Oregon roads and bridges are old and damaged. Fixing them is an expensive task for lawmakers this year

In Corvallis, a train carrying agricultural fertilizers derailed and crashed into the Marys River after a trestle bridge collapsed on Saturday.

On Oregon’s coast near Coos Bay, a landslide undercut Cape Arago Highway, forcing two state parks to close on Friday.

In the Columbia River Gorge, a stone wall supporting the Stark Street Bridge over the Sandy River collapsed, closing the bridge in September.

The incidents highlighted the problems facing Oregon’s beleaguered transportation system, which lawmakers plan to address during this year’s legislative session.

Aging and damaged, many roads and bridges will be costly to fix, officials say. But if the problem isn’t addressed soon, maintaining this infrastructure — let alone improving it — will only get more expensive as transportation agencies face budget deficits.

“We have a lot of roadways that are at the end of their life,” said Oregon Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, the co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation. “And if you don’t take care of them early on, the costs become more and more and more substantial.”

Related: Oregon infrastructure rates as mediocre civil engineers say

Along the coast, erosion from rain storms have caused landslides in recent years, and old culverts are struggling to keep water off the roads. In eastern Oregon, hard-to-reach roads and bridges, which are critical for local ranchers and firefighters, have been battered by wind, snow and ice. In the Portland metro area, roads built decades ago are buckling under the strain of the daily commute and thousands of large trucks, creating potholes and other structural problems.

“We’re starting to get to the point where people are having to take alternate routes because roads are so rough, or conditions are such that it’s not the safest route anymore on our county roads,” said Michael Russell, public works director for Columbia County, which sits northwest of Portland. “We want to be able to get back to the point where you don’t even think about the roads that you’re driving on, because they’re in good condition, and they’re safe.”

Infrastructure budgets struggle to keep pace with rising cost

Oregon’s transportation system is funded by grants and property taxes but mainly the state highway fund, which includes DMV fees and taxes levied on heavy trucks and gas Oregonians buy at the pump. Much of this infrastructure was built decades ago for far fewer vehicles than the state’s 3.1 million drivers today.

State and federal policymakers have been trying to address this problem for years.

In 2017, state lawmakers passed House Bill 2017, a $5.3 billion package of taxes and fees that sought to boost the system and tackle big-ticket projects. In 2020, the Metro regional government tried and failed to pass a $7 billion regionwide transportation package. In 2021, Congress passed the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, in part to “rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rails.”

Despite the legislation, officials say their budgets are struggling to keep pace with rising costs. That’s partly because the state’s taxes aren’t indexed to adjust for inflation, and more Oregonians are buying electric vehicles and not chipping in on the gas tax, all while Oregon’s infrastructure continues to age and deteriorate.

“When we look out into the future, we actually have less money available from state and federal sources to rehabilitate and replace our bridges, even as the need just continues to grow year after year,” said Travis Brouwer, the assistant director of revenue, finance and compliance for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Related: Oregon transportation leaders say they may have to cut 1,000 jobs if legislature doesn’t find them more money

Last summer, lawmakers toured the state with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation to survey the breadth of the problem. In the coming months, they will convene in Salem to try and find a solution. Policymakers say this could include increasing existing taxes and fees to adjust for inflation or shifting away from the gas tax to ensure fuel-efficient vehicles pay their share, such as taxing people per mile they drive.

To get back on track, transportation officials say they need vast sums of money. County road departments — which manage more than a third of the state’s total road miles — say they will need an additional $834 million each year to address a budget shortfall around maintaining roads and bridges, according to the Association of Oregon Counties.

In addition, ODOT said it will need an extra $1.8 billion annually for maintenance, and more for big-ticket projects promised from the state’s last transportation package passed in 2017. For example, Portland’s Rose Quarter project, which would widen Interstate 5, has seen its costs increase. The scope of the project, and its timeline, remains uncertain as the federal government denied its $750 million request.

If ODOT doesn’t get more money, officials have warned, they might have to cut about 1,000 jobs, making it harder to plow roads in the winter and respond to wildfires in the summer.

“The Legislature wants to fund big, sexy projects, and maintenance has always kind of taken a back seat,” said Chris Doty, Deschutes County’s road director. “But you know the most valuable asset that any government organization owns typically is the value of its pavement.”

Fixing roads isn’t leaders' priority, says state representative

Democrats have a supermajority in both legislative chambers, which means they can pass taxes on a party-line vote. Still, passing the transportation package could be a difficult political task, particularly as many Oregonians facing the rising cost of living might be opposed to the prospect of new taxes and fees.

Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, who is vice chair on the transportation committee, says the problems facing Oregon’s roads and budgets have been clear for years, but leaders haven’t made fixing it a priority. Despite a surge in funds since House Bill 2017, she questions whether Oregonians haven’t been getting their money’s worth.

“We already pay too much,” said Boshart Davis, who co-owns her family’s trucking company, Boshart Trucking. “And even if you were to absolutely promise, ‘Okay, we’re going to raise your taxes, but we promise that we will make sure that we spend these wisely,’ I don’t think Oregonians believe that.”

She argued that Oregon truckers have faced “unfair” taxes and that ODOT shouldn’t be budgeting $135 million dollars — nearly 5% of the agency’s budget needs in 2025 — for the state’s on-road bicycle and pedestrian network.

“Budgets reflect priorities, and if the goal of our transportation infrastructure is to move people, goods and services, I believe that ODOT has moved away from that goal,” she said. “I think Oregonians would be really surprised and probably disappointed in where their money went, and those are going to be decisions that are made from the top.”

Officials have rated more than 85% of the state’s roads “fair or better” in recent years, but “conditions peaked in 2018 and are now starting to decline,” according to an April 2024 conditions report from ODOT. More than 4,400 miles of county roads — about 29% — are in “fair” or “poor” condition, according to a September 2024 road study by the Association of Oregon Counties.

And “many” cities are struggling to fund street repairs, which “affects their ability to perform essential tasks such as pavement rehabilitation and crack and chip sealing,” according to a 2024 infrastructure report from the League of Oregon Cities. The report called street paving and maintenance “a critical concern” and noted that some infrastructure projects “are decades from completion.”

Nearly half of the state’s bridges are over 50 years old and were “never intended for today’s heavy loads and traffic volumes,” according to the ODOT report. Of the 3,448 county-owned bridges in the state, about three out of four of them are “structurally deficient,” with 987 restricted for heavy trucks, according to the counties association.

Related: Oregon counties say they’ll need extra $834 million annually for roads, bridges

In its 2024 report card released in August, the Oregon section of the American Society of Civil Engineers described the state’s roads and bridges as “mediocre” and requiring attention.

“We’re seeing large increases in fatalities and injuries on our roads in recent years,” said Brian Worley, the county road program manager for the Association of Oregon Counties. Since 2023, there have been more than 1,100 traffic deaths on roads across Oregon, according to preliminary figures from ODOT.

“Part of that is behavioral through COVID and different things going on,” said Worley, “but a lot of that’s infrastructure too and degradation of things, and not being able to invest in safety infrastructure projects that save lives.”

Amy Ramsdell, ODOT’s Delivery and Operations Division Administrator, says coastal bridge foundations have been damaged by landslides, heavy rains, and nesting birds, while roads in eastern Oregon last year were washed out from flooding, freezing and thawing, prompting emergency repairs. She expects that, without an investment, the number of bridges that are restricted for heavy trucks could increase, “and that results in trucks rerouting, and that just increases the cost of goods to everyone.”

The Oregon Legislature convenes on Jan. 21. Lawmakers say they hope to have a transportation bill prepared by April.