Portland State University, University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, and Oregon State University were jointly designated a UTC under the SAFETEA-LU legislation in 2005. The center was named OTREC (Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium) and was the first UTC led by an Oregon university (PSU). This early origin story of NITC put Oregon on the map as a hub of multimodal transportation research for the nation.

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), enacted in 2005, provided the most significant expansion of the UTC program to date. SAFETEA-LU increased the number of UTCs from the 33 established in TEA-21 to 60, including the ten Regional UTCs plus a new group of ten competitive centers called Tier 1 Centers; the other 40 UTCs were located at institutions named in the Act. Annual authorized funding for the UTC program also increased from $32.5 million in TEA-21 to $85.9 million in SAFETEA-LU.