The cost of the $1.9 billion Rose Quarter freeway is driven by its excessive width ODOT is proposing to more than double the width of the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway through the Albina neighborhood ODOT could easily str... →

For years, we've been following the tortured Oregon Department of Transportation Plans to widen a 1.5 mile stretch of I-5 near downtown Portland.  The past few months show this project is in serious trouble.  Here's a su... →

The Oregon Department of Transportation is playing "Extend and Pretend" with the $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project The cost of the 1.5 mile freeway widening has quadrupled from $450 million in 2017 ... →

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is falling short of its own goals of contracting with disadvantaged business enterprises One-tenth of one percent of I-205 contracts went to Black construction firms ODO... →

The members of ODOT's "Historic Albina Advisory Board" (HAAB) are hopping mad.  As related by Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland, they feel board betrayed by a decision to postpone construction of the $1.6 billion I-5 Rose Qu... →

The price of ODOT's trouble plagued Rose Quarter project has quadrupled to $1.9 billion, and the agency has no way to pay for it, because it spent the money the Legislature provided in 2017 on another project.  And agency... →

Oregon DOT has a history of enormous cost overruns, and just told the Oregon and Washington Legislatures that the cost of the I-5 Bridge Replacement Program (IBR) had ballooned 54 percent, to as much as $7.5 billion. To... →

City of Portland raises big questions about the I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project (translated).  Last month was the deadline for comments on the supplemental environmental analysis for the proposed $1.45 billio... →

Just 13 months after raising the price of the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project by more than 50 percent, the state DOTs ay it will cost even more We estimate project costs are likely to increase 20 percent or ... →

The price of the I-5 "bridge replacement" project just increased by more than 50 percent, from $4.8 billion to $7.5 billion ODOT and WSDOT are blaming "higher inflation" for IBR cost overruns As we've noted, the Oreg... →

After more than three years of public debate, ODOT still won't tell anyone how wide a freeway they're planning to build at the Rose Quarter ODOT's plans appear to provide for a 160-foot wide roadway, wide enough to acco... →

Under ODOT's toll plans, A driving from Wilsonville to Vancouver will cost you as much as $15, each-way, at the peak hour. Drive from Vancouver to a job in Wilsonville?  Get ready to shell out as much as $30 per day. ... →

ODOT's proposed relocation of the I-5 Southbound off-ramp at the Rose Quarter will add 1.3 million miles of vehicle travel to local streets each year. Moving the I-5 on ramp a thousand feet further south creates longer ... →

A newly revealed ODOT report shows the redesign of the I-5 Rose Quarter project will: creates a dangerous hairpin turn on the I-5 Southbound off-ramp increase crashes 13 percent violate the agency's own highw... →

The redesign of the I-5 Rose Quarter project creates a hazardous new hairpin off-ramp from a Interstate 5 Is ODOT's supposed "safety" project really creating a new "Deadman's Curve" at the Moda Center? Bike riders wi... →

The soon-to-be released Rose Quarter I-5 Revised Environmental Assessment shows that ODOT is already reneging on its sales pitch of using a highway widening to heal Portland's Albina Neighborhood. It trumpeted "highway ... →

The science of induced travel is well proven, but state DOTs are in utter denial Widening freeways not only fails to reduce congestion, it inevitably results in more vehicle travel and more pollution The Oregon Depar... →

Oregon DOT is using phony claims about safety to sell a $1.45 billion freeway widening project People are regularly being killed on ODOT roadways and the agency claims that it lacks the resources to fix these problems ... →

A recently disclosed ODOT memo shows that congestion pricing would do a better job of fixing I-5 congestion than spending $1.45 billion widening the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter Congestion pricing would would be more... →

Adah Crandall is a sophomore at Grant High School. She is the co-lead of Portland Youth Climate Strike and an organizer with Sunrise PDX's Youth Vs ODOT campaign, a biweekly series of rallies fighting for the decarboniza... →

Oregon's highway agency rigs its projections to maximize revenue and downplay its culpability for climate challenge ODOT has two different standards for forecasting:  When it forecasts revenue, it says it will ignore a... →

