PORTLAND, Or— Over 60 thousand drivers a day head West on highway 26 through the  tunnel in Downtown Portland . If they looked up at all in the last few days they would see the word CHINA painted in BRIGHT YELLOW.  Don Hamilton with ODOT says this was a major distraction in a very dangerous place.  Hamilton says the graffiti vandals CUT  through a fence to get to the area above the tunnel. this kind of thing happens regularly.  Sometimes it’s generated from driver complaints.

This is such a tricky area, with little room it would have been easy for the vandals to spray paint the new costly digital sign below or dump paint on it.  Crews have started the process to remove it.