The state will spend $1.1 billion on highway work this year, creating jobs that will boost the economy, according to ODOT.
Oregon will spend $1.1 billion on highways this year, in projects that will employee the equivalent of 12,500 full-time.
Legislators expect the economy to be strengthened by temporary and permanent job creation from the highway projects.
Some of that $1.1 billion is from the last installment of a 2003 program aimed at fixing cracking bridges. The number of jobs created or sustained will average just under 2,500 this year and in 2011 before dropping to 1,400 jobs in 2012. Nearly 100 bridges are in some stage of construction this summer — and nearly half of those are on Interstates 5 and 84, Oregon’s two main highways.
Nearly all of that work is scheduled to be completed in 2013. The money came from bonds repaid through vehicle fees.
Read more at the Statesman Journal.
{biztweet}Oregon highway{/biztweet}
