A group of transportation experts will work on solutions to fund Oregon’s transportation system in 2027 and beyond, Gov. Tina Kotek announced last week.

The Rebuilding Our Transportation Vision Workgroup is tasked with reviewing current and projected transportation spending and needs as well as creating an outline for potential legislation ahead of the 2027 legislative session.

“Oregonians want and deserve a safe, accessible, and reliable transportation system,” Kotek stated. “Despite political division, we all need to come back to the table to identify our basic transportation needs in a way that will sufficiently and sustainably provide a system that meets the current and future goals of our state.”

Lawmakers plan to tackle transportation funding again in 2027.

Kotek called a special session in 2025 after Democrats failed to push through two transportation packages during the long legislative session. Opponents of the proposed higher costs quickly gathered enough signatures to refer much of the bill, which was expected to generate $4.3 billion in revenue through a gas tax, to the November ballot.

Democrats pushed through legislation during the 2026 short session to move that election to May, prompting several lawsuits. Lawmakers expect voters to reject the increased taxes and fees, with Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, saying, “everybody knows that it’s going to fail.”

The work group will address solutions for transportation funding statewide.

The Oregon Department of Transportation has long been warning about its impending budget issues. Gas tax revenues are declining with an increase in use of electric and hybrid vehicles, inflation has hurt construction work, and many of the agency’s reserves are limited in where they can be spent because of prior legislation, ODOT has said.

The bipartisan group will be tasked with finding a way to mitigate those issues without prompting another referendum effort.

Legislators used vacancy savings and redirected other funds during the 2026 short session to unlock $288 million for ODOT and keep the department afloat as a sustainable solution is sought.

“We need to launch a long-term, bipartisan conversation about what comes next,” Kotek told reporters after the legislative session ended March 6. “And there’s more to come on that.”

Susan Peithman, director of ODOT’s climate office, will lead the group “from a staff perspective,” a Kotek spokesperson said.

Grace Crunician and Bruce Hanna will serve as co-chairs.

Crunician retired from her role as general manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District in 2019. She was ODOT’s director from 1996 to 2001.

Hanna retired from the Oregon Legislature in 2014 after serving five terms as a representative for Roseburg. Hanna, a Republican, served with former Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, as co-Speaker of the House for a time when Oregon’s House of Representatives was evenly split.

“We are in a new place now given what’s happening on the ballot and elsewhere, where we have to take a new approach to solutions,” said Kelly Brooks, Kotek’s transportation policy advisor.

Brooks told the commission the work group will perform similar duties as that of a panel convened by then-Gov. Kate Brown in 2016. That group produced a report that aided in the creation of the 2017 transportation package.

The new work group’s first meeting will be in April and be open to the public. The group will draft a report by the end of the year.

The group’s members, other than Crunician and Hanna, were not announced last week.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

The post Kotek forms bipartisan group to address transportation funding appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.