Bicycle advocates in Oregon are raising concerns after state lawmakers voted to reduce grant funding for school bike routes.
Last week, the legislature passed a bill which—if signed by Gov. Tina Kotek—would reorganize the Oregon Department of Transportation’s budget, redirecting $218 million from other programs into maintenance and operations.
According to ODOT, these changes are needed to keep roads safe and well-maintained, while preventing 470 layoffs.
“We're seeing flattening gas revenues as more and more people buy more fuel-efficient cars. We're seeing rising costs,” said ODOT spokesperson Katherine Benenati. “And before this session, we really lacked flexibility in how funding was spent, so there were really limited buckets for maintenance and operations spending.”
However, critics of the measure have said it would unfairly sacrifice other transportation options in favor of the state’s highways.
The bill would pull $42 million from Connect Oregon, which provides funding for projects related to buses, trains, air travel, and more.
Meanwhile, the Safe Routes to School construction program, which gives out grants for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, would lose $17 million.
Sarah Mazze, the coordinator for Eugene 4J’s Safe Routes to School program, told KLCC that she was deeply disappointed by this outcome.
“There's so much that each community can do with the small amount of money that they're getting from the state, and they can have such a dramatic impact on people's lives,” said Mazze.
Mazze said these grants have made it easier and safer for students to get to class, like when Eugene was able to build a separated path to Howard Elementary on a road without a sidewalk.
She said Eugene 4J currently has a list of 200 infrastructure projects it would like to see completed.
“We don't need to pause that. We need to make safety improvements now so that people feel comfortable using our streets with all different modes of travel,” said Mazze. “Not everyone has access to a car, and if you live within a mile of the school for an elementary school—or a mile and a half from a middle school—you don't have access to the school bus.”
Benenati said the funds that are being pulled from Safe Routes aren’t committed to any existing projects, so nothing that’s in progress will be cancelled.
She said grant applications will be delayed by a year, and the next round of funding given will be smaller. But she said hopes this reallocation is only a short-term solution.
“We need to really focus on maintaining what we have, and we are doing that at the cost of building some things that we would like to have,” said Benenati. “These are not easy decisions. We know that people care about having safe bike paths.”
