This was the ODOT plan for winter service levels before the announcement of more money for ODOT in late November 2023. 

If there was one topic we wrote about perhaps too much over the last few months, it was the Oregon Department of Transportation’s plans to cut back on snowplowing and other maintenance.

We found that to be stupid. Oregon government was going to allow state highways to be less safe?

Central and Eastern Oregon seemed set to get some of the worst of it. For instance, the stretch of Oregon Highway 82 between Union and Wallowa counties was listed as “Level of Service C,” which means overtime to keep the road clear is minimized, efforts to apply anti-ice or deicer will be limited, and snow and ice will accumulate “regularly during storms.”

Dumb.

It does seem to be getting a happy ending. The Democratic leadership in the Legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek are working on delivering as much as $19 million in the 2024 session to ODOT to backfill some of the need.

ODOT told us that amount would do it.

“While we already took some actions due to funding issues that can’t be undone (hiring at a lower level and purchasing less materials in long-term contracts are two examples), we believe an investment of this size will help us restore winter maintenance service levels going forward to essentially what they were in winter of 2022,” Kevin Glenn, ODOT’s communications director, told us in an email. “This funding will make our roads safer this winter than they would have been.”

Assuming legislators follow through in 2024, and we assume they will, the question is: Is this just going to keep happening? ODOT tells legislators it is going to need to make cutbacks without an increase in funding. Legislators do nothing. ODOT announces cutback. Public outcry. Legislators do something.

Yes, ODOT already has piles of money. But most of it is restricted in how it can be spent. It can go to construction — not operations and maintenance. There is also a contradiction in funding road maintenance through a gas tax as vehicles become more fuel efficient or don’t even use gas.

We aren’t eager to pay a road mileage fee or for the accompanying technology that will somehow be tracking how much we drive. Oregon is going to need to go down that road or some other alternative.