Metro Council just voted to give the Oregon Department of Transportation $250 million for the I-5 Rose Quarter project. The vote was a significant step that makes key funds available to ODOT so they can move forward with preliminary construction work this summer.
The vote comes just days after Metro Council members heard strong support for the project from leaders of Albina Vision Trust, a nonprofit working to re-establish the Black community displaced by construction of the freeway in the 1960s, and the owner of Raimore Construction, a minority owned and operated company that will receive contracts to build the project.
In addition to adding lanes to I-5 in a bid to reduce crashes and congestion, the project includes a cover over the freeway that will come with significant changes to the surface streets with a goal to improve bicycling and re-stitch neighborhoods together. The project has been nearly 15 years in the making and has changed considerably since ODOT first shared design proposals. Even with the addition of buildable freeway covers (which happened only through strong advocacy by Albina Vision Trust), folks who oppose the project don’t trust ODOT. They say it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that ODOT is hiding a larger, 10-lane freeway plan. Many opponents want congestion pricing in place prior to any work to widening the freeway, a policy that Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan already endorses.
“Any normal DOT engineer would have proposed nine lanes in each direction at this spot to balance out lanes… This is a tweak”
– Lynn Peterson, Metro Council president
Beyond those concerns, the total unraveling of ODOT’s budget for the project has become an even greater concern of many project skeptics. If the Trump administration continues to freeze around $400 million of an already-promised grant, the budget deficit could balloon to $1.4 billion. Critics say by allowing ODOT to move forward, the state will be on the hook to fully fund the project — siphoning funds from other needs in the process.
At their meeting this morning, Metro council passed the $250 million funding resolution 5-1 with one abstention. ODOT says they now have $863 million lined up for the project, enough to build major elements of the new freeway lanes and about 30% of the highway cover.
“This isn’t just about moving cars, it’s about rebuilding the community that was torn down,” said Metro Councilor Ashton Simpson when he introduced the resolution. “This project represents a significant economic opportunity. It will create thousands of good paying jobs” and “provide contracting opportunities for Black-owned businesses and Black contractors.” The project, Simpson said, will, “Restore the economic vitality that was stolen decades ago.”
“If we are serious about racial and economic equity,” Simpson, who is Black, continued: “Then we must hold ourselves accountable to the voices of impacted communities, and they have spoken clearly in support of this project.”
Councilor Christine Lewis said her “yes” vote should be seen as a sign that Metro can seen as a partner in progress with ODOT. “If we are going to move forward as a partner, working on big things for the state, this is the exact moment when we have to move forward.”
The idea that the time had simply come to do something, anything, to show progress on this project, also rang true for Councilor Gerritt Rosenthal. He expressed misgivings with the project, saying he doesn’t think it will reduce congestion, but that, “It’s necessary to move forward.”
Councilor Juan Gonzalez, who has taken principled stands against freeway expansions in the past, also voted yes this morning. “The action before us is to help program the largest restorative justice project in America. That’s a big deal right now,” he said. Gonzalez sounded proud of how Metro helped “mold” the project from just another freeway expansion into something he thinks, “will achieve so many of our goals across the board.” And similar to councilors Lewis and Rosenthal, Gonzalez said his support is also based on the belief that, “It’s important to send a message to Salem and D.C. that this region can and will build big, beautiful things.”
Councilor Duncan Hwang couldn’t get himself to vote “yes” or “no,” so he abstained. He said he is “deeply supportive” of all the jobs for Black business owners and the reconnection of this historic Albina community; but he also has serious reservations about ODOT’s fiscal irresponsibility. Hwang said he couldn’t live with the double-standard of taking other agencies to task for spending money they don’t have, then turn around and support ODOT doing the same.
Mary Nolan was the only Metro Council member to vote against the resolution. She said, “I find a deep irony that this project intends to repair past harms to the Black community that was caused by highway construction, and the solution is more highway construction. I don’t think that will work as a reparation.” Nolan echoed Hwang when she added that, “I won’t join a chorus that lectures other governments about how to be fiscally responsible — how not to bust their budgets — and then turn around and do exactly the same thing with this project.”
Metro Council President Lynn Peterson is the strongest supporter of them all. She referred to ODOT’s plans for the freeway as a mere “tweak” and said our region should be grateful ODOT isn’t going even bigger. “Any normal DOT engineer would have proposed nine lanes in each direction at this spot to balance out lanes.” “This is a tweak” Peterson continued, “It’s a tweak to give us another option in the future, to be able to reduce fender-benters, increase the safety, be able to mitigate congestion in the future, but also be able to do things with the community in hand that they want, and this cap is part of it. And slowing down at this point would indicate to the state that we are not interested in the cap at all.”
Peterson then addressed concerns with ODOT’s budget:
“There is no money that will be budgeted until there is money in hand. I want to be very clear about that. This is not something that we’re giving permission to the state to go out and sign a contract that they can’t actually commit to. That’s what happened in other situations. That’s why we called them out. This is allowing the project to move forward into the next step. So if no money is in hand, we can expressly move forward as quickly as possible.”