Metro's Climate Smart Strategy, adopted in 2014, has been an abject failure Portland area transportation greenhouse gasses are up 22 percent since the plan was adopted: instead of falling by 1 million tons per year, emi... →

Portland's Metro regional government would be committing planning malpractice and enabling lasting fiscal and environmental damage if it goes along with state highway department freeway widening plans The proposed $5 ... →

The Oregon Department of Transportation's glossy mailer to sell its $1.25 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project is a cynical, error-ridden marketing ploy. ODOT doesn't show or tell about its wider freeway an... →

Borrowing billions to widen roads endangers the climate and finances It's doubly wrong to burden future generations with the environmental costs of wider roads, and then also send them the bill Bond financing of new... →

The Oregon DOT's "Climate Action Plan" claims that the agency wants to decrease greenhouse gases, but its financial plans show otherwise The agency's revenue projections show it is planning for gasoline consumption not... →

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is visiting Oregon to learn more about local transportation issues. The local advocacy group No More Freeways has sent him an open letter to provide some background for his visit. ... →

The $800 million project transitions from "nothing has been decided" to "nothing can be changed" There's a kind of calculated phase-shift in the way transportation department's talk about major projects.  For a long, l... →

Newly revealed documents show its roadway is vastly wider than needed for traffic, and also makes "buildable" freeway covers prohibitively expensive If you really want just two additional lanes, you can do so much more ... →

The Oregon and Washington highway departments are at it again, pushing a 10- or 12-lane, five mile long freeway widening project that's likely to cost at least $5 billion. They're responding to objections with a combina... →

Metro Council voted on July 14th to wave on the proposed "Interstate Bridge Replacement" project which is really a bloated, 5 mile long, 12-lane wide freeway that will cost $5 billion and likely much more. It's a scene-for... →

ODOT has repeatedly lied and misled Portland's leaders about major highway projects No one should take at face value its assurances or representations A warning from one of Portland's past leaders about the deceptive... →

The intentionally misleading re-brand of the failed Columbia River Crossing conceals the key fact that it is a 12-lane wide, 5 mile long freeway that just happens to cross a river, not a "bridge replacement." It's vastl... →

Drawings don't constitute restorative justice ODOT shows fancy drawings about what might be built, but isn't talking about actually paying to build anything Just building the housing shown in its diagrams would requi... →

ODOT has claimed a "peer review panel" vindicated its air pollution analysis Now the panel says they didn't look into the accuracy of ODOT's travel forecast Travel forecasts are critical, because they determine air a... →

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.  Upton Sinclair It's even harder to get a trucking industry lobbyist or a highway department booster to un... →

The Oregon Department of Transportation is launching a series of boondoggle freeways, with no idea of their ultimate cost, and issuing bonds that will obligate the public to pay for expensive and un-needed highways. Fut... →

Oregon legislation goes whole hog on highways HB 3065 would launch a whole new round of freeway boondoggles, and plunge the state into debt to pay for them The classic Robert Moses scam:  Drive stakes, sell bonds ... →

ODOT's Fremont Bridge wiped out multiple blocks of the Albina neighborhood A freeway you've never heard of leveled dozens of blocks in North and Northeast Portland The stub of a proposed "Prescott Freeway" still scar... →

For years, the Oregon Department of Transportation has concealed its plans to build a ten lane freeway through Portland's Rose Quarter We're calling on the state to do a full environmental impact statement that assesses... →

ODOT's proposed I-5 Rose Quarter project would turn a school yard into a freeway The widened I-5 freeway will make already unhealthy air even worse Pollution from high volume roads has been shown to lower student ac... →

For years, ODOT has been planning to build a 10 lane freeway at the Rose Quarter, not the 6 lanes it has advertised. Three previously undisclosed files show ODOT is planning for a 160 foot wide roadway at Broadway-Weidl... →

Interstate 5 "Meat Axe" slashed through the Albina Neighborhood in 1962 This was the second of three acts by ODOT that destroyed housing and isolated Albina Building the I-5 freeway led to the demolition of housing ... →

