The Oregon Department of Transportation says vandalism costs taxpayers $250,000 annually — in the Portland area alone.
BY JACOB PALMER | DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The Oregon Department of Transportation says vandalism costs taxpayers $250,000 annually — in the Portland area alone.
Spokesman Don Hamilton called the nuisance an “invisible cost to taxpayers” in a story published on OregonLive.com.
When ODOT has to eat the cost of graffiti or damaged equipment, that means less money for “a lot of the little things that help make the transportation system better for everyone,” he said. For example, according to a list of planned ODOT projects, that quarter-million in vandalism losses could have paid for upgrading all the lighting at the Southwest Allen Boulevard and Southwest Denney Road. interchanges on Oregon 217, a project estimated at $205,000. Or it could have paid for the installation of real-time information systems to help drivers on Oregon 212 and Oregon 224, a project estimated at $150,000.
Hamilton said $250,000 would also pay to pave a 12-foot-wide lane of Interstate 84 for three miles, the distance from Interstate 5 to 58th Avenue. There’s not much ODOT can do to prevent graffiti or vandalism, Hamilton said. “We can’t put security guards all night where there’s a portable variable message sign. That’s not just a practical reaction.”
ODOT is ramping up awareness efforts as that might be their only way of stemming the problem.