To Peterson, the freeway expansion plans — which call for one new “auxiliary lane” in each direction between I-84 to the south and I-405 to the north — coupled with the cap and surface street elements of the project are a “balanced approach”:
“… That balanced approach is being able to see a little bit of work for the future of the interstate system and our economy, as well as a maximum benefit to the community it goes through. That is what I call an amazing amount of balance. And it was not easy to get to, because it is not the way we normally do business. So I would just try to recognize that we are no longer in the ’70s. We are not fighting that fight. That fight is over. The fight that we have now is to make sure that every project that we invest in, that we spend our time in, has a balanced approach that allows everybody to benefit, not just one part of our community.”
In a statement after the meeting, No More Freeways, a nonprofit group that has organized community opposition and has filed several lawsuits against the project, said, “ODOT will do anything, say anything, promise anything, to get the project started because they know we’ll have to pay whatever it takes to finish it. This is cynical and wrong.”
ODOT says this funding from Metro, coupled with the (still very uncertain) $450 million federal grant and other funds already dedicated to the project, will allow them to get started on the project this summer and begin construction of the freeway expansion and cap in 2027.
Thanks for reading.
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Mary Nolan showing up and saying what needs to be said again! Proud to be in her district!
*their district! 🙂
Doh! I’m usually good about remembering that about them, too! Yes, I’m proud to be in their district!
I remain deeply cynical about this project. ODOT has shown that the priority for getting started is all of the roadway widening, and basically none of the community benefits. They only have enough money to build a single block of freeway cap, and do not have the money to do much at all in the way of active transportation improvements. Even if you like the idea of the final project, who does Metro think will pay to close the funding gap? It seems that the chances of the federal government paying for a restorative justice project in Portland, OR are zero, and ODOT is functionally broke.
It’s frustrating to see so much dialogue on this project center around the promises that ODOT has made, rather than on the most likely expected outcomes given the funding circumstances.
In rational terms I’ll try to rethink the freeway cap designs and conclude much less development potential than claimed in public statements. We can ignore speeding lines of traffic wherever and whenever the nearest crosswalk is least dangerous. Officially, it’s Reckless Endangerment to build housing near rampaging traffic.
Salvageable component: the new southbound on-ramp from Weidler – and – the traffic ‘bridgeway’ from Broadway to new Weidler southbound on-ramp (better visibility, safer downhill entrance plus more distance to merge.
Salvageable component: the Weidler Eastway Exit gentle rising loop southbound I-5 Exit and its inter-action with the I-5 Northbound exit there.
Trust me. I’ve laid it out in accurate renderings. All traffic can be better managed with fewer traffic lanes, less concrete wall, more clean air landscaping and maximize crosswalk safety. I like that word maximize. One of my 3 cats was Max, “the sportscar of cats.”
Salvageable component: the new southbound on-ramp from Weidler and the traffic ‘bridgeway’ from Broadway to the southbound on-ramp. Better visibility, safer downhill entrance and more distance to merge.
Salvageable component: the “Weidler Eastway Exit” gentle rising loop Exit southbound and its inter-action with the I-5 Northbound exit there.
Unsalvageable component: the southbound exit to Broadway MUST NOT be relocated to Wheeler Way just south of Weidler. As proposed it is a “hairpin turn” that will result in multi-car pileups, injury and fatalities. The southbound exit to Broadway can be devoted to westbound turns only (an improvement for pedestrians) while access to Weidler eastbound is separate.
These two actual “improvements” need no more lanes, but Peterson does not want the public to know that. Lynn Peterson is intentionally acting against public safety. She needs to be removed from office and face criminal charges that culminate in Negligent Homicide.
This is a great example of when centering racial “justice” trumps common sense. Got to vote differently if you don’t want this to continue.
And you know what the real rub is? If we cared about reconnecting the Albina neighborhood, the single best way to do that is to remove I-5 from the neighborhood entirely.
But alas, the all-important Level of Service must never, ever, not even once, not even for a shift to more efficient and sustainable modes, not even if the long-dormant balrog slumbering under Mt Tabor awakes Tabor and lays waste to the city, be reduced. It is known, and so it is written in the Professional Engineer’s holy scripture, A Policy on Design Standards Interstate System. So, the Albina neighborhood will remain divided, and automobiles will continue to be delivered to the front door of the Moda Center for the convenience of any and all fiscally and physically capable of owning and operating them.
Don’t tell that to the folks on Hawthorne, Foster, 82nd, or any of the other streets where we’re removing auto lanes.
Yeah PBOT! Booo ODOT! I live on those roads and it’s great. More please.
I’m referring specifically to the decision makers and engineers at ODOT, where there is absolutely no appetite whatsoever for ever reducing the level of service at any state-owned highway. Neither Hawthorne, nor Foster, nor 82nd within the city limits are under the jurisdictional control of ODOT. Indeed, on 82nd the state had to renounce any jurisdiction and transfer it to the city before any road dieting even became an option that would be considered. PBOT, for all of its faults, at least broadly understands that shifting mode share away from personal automobiles using a variety of tools, including road diets, is important for the health of the transportation system and the city more generally. ODOT cares only about moving as many passenger and freight vehicles as possible as quickly as possible to and through any given location, and they will continue to operate that way until the Legislative Assembly and Governor force them to do otherwise.
I’m curious what would be in the downstream effect of deleting I-5 through N. Portland in your mind. Where would those cars go? What impacts to which neighborhoods would happen?
