Thanks go to Clackamas County Chair Jim Bernard, Lane County Commissioner Sid Leiken, Polk County Commissioner Craig Pope, Malheur County Judge Dan Joyce, and Jackson County Public Works Director John Vial for ably representing Oregon’s counties at the June 6 meeting of the Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation & Modernization (JCTPM). The JCTPM meeting saw two hours of invited testimony on House Bill (HB) 2017-3, the first public comments received on the comprehensive 298-page draft. More testimony followed on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, including thoughts from current AOC President Bill Hall, who noted the need to continue progress on the Newberg-Dundee Bypass project.

County testimony centered on the increase in maintenance and preservation funding and the positive difference that will make in maintaining roads and bridges in the county road system. The increase in funding, coupled with the 10-year duration of the program, gives counties much needed certainty that maintenance needs can be addressed in a comprehensive and systematic way.

The proposal that was negotiated by road officials helping high road mile/low registration counties is included in the proposed bill, and received staunch support during the testimony. As you know, the counties’ 30 percent share of maintenance and preservation revenue is distributed based on vehicle registrations in each county. Rural counties are burdened with high road miles, but low numbers of registered vehicles, and face chronically under-maintained roads, a situation made worse by the snow and rain events last winter. The AOC/Oregon Association of County Engineers and Surveyors (OACES) proposal will take $5 million off the top of the counties’ share of new revenue and re-distribute it by formula to high road mile/low registration counties. Both the donor and receiving counties support this measure.

A new funding and governance mechanism that will begin to tackle congestion relief in a partnership between Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) was unveiled and received broad support

Also included in the proposal are accountability measures for local governments, including counties. If adopted, counties will be charged to work with the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC), ODOT and cities to develop a website that will display the condition of transportation infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and information about how counties are spending transportation dollars. This will require an alignment between jurisdictions of the condition categories by which roads are classified. Commissioners spoke to the counties’ willingness to make transportation investment information available to citizens, the need to ensure that the reporting system is cost effective and useful, and the importance of directing maximum funding to improving roads.

All who testified thanked the JCTPM for their vision, courage and hard work in bringing HB 2017 forward. The proposal was seen as groundbreaking and visionary by counties testifying.

Want to see HB 2017-3? Click here.

Want the index to go with it? Click here.

Want the eight-page Executive Summary? Click here.

Want to see ODOT’s comments on the -3s? Click here.

Contributed by: Mike Eliason & Susan Morgan | AOC Transportation Policy Team