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The Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) on Aug. 16 will take up the contentious issue of tolling Portland-metro interstate highways at a meeting hundreds of miles away, in John Day.

Commissioners will consider the recommendations of the Oregon Department of Transportation Tolling Advisory Committee and provide direction to the agency as it prepares to submit to the Federal Highway Administration an application to implement tolls.

The OTC formed the 25-member Portland Metro Area Value Pricing Policy Advisory Committee last year at ODOT‘s direction. In July, the committee submitted recommendations that included an initial tolling pilot program at two locations in the Portland-metro area. All Interstate 5 lanes between approximately Northeast Going Street/Alberta Street and Southwest Multnomah Boulevard – a stretch of about seven miles in Portland – would be tolled. On Interstate 205, tolling stations would be set up in both northbound and southbound lanes on or near the Abernethy Bridge, between West Linn and Oregon City.

The policy advisory committee recommended implementation of the I-5 and I-205 projects as the first phase of a longer-term effort to consider pricing more of the two freeway corridors and potentially other Portland-area freeways, including Interstate 84, Interstate 405, U.S. 26 and Oregon Route 217.

The OTC will also provide direction on whether to separately develop a long-term study of congestion pricing on all freeways in the Portland-metro area.

All materials for the Aug. 16 meeting are available at: .

If sufficient bandwidth is available in John Day, the meeting will be shown live at . Video will be available on the OTC website following the meeting.