Here are a couple that seem reasonably plausible to me:
1) traffic throughput decreases significantly
2) decreased throughput is bad enough that a small number of people find different jobs or move away from the region entirely
3) I-405 becomes a parking lot 7am – 7pm, 7 days a week, heavily impacting air quality for that neighborhood
4) those that don’t move or quit, spill over into neighborhoods, increasing risks to vulnerable road users in those areas & impacting air quality
5) Cycling and transit mode shares stay roughly the same
6) The Albina neighborhood is partially reconnected
How about replacing I-5 with a nice wide tree-lined boulevard like those they have in central Paris?
So cannon balls can bounce their way merrily through the peasants when they are done eating cake??
I believe the current Portland administration and council are pro-protest and not anti-protest, but we’ll see how they actually feel when things start to get frisky.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/12/20/parisian-boulevards-built-wide-not-for-cars-but-to-better-quell-street-protests/
That’s a bit of a funny, cynical (but admittedly interesting) take on it. Actual history is a lot more muddled. I’m not a historian, but generally Napoleon III had an interest in redesigning the city by adding a lot of boulevards, as did many rulers that time because of a lot of reasons (e.g., overcrowding, sanitation, fires and yes political unrest). We forget that most of the world’s cities weren’t designed around cars, but organically grew. Still, living in cities at the time of the industrial revolution was hell (now cars do most of the work to create that hell). Victor Considerant:
But just as the origin of the Champs (aka Grand Cours) came out of showing off royal play areas in the 17th century, today’s Champs does not reflect that original purpose. Just in the last few years it has dramatically changed to include a lot more pedestrianized plazas and limiting car traffic.
david, you’re speaking my language. Cut and cover, reroute Amtrak service in preparation for potential upgrades for HSR, return development to the dozens of square miles removed in the 50s and 60s, and convert Mem coliseum to a Rail station and event space. Portland has so much squandered potential.
The following quote from Metro Presiding officer Lynn Peterson told me everything I need to know about her abusive position of power:
“Any ‘normal’ DOT engineer would propose nine lanes in each direction at this ‘spot’ to balance out lanes. This is a tweak to give us other options in the future. To reduce fender-benders, increase safety, to mitigate congestion, and do things with the community that they want and this cap is part of it.”
Would any ‘normal’ DOT engineer propose 9-lanes in each direction? No. She’s lying about that and lying about this stretch of I-5 being a “bottleneck” and lying about development potential on caps.
The southbound exit to Broadway must remain for safety. Relocating it to south of Weidler at Wheeler Way is a death trap and she knows it. Leaving the exit there reduces development potential in the same way the entrance northbound limits development potential.
Moreover, living near maddening Broadway & Weidler traffic and so close to equally maddening freeway on/off traffic presents a safety hazard that Ms Peterson has dismissed. She is presenting a deceitful prospect of 9 lanes in each direction as even more sensible than adding 2 or 3 lanes in each direction. Ms Peterson & ODOT director Kris Strickler have no interest in public safety. ***Moderator: deleted last sentence—too over-the-top, name-calling.***
7) The 70% of people that don’t need to drive for work find other ways of commuting.
8) The 25% of people that don’t need to be on the road during high traffic periods choose to drive another time.
9) The 50% of people that could consolidate trips start doing it so they’re on the road less.
PBOT studies have shown that the inner city I-5 is used primarily as a redundant travel route for people that live in Portland and are usually traveling 5 miles or less. This mode of interstate travel requires oversized over-powered vehicles. These oversized over-powered vehicles clog surface streets and make them more dangerous for everyone, pushing the perceived need for oversized over-powered vehicles onto surface street use as well. Taking out I-5 or restricting it to a small footprint that is not amenable to trips under 5 miles would shift vehicle use to safer, more economic, appropriately sized vehicles, including bikes, walking and transit. It would allow for denser residential and commerce development, which in turn would decrease the need to travel long distances for commonly used goods and services.
Taking out I-5 and making it difficult to use for shorter trips would also dramatically increase the vehicle traffic on the streets where I like to walk and bike. I seriously doubt it would cause people to buy smaller or safer vehicles or switch to bikes.
On one hand, we have a chorus of folks calling for facilities that completely separate cars away from bikes/pedestrians. On the other hand, we have a chorus of people calling for the removal of a roadway that diverts car traffic away from the roads that bikes and pedestrians use.
In theory, you could have both. But that doesn’t feel realistic at the moment.
Realistic? Very few people here are willing to engage with the realities of the ideas they enjoy dreaming about.
It may divert drivers off roads that pedestrians use but those on and off ramps that come with that diversion are some of the most dangerous conflict points in the city. Since about half of traffic deaths occur on ODOT infrastructure in the city despite ODOT controlling very little infrastructure one could argue that the less ODOT infrastructure we have the safer we all are.
What’s the spatial context? Half of traffic deaths in the city or state?
Addressing safety issues at the points of conflict seems way more feasible than removing the interstate (and then spreading those points of conflict out into the surrounding neighborhoods).
I wonder if the bike signals at Broadway & Williams have made a noticeable difference. It seems like they have to me, but I don’t have the data to support that gut feeling
Half the deaths in the city occurred on ODOT infrastructure. Since we’re the largest city you can sure as shit bet an even larger portion occurred throughout the rest of the state.
Except we have about 75 years of data that says it isn’t. ODOT doesn’t care about safety and continues to prioritize moving cars around over lives. You say it’s more feasible but here we are 75 years and $100s of billions later and ODOT is still using the same shitty designs that move more cars and kill more people.
