QuickTake:

A ship-to-rail project would increase freight trains passing through Eugene. For now, officials planning the Pacific Coast Intermodal Port project say much work lies ahead, including outreach in Lane County communities.

In less than a decade, a dozen milelong trains may make their way each day through Eugene on their way to and from the Oregon Coast. 

The Pacific Coast Intermodal Port project has wide-reaching implications for Lane County and Eugene, well beyond its start along the Oregon Coast near Coos Bay. When finished, the project would bring a container shipping terminal to the coast that would serve as a direct ship-to-rail facility that hauls cargo along rail lines beyond Coos Bay and north into Lane County and through Veneta, Eugene and beyond. 

The Pacific Coast Intermodal Port in Coos Bay is years away. The project planners still need to secure more than $1 billion for the $2.3 billion project. Even beyond the finances needed, there’s still about five years of work ahead for planning, design and construction. 

The Whiteaker Community Council, a neighborhood group in Eugene, offered an informational meeting Wednesday, Sept. 10, to hear about the project and ask questions. Project planners said they may not have all the answers but want to engage with communities and hear perspectives long before the construction work starts.

Interest is already strong in the Whiteaker neighborhood, which lies north of West Seventh Avenue and stretches east from Chambers Street to Skinner Butte Park. Railroad lines run through the neighborhood’s midsection. 

About 70 people packed into a room to hear from officials planning the intermodal port. Some questions – such as whether the trains will carry fossil fuels — officials could answer: They won’t. 

Other answers to questions, such as train schedules, aren’t yet available. 

“We want to answer your questions,” Melissa Cribbins, executive director of the Pacific Coast Intermodal Port, told the group. “I can’t say enough that this is the beginning of a conversation and not the end of one. I hope to see you all many, many more times.”

Melissa Cribbins, executive director of the Pacific Coast Intermodal Port, talks to the Whiteaker Community Council, a Eugene neighborhood group, about the port project in a meeting Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
Melissa Cribbins, executive director of the Pacific Coast Intermodal Port, talks to the Whiteaker Community Council, a Eugene neighborhood group, about the port project in a meeting Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. Credit: Ben Botkin / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Design work is yet to begin on the project. The requests for proposals to get bids for design work will go out next month, Cribbins said, jokingly adding this “means that all of the engineers in the United States will quit calling me” to ask when the request will be coming out.

Matt Friesen, director of external affairs for the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay, gave an overview of the area’s geographical features and infrastructure. 

The Port of Coos Bay is one of 23 ports in Oregon. It’s the largest deep draft port between San Francisco and Puget Sound, meaning it can handle massive, oceangoing vessels that bring freight across the Pacific into the U.S. The project location, just 6 miles from the open ocean, also would allow efficient shipping, proponents say.

The container shipping terminal still needs to be designed and built on 175 acres on the North Spit peninsula west of North Bend. The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay is planning the project with Kansas City-based NorthPoint Development as a public-private partnership.

The economic impacts include 2,600 jobs during the construction phase and another 2,500 long-term jobs. Throughout the region, another 7,000 indirect regional jobs would be created, port officials said. Caddy McKeown, a representative for NorthPoint and former state legislator, said the increased freight and travel will help draw warehousing and other opportunities. 

At this point, the officials said, it’s difficult to provide details beyond the general increase in jobs. But they stressed that the business side has to pencil out before the project becomes a reality.

“Everything has to line up,” McKeown said. “If the business case isn’t there, this doesn’t happen.”

Attendees also included city officials, staffers from U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle’s office, and state Sen. James Manning, D-Eugene. 

In brief remarks, Manning told the group it’s important to strike a right balance between creating new jobs and ensuring that residents’ health and air quality is not jeopardized.

“If we do it right, it will be a blessing,” he said. “But there are a lot of concerns out there.”

Margaret Steinbrunn, chair of the Whiteaker Community Council, said the council doesn’t have a position on the project. Instead, the council’s job is to provide information to neighborhood residents.

“Our responsibility is to bring the people with the facts to the community, so the community can make up their mind about what they how they feel,” Steinbrunn said.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.