road work

A $20,000 portable variable message sign sits dark on Sandy Boulevard, a victim of vandalism. Damage was estimated at $2,000.

(Oregon Department of Transportation)

To get a few cents' worth of scrap wire, vandals caused an estimated $2,000 in damage to an Oregon Department of Transportation sign valued at $20,000.



The $2,000 loss is minuscule in the context of ODOT's multibillion-dollar biennial budget. But such incidents add up to about $250,000 a year in the Portland area, according to ODOT spokesman Don Hamilton, and that money comes out of everyone's pockets.



"This becomes an invisible cost to taxpayers when we have to absorb these kinds of expenses," he said Thursday.



In the latest incident Tuesday, vandals cut the wires on a portable variable message sign - the kind that flashes "Right Lane Closed" - that ODOT was planning to use to alert motorists to paving work on Northeast Sandy Boulevard between 156th and 162nd Avenues Thursday night.



The damage put the sign out of commission. So not only did the incident cost taxpayers money, but it also cost neighborhood residents valuable information, Hamilton said.



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."



The agency is working with law enforcement and trying to make the public aware of the consequences of vandalism, he said.

-- Amy Wang

awang@oregonian.com

503-294-5914

@ORAmyW