After years of dangling by a thread, the I-5 Rose Quarter project faces a moment of truth.
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) project has lost several major battles in the past few weeks. It faced a setback in a lawsuit from a coalition of advocacy groups, it has lost vital federal and state funding, and two of the project’s most senior leaders have decided to walk away from it.
Now the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC), the Governor-appointed board that oversees ODOT, will call the question at its meeting Thursday: Should ODOT keep driving this car down the road even as the wheels come off? Or is it time to pull over and reconsider if the trip is even worth taking? Agenda item F at tomorrow’s OTC meeting poses a stark decision for the body’s five members: “proceed as planned” or “pause to evaluate next steps.”
To prep for this important meeting, I’ve gathered some context on the lawsuit, the funding situation, the staff exodus, and the OTC’s decision below…
The lawsuit
ODOT officials were due in court Monday July 14th to defend a lawsuit filed by a coalition of advocacy groups led by No More Freeways. Their complaint alleges that ODOT’s I-5 Rose Quarter Project is incompatible with the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan and the Regional Transportation Plan because of its intention to expand a freeway, its failure to consider tolling, and its violation of environmental standards.
ODOT initially maintained that the project was compatible with those plans and the plaintiffs were ready to argue their case in court. But just 11 days before the trial was set to begin, ODOT officials changed their mind and formally withdrew their finding of compatibility.
“We think one of two things happened,” No More Freeways co-founder and and lawsuit plaintiff Chris Smith told BikePortland. “They realized we had some strong points and are going to attempt to rewrite the findings [which Smith doesn’t think will be successful], or they simply were not ready for trial and this is just a delay tactic.”
The trial is now scheduled for January.
The funding
One day after ODOT’s legal retreat, they learned Trump’s budget bill wiped $412.5 million of expected project grant funding off their books when it eliminated the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program and rescinded all unobligated funding. This was a massive blow to ODOT and the project’s already-grim funding prospects.
With the Oregon Legislature seen as ODOT’s last hope for good news, the demise of the transportation funding package at the end of June was another major blow. Keep in mind, this terrible funding news is not new for this project. For the past three years, OTC members have expressed deep skepticism about this project’s financial prospects.
In 2022, former OTC Chair Bob Van Brocklin said, “I don’t think this bridge gets built without being tolled… if we don’t have tolling… I don’t think we don’t have the resources to build the Rose Quarter project.” Then two years later, Governor Tina Kotek paused tolling.
At that same 2022 OTC meeting former OTC Commissioner Sharon Smith wondered aloud, “Is the Rose Quarter really where our state wants to spend the money?”
Then in 2023, OTC Commissioner Lee Beyer said, “Given what we all know about our financial picture at this point, I’m not sure how we finance this project.”
And in May 2024, OTC Chair Julie Brown admitted that, “From a business sense, it doesn’t make sense that you commit to something when you don’t know where you’re going to find the funding.” And Commissioner Jeff Baker added, “We’re in a pickle, because we’re spending more than we expected to spend, and we’ve probably got a real credibility problem around the state.” At that same meeting, even ODOT Director Kris Strickler acknowledged the project’s extreme funding challenge, saying that without broad partnerships and a state funding package, “I don’t see big projects like this going forward.”
And all that was before Trump’s assault on grant funding and the state legislative debacle.
The exodus
ODOT leaders establish their careers around major projects like the I-5 Rose Quarter. For young, up-and-coming managers, being assigned a leadership role on such a high-profile project is a dream come true, a chance to burnish a resume and build a legacy. So when two of ODOT’s rising stars opt to jump ship, it must be seen as a harbinger of demise.
ODOT Urban Mobility Office Director Brendan Finn left the agency back in November. His decision came a year after he walked out of an emotional project advisory committee meeting and came just months after Kotek put a pause on tolling.
I-5 Rose Quarter Project Director Megan Channell was named “Woman of the Year” by a professional development group for her leadership on this project earlier this year. At the awards gala, Channell would have announced that the project she dutifully led for six years was set to begin construction this summer.
But instead of celebrating the biggest moment of her career, Channell resigned before a single shovel hit the ground.
The decision
OTC members were skeptical about this project’s future before its latest funding setbacks, legal losses, and leadership exodus. At their emergency meeting Thursday, they’ll decide if the State of Oregon should continue to invest in a $2.0 billion project when a mere $303 million is available to spend.
Even if they decide to proceed, the immediate conversation about cost and scope reduction will not be pleasant. They’ve made commitments to their Historic Albina Advisory Board that are politically impossible to break, and the only elements of the project with broad public support in Portland have nothing to do with adding new lanes to I-5.
According to Thursday’s meeting documents, the pause option would allow ODOT and the OTC to, “Re-evaluate the project and determine if there is an opportunity to redesign the project in a way that reduces the cost, while still meeting the transportation safety, connectivity and growth needs of our state.”
That doesn’t sound fun either, especially since any major change in the project is likely to trigger another National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis and extend the timeline even further. And without expected maintenance that would have been completed with the project, ODOT would be on the hook for even costlier upkeep down the road.
Like I said in May 2024, the OTC faces no good options when it comes to resolving the problems with I-5 Rose Quarter. It’s almost as if these expansive (and expensive) freeway megaprojects are inherently flawed and we should start looking for different types of solutions in the future.
That’s what anti-freeway activists want. No More Freeways has launched a campaign aimed at asking the OTC to pause the project. “With ODOT poised to consider layoffs of hundreds of state employees and an enormous backlogged of deferred basic highway maintenance and street safety projects unfunded,” NMF’s website states, “the Oregon Transportation Commission must prioritize using our limited existing funding to preserve our existing transportation system…”
If you were an OTC member, what would you do?
