By Cassie Wilson | 3-minute read
1000 Friends of Oregon is coleading the Move Oregon Forward campaign to advocate for a safe, clean, fair, and accountable state transportation funding package in the 2025 legislative session. We are on the campaign steering committee along with our partners at Verde, The Street Trust, Climate Solutions, Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation (BEST), Oregon Environmental Council, Oregon Walks, Oregon Trails Coalition, and Oregon Just Transition Alliance. The coalition now includes more than 30 endorsing organizations, including unions and advocates from transportation safety, anti-hunger, social justice, and environmental organizations.
This summer, Move Oregon Forward mobilized community members to testify at the legislature’s listening tour organized by the Joint Committee on Transportation. Now we’re participating in legislative workgroups to continue collaborating on transportation-policy development for the 2025 legislative session.
Hearing from Oregonians
Move Oregon Forward campaign members followed the Joint Committee on Transportation’s listening tour from June through September. Each date of the statewide tour included an in-depth look at local infrastructure and maintenance and operations facilities, a roundtable discussion with local leaders, and a public hearing.
Participants expressed similar themes across both urban and rural communities around the state: Commenters consistently valued safety and climate during the public hearings. The top investment priorities for Oregonians across the state included operations and maintenance, and public and active transportation. Generally, members of the public expressed support for raising funds for transportation if it meant they could see and feel the impacts of those investments in their own communities.
Move Oregon Forward published a full report on comments made during the public hearings, for anyone who wants to know what issues came out on top in each city.
Engaging at the policy table
Immediately after wrapping up the listening tour, the Joint Committee on Transportation invited stakeholders to participate in legislative workgroups to further narrow in on policy and investment needs. 1000 Friends of Oregon, as well as many of our partners, received invitations to all three established working groups. Those groups include Back to Basics: Maintenance and Preservation, Public and Active Transit, and Finishing 2017 Priority Commitments.
Other stakeholders participating in these workgroups include transit agencies, local government representatives, business and industry representatives, unions, and more. We are actively engaged and focused on asking questions and contributing to discussions in ways that advance our campaign platform advocating for a safe, clean, fair, and accountable transportation package.
Workgroup meetings have ended but are available to rewatch through the state legislature’s site.
Our priorities
Our top priority is for the state to fully fund Youth Pass, in addition to advocating for a transportation package that aligns with the Move Oregon Forward campaign values. Portland Metro area youth have been advocating for Youth Pass for more than a decade, to ensure all Oregonians under 18 can ride transit for free. We’re working in partnership with the Multnomah Youth Commission to bring that vision to life – and we’re aiming statewide.
Washington state included free transit for youth in their last state transportation package, and it’s long past time for Oregon to do the same. Many local transit agencies across the state are either entirely fareless or already allow anyone under 18 years of age to ride for free. Portland Public School students have Youth Pass built into their student ID cards, but that’s not true for all schools in the TriMet service area. Many school districts in east Multnomah County, for example, cannot provide free transit passes to all of their students, and instead have long waiting lists of students requesting free Hop cards. For the past few years, TriMet has provided summer passes for youth and community college students all across the region. Now it’s time for Youth Pass to be statewide and year-round.
Much of our transportation advocacy centers around the approximately 30 percent of Oregonians who can’t or don’t drive – youth are a large portion of that population. Many young people depend on their parents to drive them where they need to go. If they had access to free public transportation, it would widen their involvement in opportunities such as community engagement, jobs, internships, social events, and more. That’s why we’re also exploring what it could look like for transit to be free for riders until the age of 22. We want young people to get where they need to go not only through high school, but to also have that support as they enter college, apprenticeships, or employment, so they can set out on the right note.
What's next?
1000 Friends met with legislators during December legislative days to share our priorities for the 2025 session. Move Oregon Forward will continue outreach to organizations across the state to build trust and bring more groups into the campaign, so when we have opportunities for Oregonians to take action, we can reach even more people. The campaign will regroup in January to lay out our plans for session to ensure we are on track to win the transportation investments Oregonians need.