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 stripe the roadway it is building for ten traffic lanes The high cost of building freeway covers stems […]
Rose Quarter: So expensive because it’s too damn wide Read More »
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 Quarter freeway widening project. For years, the staff of the Oregon Department of Transportation have been promising the HAAB
Who sold out the HAAB? Read More »
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 staff is telling the state Transportation Commission there’s nothing that can be done to consider modifying
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 to $1.9 billion today. Meanwhile, the agency has diverted money earmarked for the Rose Quarter to other projects, and now
Extend and Pretend: ODOT’s Zombie Rose Quarter project Read More »
What City Observatory did this week Yet another exploding whale: One of the Internet’s most popular videos shows employees of the Oregon Department of Transportation blowing up a dead whale carcass stranded on an Ocean beach, with bystanders running in terror from a rain of blubber. ODOT’s latest fiasco is the exploding price tag of
The Week Observed, July 7, 2023 Read More »
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 overrun risk Even OTC commissioners question whether it’s worth more than a billion dollars to widen a 1.5 mile stretch
Another exploding whale: ODOT’s freeway widening cost quadruples Read More »
On June 28, 2023, City Observatory’s Joe Cortright testified to the Oregon Transportation Commission about the agency’s dire financial situation. Background: The Oregon Department of Transportation is pushing a multi-billion dollar freeway widening program in Portland, dubbed the “Urban Mobility Plan.” The agency has never fully identified how the plan would be paid for, and
Testimony to the Oregon Transportation Commission Read More »
What City Observatory did this week Scratch one flat top! That was the famous cry of US Naval aviators, when, early in World War II they chalked up their first victory, sinking the Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho. Portland’s freeway fighters, who’ve been battling for years against the multi-billion dollar expansion plans of the Oregon Department
The Week Observed, June 30, 2023 Read More »
Oregon freeway fighters chalk up a key victory—but the fight continues On June 26, the Oregon Department of Transportation finally bowed to reality that it simply lacks the funds to pay for a seven-mile long widening of I-205 just outside of Portland. Predictably, ODOT conceded defeat in the most oblique possible terms; the I-205 project
Scratch one flat top! Read More »
What City Observatory did this week We took the week off to celebrate the Summer Solstice and gorge on Hood strawberries! We’ll be back next week. Must Read The amazing non-appearance of Carmageddon. Echoing the point we made a City Observatory in the days—Carmageddon does a no-show in Philly —after the I-95 freeway closure in Philadelphia,
The Week Observed, June 23, 2023 Read More »