I-5 wasn't the first highway that carved up Portland's historically black Albina Neighborhood. Seventy years ago, ODOT spent the equivalent of more than $80 million in today's dollars to cut the Albina neighborhood off ... →

Freeways slash population in cities, and prompt growth in suburbs Within city centers, the closer your neighborhood was to the freeway, the more its population declined. In suburbs, the closer your neighborhood was t... →

Albina then and now Basically, Albina was wiped out by Interstate Ave 99E (ODOT)   1951 Memorial Coliseum (City) 1958 I-5 1962 Emmanuel Hospital (PDC)  1970s Blanchard Center (PPS)  1980 Convention Center 1990... →

Widening I-5 at the  Rose Quarter in Portland will produce an addition 17.4 to 34.8 million miles of vehicle travel and 7.8 to 15.5 thousand tons of greenhouse gases per year. These estimates come from a customized cal... →

More than a year ago, Oregon Governor Kate Brown directed ODOT to "include a full review of  congestion pricing" before deciding whether or not to do a full environmental impact statement for the proposed I-5 Rose Quarter... →

The Oregon and Washington transportation departments understated the funding gap for a revived I-5 Columbia River Bridge by more than $1 billion Correcting for an arithmetic error increases the gap between identified re... →

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) desperately wants to build a mega-freeway through NE Portland, and is planning to double the freeway from 4 lanes to 8 or 10 lanes.  But it has hidden its true objective, by ... →

Restorative Justice & A Viable Neighborhood What destroyed the Albina community?  What will it take to restore it? It wasn't just the freeway, it was the onslaught of cars, that transformed Albina into a bleak a... →

Who are the real beneficiaries of the $800 million I-5 Rose Quarter project?  Vancouver, Washington commuters, who won't pay a dime for its construction. Wider freeways just double down on the damage done to city neigh... →

ODOT proudly spends road funds on mitigating the impact of its highways:  if you're an invertebrate. The highway department mitigates noise pollution, rebuilds jails, and even compensates neighborhoods But if we rep... →

Last week, over the space of about 24 hours, the prospects for Portland's proposed the Rose Quarter freeway widening dimmed almost to extinction. Leaders of Portland's African-American community have concluded that the ... →

A so-called "peer review" panel was kept in the dark about critiques of the highway department's flawed projections This is a thinly veiled attempt These are the products of a hand-picked, spoon-fed group, asked by ODOT... →

Adding more freeway capacity at the Rose Quarter will thousands of tons to the region's greenhouse gas emissions If you say you believe in science, and you take climate change seriously, you can't support spending $800... →

Oregon DOT's I-205 Abernethy Bridge rebuild, advertised as costing $248 million, will really cost $750 million The project's estimated cost has tripled in just over five years, and still has further cost overrun risk ... →

It now looks like Oregon DOT's I-205 Abernethy Bridge rebuild, advertised as costing $248 million, will really cost $500 million The project's estimated cost has doubled in just four years, and still has further cost ov... →

It now looks like Oregon DOT's I-5 Rose Quarter $450 million freeway widening project will cost more than $1.9 billion The project's estimated cost has nearly quadrupled in just six years, and still has further cost ov... →

It now looks like Oregon DOT's I-5 Rose Quarter $450 million freeway widening project will cost more than $1.25 billion The project's estimated cost has nearly tripled in just four years, and still has further cost over... →

It now looks like Oregon DOT's $450 million freeway widening project will cost over a billion dollars Whales aren't the only than blow up on ODOT One of the most viewed clips on YouTube depict the handiwork of Oregon... →

ODOT's lies about safety at the Rose Quarter are so blatant they can be seen 400 miles away. Freeway widening isn't about deaths or injuries, but "motorist inconvenience" according to this safety expert, making this $80... →

Climate change? Not our job.  We're just following orders. The Oregon Transportation Commission is on the firing line for its plans to build a $800 million I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project in Northeast Portlan... →

