When Bruce Barrow drives Portland’s freeway and sees the graffiti along the roadside, on the overpasses and covering over the highway signs, the Northeast Portland resident takes it personally.

“This is a mess that shouldn’t be. It makes me angry, the frustration, I feel like people are soiling, trashing my home,” he said. “Because the city is my home.”

Portland taggers have been prolific for many years but seem especially brazen in the years since the pandemic, raising the hackles of residents, business leaders and – eventually – city and state politicians.

Gov. Tina Kotek pledged in December to seek $20 million in funding for Portland highway cleanup, and lawmakers delivered in March. Graffiti abatement, which had slowed to a crawl as prior funding ran out, picked up shortly afterward.

The Oregon Department of Transportation says it cleaned nearly 3,800 tags from March through May with crews working seven days a week, up to 12 hours each day.

“I do feel like we’re getting ahead of things,” said Ted Miller, a transportation department regional manager.

On July 13 and 14, the state will close five miles of Interstate 84 between interstates 5 and 205 for 13 hours to paint over some of Portland’s most visible graffiti and pick up trash that has accumulated along the highway. Light rail and most freight rail will stop during the stretch, too, and northbound I-5 will close over the Marquam Bridge.

Yet taggers are sure to return, Miller acknowledges, and long-term funding for cleanup is uncertain as Oregon wrestles with how to overcome a structural deficit in its transportation budget.

Even in the short run, it may be difficult to change perceptions among Portland drivers who have grown accustomed to seeing the freeways treated as a canvas. Barrow, for example, says he hasn’t observed any change in the three months that the state’s cleanup program has been underway.

“I will say that on my freeway driving, 84 from Irvington to 205 to Sunnyside, has seen no noticeable improvement,” he said.

The Legislature’s $20 million, one-time funding boost was designated for four issues:

• Graffiti: $4 million for cleanups. Miller said the state is working with a contractor, Portland Graffiti Removal. It’s targeting vulgar and offensive graffiti first, aiming to remove that within a day of it appearing, while working steadily through other traffic corridors.
• Trash: $4 million to remove roadside trash two to four times each month.
• Campsites: $4 million to pay for the city to cleanup camps along freeways. Portland had been removing just a few such camps each week before the funding, according to Miller. Now, he said, crews are clearing more than 15 a week.
• Prevention: $8 million to add fencing and other barriers to prevent access and fires under bridges.

“We’re actively putting traffic barriers up to prevent access to those locations,” Miller said. “I suspect that we’ll be completing several projects a month as we move forward.”

Some taggers take considerable risks to leave their mark, painting right along the roadside within arm’s reach of cars speeding by. The state won’t let its contractors work in such conditions, or to paint on overpasses while vehicles are passing underneath.

So the transportation department is closing lanes periodically and taking advantage of unrelated closures. When a portion of I-5 closed for 13 hours last month after a truck with propane tanks caught fire, the state called in its graffiti contractors to paint over areas they couldn’t reach at other times.

Last weekend’s big I-5 closure, for unrelated bridge construction, is in an area south of downtown without significant graffiti, according to Don Hamilton, spokesperson for the transportation department. But he said cleanup crews were on call in case state workers find problem areas and police patrolled the closure area overnight.

This month’s I-84 closure through Sullivan’s Gulch is the big swing for cleanup efforts, with five state, city and regional agencies – plus Union Pacific Railroad – coordinating the efforts of more than 100 workers.

Graffiti and trash along that stretch has been of particular concern to residents and businesses, in part because it’s the path people take into the central city from Portland International Airport. Last month Portland moved to begin foreclosure on Gordon’s Fireplace Shop, a blighted structure overlooking the freeway that is covered in graffiti.

Taggers sometimes return immediately after contractors paint over existing graffiti. Miller said the state tries to send cleanup crews back again, hoping taggers will be less likely to paint and area if they expect new tags will be gone quickly.

“The faster we can get back to those areas that return hopefully we’ll be more secure at reducing the sheer numbers that come back,” Miller said. “Returning is important, and returning as quickly as we can.”

Current cleanup funding should last for another year, according to Miller. But he said it’s unclear where the money would come to stay ahead of graffiti in the long run, with gas taxes not keeping up with the state’s broader funding goals.

“This all hinges on the next legislative session and the transportation funding that you’re hearing about right now,” Miller said.

-- Mike Rogoway covers Oregon technology and the state economy. Reach him at mrogoway@oregonian.com.

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