The City of Portland says a project that would have transformed North Broadway into a family-friendly, civic main street is now on pause due to funding uncertainties.
You might have already heard that a provision in President Donald Trump’s budget bill passed by Congress last week included a complete rollback of a Biden-era transportation grant program. As BikePortland reported in March 2024, Portland received $488 million through the US Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program. $450 million of that was for the I-5 Rose Quarter project and $38.4 million was for the the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Broadway Main Street & Supporting Neighborhood Connections project.
The lion’s share of the I-5 Rose Quarter’s $450 million has now gone back to the feds, and now I’ve confirmed PBOT’s funding for Broadway is also likely gone.
Reached today via email, PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schafer told BikePortland that the money might no longer be available.
“We are disappointed to share that the $38 million in federal funding for our Lower Albina Streetscape Project (aka Broadway Main Street & Supporting Neighborhood Connections project) appears to have been rescinded last week as part of the federal reconciliation bill,” Schafer said via email this morning.
The project would have allowed PBOT to extend a separate project, the Broadway Pave and Paint (which is locally funded and moving along nicely) west from NE 7th Avenue all the way to the Broadway Bridge. At a meeting in 2023, a PBOT staffer told an advisory committee that the goal of the project was to create a streetscape that would allow someone to, “take a pleasant walk with their young child from NE 7th to Waterfront Park.”
Project elements were set to include: a new, raised bikeway protected from auto users by a planted median; multiple improved pedestrian crossings; a redesign of the Broadway Bridgehead at N Larrabee; improved access to Rose Quarter Transit Center, and more.
Now it’s unclear if the project will ever move forward. And it’s all because of the Trump Administration’s embrace of culture wars and irrational and infantile fear of “equity.” To the current administration, livable streets where you can safely walk with your grandchildren are nothing more than a nefarious plot by liberal Portlanders hellbent on forcing everyone to enjoy their lives outside of cars.
Like much of what comes from the White House these days, the language in the budget bill that slashed this and many other major infrastructure projects across the country was vague and has so far lacked detailed follow-through. This means grant recipients are left in limbo and must plan for the worst-case scenario regardless of what happens next.
PBOT’s Schafer said, “Though we have yet to receive formal notice from USDOT, the bureau is working to determine next steps and will provide more information when it is available.”
The rescission is part of 126 active federal grants totaling $387 million that the City of Portland is having to re-evaluate to make sure they don’t run afoul of new Trump Administration policies around equity and social justice. According to a statement from the City Administrator Michael Jordan, “Portland is facing challenging decisions about how to respond to the Trump Administration’s demands that cities eliminate some policies and programs designed to help Portlanders who are people of color, women, and other oppressed groups overcome hundreds of years of systemic discrimination.” Of the $387 million federal grants currently in play at the City of Portland, a new federal policy impact analysis reveals that 58 of them totaling $197 million fund transportation bureau projects and programs.
I haven’t learned how much work had already been done on the Broadway project, but Schafer added that, “PBOT remains committed to finding ways to improve the safety and function of this important corridor.”