ODOT Director Kris Strickler makes a phony claim that we can fight climate change by reducing traffic idling in congestion Asked about how his agency will respond to the challenge of climate change, newly nominated Oreg... →

State DOT's are using a false claim about financial liability to revive the Columbia River Crossing folly There's no requirement to repay $140 million in federal funds, if states choose the "No-Build" option The Oreg... →

Community opposition forces Oregon Department of Transportation to do a full Environmental Impact Statement on its half-billion dollar Rose Quarter freeway widening project. For the past two years, we've been deeply eng... →

Frontier Group and USPIRG's annual report on highway boondoggles calls out the Oregon DOT's wasteful, ineffective I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project as a national level boondoggle. Portland is famous for making t... →

Portland is weighing whether to spend as much as $1.45 billion dollars widening a mile-long stretch of the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter near downtown. We've dug deeply into this idea at City Observatory, and we've publi... →

Portland is weighing whether to spend half a billion dollars widening a mile-long stretch of the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter near downtown. We've dug deeply into this idea at City Observatory, and we've published 25 co... →

We have always been at war with Eastasia. Concealing and lying about key facts regarding the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway widening process is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and a betrayal of publi... →

Oregon DOT's own consultants say congestion pricing would be a better way to fix congestion at the I-5 Rose Quarter than spending $800 million. Pricing would improve traffic flow and add capacity equal to another full l... →

Long regarded as a national leader in transportation policy, Portland is being called out by some of the best and brightest for a wrong-headed decision to spend half a billion dollars widening freeways. The damage done is ... →

Expanding freeway capacity on I-5 hasn’t reduced crashes in Woodburn, but did triple in cost Today, we’re pleased to offer a guest commentary from Naomi Fast. Naomi currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon. Previously, ... →

The proposed I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project creates a bike- and pedestrian-hostile environment The Oregon Department of Transportation has crafted distorted images that exaggerate pedestrian use by a factor o... →

There's no evidence that widening the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter will reduce crashes. ODOT used a model that doesn't work for freeways with ramp-meters When ODOT widened I-5 lanes and shoulders near Victory Boul... →

ODOT's own traffic data shows that daily traffic (ADT) has been declining for 25 years, by -0.55 percent per year The ODOT modeling inexplicably predicts that traffic will suddenly start growing through 2045, growing by... →

State DOT officials have crafted an Supplemental Environmental Assessment that conceals more than it reveals The Rose Quarter traffic report contains no data on "average daily traffic" the most common measure of vehicle... →

`State DOT officials have crafted an Environmental Assessment that conceals more than it reveals In theory, the National Environmental Policy Act is all about disclosing facts. But in practice, that isn't always how it ... →

The fundamental injustice of pollution from urban freeways Item:  In the past two years, Portland Public Schools has spent nearly $12.5 million of its scarce funds to clean up the air at Harriet Tubman Middle School. ... →

Portland's $500 million Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Project is being sold as a way to reduce congestion:  But it won't work In three recent commentaries at City Observatory, we've explored whether a wider freeway at ... →

What pretends to be an environmental assessment is actually a thinly-veiled marketing brochure In theory, an environmental impact statement is supposed to be a disclosure document. The idea behind the National Environme... →

Portland's Albina neighborhood was devastated by the I-5 freeway; Widening it repeats that mistake Freeways and the traffic they generate are toxic to vibrant urban spaces. The great lesson of the urban freeway building... →

ODOT hid its plans to build a $3 billion Columbia River Crossing in the Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Environmental Assessment The carefully crafted marketing campaign for the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project i... →

Why Portland's freeway fight is so important to the future of cities everywhere The plan to widen the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway in Portland, at a cost of $500 million, is a tragic error for one city, and an object lesson... →

We can calculate how much added freeway lanes will induce additional car travel The takeaway:  the I-5 freeway widening project in Portland lead to 10 to 17 million more miles of vehicle travel annually, which will in ... →

There's a huge demographic divide between those who use freeways and neighbors who bear their costs When it comes time to evaluate the equity of freeway widening investments, it's important to understand that there are ... →

