Columbia Sportswear CEO offers to pay to clean up Portland’s freeways, again

This time, Oregon says it will keep Tim Boyle’s money.

Columbia Sportswear’s billionaire CEO gave the state $146,000 to clean up litter on Portland’s highways five years ago. The state Transportation Department spent $30,000 of that money to pick up 82 tons of trash but then its leaders returned the rest, saying they lacked the staff to complete the work.

Trash has continued to accumulate in the intervening years and so Boyle is trying again. At the recent Oregon Leadership Summit, Boyle offered a similar amount to restart the effort.

Boyle told the crowd of businessmen and Oregon leaders that blighted highways turn off prospective Columbia employees and tourists, dissuade residents from coming downtown and aggravate him personally.

“I have developed an unhealthy obsession with trash on the roadways around Portland,” Boyle said.

Oregon Department of Transportation leaders say they’re on board with Boyle’s objectives and Gov. Tina Kotek announced she wants the Legislature to pony up $20 million, too, to take on the messes marring Portland’s roadsides.

“The presence of trash and graffiti send the wrong signal to people who live in Portland and visitors,” said Elisabeth Shepard, a spokesperson for the governor. “Stewarding clean, livable, spaces in the city is critical to turning the corner on many of the challenges we have faced in recent years.”

Even if the Legislature comes through with the money Kotek wants, though, it’s not clear just when or where the cleanup will begin. Lawmakers don’t convene for their short session until February and Transportation Department leaders say they’re working through what to do, and where.

“The details of the program are still being hashed out and we expect to have more to share in the months to come,” said Kevin Glenn, the Transportation Department’s communications director.

However, he said the state is committed to working with Boyle and has agreed that its focus will include the areas along Interstate 405 that run along downtown Portland’s edge and Highway 26, at least as far as the tunnel that serves as a gateway into Portland’s core.

And Glenn said the Transportation Department will work with contractors this time to ensure it has the personnel to do the work.

Highway trash was a thorny issue in Portland even before the pandemic upheaval, with the city and state sparring over how to address the problem and who should pay for the work. It’s tied up with the contentious topic of homeless camps along the highway that generate some of the trash.

Rather than get bogged down in the politics around homeless camping, Boyle is urging the state to focus on the simple task of disposing of garbage.

“The camps are so complex and the homeless issue is so rife with problems that if you just concentrate on picking up the trash that’s at least something that can be done,” Boyle said in an interview. “It seems like it can be done pretty easily. That’s what’s always mystified me about this thing.”

The Transportation Department says the scope and cost of cleanup work varies by location. On I-405, Glenn said the department estimates it would cost $29,000 to pick up trash and remove graffiti twice a month, or $60,000 to do it weekly. Kotek is also talking with Union Pacific about enlisting the railroad to clean up its properties.

To supplement the state’s work, Boyle said he has commitments from Nike CEO John Donahoe and other business leaders for targeted efforts at cleaning up trash and improving the city’s image. And he wants to persuade advertising companies to grant him space on billboards for signs declaring, “Portland is not a trash can.”

The goal, Boyle said, is to prompt residents and their elected leaders, to make a concerted effort to take on the trash.

“The first way to address these things,” he said, “is to realize you have a problem [and] to start to deal with them.”