In a speech this morning, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek offered a roadmap that should give some transportation advocates hope after months of bruising news. Many BikePortland readers watched in pain as Kotek and lawmakers fumbled the ball multiple times during the 2025 legislative session. What was supposed to be a transformational infrastructure package, ended up an over-compromised mess. And while Democrats had all the power, they squandered it and left us with a bill nobody likes.
A signature-gathering effort (backed by anti-tax groups and led by Republicans) to reverse key fundraising elements of House Bill 3991 (the bill that passed in the special session) succeeded last month and now those funds are frozen until a vote of the people in November. Kotek doesn’t want to wait.
The governor told a gathering of transportation agency staffers, advocates, and industry professionals this morning that she’d rather repeal HB 3991 than see it be further gutted. In her speech, she outlined a three-part plan that shows she is (finally!) ready to take transportation spending seriously.
The first step in her plan is to redirect funding from House Bill 2017 (the previous major transportation package) to operations and maintenance. That means millions of dollars currently set aside for projects and programs could be transferred to basic needs of the Oregon Department of Transportation. This move will require statutory changes and “hard conversations about tradeoffs,” Kotek said. Laws will need to be amended because HB 2017 earmarked some revenue to specific capital projects (the first time Oregon had ever done that and likely the last).
While Kotek said she would not support any cuts to transit, she added that, “Nearly every transportation fund and program must be considered.” Since one of the major expenditures in HB 2017 were several freeway expansion megaprojects in the Portland region — including the beleaguered I-5 Rose Quarter project — Kotek’s announcement today puts those projects into even further financial peril and could be the nail in the coffin if legislators follow her lead.
The second big step Kotek is asking Oregonians and lawmakers to take is to fully repeal HB 3991. Calling it a “stopgap measure” that was only passed to “prevent collapse” of ODOT, the governor would rather scrap it and start over in the 2027 session than starve Oregon of transportation revenue during what she calls a “crisis” moment. Another reason she wants HB 3991 gone? “Leaving the law in place forces ODOT to bear implementation costs without new resources, prolongs instability, and delays the real conversation we need to have about long-term solutions,” she said.
And the third step of Kotek’s plan is regroup and try again for a comprehensive funding package in the 2027 legislative session. But unlike last time around, the governor won’t leave its fate up to Democratic party leaders. “The last successful transportation package followed a governor-led process,” she said this morning. “I am committing my office to that work.”
These are significant announcements from Kotek and are likely to improve morale of her supporters as she enters a re-election battle.
Now attention will turn to the short legislative session, which due to begin the first week of February. Lawmakers will only have about 35 days to make changes. That means Democrats must coalesce and be unified in order to flex their slim supermajorities in the House and Senate in order to take the steps Kotek has outlined.
— Read Kotek’s full remarks here.