Joint committee work groups identify maintenance, transit and finishing prior projects as priorities

For the record, my name is Catherine Jones, and I am the transportation project manager, helping the co chairs and the vice chairs put together this bill, Jones said as she opened the committee’s report-out on Jan. 27.

Jones told the Joint Committee on Transportation that three work groups formed after the committee’s listening tours settled on three principal themes: (1) maintenance, operations and preservation of roads; (2) public and active transit, including passenger and freight rail and bicycle/pedestrian facilities; and (3) finishing projects committed under previous funding packages. The work groups met five times between October and December and held a sixth session in January, and each group included roughly 35–50 participants from the transportation sector, she said.

The committee was shown a survey of the work-group participants. Jones said the report includes the unfiltered survey responses at the back of the briefing packet and that the survey asked members to rank needs and consider revenue mechanisms that might flow into the State Highway Fund. She noted that work-group 2 focused on transit and active modes because many new revenue tools in the 2017 package already targeted those modes, while rail operations remained a separate topic.

Representative Bossard Davis asked whether the work groups had been asked about reprioritizing existing funding instead of seeking new revenue. "Was there a question about reprioritization of current funding instead of new funding sources?" Bossard Davis asked. Jones replied that reprioritization "did come through in the survey responses and absolutely did come up in the work group discussions," but that the question had not been framed as a ranked survey item and therefore did not receive a ranking in the results.

Several committee members urged the co-chairs to broaden outreach and public communications. Co-chair McLean and other members emphasized that the listening tours and work groups included a wide set of participants — the public, local partners, agency staff, system users and advocates — but that the broader statewide public still needs clear, repeated explanation of priorities and trade-offs. Representative Nathanson asked how narrowly the committee would be bound to consider only funding solutions raised in the survey; the co-chairs and staff said the process was ongoing and that the committee remains open to additional and “outside-the-box” funding options.

The report and survey materials also recorded rural-transit concerns, including repeated comments in listening tours about access in rural areas and needs of "the one-third of Oregonians that do not drive," Jones said. Committee members asked staff to continue coordinating with Legislative Revenue Office and Department of Revenue analyses; Jones and staff said LRO/LPRO analysts have been involved since November and December in preparing revenue and survey analyses.

The meeting concluded with co-chairs encouraging work-group participants to remain engaged via the committee newsletter and OLIS postings. Several members asked staff to return with additional detail on funding options and the committee’s next steps for public engagement.

The committee did not take formal votes during the informational session.