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City engineer calls a corridor project the CIP’s top unfunded priority, estimates $6 million
Summary
City Engineer Jonathan Owen told the committee one corridor project has had over 100 crashes in five years (23 injury crashes) and would cost just over $6 million; previous grant attempts failed and staff will pursue new regional study support for future applications.
Jonathan Owen, the city engineer, identified a corridor safety and congestion project as the CIP’s top unfunded priority, citing crash history and a project cost estimate "just over $6,000,000." He said the work would serve as a capstone to previous east‑side improvements and that prior grant applications had been unsuccessful.
"Over the past 5 years over 100 crashes," Owen said, noting that most were not high‑severity because of lower speeds but that 23 crashes did produce injuries and one was a serious head‑on collision. Owen said regional studies by ODOT now give the city better support for renewed funding applications and that he hopes to include the project in next year’s CIP when funding prospects are clearer.
Owen also reviewed the resurfacing program, which depends heavily on grants and local matches and ranges from $700,000 to $2.1 million in annual programming depending on grant success. He warned that the city has effectively no purely local resurfacing program and must compete for ODOT and other grants; the city earlier succeeded in several grant programs but faces increasing competition under new, competitive grant rules.
Committee members and staff discussed tradeoffs between pursuing large capital projects and meeting annual maintenance needs, with mayoral and committee comments emphasizing the city’s growth and rising transportation needs.
