Readers respond: Don’t cut cities out of transportation package

Last month, House Bill 2025, the state’s major transportation package, ran out of gas. After months of good-faith negotiations and broad support, lawmakers pivoted to a new bill that yanked cities entirely out of the deal (“

In a stunning loss for Democrats, lawmakers fail to pass transportation funding package

,” June 28). That bill also collapsed.

And I have to ask: what exactly is the plan now? Because from where I sit, it feels like cities and counties were set up to fail. We’re the ones on the front lines: we maintain the roads you drive on, light the street lamps your kids walk under, and patch the potholes that would otherwise blow out your tires. But when it came time to invest in Oregon’s transportation future, not only were we cut out of the conversation, but nearly cut out of the funding altogether.

That proposal was a statement. It said the state can go at it alone and local voices don’t matter. It ignored a very real truth: if cities are where the rubber meets the road, Salem just pulled up the asphalt.

Legislators must restart the conversation. If we are going to get this right, cities and counties must have a seat at the table. Not something symbolic or a mere afterthought, but one where those who know the work, do the work.

This is surely the Oregon way: prioritizing collaboration, transparency and a little humility. Because at the end of the day, we all answer to the same people: people who are not asking for perfection, just roads that work.

Lacey Beaty, Beaverton