Sure doesn’t seam feasible or easy to me but what do I know. Maybe go write them a letter to stop wasting money on freeway expansions and instead spend that on safety. Sure the dozens of lawsuits haven’t made a difference but Paul H thinks it’s more feasible if we can just get ODOT to change… Meanwhile people keep dying on ODOTs infrastructure.
Or, better, write to your state senators, representatives, and the governor; they’re the ones who set ODOT’s priorities.
And you elect them.
Khan Pham and Willy Chotzen already know how I feel about ODOT and already agree with me. I suppose I could write some GOP senators out in Malheur County but I don’t think they’re going to listen. The point is it’s not more feasible to just change ODOT and make them build safer roads without dismantling ODOT. Ripping up I5 is a good start to doing that.
How are you going to convince ODOT to remove I-5? You’d have to get the legislature and/or governor to direct them to do that and appropriate the necessary funds.
Which takes you right back to your elected officials.
“I suppose I could write some GOP senators out in Malheur County but I don’t think they’re going to listen.”
Sounds like the start of a good plan. Its called coalition building and if your goal is to actually prevent this insane interstate widening project it would be a good thing to start. It should be clear to everyone here that the democrat majority in Salem is all for this project to happen.
It’s also clear that the widening aspect is the part of the project they want to do and the parts being championed here are not going to happen.
So who’s left that could actually bring a halt to this environmental boondoggle? Maybe finding some R’s to work with some dissatisfied D’s will actually bring about the results you are looking for?
Khan Pham’s my senator in the Legislative Assembly, so…..
…so how does that help convince ODOT to do something different than what the legislature has told them to do?
How many deaths?
Have you ever looked over the plans that to bury interstate 5?
We either possess curiosity and an ability to perceive how the world can change, or we live in a mental prison of false probabilities, waiting for others to construct the world around us.
It’s too easy to spend one’s time being a tedious bore in the bike portland comment section and elsewhere.
Covering an interstate is different than ripping it out. I’m 100% on board with covering. I think widening is a dumb waste of money, and I think ripping it out will probably not have great consequences.
In (most of) this thread, we’ve been discussing the suggestion to rip it out.
Burying the I-5. https://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=392836
But removing it on the east bank would be more practical and probably have a better long term ROI and be more effective at improving the urban environment.
thanks for sharing this link!
Seems like that would be an argument for removing on ramps, not the interstate itself.
People would not trade in their large cars for smaller ones if you deleted I-5 (or the on-ramps) as they seem perfectly content with them in all other driving scenarios
“or restricting it to a small footprint that is not amenable to trips under 5 miles” is essentially removing ramps, but the valuable space that is wasted on the I-5 and the negative effects of having this monstrosity through the central east side argue for completely removing it.
Larger car use is influenced by a number of factors that counterbalance the numerous problems and inconveniences that they create. In an urban environment people would shift; the same way that they have shifted to large cars that are encouraged by our current transportation and parking system. Hundreds of cities demonstrate that this would be the case.
Not American cities, and are there really that many European cities where they removed a highway through the city and in response people downsized their personal vehicles?
Every time, and I mean every time, a supposedly critical highway connection is disrupted for one reason or another, people like you predict Carmaggedon, and every time what actually happens is that people adjust their behavior and Carmageddon doesn’t come to pass. There is zero reason, none, that people need a direct, high-speed throughway through central Portland, which is what I-5 provides between exits 299A and 303. To the extent that connections are needed to originate or deliver freight and people to various places in Portland, there’s zero reason those delivery points need to be the front door of the Moda Center, or the Lloyd Center, or OMSI, or Portland State University. The train yards and shipping depots in Brooklyn, Swan Island, PDX, etc? Yeah, I can understand that, but again, that’s not for through traffic. But Jordan Schnitzer doesn’t need to be provided the convenience of shaving 10 minutes off of his commute to SW 12th & Salmon in the luxury of his personal car to the tune of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds in the form I-405’s Exit 1D, to say nothing of the unproductive property in the heart of the city and the danger posed to the students, faculty, and staff of Lincoln High School. I-5 and I-405, in their current form, simply do not belong in central Portland, full stop.
I’m warming to the idea of removing (some of) the exits. Truly make the interstates a fast route through town.
Is there a good reference to look at the short- and long-term effects of a major interstate removal?
You need look no further afield than our own city in 1974 to see the short- and long-term effects of a major highway removal, when the state removed Harbor Drive from the west bank of the Willamette in downtown.
Anyway, I found this compilation of case studies for you: Nashville Case Study 2 – Seattle.pdf
Converting Harbor Drive into a park, while greatly improving Portland’s waterfront, was not “major highway removal”.
I was in Seattle last week. They removed the Alaskan Way viaduct and replaced it with a low-key surface street. There was a LOT of protest against that project and a lot of predictions about traffic grinding the whole city to a halt. That didn’t happen.
https://waterfrontseattle.org/waterfront-projects/alaskan-way
This link includes some details of the tunnel that was part of the project
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/project_profiles/wa_alaskan_way.aspx
Take a look, then imagine removing I-5 south of 405. You could tunnel from that point to I-84, but the N/S traffic would use I-405. Then cap 405 through downtown. That is a similar size/scope to the project that is being funded now, but it accomplishes WAY more for the City and retains a functional freeway.
