Latest news with #OregonDepartmentofTransportation
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘Plan ahead' for OR 217 southbound lane closures this weekend, ODOT says
BEAVERTON, Ore. () – Oregon Department of Transportation is preparing to close all southbound lanes of OR 217 for the entire weekend, as part of the Auxiliary Lanes Project. The closure will start at 9 p.m. Friday night and run until Monday morning at 5 a.m. Drivers will be forced to exit at Canyon Road, and the closure will run until 99W, nearly five miles. The northbound lanes will stay open. Top 7 things to do in Portland this weekend ODOT is closing it so they can pave all the lanes through the weekend in what they're calling a big step towards the finish line of the years-long project. But they're warning drivers with plans to travel on 217 to plan ahead. 'Plan for an alternate route that we recommend, I-5, I-405, and 26,' ODOT Public Information Officer David House said. 'So you want to plan more time into that. You may have, depending on where you're traveling to or from, you may have a different route in mind, but plan ahead because it will take longer than the usual trip during the weekend closure.' This is the first of four weekend-long . House said there could be a fifth. But the lanes still will not be fully ready to open. 'First, we got to let the, the new surface cure,' he said. 'We'll have temporary markers in the, in the pavement, and then eventually, we'll be able to start opening those lanes, in a few weeks after they've been paved.' Salem to remove free street parking downtown The Beaverton Police Department will have officers conducting extra patrols in the area, keeping it under control. Dominique Hollman works at Hotspot Fireplace on Canyon Road. She said she is glad to hear extra officers will be out, because the area is already known for rough traffic even when the freeway is open. 'That's going to make it a little chaotic for anybody trying to get in and out. Definitely going to have to plan ahead because, you know, there's going to be some traffic. So time properly.' House said if drivers need to get to specific streets near the closure, they are not recommending other detours. 'The reason for that is it just depends on where you are and where you're going, what time of day it is,' he said. 'You know, I think that's, people need to choose their own routes for the most part.' He said to check for the latest information about the closure. ODOT is on schedule to finish the project by the end of December. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meet the men who cleaned 240,000 pounds of trash off Oregon's highways
Interstate Business Solutions is an Indiana-based company that contracts with transportation departments across the U.S., including Oregon's, to provide highway cleanup services. About 50% of its staff consists of formerly incarcerated individuals, alongside others with resume gaps. (Courtesy of Interstate Business Solutions) May 31 marks one year since Fernando Rodriguez was released from prison. Now 25, he spent seven years in an Idaho prison for a drug possession conviction from when he was a teenager. After his release, he moved to Oregon and secured a full-time job cleaning litter from Oregon's highways — a job that gives him financial stability and helps provide for his family. However, it's unclear whether he'll still have this job after June 2025. With no long-term funding plan yet approved by the Oregon Legislature, the Oregon Department of Transportation is facing significant budget shortfalls driven by declining tax revenue, inflation and spending restrictions. The department estimates it needs $1.8 billion more each year to pay for road maintenance and repairs. Without new ways of adding revenue, the department could scale back essential services like road maintenance, snow removal, customer support and highway and graffiti cleanup. Rodriguez works at Interstate Business Solutions, an Indiana-based company that primarily hires formerly incarcerated individuals, veterans and people facing homelessness for jobs cleaning highway litter. The company has contracts with state departments in several states — including Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Kansas — and began contracting with the Oregon Department of Transportation in April 2024. Since then, workers like Rodriguez have cleaned nearly 240,000 pounds of litter off sections of Interstates 5, 84 and 205 and U.S Highway 26. Most of the litter comes from homeless encampments on the highway, Rodriguez said. 'For years, those encampments have been neglected and trash has developed from people living on the side of the highway. The daily garbage you'd find in the garbage can in your house is all over the highways in piles,' Rodriguez told the Capital Chronicle, adding that his supervisor has to pick up used needles they regularly find. Interstate Business Solutions has received $4 million from the Oregon Department of Transportation to clean state highways. Using a contractor to clean litter off the highways allows the Oregon Department of Transportation to increase litter service removal without adding more tasks for maintenance employees, department spokesperson Katherine Benenati told the Capital Chronicle. The Oregon Department of Transportation spends about $250,000 each month in all of Clackamas, Multnomah and Hood River Counties and eastern Washington County, Benenati said. Highway litter causes environmental degradation and motor vehicle accidents and negatively impacts tourism and a business' decision to move to a city, Interstate Business Solutions spokesperson Morgan Johnston told the Capital Chronicle. However, the company sees its work as more than just cleaning up highways. 'Our mission is to not only keep Oregon clean and beautiful but to change the lives of our employees for the better,' Johnston said. Formerly incarcerated individuals make up 50% of the company's workforce. Without the company's services, the Portland metro area would see a significant increase in litter on the more than 500 miles its staff regularly cleans, Johnston said. The job helps employee Eric Gamble provide for his daughter and granddaughter. Gamble was released from an Oregon prison in 2020 for a gun offense, and he worked at gas stations before joining the cleanup crew. Dante Patton, another crew member, has achieved sobriety, steady income and job security since joining the highway cleanup crew. 'People used to love to come to Oregon, and they would say how beautiful it was,' Interstate Business Solutions Field Supervisor Dale Schultz told the Capital Chronicle. 'You don't get that much anymore because of the way the highway was looking, but now people are starting to look again and say 'Wow, they're cleaning it up.'' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