Widening  I-5 in Portland apparently made traffic congestion worse Oregon's Department of Transportation (ODOT) is proposing to spend half a billion dollars to add two lanes to Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter in Portl... →

Spending half a billion dollars to widen a mile of I-5 will have exactly zero effect on daily congestion. The biggest transportation project moving forward in downtown Portland isn't something related to transit, or cyc... →

Reviving the Columbia River Crossing will never happen:  the two sides have incompatible aims There are continued rumblings in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area about reviving the abandoned plan to spend $3 bill... →

Tax free shopping in Oregon saves the typical Southwest Washington household $1,000 per year Cross border shopping accounts for 10-20 percent of all trips across the I-5 and I-205 bridges Tax avoidance means we're  ... →

Oregon's Department of Transportation concedes it was lying about crashes on I-5 at the Rose Quarter For more than a year, we and others have been calling out the Oregon Department of Transportation for its false claims... →

Oregon's Department of Transportation is  lying about safety to sell a half billion dollar freeway project Fear-mongering is the one of the lowest, if unfortunately most effective, means of selling anything. Threaten a... →

The key to being on-time and under-budget:  Orwellian double-speak Oregon DOT projects are always on-time and under budget--because the agency simply disappears its original schedules and budgets. Delayed, half-fini... →

Attention freeway builders! Want to make up for dividing the community and destroying neighborhoods? How about replacing the homes you demolished? One of the carefully crafted talking points in the sales pitch for the $... →

A key design element of the supposedly pedestrian friendly Rose Quarter freeway cover is a pedestrian hostile diverging diamond interchange One of the main selling points of the plan to spend nearly half a billion dolla... →

Concrete covers are just a thinly-veiled gimmick for selling wider freeways As you've read at City Observatory, and elsewhere (CityLab, Portland Mercury, Willamette Week), Portland is in the midst of a great freeway war... →

Widening I-5 actually increased crashes, instead of reducing them, and an even wider freeway won't be less congested if crashes don't decline. We're going to dig deep into Portland's proposed freeway-widening controvers... →

A proposed freeway widening project will tear out one of Portland's most used bike routes At City Observatory, were putting a local Portland-area proposed freeway widening project under a microscope, in part because we ... →

Rising inequality in the US isn't new; Declining inequality globally is. Scratch just beneath the surface of many daily problems, and you'll find income inequality is a contributing factor, if not the chief culprit.  W... →

Portland is a bellwether for transportation policy; is it going to take a giant step backward? Last month, the Oregon Legislature passed a $5.3 billion transportation funding bill. A central piece of this legislation is... →

Portland is thinking about widening freeways; other cities show that doesn't work Once upon a time, Portland held itself out as a national example of how to build cities that didn't revolve (so much) around the private ... →

Oregon's DOT seems to be more concerned with making cars go faster than saving lives Yesterday, we took a look at a recent Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) "performance report" on Portland area freeways.  One... →

Here's a thought:  Let's fight traffic congestion using the same techniques DOT's use to promote safety. Let's have  costumed superheroes weigh in against congestion, and spend billions on safety, instead of the other... →

Despite legal pledges to reduce greenhouse gases to address climate change, Portland's transportation greenhouse gas emissions are going up, not down.  State, regional and city governments have adopted climate goals t... →

If you're serious about dealing with climate change, the last thing you should do is spend billions widening freeways. The Oregon Department of Transportation is hell-bent on widening freeways and destroying the planet ... →

If you're serious about dealing with climate change, the last thing you should do is spend billions widening freeways. April 22 is Earth Day, and to celebrate, Oregon is moving forward with plans to drop more than a bil... →

Here’s a highway success story, as told by the folks who build highways. Several years ago, the Katy Freeway in Houston was a major traffic bottleneck. It was so bad that in 2004 the American Highway Users Alliance (A... →

While headlines focus on the nearly-bankrupt federal Highway Trust Fund, state and local departments of transportation across the country are facing declining revenues, maintenance backlogs, and an insatiable desire for fu... →