Michaela Bourgeois, Emily Burris, and Ken Boddie
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Amid concerns about future Interstate 205 tolling, Gladstone Mayor Michael Milch is joining calls from other local mayors for better traffic diversion planning and is looking for ways to reduce the need for freeway travel.
The Gladstone mayor is joining calls from West Linn Mayor Rory Bialostosky and Oregon City Mayor Denyse McGriff for the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop traffic mitigation plans through their cities as commuters avoid tolls.
“We have people getting off the freeway to try to cut through our city all the time just when there’s a fender bender on the narrow part of the 205 freeway. So, we’re very sensitive to the issue of traffic diversion,” Mayor Milch said.
In May, Governor Tina Kotek issued an executive order that delayed tolling — including I-205 tolling — until January 2026 amid concerns for traffic diversion and the financial burden the tolling could put on commuters.
In response to the executive order, the Oregon Department of Transportation acknowledged that some Oregonians and leaders felt unheard as the state develops tolling plans.
Mayor Milch does agree that the state needs to fund transportation projects and build efficient roads.
“We also understand that ODOT needs to fund its roads,” Milch explained. “It’s going to take some collaboration and work from cities, from counties to find some better solutions to this than just tolling all the lanes of the freeway at the same time.”
The mayor furthered that ODOT seems “to have ignored all the things that we have learned from the pandemic,” and wants to see efforts to reduce the need for daily freeway travel.
“I want to see local economies get to the place where people don’t need to rely on freeway transportation to commute to jobs,” Milch explained. “The state’s putting a lot of effort into industries that require a lot of space … semi-conductor chips and data centers, those kind of things, those are great jobs in the state of Oregon but to get to those jobs, people have to drive on the freeway and I’d like to see a little bit more focus on local development at a smaller scale like we have here in Gladstone where people can live their lives without having to get on the freeway daily.”