So first, apologies if this feels like moving the goal post. If it does, I blame myself for not communicating more clearly up thread. But my understanding of Seattle’s Alaska Way project is that it’s more like Boston’s Big Dig, i.e., a highway relocation project and that it’s not a highway removal project. They’re moving traffic underground.
That’s different than deleting the roadway entirely not replacing the capacity with something else.
Is my understanding correct?
Michael cited Harbor Drive here in Portland. Harbor Drive’s AADT was 25,000 (per the document in Michael’s link). I-5 sees just shy of 119,000 vehicles/day according to ODOT’s maps:
https://gis.odot.state.or.us/transgis/
You’re not wrong about the Alaskan Way Viaduct simply being replaced with a tunnel, rather than removed entirely. However, we did get a short-term experiment in a highway-sized road diet when State Route 99 was shut down entirely at various points for several weeks in order to switch over the access points from the viaduct to the tunnel. Understandably, people predicted Carmageddon. What happened instead was that people adapted, changed their behavior, and congestion on the wider road network was largely unaffected.
‘The cars just disappeared’: What happened to the 90,000 cars a day the viaduct carried before it closed? | The Seattle Times
There was another surprise short-term experiment in Philadelphia not too long ago, when an overpass along I-95 collapsed as the result of a vehicle fire. Once again, while there was some localized congestion increase on the official detours, the broader metropolitan road network was unaffected as people simply adjusted their travel behavior.
I-95 collapse never created ‘carmageddon’ for drivers – WHYY
One of the most striking examples of a major highway removal’s effect on both traffic and the local environment is Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration project (which was called out in my previous list of case studies), which removed a four-lane elevated highway over a historically polluted river, along with several lanes of frontage road on either side, in a dense neighborhood of northern Seoul. Today, the restored stream is a lovely bit of green space and a tourist destination in the neighborhood, and the worries about Carmageddon from its removal in 2005 largely did not come to pass.
The loss of road capacity and self-compliance: Lessons from the Cheonggyecheon stream restoration – ScienceDirect
The upshot is quite easy to understand, if somewhat unintuitive in its application: people adapt their behaviors to the environment around them, which includes the transportation network. If you make it easier to drive a personal automobile, more personal automobiles will be driven. If you put that ease of driving in a city center, your city center will be clogged with cars. If you replace that automobile-centric infrastructure with alternatives, such as more frequent and more comprehensive mass transit and calmed and safe routes for pedestrians and cyclists, you’ll get more people taking mass transit, bicycles, and their own two feet to get around.
Thanks for the links. The Philly case is interesting because they were able to create a temporary replacement (6 lanes) within 2 week and SEPTA’s regional rail service was able to scale up to accommodate people temporarily switching to that (something I’m not sure Trimet could do right now).
We’re on the same page regarding building viable mass transit alternatives.
There’s zero reason you need to travel more than 2 blocks from where you live.
There are plenty of reasons. I doubt you’ve asked anyone.
The solution is always “divert the cars to I-205” aka “let the poors deal with it.”
The first round of POC were displaced by I-5, then progressives showed up and displaced most of the others through gentrification. Guess where a lot of the POC ended up? East County. Which is, conveniently, where all the keyboard warriors want to send our interstate traffic exhaust– in the name of “social justice” per usual. The racism is barely obscured.
Let’s walk through this argument.
False reasoning (straw man argument). The solution to what problem?
False reasoning (appeal to victimhood)
Oversimplification again. Part of the problem is talking about a group of people in “Rounds.” In 1844 African Americans were required to receive lashes to enter Oregon due to the Oregon Black Exclusion Laws. Vanport was one of the first places where African Americans were allowed to live in Oregon in the early 20th century. After the flood in 1948, many displaced people were allowed to integrate into areas such as Albina. Albina was redlined, and removed under the guise of “urban renewal” despite it being one of the most vibrant neighborhoods of Portland at the time.
False, hasty generalization, false cause. No one political group displaced an entire part of Portland.
Partially true. This is an oversimplification again.
Dehumanizing language tends to lead to moral exclusion, reducing empathy and allows a psychological loophole for your false argument. No one group wants to send exhaust, nor are they capable of doing so.
Social justice is important, except for people who often use it as a straw man. I agree that racism is important to out. That’s why your attempt to use it as yet another straw man in your argument is important to expose and magnify so people can see in a clear light.
Using the Exclusion Laws seems like a straw man. It’s in no way relevant to the discussion, and seems to be done just to give yourself some kind of appeal to morality leverage
My point is that simplifying history to fit a convenient narrative is misleading. Expanding historical context regarding the exclusion of specific groups of people is an effective means for countering that narrative. I welcome you to add to that context in any way or correct any mistakes I’ve made in providing examples of that history.
This is vastly oversimplified to the point of being not particularly useful. The parts of Multnomah County which have become more Black in the last 30 years – the racial group most obviously affected by gentrification in Albina – are not exactly clustered around I-205. Here are the census tracts, and their 1990 Black population and 2023 Black population:
For reference, the Blackest census tract in historic Albina is 34.01 (bounded by Killingsworth, Albina, MLK, and Skidmore) at 18.04%, and was 67.58% in 1990. Outside of historic Albina, St Johns (41.04) and Portsmouth (40.03, 39.03) are at 26.83% and ~20% respectively. St Johns has become significantly more Black since 1990, while Portsmouth has been steady.
