Senate Bill 1601 officially passed on Thursday and Oregon transportation advocacy groups are expressing dismay. A statement from Move Oregon Forward, a coalition of 45 nonprofit organizations from across the state, didn’t mice words, saying that lawmakers chose to, “plug a massive funding hole by gutting programs that protect the state’s most vulnerable residents.”
Here’s more from their statement:
The final vote, which took place as the short session neared its deadline, redirects nearly $50 million away from safety, rail, and transit initiatives. Deep cuts will now hit Safe Routes to School ($17 million) and Oregon Community Paths ($8 million), effectively stripping 60% of the funding used to build sidewalks and crossings for children.
The state’s current budget crisis did not come from school safety programs or community paths. It stems from long-term funding shortfalls and major road project costs that outpaced new revenues. The funding issues come from road projects, yet the 30% of Oregonians who do not drive are the ones being asked to pay the price.
Zachary Lauritzen of Oregon Walks said the bill has “guttted” these key active transportation programs. “The state is failing its duty to remove barriers for kids, seniors, and people with disabilities to move safely around their communities,” he said. And Oregon Trails Coalition Executive Director Steph Noll added that, “It is unconscionable to raid bicycle excise taxes to fill a highway fund hole. By slashing this budget, the state is knowingly making neighborhoods less safe for the very people who funded these programs.”
Noll was referring to lawmakers taking money away from the Oregon Community Paths program — a program partially funded by Oregon’s $15 tax on new bicycles — and spending it on highway operations and maintenance instead. The program has been a crucial source of funding for off-street paths across the region.
On Monday, Move Oregon Forward coalition members sent a letter to Governor Tina Kotek and leading lawmakers, urging them to take a different course. Instead of raiding these popular, vital programs, they offered a different path to save the budget. Their proposal included: internal savings and “smart housekeeping” within ODOT, a reshuffling of state capital project priorities, and reallocating up to $80 million of “idle funding” tied up in megaprojects that lack a feasible funding path. If those didn’t suffice, they told lawmakers to use short-term debt financing tools.
Move Oregon Forward says their suggestions were ignored.
“Our coalition is done waiting,” said Indi Namkoong, Transportation Justice Coordinator at Verde. “Lawmakers cannot continue to collect tax dollars from working families while cutting the very services those dollars fund. This budget is a failure of leadership and a breach of trust. Now that these cuts have passed, we expect our priorities to be served first in the 2027 transportation package.”
Like everyone else in Salem, Namkoong and Move Oregon Forward are already looking ahead to the next legislative session where Democratic party leaders have promised they will once again try to move a large transportation funding package forward.