News Release: SE 50th Avenue Paving Project kicks off 2018 Fixing Our Streets construction season

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PBOT to invest a total of $105 million in capital projects, street repair and safety between now and September 2018
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SE 50th Avenue from Hawthorne to Division will be repaved to prevent further street deterioration. Photo by Mychal Tetteh, Portland Bureau of Transportation.

(March 27, 2018) The Portland Bureau of Transportation broke ground today on the SE 50th Avenue Paving Project, the first Fixing Our Streets project of the 2018 construction season. The first of 19 projects breaking ground between March and August, the $1.1 million project will pave the street from SE Hawthorne to SE Division and update street corners with ADA ramps to prevent further pavement deterioration and improve overall street accessibility. Work on SE 50th Avenue will require intermittent lane and sidewalk closures as workers begin curb ramp construction on the 26 street corners slated for ADA curb ramp upgrades through late May, before requiring additional lane closures and detours for paving work in June. The project will be completed in late June.

The 19 projects going to construction this spring and summer range from a $200,000 Neighborhood Greenway on SW/NW 20th to a $3.5 million paving project on SW Vermont Street from SW Oleson Road to SW Capitol Highway. In total, approximately $20 million in Fixing Our Streets projects will begin construction in the next six months.

Construction will impact neighborhoods across the city, with projects taking place in all five quadrants of the city. Among them:

East Portland:

North Portland:

NE Portland:

SE Portland:

NW Portland:

SW Portland:

In addition, PBOT’s maintenance bureau workers continue their ongoing, Fixing Our Streets funded work of guard rail replacement and base repair street replacement. Fixing Our Streets projects make up approximately 20 percent of the investments in Portland’s transportation infrastructure this construction season, with a total of approximately $105 million being invested in capital projects, street repair and safety between now and September 2018. 

The Fixing Our Streets program, paid for by a local gas tax approved by Portland voters in May 2016 and a heavy vehicle use tax, is Portland’s first street repair and traffic safety program financed with local funding. 56 percent of Fixing Our Streets funding is invested in street maintenance and 44 percent is invested in safety improvements. The City Council ordinance included a project list that shows specific projects that are intended to be funded. The list of projects can be found at www.fixingourstreets.com.


About the Fixing Our Streets Program

The Fixing Our Streets program is the result of the passage of Measure 26-173, a 10-cent tax on motor vehicle fuels and Portland’s first local funding source dedicated to street repair and traffic safety projects. Passed on May 17, 2016, Measure 26-173 will raise an estimated $64 million over four years. PBOT will invest this money in a wide variety of street improvement and safety projects across the entire city. Fixing Our Streets will help PBOT expand preventive street maintenance that saves money and prevents potholes. It will support our work to make it safer for children to walk to school. It will allow us to build more sidewalks, traffic signals, street lights and bike lanes. The Portland City Council also unanimously passed a Heavy Vehicle Use Tax, for vehicles weighing more than 26,000 pounds, which will also fund the Fixing Our Streets program.