Senate Bill 1601 will officially pass on the final day of the 2026 legislative session and Oregon transportation advocacy groups are expressing dismay. A statement from Move Oregon Forward, a coalition of 45 nonprofit organizations from across the state, didn’t mice words, saying that lawmakers chose to, “plug a massive funding hole by gutting programs that protect the state’s most vulnerable residents.”
Here’s more from their statement:
The final vote, which takes place as the short session nears its deadline, redirects nearly $50 million away from safety, rail, and transit initiatives. Deep cuts will now hit Safe Routes to School ($17 million) and Oregon Community Paths ($8 million), effectively stripping 60% of the funding used to build sidewalks and crossings for children.
The state’s current budget crisis did not come from school safety programs or community paths. It stems from long-term funding shortfalls and major road project costs that outpaced new revenues. The funding issues come from road projects, yet the 30% of Oregonians who do not drive are the ones being asked to pay the price.
Zachary Lauritzen of Oregon Walks said the bill has “guttted” these key active transportation programs. “The state is failing its duty to remove barriers for kids, seniors, and people with disabilities to move safely around their communities,” he said. And Oregon Trails Coalition Executive Director Steph Noll added that, “It is unconscionable to raid bicycle excise taxes to fill a highway fund hole. By slashing this budget, the state is knowingly making neighborhoods less safe for the very people who funded these programs.”
Noll was referring to lawmakers taking money away from the Oregon Community Paths program — a program partially funded by Oregon’s $15 tax on new bicycles — and spending it on highway operations and maintenance instead. The program has been a crucial source of funding for off-street paths across the region.
On Monday, Move Oregon Forward coalition members sent a letter to Governor Tina Kotek and leading lawmakers, urging them to take a different course. Instead of raiding these popular, vital programs, they offered a different path to save the budget. Their proposal included: internal savings and “smart housekeeping” within ODOT, a reshuffling of state capital project priorities, and reallocating up to $80 million of “idle funding” tied up in megaprojects that lack a feasible funding path. If those didn’t suffice, they told lawmakers to use short-term debt financing tools.
Move Oregon Forward says their suggestions were ignored.
“Our coalition is done waiting,” said Indi Namkoong, Transportation Justice Coordinator at Verde. “Lawmakers cannot continue to collect tax dollars from working families while cutting the very services those dollars fund. This budget is a failure of leadership and a breach of trust. Now that these cuts have passed, we expect our priorities to be served first in the 2027 transportation package.”
Like everyone else in Salem, Namkoong and Move Oregon Forward are already looking ahead to the next legislative session where Democratic party leaders have promised they will once again try to move a large transportation funding package forward.
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Unfortunately this could seen coming from a mile or 10 away.
Jonathan, thanks for reporting on this. And thanks to Move Oregon Forward for fighting the good fight.
The incompetence of our state government is breathtaking. We desperately need better leadership.
And we will never get better leadership when supposedly progressive voters keep on voting for corporate-fascist democrats.
I don’t think it’s incompetence, I think they just have different priorities, such as Moda Center giveaways, tax breaks for data centers, and highway expansion money pits.
Does it seem more and more that the transportation advocates and corporate democratic party in Oregon have an abusive relationship? Where else can an advocate proclaim with a straight face “Our coalition is done waiting,” and then do precisely that.
Oh well, I know this is futile to mention, but primaries are coming and they count.
It’s fascinating how loyal all these progressive/labor/climate-justice dems are to the machine. It’s almost as if they prioritize waiting for their turn on the party list over their values.
Looks like some Dems jonesing to be primaried.
The 2025 legislative and 2026 short session were illuminating. I think it removed any pretense that Kotek and the state Democrats are working for the people of Oregon. They could have used these sessions to be a beacon of light for the nation in dark times, but nope.
They had a super-majority. And yet the biggest thing they could get done was a giveaway to the Blazers Billionaire and deep austerity measures for transportation. And the only reason the data center bill didn’t go through was the tidal wave of backlash from both sides. They will try to ram it through in 2027, no doubt.
People might rush to say, “it was the Republicans fault, they are putting the repeal on the ballot!” But the reality is the buck stops with the Democrats on this one. The bill that was passed was rushed, lousy, and all the funding comes from regressive taxation.
Here in Portland we have potholes everywhere and TriMet is on life support. How did we get here? It isn’t a lack of money. The amount going to the Blazers sure shows it. This session shone a stark light on who the real constituents of the Oregon Democrats are, those with deep pockets that certainly aren’t you or me.
Any of them that commit to anything less than serving the public interest need to primaried. All of them.