OR 217 to see weekend closures for paving throughout June
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — OR 217 is set to close all weekend while crews work to pave the long stretch of road from Beaverton to Tigard. According to the Oregon Department of Transportation, starting Friday night at 9 p.m. until Monday at 5 a.m., crews will be working on OR 217 between Canyon Road and 99W. The closure is part of the final steps of the OR 217 Auxiliary Lanes project, which has been underway since 2021. Drivers are asked to avoid the area, using Highway 26, Interstate 405 and Interstate 5 as a detour. This is the first of several closures planned over the next month for paving. ODOT said the other tentative dates are June 6, June 20 and June 27. ODOT also said that they won't be closing both directions of 217 during the same weekend. During the closure, live updates can be found on TripCheck. The project is expected to finish by the end of 2025. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Letter: ODOT does more than people know
There's a lot of talk about the Oregon Department of Transportation's budget in Salem and the fact that a transportation package is still in the air made me realize that a lot of Oregonians don't know all that ODOT workers do. My name is Kyle Martin. I'm a transportation maintenance specialist 2 with ODOT in Hermiston. From fixing guard rails, paving, and filling potholes to shutting down the road due to a wreck, anyone who uses roads is touched by our work. You don't think of us bashing out windows, putting out vehicle fires or pulling people out of their cars. I've had to ask, 'Can you get out of your rig? It's on fire.' I remember a time I was plowing heavy snow, and I had a family in a Chevrolet Suburban in front of me that lost control and rolled at milepost 191 on Interstate 84. A whole family began to crawl out the windows. I lifted the wing of my plow and threw out flares to ensure they were not hit by oncoming traffic. In that case no one was seriously injured, but that's not always the case, and I've seen some things that will stick with me for the rest of my life. For the sake of all Oregonians, I hope that legislators land a transportation package so we can work at full capacity. It's hard to do a project like paving when there are road closures due to accidents. We're already running thin as it is. Kyle Martin Stanfield
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Oregon lawmakers look to reshape cap-and-trade program to pay for transportation needs
Traffic sometimes flows on Interstate 5 in Portland but is often bunched up around the Rose Quarter. (Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr) This is a developing story and will be updated. As Oregon lawmakers scrounge for ways to pay for hundreds of millions in transportation needs, they've dug up a new twist on an old plan: allowing polluters to buy and trade carbon credits. In a memo to House and Senate caucus leaders on Thursday, transportation committee co-chairs Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale and Rep. Susan McLain, D-Forest Grove, said they were discussing replacing Oregon's Climate Protection Program with a new market-based emissions reduction program linked to other West Coast states. Gorsek and McLain said in a statement that they were making 'significant progress' toward a plan to keep the state's roads and bridges safe. 'Members of both parties are working together to develop a proposal that will address the issues we have been focused on all along: safety, maintenance and long-term sustainability,' the statement continued. 'We've gotten to this point after years of hard work and engagement from hundreds of stakeholders and Oregonians from every corner of the state. Conversations are ongoing and we will have more details to release in the coming weeks.' Their memo comes a day after most House and Senate Republicans announced their support for an opposing plan that would cut funding for bike and pedestrian safety and public transit to provide more funding for roads and bridges. Not included in the Republican plan were four Republicans who have worked with Democrats to hash out details: Reps. Jeff Helfrich of Hood River and Kevin Mannix of Salem, and Sens. Bruce Starr of Dundee and Suzanne Weber of Tillamook, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Republican support, especially in the House, could be crucial to passing any transportation package this session. Democrats started the session with 36 House members, enough to hike taxes or pass new ones without Republican support, but they're temporarily down to 35 after Courtney Neron Misslin, D-Wilsonville, was appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy. Her replacement won't be selected until June 6. Another Democratic representative, Hòa Nguyễn of Portland, has been away from the Capitol since early February while undergoing treatment for stage 4 cancer. Gorsek and McLain provided few details in their two-page memo to lawmakers, but draft language is expected in the coming days. The Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment, which they co-chair, will hold its first meeting on Tuesday. The cap-and-trade portion of the plan is surprising in Oregon, where Republicans tanked similar proposals in 2019 and 2020 by walking out and denying quorum. Then-Gov. Kate Brown eventually issued an executive order launching the Climate Protection Program. Lawmakers plan to establish a workgroup to create a new program that would eventually replace the Climate Protection Program. Gorsek and McLain's memo said they envision dedicating credits generated by gas and diesel polluters toward the state highway fund, with other credits used for wildfire mitigation, community-based nonprofits and transit programs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
