Safe Routes to School Stands to Lose $17 Million

The most delicate political dance in Salem pirouettes around the $289 million gap in the Oregon Department of Transportation’s 2025–27 budget.

After Republican backlash swamped a transportation tax, Oregon lawmakers are proposing making cuts to certain parts of ODOT’s budgets to patch the hole. And at least one of the proposals has active transportation advocates sounding alarms: Safe Routes to School faces a $17 million cut.

Currently, state law sets aside $15 million a year for the program that funds efforts to make it easier for students to walk or bike to school. That includes everything from infrastructure improvements on roads to education initiatives. Funding is spread across the state, though Portland has certainly been a beneficiary, receiving about $20 million since 2016.

According to an ODOT document, Safe Routes to School has $27 million in unobligated revenue over the next 18 months. That document also noted that the program had $55 million in its current balance as of December, though none of that is considered available or unobligated.

The proposal to reallocate funds from Safe Routes to School, first reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, is included in an amendment to Senate Bill 1601.

“I understand you have difficult choices in front of you, but raiding monies from…Safe Routes to School is like stealing a kid’s lunch money,” wrote Eva Frazier, board chair of BikeLoud PDX, in testimony opposed to the bill.

The scramble to backfill ODOT’s budget is playing out against a backdrop of a populist rebellion against a gas tax increase the legislature passed last summer. A Republican repeal effort over the holidays swiftly gathered enough signatures to refer the tax hike to the ballot—leaving Democratic leaders with the choice of highway division layoffs or programmatic cuts.

On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee chose the cuts. As BikePortland first reported, state Sen. Kate Lieber (D-Beaverton) told constituents at a subcommittee hearing that they should direct their anger to campaigning.

“I’m glad you’re mad,” Lieber said. “You should be mad. You absolutely should be mad. …You should go out there and you should work to defeat this ballot measure.”

It was an odd rallying cry, given that Democrats are so certain the tax repeal will succeed that they have spent much of the short session trying to move the measure to the May ballot, so it doesn’t damage their election prospects in November.

Senate Bill 1601 gets a vote on the Senate floor today.