don’t act like I don’t live in the real world. I 100% “acknowledge the dominance of cars right now.” And “who knows”? We all know that the right thing to do is flip our investment structure on its head, so that we spend crumbs on freeway expansions and car-centric projects and we spend the lion’s share of funds on things we need and want like world-class transit and bike networks. And yes, I will die on this hill so I’m happy to hear what you think.
So you want a representative to not listen to their constituents?
Personally I’d prefer more pandering from my politicians.
Does your view on that depend on whether you perceive the pandering would support your personal opinions? Or are you making a more general argument for leaders doing what their constituents want them to, wherever the chips may fall?
Unfortunately, the tendency of elected officials is to listen to the constituents they want to listen to and ignore or downplay the ones they don’t.
The only way we’ll ever get to know what the citizens of Oregon want is to survey/poll them. But unfortunately, there’s no independent polling organization that would be willing to pay the cost for a true impartial survey.
Hi Fuzzy Blue Line,
I’m curious if you could point to evidence to back up your claim that “you’ll find plenty of people testifying that they want to see the IBR, Rose Quarter, and Abernathy Bridge projects originally approved by the 2017 Legislature through to completion.” Rep Pham has been at some (all?) of those hearings, so either she’s biased and it’s clouding her memory (possible!), she’s lying (possible!), or she’s right (also possible!). You can watch the hearings and you can read the submitted testimony here from all the events.
Certainly there are some who advocate for billions to go to those freeway projects, but my tracking of these hearings is similar to Jonathan’s take: those who are asking for the major projects are lobbyists and road builders.
Now, maybe the voice of lobbyists and road builders (who stand to make their millions doing this work and, likely, could care less how it impacts our community) should win the day! But I’m pretty dubious of the claim that “plenty of people” are testifying in support of those projects. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say:
Plenty of people who stand to gain financially are testifying in support of those projects
OR
Plenty of people want to build bigger freeways, they just aren’t coming to these roadshows and asking for that.
Happy to be wrong if you can point to lots of “regular folks” testifying in support of freeway projects being built. I just haven’t heard it.