There are other patterns that contribute more to the concentration of POC near I-205, namely the establishment of the Jade District, something which has been happening for the last ~20 to 30 years. To the extent that this is a result of gentrification seems unlikely, but I would have to read more about the specific history. Given that the two tracts that make up the bulk of the Jade District have a high proportion of foreign born residents, I feel like immigration is a more likely candidate than displacement.
In any case, to the extent that this history matters is debatable. But I feel that it’s important to recognize that the history of displacement relating to I-5 and the history relating to east county becoming more racially diverse are different things, with different factors, and the displacement from Albina is not exclusive to areas that most people would consider to be “near I-205”. There are 5 census tracts in Multnomah County which are less than 40% White – 41.03 (Portsmouth), 74 (Cully north of Killingsworth), 83.01 (bounded by Division/Holgate/82nd/I-205), 96.06 (Glenfair), and 103.04 (Wood Village/Fairview). 2 are west of 205, 2 are east of 205, and 1 borders 205.
Is there a case that the current racial dynamics of Multnomah County do not favor the removal of I-5 on racial equity grounds? I could be convinced, but I don’t think it’s clear cut, and certainly not to the extent you imply in your comment. I do think there’s a compelling case for better transportation investments in St Johns and Portsmouth though for whatever that’s worth
I’m confused. The “racial justice” (i.e., freeway lid) as well as the safety arguments (e.g., reduce fender benders) have always been peripheral to the IRQ project purpose. They were not the original purpose of the project in any way. The original purpose was to “Provide smoother traffic flow on I-5 through ramp-to-ramp connections and wider shoulders.” That’s it. Your argument is completely non-sensical.
“RACIAL JUSTICE” is the main basis on which this project is being funded. “RACIAL JUSTICE”
is what got the votes for it to be approved.
Exactly. AFTER the project had been foundering for years without support. The RQ project was started in 2010. There was no “racial justice” component to the project.
ODOT proposed the freeway covers a decade later in 2020 to appease the HAAB and other groups in order to get support to build the original project. The only reason it has garnered any support is due to the subsequent addition of, and potential for, freeway covers. Those covers are potentially funded under the “Reconnecting Communities Grants,” under the guise that they will allow the neighborhood to reconnect and rebuild. So again, your comment makes absolutely no sense as this project had nothing to do with racial justice for a decade until it was reincarnated by ODOT as a “restorative project.”
yeah it’d be really messed up irony if ODOT completed the freeway expansion elements and not the caps…. Because it’s the caps and the racial justice component of this project that gave ODOT the political space necessary for the freeway parts to happen in the first place.
If the funding for the caps isn’t completely locked down before the project starts, I think that is a very real possibility.
You think the Trump administration is going to actually provide the money once they figure out what it’s for? And once construction has started, the leverage for caps is gone, but the impetus to finish the highway portion will be huge.
It was a clever tactic on their part. A modification of the normal “for the children” that works so well come time to create a new levy. Since building the cap and the subsequent headache of who owns/is responsible for the new land is the most difficult part of the project and coincidentally the unfunded part there should be little doubt that it will be easy to either cancel that part of the project completely or simply string it along in perpetuity as they “try to figure it out”.
Your response actually validates Angus Peters statement.
AG – “RACIAL JUSTICE” is the main basis on which this project is being funded. “RACIAL JUSTICE”
is what got the votes for it to be approved.
E– The only reason it has garnered any support is due to the subsequent addition of, and potential for, freeway covers.
…..until it was reincarnated by ODOT as a “restorative project.”
The hair you are trying to split is thin to the point of non-existence.
Here’s the quote again. Let’s dissect it.
To me that means:
1). We should not fund (any?) transportation projects based on “racial justice.” Get rid of the caps. They are a waste of time. Attempting to restore any community deleted by a freeway is a waste of time.
2). “Common sense” means continue to build one mode (car infrastructure such as freeways) regardless of their actual benefit to the city, and regardless of any budgetary constraints.
3). Voting for someone else (presumably extremely conservative or far right) would have support for any and all freeway expansions with the exclusion of any “racial justice” elements.
That is an enormous difference. He doesn’t object to the ulterior motives ODOT has in ostensibly supporting any effort to rebuild a community destroyed by “urban renewal.” He objects to the very consideration of that effort outright.
Thats not at all the quote I was referring to. I had two quotes that I believe I delineated as clearly as possible. I’m not sure how the conversation tree looks on your computer/device, but the quotes I took from Angus are from this entry…..
“RACIAL JUSTICE” is the main basis on which this project is being funded. “RACIAL JUSTICE”
is what got the votes for it to be approved.
and then immediately below it you start an entry with……
Exactly. AFTER the project had been foundering for years without support. The RQ project was started in 2010. There was no “racial justice” component to the project.
and it ends with……
So again, your comment makes absolutely no sense as this project had nothing to do with racial justice for a decade until it was reincarnated by ODOT as a “restorative project.”
So those are the entries I based my observation on. I (still) believe his statement from the quote I am actually using does make sense and your refutation of it is extraordinary nit picking discussing only the “perhaps when” rather than the “why and how”.
I’m not clear where the quote you are wanting to dissect is coming from and as such I am not responding in this statement to any arguments you have put forth in discussing said quote.
This is the original comment I replied to. Ignoring that makes the entire thread meaningless.
