Editorial: Councilors’ blind faith in ODOT is a perilous political strategy

It’s impossible to have a fair and productive discussion about an important issue when advocates and elected leaders can’t agree on the facts. Yet this is the situation Portland finds itself in when it comes to the $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter megaproject.

So it’s time to try and set the record straight.

When advocates with the nonprofit No More Freeways presented their views on the project at a meeting of the Portland City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on April 21st, they faced very skeptical responses from Councilor (and Committee Chair) Olivia Clark and Councilor Loretta Smith.

Yet Clark and Smith have not provided any evidence to back up their skepticism and they appear to be relying on blind faith in the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT).

Even before No More Freeways co-founders Chris Smith and Joe Cortright approached the dais, Councilor Smith referred to the group’s contention that ODOT might expand the freeway much more than they’re letting on publicly as, “misinformation” and “totally ridiculous.” 

Clark raised eyebrows when she told Chris Smith that a key part of NMF’s presentation about the possible width of the freeway was  “outdated” and that she wanted ODOT to come to the committee to “rectify some of the misunderstandings.”

For Councilor Clark to so flatly dismiss facts presented by Smith was surprising. Smith is not just any advocate. He’s been closely tracking the I-5 Rose Quarter since at least 2012 when he was a member of the Portland Planning Commission. Back then he was the sole “no” vote against adding the project to the City’s Transportation System Plan for many of the same reasons he remains opposed to the project today.

And as I reported earlier this month, Councilor Loretta Smith was even more directly dismissive of Smith and Cortright’s presentation. Emboldened by the remarks of Clark, Councilor Smith accused Cortright of being “really unfair” and “disingenuous” because he shared a document in his presentation that showed an annotated cross-section of the freeway width that could accommodate more lanes than ODOT says they’ll build.

When Councilor Smith asked Chris Smith a question about the project, she dismissed his answer as a “political, environmental plan” and then continued to disrespect him by saying, “I would appreciate, when you come to this this committee, that you give us real information and not what you would hope.”

So who’s sharing “real information” and who’s sharing “hope”?

In a phone interview after that council meeting, I asked Councilor Smith what evidence she had to prove her contention that Cortright’s document was “outdated.”

“How do you know it’s outdated?” I asked.

“ODOT said it’s outdated,” Smith replied.

When I asked Smith why she implied NMF’s views on the freeway width were “ridiculous” and “disingenuous,” she denied saying it and then made another claim.

“I didn’t say their ideas were ridiculous,” Smith said, “I said the information they put up on the screen… they said it was ODOT and it wasn’t from ODOT. They created that whole presentation. That was not from ODOT.”

When I pointed out that NMF’s documents did indeed come directly from ODOT and that the red annotations were added to clarify the measurements, Councilor Smith said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Even the chair, Olivia Clark said [ODOT] is not using those documents and they are outdated, okay?” Smith replied. “And so when the chair tells you that, why won’t they accept it?”

I’ve made several attempts to contact Councilor Clark’s office for comment, but have not yet heard back. I’ve also reached out to ODOT, but haven’t heard back.

For their part, No More Freeways has provided a detailed explanation of their use of the document. In a three-page letter sent to all five members of the T & I Committee on Monday, Smith and Cortright addressed the provenance of the cross-section document, its currentness, and their concerns about what ODOT could do with the additional width.

NMF says they obtained the document via public records request that was spurred after they heard about an allegedly non-public meeting between ODOT and their Historic Albina Advisory Board in March 2023. When NMF requested all materials shared at that meeting, this cross-section drawing — showing the overall width of the freeway at 162-feet — was among them.

NMF acknowledges the document shown at City Council is two years old, but says they still use it because it, “clearly shows the project overlaid on the existing cross-section of the highway.” They also point out that a newer drawing currently available on ODOT’s official project website shows a proposed width of 189 feet. “The project only gets wider as it goes forward,” NMF writes.

NMF is disappointed that councilors Clark and Smith chose to focus on the authenticity of the document and not the nonprofit’s main concern: That the width of the new freeway would allow ODOT to stripe several more than the two lanes they are currently telling the public and elected officials about — new lanes they fear would induce demand of more drivers, and create more traffic on local city streets.

“ODOT will of course deny that they have any intention to do this,” NMF writes. “But our point is that the excessive width is causing unneeded expense to taxpayers and the potential additional lane is not accounted for in the environmental review.”

In the end, this is a matter of trusting ODOT, or not. As consistent critics of the agency for almost a decade, NMF obviously does not. The way councilors Clark and Smith reacted to NMF’s presentation on April 21st makes it clear ODOT enjoys their full and abiding trust (a far cry from their predecessor on council in 2020 who was so concerned she withdrew the City of Portland’s support).

I expect elected officials to be more trusting and sympathetic to other government agencies than to citizen volunteers; but with so much at stake with this project, and with ODOT’s well-documented accounting blunders, history of cost overruns, and lack of public trust, Portlanders deserve leaders who offer at least healthy skepticism and not just rubber stamps.

I’ll update this post if/when I hear back from Councilor Clark and/or ODOT.