Here's PBOT's Plan to Move $7.15 Million to Paving and Repairs, in One Handy Graphic

By AARON MESH

 When Mayor Charlie Hales appointed Toby Widmer as interim director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation last month, the job came with clear instructions: Find money to pave roads.

So Widmer appeared at the PBOT budget hearing today with a plan to shuffle $7.15 million in transportation bureau money to long-deferred road maintenance and sidewalk repairs.

Where's that money coming from? Widmer provided a colorful one-page chart. $4.5 million is deferred costs from the Sellwood Bridge (part of ex-Mayor Sam Adams' deal with Multnomah County) and $1.2 million comes from a sidewalk capital project for Southeast 136th Avenue.

And $950,000 of the road-paving money is coming from an item singled out by two scathing audits of PBOT: a downtown marketing program that works with Travel Portland on ads for parking garages and Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Read the full chart:

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