Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has put together a working group that will try and find a path out of our state’s transportation funding quagmire. The roster of the group hasn’t been made public, but Kotek’s Transportation Advisor Kelly Brooks told members of the Oregon Transportation Commission at their meeting last week that the first meeting will happen in April and they’ll publish a report with funding recommendations before the end of this year.
Since an attempt by lawmakers to pass a major transportation funding package failed spectacularly in 2025, it’s been common knowledge in Salem that they’d try again in 2027. What’s considered a band-aid funding bill was passed at the recent short session, but it’s only a temporary measure.
Speaking at the OTC meeting Thursday, Brooks said the working group’s goal will be to frame the 2027 conversation. The working group will include both Democrats and Republicans, as well as transportation experts, advocates, and everyday users of the system. Former Oregon Governor Kate Brown did something similar prior to the previous major transportation package that passed in 2017. The Governor’s Transportation Vision Panel produced a reported titled One Oregon that came out in May 2016. It was used to inform a series of public meetings about funding prior to the 2017 session.
Kotek’s transportation working group project is being led by Susan Peithman, a 10-year ODOT veteran who began in the agency’s Active Transportation group. Prior to ODOT, Peithman spent two years at the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University and was the statewide policy advocate for The Street Trust for over three years. Peithman’s other role at ODOT is director of the Climate Office.
Brooks didn’t reveal many details on Thursday, but did hint that Kotek is seeking to be innovative. “We are in a new place now, given what’s happening on the ballot and elsewhere, where we have to take a new approach to solutions,” she said. “What are what problems do we want to solve? How are we going to solve them? And how are we going to do it together?”
When it comes to the assignment the working group will be given, Brooks said they must address Oregon’s “structural revenue issue.” “We have a set of needs; so the first thing they need to do is grapple with, ‘What do our adopted plans say we’re supposed to be doing, and what are we actually doing? And how does our revenue match up with that?'”
ODOT and lawmakers had an opportunity to change their approach in the short session when the state faced a $288 million budget hole and sought to reallocate or “rebalance” $117 million into highway operations and maintenance. Despite many adopted plans calling for greenhouse gas emissions and more funding for bicycling and walking statewide, lawmakers raided $25 million in grant funding sources that would have gone toward projects that make it safer for kids to bike and walk to school, give people the ability to bike and walk on carfree paths, and they chose to reduce money available for passenger rail maintenance.
This political choice to maintain funding for highway expansion megaprojects like the I-5 Rose Quarter or I-205 widening projects while reducing funding for Safe Routes to School, passenger rail, and the Community Paths program was made crystal clear at Thursday’s meeting by Oregon Transportation Commissioner Phil Chang.
“I heard a little bit about the the legislative horse-wrangling around this [funding] rebalance,” Chang revealed in a moment of candor. “I think that projects like I-5 Rose Quarter and Center Street Bridge [a $470 million project in Salem] had specific legislative champions who, you know, didn’t convince all of their colleagues, but convinced enough of their colleagues, that those projects stayed untouched by this rebalance.”
Chang seemed displeased by how the funding reallocations went down. “I want to make it really clear for people that services delayed are services denied,” he said. “We are not going to be able to do multimodal projects in this biennium [ODOT’s two-year budget cycle] that would make pedestrians, cyclists, and particularly kids trying to get to school safer.”
Whether this new working group comes out strong in favor of more robust spending on non-freeway, non-driving infrastructure, remains to be seen. Brooks said the scope of the effort will look at funding needs beyond ODOT and that the report will address, “local system needs and transit as well.”
Stay tuned for an official announcement of the working group and its members sometime this week.
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Chang revealed in a moment of candor. “I think that projects like I-5 Rose Quarter and Center Street Bridge [a $470 million project in Salem] had specific legislative champions who, you know, didn’t convince all of their colleagues, but convinced enough of their colleagues, that those projects stayed untouched by this rebalance.”
Votes have consequences. The primaries are coming up and we desperately need less Democratic Corporatist incumbents screwing the rest of us over.
“Votes have consequences.”
Over 80% of the readers here will vote to uphold the status quo.
It’s amazing that you know to the exact percentage what readers of Bikeportland think….How exactly do you know this and which candidates of the non status quo should we vote for?
I assume since only you know how we all feel that you also know who we should vote for.
How about some names?
A cute line, but a mind-numbingly gross oversimplification.
I am a member of that 80% who will almost certainly vote for my incumbent legislator (just House, as this is an off year for my Senate district) in both May and November; in May because she is unopposed, and in November because her opponent has no website or public positions that I can find, but is a member of a state political party who publicly opposes all non-highway transportation spending. I also don’t think she is one of the folks Chang is alluding to, but since no one will name names, I can’t say for sure.
You strongly imply that there’s something inherently flawed in my reasoning and intended course of action. But, in my shoes, would you do differently? How so? I promise to genuinely consider any alternative you may provide.
Now, if I lived in District 29, you bet your ass I would be voting against Susan McLain in May because I have zero doubt that she is the ringleader (or one of a few, perhaps) of the folks Chang won’t name. She has consistently been an embarrassment when it comes to all of the wheedling she has done to try and fund stupid highway megaprojects at the expense of all else. Now, if McLain wins her primary, would I vote for her Republican opponent? Probably not, since bad as she is on transportation, a generic Republican (i.e., not one of the vanishingly few who are good on transit and active transportation) would probably manage to be worse, to say nothing of all of the other issues. For better or for worse, this won’t be relevant, because it doesn’t look like any Republican opposition has filed for the seat.
You seem to have plenty of time and energy for making snide facile comments. It seems like you would actually like to see some change. Have you considered putting that time and energy into coming up with solutions rather than just passive-aggressively attacking people on a blog?
we absolutely need more Progressive Idealists screwing us over.
Ah, Kotek’s at it again—round two of ‘Councils That Go Nowhere ’ Remember the Prosperity Council? Tax disconnects harming businesses, big talk, zero bite. This new transport crew’s shaping up to be the sequel no one asked for. Popcorn’s ready, mates!
https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2026/02/26/some-members-of-koteks-prosperity-council-unhappy-about-tax-change/