Commentary

What City Observatory Did This Week The Oregon Department of Transportation can and should mitigate the negative impacts of its highway construction projects, including social and economic impacts.  ODOT’s massive $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter highway project is billed as “restorative justice” because it would construct caps over the freeway that decimated Portland’s historically Black […]

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has proposed a $1.9 billion freeway widening project for Portland’s Rose Quarter.  The agency proposes to cover a portion of the freeway in what it calls “restorative justice” for the Albina neighborhood, that was decimated by decades of earlier ODOT highway building. But ODOT claims it can’t spend highway

What City Observatory Did This Week Another Oregon Department of Transportation exploding whale.*  The cost of one of OregonDOT’s megaprojects, the expansion of the I-205 Abernethy Bridge over the Willamette River south of Portland just jumped $750 million, now triple the amount the agency said the project would cost when it moved forward five years

The $7.5 Billion Interstate Bridge Project is two years behind schedule IBR’s Draft SEIS was supposed to be complete in December 2022—It now won’t be done before December 2024. This two-year delay means the environmental review has taken twice as long as IBR promised Not to worry, because the consultants will continue billing, and their

What City Observatory Did This Week Beware of phony claims that highway projects are “On-time and Under-Budget.” For highway departments, the key to being on-time and under-budget is 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-finished projects are officially described as

What City Observatory Did This Week Earth Day: Oregon is spending billions to widen freeways in a move that will only worsen the increase in greenhouse gases from transportation.  Transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gases in Oregon (and in the US) and unlike other sectors, GHGs from transportation are increasing.  That’s the opposite

Must Read The high, high cost of “affordable housing.”  The Voice of San Diego takes a look at the pricetag of several affordable housing projects in California and finds they’re pushing and breaking through the million-dollar a unit mark.  Across the 17 projects it examined, average costs were  $574,000 a unit. Many factors contributed to higher