That neighborhood isn’t coming back
The residents were displaced over 60 years ago. And you think that neighborhood is going to be rebuilt? The people don’t even exist anymore
holy shit man that is a horrible thing to say. Just because the n’hood was erased, the people most certainly were not. They exist throughout the city and I’ve heard many of them testify about how they remember living there and the ties to that area in their family. I find your comment extremely insensitive and borderline inappropriate.
I’ve been living our here in NC for nearly 10 years now and I’ve met several ex-Portland African-American residents who were priced out from north central Portland. I’ve also met several African-Americans out here who intend to move to Portland or already have moved, who aren’t originally from the west coast. Portland, like all large American cities, has a certain turnover in residents – black, white, Latinx, 20-something retirees, Japanese, punk, even weird people – and neighborhood mixes are constantly changing. It’s all part of a healthy complete city.
This project is probably not going to solve congestion.
The project needs tolling and demand management.
One additional auxiliary lane for the 405 to 84 is probably not going to work.
There are 17 lanes of travel piling into 3 lanes of Eastbound I-84
1 SB from the North ====== I-5
1 SB from Swan Island === Greeley Ave
1 SB from NW PDX I-405 == I-405
2 SB from NE Broadway == Wheeler
1 SB from Inner NE ====== MLK
1 EB from downtown ==== Morrison Bridge
1 EB Broadway Bridge === Wheeler
2 EB from NE Interstate == Ramsay
1 EB Irving NE 12th Ave == NE 16th
2 EB from SW PDX ====== I-405
1 WB Irving from Sandy === NE 16th
1 NB from Inner NE ====== Grand
1 NB from NE 16th ======= NE 16th
1 NB from the South ====== I-5
—
17
Not probably. It won’t solve congestion. ODOT themselves have admitted that fact. It will increase throughput, which is what they want. More drivers on the road. Never mind that they’ll be stuck in the same or worse congestion. And just think it’ll only cost $2 billion+ for such a marvel of engineering.
The air quality at Tubman middle school is so bad that children have to limit the time they can play outside, but yeah, let’s cheer for ODOT as they are poised to pull the rug out from under the black community once again. Simpson and the others know that ODOT isn’t going to follow through on reconnecting the community, but they are glad to pretend otherwise.
The black community in Boise petitioned PPS to open the school, with full knowledge of the air quality issues.
What a victory for the Albina trust and the Metro council.
The small population of Black people who still live in the neighborhood will live next to an even Bigger Freeway!
More pollution, more noise, A real win, the council members other than Nolan, seemed proud of it.
Peterson is a former highway design and construction engineer who wants to be Governor. No surprise she’ll greenlight climate arson and stealing all the money from actual safety, transportation choice, and congestion-solving projects – that’s what the highway lobby wants.
Glad to see Mary Nolan be the only one calling out the reality of the budget debacle this will cause. That’s what leadership looks like.
Everyone else – seems like it’s all a quest for power, when all the evidence is this is black hole for money, while making it faster and easier for everyone to drive everywhere, and while scores of Oregonians die on our streets that could be made safer if we spent the money on actual safety projects.
This is so maddening! Their smug talk about restorative justice belies the fact that they are supporting highway widening AND a bunch of really sketchy wide and fast 2-lane on and off-ramps that are going to be pumping cars through this amazing new neighborhood. It just an absolutely transparent veneer of BS to pretend to care about community and vote to further bankrupt our transportation agency with a project that will create more noise and pollution on the highway and create a more dangerous environment for everyone above it. They could close an exit (or 2), skip the widening, narrow the on and off-ramps to single lanes, and invest money in a cap that includes safe street features like small radius corners, narrow roads, slower driving speeds, bike facilities. This project is terrible, and Raimore should not be allowed to testify in favor of it since they are going to directly benefit from it! Of course they want tit, they will earn millions! Allowing a minority-owned contractor that is in-line for a huge payout speak in the role of a community advocate is a terrible way to represent community needs. ODOT is shameless and Metro is spineless.
Disappointing.
I’ve never been a Hwang fan. He has some questionable ethics:
https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/05/04/two-metro-councilors-employers-get-money-from-metro-a-candidate-cries-foul/
The shift from opposing freeway expansion to intense vigilance of surface street and land use effects of this big project is now required. A coordinated (by Bikeloud?) effort of active transportation advocacy individuals/organizations who each choose a specific, small geographic area will be necessary because the project is just too big and far-reaching to be closely monitored by one entity as a whole. These individuals/organizations must not just be willing to include and hear those property owners and other stakeholders in their section, but to actively solicit it and genuinely understand, care, value, and include it in their active transportation advocacy. So you oppose freeway expansion? Yeah, me too. But are you going to now tuck tail and walk away that it is happening? Or are you going to work to influence how it will include and affect the things you care about? Hit me up for a start on this.
Real bummer to see Simpson and Gonzalez become such clowns for ODOT. Seems like a well-worn pathway from community advocacy to low level office, to political ambitions that require hyping destructive monied interests.
“Any normal DOT engineer would have proposed nine lanes in each direction at this spot to balance out lanes. This is a tweak”
at 240 feet width- I’m sure 9 lanes in each direction would fit. with 10.5′ lanes you could have shoulders easily (95 + 12+12). Don’t tempt the traffic engineers to build a monstrosity through our neighborhood.
Hey Allan. Yes, you’re correct. The width allows for subsequent restriping and a massive expansion of the available lanes. Here are the measurements from existing ODOT docs. Simply burning the 2+ billion dollars would be much more beneficial to Portland than building this project. At the very least it would be only debt our next generation would have to deal with.
This is not to say that highways are inherently “bad.” We can create a functional system of transportation that increases the ability for people to make choices about their mode of travel, and improves the quality of life for people in Portland. This project is the opposite. We could connect Vancouver under Forest Park to complete the ring highway around Portland for a similar amount of money. This would divert interstate travel from the center of the city, and allow us to begin to remove urban freeways. We could spend this money on rebuilding several bridges that are over a century old.
For perspective the Robertson tunnel built in 2000 cost $963 million. A tunnel under downtown connecting the MAX lines would cost between $1-2 billion.
Instead of deciding to head in the direction of a city like Montreal or Vancouver B.C., we are simply reliving the mistakes of the outer boroughs of NYC and LA for most of this and the last century, and ignoring the logical result.
Can’t really “head in the direction of a city like Montreal or Vancouver B.C.”…. the never put a highway system through their cities like the US. It’s basically impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
Here are 8 examples of urban highway removal projects, one of which happens to be Montreal.
The Bonaventure Expressway project in Montreal, with a similar scope as Harbor Drive/Waterfront Park here in Portland (another one of the 8 projects you referenced) looks like it made a big difference for Montreal’s riverfront, just as removing Harbor Drive did for ours.
Neither project transformed the transportation system, but both projects improved their respective cities in the specific areas where they were implemented.
Sure mate but these are “small potato” projects as compared to the wholesale removal of an interstate corridor such as I-5
Eh, the removal of the Cheonggye freeway in Seoul is of a similar scope, as is the Big Dig. Of course, the Big Dig was a freeway widening project so its inclusion is dubious in that list anyways.
I can assure you the Big Dig did not reduce driving in Boston. That city is as crazy as it ever was.
Right, and it widened the highway from 6 lanes to 8 to 10 – which is why I think it’s not a good inclusion on the list that was cited above
We agree! (I gave your comment above an upvote when I first read it.)
Most of these projects are not similar to something like removing I-5, as you so aptly pointed out below.
Here’s another example from the US. Rochester has removed most of the highway system through its central core called the “Inner Loop” completed in 1965 to relieve congestion. As with the introduction of most urban freeways in the US, the result was plummeting property values, emptying of the city core, and the subsequent tax base.
In 2014, most of the loop was removed and a report on economic viability showed +$200 million in investments since the freeway was removed. Because of that success, Rochester plans to continue to remove more of their urban freeway system.
The Inner Loop in Rochester is not very similar to I5 through North Portland. It’s not a through route – it’s spur of a spur. And the removals on the docket in Rochester are just more of the Inner Loop.
I think that nearly all US freeway removals (at least that I can think of) are routes like this. Ill-advised downtown spurs/loops (Harbor Drive in Portland, Park East in Milwaukee, Inner Loop) that had little observable effect on traffic patterns even to highway engineers. Yes, Tom McCall had to force ODOT to consider removing Harbor Drive, but they also agreed to it because of the construction of I-405. The Park East freeway in Milwaukee was removed in part because the plans related to it never materialized. This sort of freeway removal is great, but it’s categorically different than removing a core trunk of an interstate highway. No highway department would ever consent to that, not unless some project were underway to construct a bigger, “better”, parallel route.
To the extent that the highway department is correct about this stuff is debatable, and I personally doubt that removing I5 would create a traffic Armageddon in the long run. It would change the state of regional land use/value, probably in favor of Portland, but it would be a painful process where families and firms relocate in accordance to a new transportation system status quo. Which I fully support as a dirtbag bike guy, but it’s worth understanding the political realities that have led to the freeway removal projects in the US in determining which routes may be most ripe for removal elsewhere.
“ODOT will do anything, say anything, promise anything, to get the project started because they know we’ll have to pay whatever it takes to finish it. This is cynical and wrong.”
Whether you’re for or against expanding the freeway through my neighborhood, I think NMF nailed it! This is a trap, and not a very subtle one at that.
The people we need to oppose this project chose the facade of social justice instead. It looks win-win to them because they can’t step back just a few feet for the bigger picture. This is a microcosm of why many voters consciously put one foot over the edge of sanity or reason, and I’m not seeing many people trying to pull them back.
Here is a question: I think ODOT has to first expand the freeway and then build covers. So if they run out of money, will they stop after expanding the freeway and not add the covers? How can Metro be sure the covers will actually be built, given funding uncertainty and ODOTs historical pattern of setting budget estimates too low?
Also, kudos to Mary Nolan for being the only person on the council who gets it right. It is insane to me that the state wants to continue expanding freeways, given everything we know about such expansions.
Exactly! ODOT is not going to build the covers. They have never wanted to, and their next freeway widening project will be too important to be “wasting” money on caps.
ODOT has a colonizer mindset and the dupes on Metro are more than happy to sign over billions of dollars in exchange for a performative badge of honor.
stephen, you’ve said the quiet part out loud. The big dig in Boston was a glaring example of building a gigantic highway through downtown and reneging on some of those covers. But the purpose for ODOT is to just to start. After cost overruns, projects become “too big to fail.” Read this if you’re skeptical that ODOT has had cost overruns in their projects. I would be very surprised if this project didn’t have significant overruns like the above.